Another Word for Magic

by Mackey Chandler

  “I’m at twenty percent power, oriented, and have the program set to turn and radiate differently,” Lee said ten minutes later.

  “Checking distance,” Jeff said. “Twelve hundred meters. That’s plenty. This is your party. I’m slaving the Chariot to accept your count. Set the countdown on your clock so you can say you initiated your first jump. Oh, this counts towards a Central Jump Master ticket if you are interested in being certified. Do watch carefully,” Jeff said over his shoulder to include the passengers. “It’s easy to blink and miss the whole thing. There wasn’t anything to see before, but now Fargone’s star will suddenly appear.”

  “The Kurofune will be gone in ten seconds from – MARK,” Lee said depressing a key.

  Everyone was intensely silent.

  “Sweet little goddesses afire!” Musical said from his seat.

  “See? The Badgers find it a religious experience too,” April told Jeff.

  “You’ve been through jump coming to Derfhome,” Born objected to his workmate.

  “And if you think I was of a station to be invited to the control room to witness it you have an exaggerated opinion of my importance,” Musical assured him. “Have you ever done it before?”

  “First time for me,” Born said not nearly as impressed. “It’s very nice to see what we made work.”

  “And there is the Kurofune at twenty-two seconds and a bit. We practically ran into her.” Jeff said cutting Musical off from commenting on Born’s irreverence “What now? Do you want to come along to Fargone with us? We’re going to dock at Beta and scope out how things are going.”

  “I don’t have a process to get the drive back in storage alone. I planned on going back and letting some of Red Trees people at Derfhome station come out with a scooter and give me a hand. How do you grapple on to dock with the drive out front on your nose? I couldn’t see what was happening with the Cricket.”

  “Then Gabriel cut the video feed to your board. It swings back out of the way into a recess. Kind of like the nose wheel on an airplane,” Jeff explained with a bent wrist. “I wouldn’t expect you to make those sorts of major modifications until you saw it works.

  “That sounds like Gabriel, being needlessly secretive. What are you smiling about?” Lee asked. She was worried something was amusing about her again.

  “Just that an Earth government would have never done a test flight like this. They’d modify the ship to dock even if there was no need and have a test procedure document thousands of pages long.”

  “And delay several years to do it until everybody had a chance to demonstrate their authority by demanding changes,” April said. “Then, you’d have a hundred controllers cross-checking each other and reading what you should do next to you, line by line. If everybody is responsible it effectively makes no one person responsible if it goes wrong.”

  “Well, I have no business at Fargone,” Lee said. “I’d have been as happy to do this to an uninhabited star system. I’m just going to go back to Derfhome.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize that,” Born said from the back. “I was looking forward to seeing Fargone or at least the station.”

  “We’ll only be a day, but you can stay with us and return tomorrow,” April offered. That at least gives you a chance to see Beta and Fargone from orbit. How about you, Musical?”

  “I’d much rather do that too,” he agreed.

  “No problem. I don’t mind going solo,” Lee said. “I have three presets for short jumps and my normal drive. It will be far easier than spending days under acceleration to be able to jump.”

  “I’ll pull in close to let you board her,” Jeff said. If Lee noticed he edged in carefully to a scant ten meters away she said nothing. He waited until she was inside and the outer door was closed to pull away.

  “Thank you,” Lee said on com before she departed. Any hard feelings from when Jeff almost denied her their software seemed to be completely gone. They watched until the Kurofune disappeared in a flash of light and a thump.

  “It didn’t thump when we jumped together,” Musical said. “Why?”

  “We left before the wavefront reached us at light speed,” Jeff explained.

  “Did you really want to go to Fargone or were you afraid to cross to the Kurofune?” Born asked.

  “I wanted to go, but if I hadn’t, I’d have asked anyway after the way she boarded untethered,” Musical admitted. “I’d have had to humiliate myself and ask Lee to rig a line. I don’t know how to use the clamp on suit jets and I’d be terrified to jump.”

  “That’s just good sense,” Jeff said. “Be assured, I’ll never think less of you for that. By our standards, your patron is out of her mind to jump untethered when she doesn’t have to. She may do it ten thousand times flawlessly but sooner or later something will go bad and we can only hope we’ll be able to rescue her. You will note I didn’t volunteer to go out and stow the drive for her. I was an exhausted sweaty mess the one time I had to do it for us. If I never go EV again that’s fine with me.”

  “That makes me feel better,” Musical said. “But given our different relationship, I’m never going to be the one who tells Lee that. I’ll leave it to you if it ever becomes necessary.”

