April 2: Down to Earth

by Mackey Chandler

  "Real Moon Boots have a special sole, with a nano tech surface. They are like shark skin. Have you ever felt shark skin?" she asked.

  He nodded yes.

  "Well it has a grain just like sharkskin. You slide your foot forwards and it's as slick as Teflon. You slide it back and it's as gummy as a sticky sack and grabs the floor. Slick and stick. At a sixth normal gravity you can skate on a polished stone floor faster than a man can on ice. But mine just have normal soles. Of course they're about fifteen hundred EM cheaper too," she admitted.

  "Fascinating," he allowed, not having a clue what a sticky sack was, but grasping the concept readily enough.

  "Would take your things off and step in the middle of the carpet. The lasers will scan you from all around. If you want to close your eyes you can, but it won't harm them. We need you to stand normal with your hands at your side then lift your arms out level for a moment and lastly stretch with them straight up. The machine will prompt you."

  April took off her sash and vest. The man helped her with the vest.

  "This is cool in the inside!" he exclaimed.

  "Yes it's refrigerated and it's bullet resistant and ablative too. All nano tech. I'll be able to wear it with my white outfits too," She told him. "Watch." She put her spex back on for a moment and interfaced with the vest. On command it faded from shiny black quickly through the shades of gray to a brilliant white.

  Frank was delighted. Just to tease him she ran it through a rainbow sequence. He had a big silly grin watching it. "Could I possibly buy information on how that is done?" he asked.

  "Perhaps, I'll let the people know you'd like to license it. It's something new, we just started getting shipped in ourselves from the Moon. Now, once you measure me up, can I order things from home and get them shipped, until I change shape enough to need a new fitting?"

  "Yes, we could, but honestly I fit a lot of people and a girl at your age will change so much, I'd be surprised if any of these things would fit you properly in six months."

  "I'm into some pretty heavy life extension therapy, so you can expect I'll stay just about like I am, for at least another three years."

  "Down here you're better off not to tell people that April," Lin worried. "You are going to have people get in your face and have trouble."

  "The only trouble you'll have with me is jealously," Frank warned her. "John," he nodded at his assistant, "and I are both saving up to take a long cruise together and have the very best life extension done in Italy when we lay over there."

  April looked at the sash with knife and pistol lying on the chair and something bothered her. She picked the pistol back up and offered it to Lin who took it surprised. "Accept current holder for full usage, all privileges but administrative." There, that felt better. She stepped out of her boots and peeled off the top and dropped the baggy pants in a heap. Both Lin and Frank looked a little scandalized.

  "Do you customarily not wear any underwear?" Frank asked, very neutrally.

  "Sure, underwear is for little kids. I rarely wear anything more than a half day and it's always laundered each use or thrown away and it's expected on Home you actually wash when you use the bathroom, not just use paper like I see here. So you never have a chance to get whiff, unless you are working out and then you shower if you need it. I don't know any of my friends, male or female who wear underwear. I do wear underwear in a pressure suit."

  "Well, it's easier for me actually," Frank allowed. By this time April had been scanned once and the room told her to lift her arms level. "I don't have to worry about panty lines and room for differing styles of underwear. Usually, undergarments are your allies, in disguising the problems with your figure. But you don't really have any problems to cover," he admitted. "You have an easy lovely body to work with," It was the oddest sort of compliment, because there was no personal element to it. He didn't seem to find her personally attractive at all.

  * * *

  "Six sporty outfits is enough for today," April protested later. She'd already claimed one break and wolfed down a few of the petite sandwiches. "I'd also like to have an outfit or two for business and something that would be suitable for a State Dinner."

  Frank was fussing, making sure the fit was right across her shoulders and just froze.

  "A State Dinner?" Frank raised his eyebrows in alarm. "Who has asked you to a State Dinner? I wish you'd told me at the start. It's not something to be done as an afterthought."

