GALACTIC SURVEY (COLONY Book 3)

by Richard F. Weyand

  “Pursue these activities as new companies, ChaoLi?”

  “I think so, Chen Zumu. They are different skill sets than we currently have in the design and operations groups, right up through the management levels. Our current activities are all technical, and these are not.

  “The fitting-out phase is going to be dominated by the need to create a pleasing passenger environment while maintaining reasonable budgets. The spacing phase is going to be all about operations numbers. You know, margins and costs and demurrage, the timing of receipts, cash flows. All that sort of thing.

  “We likely need different people on those activities, who can fine-tune their focus on those issues over time. Not try to be shifting gears back and forth in their thinking. The shipping company, in particular, is going to have to be very hardheaded about their numbers to make it work.”

  Jessica nodded. It made tremendous sense to her. The new activities required a different view of things, and would require dedicated staff and management.

  “Very well, ChaoLi. Let us consider this. I will have a decision for you soon.”

  “Thank you, Chen Zumu.”

  Jessica talked to MinChao about ChaoLi’s proposal later that day.

  “I think ChaoLi is right,” MinChao said. “The emphasis is completely different, and requires different thinking.”

  “And they’re also different from each other, so two companies,” Jessica said.

  MinChao nodded.

  “There’s another benefit, of course,” he said. “If one of the companies goes bankrupt, we don’t lose both. It also keeps management from hiding bad numbers in one activity with good numbers in the other. Both have to be managed properly.”

  “I think the shipping activity is likely to be the most difficult to manage,” Jessica said. “Shipping companies were always difficult on Earth.”

  “Oh, yes. There are some notorious examples.”

  “What do we call them?”

  MinChao thought for a moment before replying.

  “The company to do the fitting out is all based here, and on Arcadia I think the family name is best.”

  “So Chen Shipfitting?”

  “That works. What about for the shipping company? On other planets, the Chen name gives us no benefit.”

  “How about Jixing Trading Company?” Jessica asked.

  “Lucky Star? That works for me.”

  ChaoLi was called to a meeting with Chen Zumu later that day. She left her downtown location early and went straight to Jessica’s office. When ChaoLi showed up, Jessica was seated behind her desk doing paperwork. She was not asked to sit.

  “Yes, Chen Zumu.”

  “You have a competent second to manage the design group, ChaoLi?” Jessica asked.

  “Of course, Chen Zumu.”

  Jessica nodded.

  “ChaoLi, you are relieved of responsibility for the design group effective immediately. You will turn this responsibility over to your second.

  “You will incorporate a new company, the Jixing Trading Company. The current operations group will be your ground operations arm on Arcadia. Work out a transfer price for that operation.

  “You are to begin hiring and training crews for the hyperspace ships, and organizing the company to conduct interstellar freight and passenger operations.

  “You will be the chief executive officer of the company.

  “That is all for now, ChaoLi.”

  “Yes, Chen Zumu.”

  JieMin had also been busy. Janice Quant’s concentration of quantum entanglement researchers on Earthsea and medical nanotechnology researchers on Amber got him to wonder what other concentrations of specialties Quant might have arranged, on other colony planets.

  JieMin found the colonist rosters for all the colony planets in the colony project headquarters archives. He set up a matching algorithm across the colonists’ occupations and specialties, and let it run. It was a difficult problem, but the computer wasn’t the final say-so. JieMin would just use the computer to point out the possibles, then he would look at them individually.

  When he looked at the possibles, JieMin found that some colonies, like Arcadia, did not have out of the ordinary concentrations of any one specialty, but more than half of colonies did.

  Looking deeper, of those concentrations, some of them were caused by the colonists themselves. That is, researchers had put a group together for the colony lottery that included their friends at other research locations. They thus ensured that, if they were selected, they would end up at the same colony.

  But others of the research concentrations looked to have been engineered by Janice Quant. The AI had put them in the same colony, JieMin assumed, on purpose. Given that Quant knew more about which research paths would likely pan out, these specialties were grouped together to facilitate their discoveries.

  Quantum entanglement research on Earthsea and medical nanotechnology research on Amber, sure. But there were other colonies with concentrations. Direct virtual reality research, materials science research, in metals, plastics, and ceramics, anti-aging research. Over a dozen areas where Quant had manipulated a colony’s makeup to encourage advancement by grouping specialists together.

  JieMin wondered how far some of them had gotten.

  If they found the other colonies, they would find out.

  That night – the night ChaoLi was made CEO of Jixing Trading Company – was their weekly night out. YanMing and YanJing were at home with JieJun, who at ten was still a bit too young to be left at home alone.

  They ate at Chen’s, of course, and sat at their favorite table in a quiet corner.

  “Big news from work today,” ChaoLi said.

  “Me, too,” JieMin said.

  “Oh, you go first.”

  “All right. Earthsea and Amber weren’t the only colonies to have concentrations in specific specialties. In fact, three-fourths of them did. Arcadia is in a minority in terms of having no concentrations in a specific specialty that I could find.”

  “Oh, now that’s exciting,” ChaoLi said.