  “I’ve already put my foot in my mouth with Lee recently,” Jeff admitted. “I’d like to stay on her good side. She can eyeball it out the hatch and jump for Derfhome if she wants, as long as she doesn’t ask me to do the same.”

  Chapter 12

  Secretary Porter was shocked to find Armstrong wasn’t as pro-Earth or pro-North America as he’d been informed. The first private taxi he attempted to hire had turned him down with words that would have put the driver in prison in North America. The second had a mask of stone descend over his face and demanded ten ounces for a private ride to Central.

  “Ounces of what?” Porter demanded.

  “Gold. Do I look like some fool who’d take USNA toilet paper?” the man demanded.

  Porter checked his pad. At the current exchange rate that was a hundred times the published fee for a private limo to Central on the local web. It was also an illegal transaction back home. Even if he was in a different legal jurisdiction, he’d never hear the end of it back in Vancouver. It was the sort of technically legal action one could never justify to political enemies. It said pretty clearly that the man didn’t want his business, so he walked away and was reduced to using public transportation.

  The bus to Central from Armstrong cost much less, was clean, and had nicer seats than some airliners. Certainly, they were roomier. It also had two restrooms and a vending snack bar. There were free data ports and video. Porter disdained it not in comparison to a city bus because he’d never been on one in his life. It simply wasn’t something one of his class suffered. Nobody gave them a second glance or spoke to them.

  When he stepped through the connector to Central a man was waiting with a pad held up that said, PORTER in bright green on black filling the screen. He was leaning against a cart that only needed a canopy to belong on any golf course he’s ever played.

  “I’m Porter,” he said and felt silly. He and his guards were dressed so differently it was obvious.

  “My Lady asked me to take you to her residence, Mr. Porter,” Mo said. “It’s some distance so you need a ride.”

  Mo walked around and took the driver’s seat. The guards took the rear so Porter perforce took the front passenger seat. Mo noted they had no luggage so they didn’t plan to stay overnight.

  They fumbled with unfamiliar lap belts as there was no passive restraint system. Mo touched a pad on the dash and a screen said the cart was in standby service, and then that it was on manual when they were all buckled. At least there was a windscreen but no doors and nothing to protect you in a side crash. They entered one of four tunnels radiating from the bus stop.

  “What is your position on Miss Anderson’s staff?” Parker asked. He phrased it that way to get back at Mo for calling him, Mister. My Lady indeed…

  “I
’m Heather’s Chief Engineer and architect, but I do a little bit of everything. I designed her residence and court. I’m a mining engineer so tunnels and such were already my specialty.”

  They came to a stop at the end of the tunnel about a hundred meters from the bus terminal. Mo flipped a switch and leaned back in his seat, releasing his grip on the wheel. The dash changed status to auto.

  “I designed and maintain the traffic system we’re entering. In a bit, we will be going down. I had a heavy hand in designing the elevator system standards although I got some very good input from others. I’m the principal architect of the farming system or as we call them the cabbage mines.”

  “And a driver for visitors,” Porter said skeptically, uncertain if they were being fed a tall story for the fun of seeing what newbies would believe.

  Another cart whizzed past just off their nose. There was no way to see from the side tunnel that it was coming. The cart pulled into the larger tunnel on its own, now that it was clear, and accelerated. There was no lighting in this tunnel so a single spotlight came on, pointed down, and to the edge of the roadway far ahead. When another cart passed going the other way it was so close Porter flinched. The tunnel wall was similarly close but Mo didn’t bother to keep his hands on the wheel, sitting back, relaxed, and trusting his system. He did watch the roadway ahead to see it was clear.

  “I happened to be on the surface to deal with a problem with one of the road paving machines. Heather demands her sworn people wear a lot of different hats. We have nothing like union work rules or restrictive licensing. I worked as a mining engineer on Earth so I’ve experience with that. I’ve had to sit and wait for an electrician before because I wasn’t deemed competent to reset a breaker. Here, I’ve worked as a space traffic controller, sealing corridor walls, and once planting trays of scallions when the cabbage mines were short-handed. It’s a one-way trip for me to deliver you, saving at least a half-man-hour that otherwise would be totally wasted by somebody making a round-trip to the surface. All the sworn simply do what is needed.”

  “Sounds like communism to me,” Porter decided.