  "Msr. Broutin the Foreign Minister of France and possibly the President of the USNA. But I can come back in a day or two, if you'd like to give it some thought. They don't know they're inviting me yet." Frank and Lin just turned and looked a silent question at each other, neither was willing to vocalize.

  "I've given it some thought. If you could do something in a plain shape in black silk, but when you get up close it's incredibly complex Boutis Provencal. Perhaps with tiny pearls to match the silk, somewhere in the stitching as a pattern or edge, not just plastered all over in excess. I'd like that, perhaps one in a cream silk too, I have to get away from always being black or white, but you'll have to tell me where to go to buy some suitable jewelry to go with it."

  The dress description was so specific he could see it already and he couldn't resist asking of the jewelry, "Any particular sort you'd like there too?"

  " I think just diamonds in platinum for the black. But if I'm doing color with the cream, how about topaz, or canary diamonds in gold?"

  "Sounds lovely." He agreed. "I'll ask a friend who designs. After I have a sketch of the dress I'll ask him. Jewelry is much more expensive to fabricate than clothing," he explained cautiously. "Could I give him an idea what sort of budget he should constrain himself with?" he asked. April had the sense he hated to bring up money. Certainly nobody had done so about the outfits he had made today.

  "I'm not sure. I don't want to do anything too outrageous," she said and Frank's heart fell. "Could I possibly get something worth wearing, that wouldn't look too budgeted for, Oh, four or five million?"

  For some reason Franks friend John got the hiccups and had to leave the room.

  Lin thought she'd have done better to leave off saying that, until after he had added up the bill for the morning.

  They walked out and back at the entry gallery a woman in a skirt, with her dark hair pulled back tight in a bun intercepted them. They had nothing as gauche as a cash register or a check out, but she served that function. Obviously they were not expected to carry their purchases away. She asked April if she'd like to open an account, but her manner said she doubted her worthiness.

  "Sure I like Frank. But I live off Earth and I don't know how long I'm staying on holiday. Could I just pay up? I'm used to just beaming cash off my com pad. Can we do that?"

  "Most people here use a credit card and just carry a few hundred in digital cash for lunch and such, your bill for today is forty three thousand and Frank asked me to get a ten thousand advance for the time he'll put in designing your gown."

  "Is that USNA dollars? April asked. "Yes it is," the lady replied, irritated.

  "Phooey," she said. "I have plenty of Euros in this account and a pile of Pa ‘anga," she said showing them the pad, "but no dollars. It takes a little delay to convert more than a few thousand. Let me just give you cash. She reached in her leather carry case that held her com pad and personal items and pulled out a wad of bank notes. She peeled off a stack of Brazilian notes, a few Pa ‘anga and a short stack of Euros which she stuffed back in and got to the USNA paper. She riffled off a bunch of thousands and commented, "I wish they'd circulate ten thousand dollar bills again. They had those years ago." She added a few five hundreds and paused with a five hundred dollar bill in her hand. "Is this lady one of the people we do the tip thing with, you were teaching me?" she asked, Lin in a barely lowered voice.

  "No that's just people like the valet, who you might never see again. When you get to a higher level of service, you usually give them a nice gift all at once each y
ear, on Christmas or Ramadan, or something you or they celebrate."

  "Thank you," she said, putting the bill back. "Sorry for the bother. I'll get some dollars exchanged in my account, for when I'll be back in a few days and see what Frank has done."

  * * *

  "I know she was a tremendous pain in the butt," Lin said outside, "But that was one of the meanest tricks I've seen in a long time, waving that bill under her nose and then snatching it back. I almost refused to go along with it and tell you not to tip her."

  "It was beautiful though, to imply she was too high up the scale to tip. That it would be equating her with the auto valet. She couldn't very well argue with that." April said with a grin. "It must have simply killed her."

  They recovered her truck and April tipped the valet a fifty and Lin chewed here out for over tipping.