  JieMin told her of the findings of his research, completed just that afternoon.

  “So we now have a list of the colonies and what specializations they had, if any?” ChaoLi asked.

  “That’s right. So if we find a bunch of colonies at once, we can visit them in whatever order seems most logical to us.”

  “That’s really something. We’ll have to take a look at your list and see what makes the most sense.”

  “OK, now your big news,” JieMin said.

  “I was relieved of the design group today. Denise Peterson will be taking over the design group.”

  “And what will you be doing?”

  “Chen Zumu made me the CEO of a new company. Jixing Trading Company. We will be the hyperspace shipping company.”

  “What about the operations group at the shuttleport?”

  “They will be the Arcadia ground operations group. In support of the big hyperspace ships.”

  “And that is still under you?”

  “Yes. That’s part of Jixing Trading now.”

  “And you’re CEO. Wow. That’s a huge vote of confidence.”

  “And a huge job. I hope I can do it.”

  “You’ll be fine. Make sure you get a really good financial officer, though. That’s a numbers business.”

  JieMin, originally caught flat-footed by her announcement, thought about it.

  “You know, there’s a lot of Earth history about how to run such a company.”

  “A lot about how not to run one, too.”

  JieMin nodded.

  “So there’s a lot of source material for you there.”

  “Yes, and I’ll be studying all of it.”

  “There is one other good part of all this,” JieMin said.

  “What’s that”

  “You’re not my boss anymore.”

  “Not at work, anyway,” ChaoLi said with a twinkle in her eye.

  Mission To Amber<
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  “Amber Control to Hyper-1. Repeat your last transmission.”

  “Hyper-1 to Amber Control. Inbound from colony planet Arcadia. Arriving from space in twenty-two hours. Request instructions.”

  “Roger that, Hyper-1. Maintain profile. Contact Amber Control when two hours out for landing clearance.”

  “Roger, Amber Control. Maintain profile. Contact Amber Control for clearance when two hours out. Hyper-1 out.”

  MacKay laughed.

  “That got him flustered enough to ask for retransmission,” he said.

  “Gave himself time to think,” Moore said. “Traffic control guys hate to act like anything unusual’s going on.”

  “Looks like a nice planet,” Ivanov said, looking out the side window.

  Costa by this time was getting jaded. He shrugged.

  “From space, they all look about the same. I’ll just be glad to be down on the ground again and have a shower.”

  “Mr. President, we have a situation,” Vaclav Brabec said.

  “God, how I hate that word. What is Ms. Sellick up to now?”

  Amber President Jean Dufort had had problems recently keeping the leader of his party in the Assembly happy. He had the majority, but it seemed they were even harder to please than the minority party. Maybe that was because, with the presidency and solid majorities in both houses, his party expected more.

  Whatever the reason, the Honorable Josephine Sellick was a major pain in the ass.

  “No, sir. This is weirder than that. We’ve just been contacted by a shuttle that claims it is inbound from Arcadia, one of the other colony planets.”

  “I’m sorry. What was that?”

  “Amber Traffic Control says they’ve just been contacted by a shuttle that claims it is inbound from Arcadia, one of the other colony planets.”

  Dufort sat back in his desk chair. That was a stunning piece of news. How would it play into his political situation?

  For Amber was in a weird period right now. Everything was political. The two parties were at each other’s throats, and both sides of the aisle seemed to be trying to score points with the public by seeing who could do the best job of roasting him.

  It was worse than that, he realized suddenly. Sellick had been a big proponent of space exploration, and making a massive effort to come up with some sort of interstellar drive. He had fought to keep the funds and effort on more mundane – literally earthly – things.

  And now here comes someone on an interstellar ship to Amber. He groaned.

  “Sir?” Brabec asked.

  “Sellick has been pushing me to work on an interstellar drive. I fought it as daydreaming. And now here comes someone with such a drive. She’ll go completely loony over this.”

  “But, sir, doesn’t this prove you were right all along?”

  Dufort eyed his chief of staff narrowly.

  “How so, Vaclav?”

  “Her argument has been that having an interstellar drive meant we would be able to market our medical technology products to other planets. We ended up with a lot of medical nanotech types here, and we must be ahead of planets without that head start.”

  “Right, and I said No.”

  “Yes, sir. But it turns out we didn’t need to spend the money and effort to come up with an interstellar drive. Someone else did. So you saved all that money and effort, but we still get to market our technology to other planets. You were right, sir.”

  “Hmm. That might work if we handle this properly.”

  Dufort nodded.

  “Yes, that might work. All right, Vaclav, can we get whoever is on that shuttle here quietly? And maybe put the shuttle in a hangar, or cover it, or cover its markings or something, so it isn’t obvious it came from somewhere else?”

  “I think so, sir. They have those big hangars out there at the shuttleport.”

  “OK. Get it in a hangar and then shut it down. Guards and such. Nobody gets in. Then bring the pilots and whoever else there is here so I can figure out what’s going on before we go public with anything. And do it quietly.”

  “Understood, sir. We can do that. They won’t be here until tomorrow morning. They said they were twenty-plus hours out.”

  Dufort nodded.