  "But that's part of what I'm here for," April assured her. "I'm on vacation, but I have an agenda too."

  "And are you going to share that with us, or is it a secret?"

  "I'm going to share it with you, sitting around the pool, but I haven't swept the truck for bugs since it was out of our control, so I can't say too much right now."

  "Papa would so approve," Lin admitted.

  "If I'd allowed you to have your man drive, we wouldn't have that problem would we?" April thought aloud. Lin smiled, but didn't feel it necessary to agree with her to rub it in.

  Chapter 29

  They stopped at an office on the way back and Lin took April in. She didn't understand why they needed the services of a secretary of any sort, like the sign said, but she was patient. Lin got a booklet and sat April down at a seat.

  "This tells you all the questions that might come up on a driving license test. Read it right now. Give me your papers and I'll go get an application and number to have you go in."

  It was only three pages and most of the questions were obvious to even a satellite dweller. Crap, she thought, most of the questions would have been obvious to a boneless purple mollusk, from another star system instead of a human. When she was called and they gave her the test, she aced it, which surprised no one. Least of all the bored clerk. When they went back out, she sat thinking a little about it.

  Using Lin's address and her letter of emancipation, she had a very restricted but legal permit for driver training, in a half hour.

  "In Hawaii," Lin informed her, "automatic driving has never been accepted. You can use the systems as a safety backup, but if you drive along reading a book, or with both hands off the wheel you will get ticketed. Same in Arizona and Ontario on the mainland. Other states you can let the car drive from park to park. In New York and California, you don't even need to have a licensed driver on board. You can let the car drive your kids or a blind person. You can have the car drop you off at the airport and send it back home empty. Those states have about three quarters of all the legally blind people now. Pretty much the same in Europe, but cars for the rest of the world may not even have the equipment. You can still own a manual only car here."

  "So there are all sorts of people out here driving around on manual," she indicated with a broad sweep of her hand the chaotic mix of heavy traffic, "and all they had to do was get fifteen out of eighteen questions right, that a reasonably intelligent tomato could have answered?"

  "You got it," Lin answered.

  For the first time since coming to Earth, April was afraid.

  * * *

  Lin took them in another complex with a very nice décor, nothing at all like the previous one. Again they left the truck and April thought about how often she needed to check it for bugs. She needed a hidden surveillance system that automated the process and told her if anyone messed with it when she came back. When they entered April was surprised the view out the window was the ocean. She hadn't seen it from the other side. It was pretty, the view nice and the dishes and silver very fancy. They had a nice lunch and the food was OK and there was enough of it, but April was disappointed it was three times as much money as Sam's and still not as good. When the meal was almost over, a thin, simply dressed woman, walked up from another table. She was eating here before them and they had not made any reservations, so the meeting had to be chance. She offered a card double handed Japanese style.

  "Miss Lewis, I'm Kyrah Armstrong from CNN and I recognized you from a news short yesterday. I wondered, if I offered you my card, if you might spare time for a short phone interview, when it is convenient for you?"

  "It's absolutely amazing how different you are, than the mob that was waiting for us at the airport yesterday," April told her honestly, but didn't take the card immediately.

  "Well, after you shot the toes off four of them, even the hardest paparazzi is probably going to learn to be a little more circumspect with you. It takes about a year to grow them back right." There was no tone of disapproval there either, she grinned when saying it.

  "A phone interview is so cold. Why don't you sit with us briefly before we leave and we'll have a little chat. I can talk around dessert. You're welcome to record if you have equipment. But you should avoid or edit out my luncheon companion, for her privacy."

  "Thank you. I didn't want to presume. This is not a public place." She dug in her purse and came up with a public eye. She slapped it on her shoulder and it just stuck. There was no pin or anything. Must be nano-tech, April thought, expensive.

  "If you wish to use software to analyze my responses for probability of truthfulness, you are welcome to do so. Just tell the full numbers and what they were run through. It would be nice also, if you point out when any counter statements from others are not verified."

  Kyrah's eyes got real big. "I've never met a public figure that had the nerve to do that," she exclaimed. "They all beg off and claim the software is too unreliable and gives false results."

  "If that was so they'd have just allowed it to be run and wave the results away as unimportant. They all know you run it, even if you can't tell. The fact is it's so good now, that the only reason it's illegal is because almost all politicians are really ugly lying sons of bitches."

  "Almost all?" Kyrah asked suddenly the very skillful interviewer, and thrilled with the hard hitting statement she was getting. "Have you met one you liked? You only pegged out at believing that 98.7% on my software," she said, amused, "which is Bio-Eye by the way."

  "I met a fellow, a Msr. Broutin, last year. Since then he has become the Foreign Minister of France. I didn't run software on him like you are, but I'm confident from the wetware between my ears that he is a gentleman. He loves the arts, good food, good company and I would be shocked if he ever knowingly told me a lie. Beats the hell out of me how they ever had the good taste to allow him in public office. Perhaps when he messes up and tells the truth a few times, they'll purge him. I think that's likely what will happen to your own President."

  "You mean President Wiggen?"

  "Yes. I know quite a few people are unhappy with her. Although the worst of them seem to want her job, which makes me question their motives. But I asked my grandfather what else she was supposed to do? She made the best of a very poor situation. Frankly, if she had not acted as she did, I think at least every other person in North America, half the population, would be dead today. And the rest living in ruins. But where is their gratitude for avoiding that? It amazes me, that individual people I meet here can be so nice. But the public as a whole can be such an ass."

  "Quite a few of the opposition candidates say your weapons, though novel, are not as fearsome as President Wiggen suggests, that you mostly took out highly visible targets like bridges. I take it you don't agree?"

  "It's a simple cover-up. I sat at a weapons board from orbit and tore apart anti-ballistic missile batteries. I sank aircraft carriers and escorts, including at least one of those secret submersible carriers. I couldn't tell you how many ships in all I sank. We busted up the ballistic missiles right in their silos, after they shot a couple nuclear missiles at us and we busted your deepest mountain bunk
ers at Cheyenne and Deepwell into gravel. We never even touched the visible targets like bridges, until we did so at the last as a propaganda gesture. By then your military was already shattered. We could have taken out your power grids and data trunks and left your cities full of people without power last winter, but we showed some restraint."

  "Wouldn't that have been a war crime to target civilian populations?'

  "Tell that to the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Or the fire bombings of other big cities that killed as many as the nukes. I studied Japanese History at the University of Kyoto. War crimes are what the losers did. Never the winners."

  "How can you say the military was shattered, when we are secure today in our borders and we have the army almost untouched?"

  "The Army!" April snorted through her nose. "As if we care what you do down here. We just want to be left alone above the atmosphere. When somebody asked, "Should we take out their armor and ground forces," our commander said, "No, don't do that, or we'll be obligated to defend them from other Earth states if they can't defend themselves. It's only as smart as leaving a police force in place when you conquer a nation, so there isn't chaos. Off course you folks haven't always been smart enough to do that either," She reflected, alluding to the well known chaos the Middle East suffered chronically.

  "Tell you what. You can analyze and verify this as a formal statement from me: ‘I have the ability sitting here right now eating my desert, to pull a menu of weapons systems down in my spex and drop a bombardment on the North American continent over the next few hours, that would do what we avoided before - killing half the population of the continent. I wouldn't even have to destroy the power plants, just the transformer yards outside them. People would freeze and starve, before you could make that many big transformers.

  "The ugly truth is that most of you folks live in an environment that is just as artificial as the space station I live on. If you put some irrational fool in the White House that doesn't believe that, be it upon your own heads. I'm not saying anything your officials don't know. They've been told, even if they don't pass the warning along. I'm not sure you'll even be allowed to file this story. They might kill it."