  “Understood. Oh, and Vaclav?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get traffic control to ask them if they have a briefing book or something for me.”

  “Sir?”

  “You don’t send a mission to another planet without materials, Vaclav. See what they have for me.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “There it is, right on cue,” Moore said. “They want any materials we have for fearless leader.”

  “Geez, you’d think these guys do this every day,” McKay said. “Like they all have the same playbook or something.”

  “Mr. Ambassador, are we OK to transmit the video?” Moore asked Ivanov.”

  “Back to Mr. Ambassador, is it?” Ivanov said with a chuckle.

  They had all been on a first-name basis the whole trip.

  “Well, we’re sorta back to business, sir.”

  “Understood, Mr. Moore. Yes, let’s go ahead and transmit the video to them.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  Dufort watched the video through twice before meeting with Brabec.

  “Did you watch the video, Vaclav?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So those two planets have already been in contact with each other. Arcadia and Earthsea.”

  “Yes, sir,” Brabec said. “Arcadia was the third drop, so they would know where we and Earthsea both are. As the second drop, we’ve known where Earthsea was for a long time.”

  “Yes, we just didn’t know how to get there. As Ms. Sellick has been wont to remind me these last ten years.”

  “So Arcadia solved the interstellar travel problem and approached us.”

  “They approached Earthsea first,” Dufort noted.

  “They apparently knew that Earthsea had solved the quantum entanglement radio problem, sir. That would make sense, to contact them first.”

  “Yes, and now Prime Minister Milbank and Director Laurent say they have QE radios on this shuttle for us to use to set up a three-sided communication network with them.”

  “That’s exciting, sir,” Brabec said. “You’ll be able to talk with them directly, in real time. Negotiate some sort of agreement or treaty with them.”

  “Yes.”

  Dufort drummed his fingers on the table.

  “I wonder what sort of agreement they’ll want, Vaclav.”

  “They said so, though, sir. Didn’t they?”

  “A completely bilateral, open-borders, free-trade agreement. Yes, of course. That’s what everybody always says they want, Vaclav. The devil is in the details.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dufort was lost in thought a few minutes. Brabec waited, not having been dismissed.

  “All right, Vaclav. Nothing else to do about that until they get here. What else do we have today?”

  “Amber Control to Hyper-1.”

  “Hyper-1 here. Go ahead, Amber.”

  “Hyper-1, what is your stack?”

  “We’re two wide, two high, Amber.

  “Roger, Hyper-1. You are cleared to land on shuttlepad twenty-one. Then dismount. We are moving you under cover.”

  “Roger, Amber Control. Cleared to land on shuttlepad twenty-one and dismount. Hyper-1 out.”

  McKay turned to Moore. Moore had heard the whole thing, but repeating instructions was ingrained.

  “Cleared to land on pad twenty-one and dismount,” McKay said.

  “Maybe they don’t have any taller stairs.”

  “They said they were getting us undercover.”

  “Undercover, huh?” Moore asked. “What about those containers? Earthsea makings on both of the radios, and it would be hard to miss the big red Chinese character on the other two.”

  “Maybe ‘Chen’ means something different here.”

  Mc
Kay shrugged and Moore laughed.

  “Well, when in doubt, follow instructions,” Moore said.

  Once they had confirmed transponder compatibility, Moore let the computer do the work. It put the shuttle down pinpoint center on the pad. McKay unlatched the payload, then Moore let the computer move the shuttle to the parking pad next door.

  A shuttle tug came out of the hangar next to the pads and pulled the shuttle into the hangar. Once stopped, a portable stair drove up to the shuttle.

  They all gathered up their small bags with their toiletries and a change of clothes. Moore opened the shuttle hatch and waved Ivanov ahead.

  Ivanov was met at the top of the stairs by a young man who looked very nervous. Ivanov put on his most calming and reassuring demeanor.

  “Hello, I am Sasha Ivanov, Arcadia’s ambassador to Amber. Pleased to meet you.”

  The mundanity of introductions seemed to calm the young man.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Ambassador. I am Michael Grant. I am an aide for Vaclav Brabec, President Dufort’s chief of staff. I’m to take you all directly to the president, sir.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Just as soon as we’ve had a chance to freshen up,” Ivanov said, stroking his six weeks’ beard.

  “They said directly, Mr. Ambassador.”

  “Of course.”

  Ivanov looked around the hangar. There were offices and supplies rooms to one side. Moore need not have worried about the containers. There was already a container lift moving them into the hangar.

  “I’m sure there’s a bathroom here we can use. Over there, isn’t it?”

  “Uh, Mr. Ambassador–“

  “Mr. Grant, have you ever seen anyone shown in to meet with your president in our current, er, state of hygiene?”

  Ivanov moved closer to Grant. Ivanov was a big man, and six weeks without a shower was more than casually evident.

  “Oh. Oh, no, Mr. Ambassador.”

  “You see, then? You don’t want to be the person to set that sort of precedent, Mr. Grant. Just show us to the bathroom, and we’ll be along presently.”

  “Uh, yes, sir. If you’re sure it’s all right, sir.”