  “More feudalism,” Mo assured him. If Porter intended to insult him Mo didn’t respond that way. “I’m one of less than a hundred peers. I resisted accepting that status for a long time because I had other obligations and felt I’d be divided in my loyalties. My children are independent now and my wife divorced and moved back to Earth. I felt I could accept the honor without any reservations. Somebody who is just a resident may run their own business or have a job with set hours and duties. Heather wouldn’t expect loyalty from them or to be able to call on them to drop their own interests to serve her.”

  “What is the advantage of being a peer?” Porter wondered.

  That made Mo silent for a moment. Porter thought maybe he wasn’t going to answer.

  “Nobody has asked me that before,” Mo admitted. “I had to think about it. I get more work piled on than I can do,” Mo said smiling. “Heather would probably cite that as a benefit. That’s not a problem since I love my work. You don’t get a different pay rate for being a peer. I think the biggest thing is that Heather values any productive resident, but for any of her peers she would go to war. If I had a problem beyond my means to solve or wanted a starship made available, I’d ask her, assured that I’d be taken care of without counting the cost. Being a resident is a privilege but being a peer gives one a protected status. I have a safety net in my sovereign because I know she values me. I don’t get any discounts and I can’t cut in line, but being a peer means I get treated with respect in the community.”

  “I see,” Porter said. He did see but he didn’t entirely believe it.

  The cart pulled off into a recessed area along the tunnel wall, reversed into an open elevator, and the door closed across their nose. The elevator car was so tight they couldn’t have stepped out of the cart on either side. The elevator dropped for a long time. When it stopped it moved sideways for a couple of minutes and then resumed dropping.

  “How deep are we going?” Porter asked.

  For the first time, Mo looked unfriendly. “That’s a datum I’d rather not provide. If it had been me arranging your visit, I’d have made you strip and made sure you didn’t have an inertial navigation module on you. Heather is too polite for her own safety. I once was forced to collect targeting data for North America so I know how you work.”

  “Nobody even checked us for weapons,” one of the guards volunteered.

  “Nobody would care if you wore them openly,” Mo said. “We have enough trouble with Armstrong that you were cleared of heavy weapons, explosives, and bioagents before you ever got on the bus. Everybody gets scanned that much. You have a standard-issue pistol and your blond buddy has that, and a smaller one in an ankle holster, a Bucky Braid, and a plastic knife. We credit you with enough sense to know a direct assassination would lead to the destruction of North America.”

  It was interesting he got no argument on that statement. Mo had expected one.

  After they stopped going down, they still traveled again horizontally. Porter started wondering just how big Central was.

  Turning off the tunnel with traffic, they entered another lighted tunnel with a walkway along the edge and slowed. Mo assumed manual control again barely above walking speed. There was an area to pull over and Mo stopped there. The dash screen said the car was in standby service again.

  “Dakota, Heather’s assistant and office manager, is coming to let you in,” Mo said.

  Porter hesitated. It would be bad form to insist on sitting until the door opened. He just nodded thanks and got out. A woman opened the door and looked at them expectantly before they were halfway there. When he looked over his shoulder Mo was gone.

  “Mr. Secretary? If you will follow me, I’ll make you comfortable. You may address me as Dakota. Consider me Heather’s secretary. My Lady will join us in just a few minutes.”

  “Thank you,” Porter said, nodding his acceptance. At least this minion knew how to address him.

  They crossed a vast hall done in tall buttresses like a cathedral and with bright murals above, but with the lights turned low at foot level so they got an impression of size but only the patterned terrazzo floor was well lit. The sounds of their hard-soled shoes contrasted with their guide who had on soft slippers that were silent. The side alcoves were dark with dark shapes barely discernible. Near the end were simple wooden benches and a small table with a carpet in front of it and a matching wooden chair that they bypassed.

  A door slid open as they approached and they went down a short hall with a dead end and turn off before it. Porter noticed the door though quiet was a half meter thick. There was a second door after the turn.

  The room they entered could have belonged to any nice suite in an Earth hotel. Porter had no idea how the Moon Queen would live. If she’d live in ostentatious excess like a third world dictator or some unique style that had no Earth counterpart. There was a sunken area with two tiers and a huge stone slab table in the center. The overhead was recessed in steps with lighting increasing towards the top. It mirrored the seating pit below. There was no glitter, patterns, or texture. The color was a bright blue, but Porter suspected that was lighting. A large picture, almost a mural on the wall might be a screen rather than art, but it was difficult to tell. It showed a bench in a garden life-size.

  “I’ve ordered coffee and snacks,” Dakota informed them. “Does anyone prefer tea or soft drinks?”

  “I’d like a Coke if you have it,” one of the guards requested.

  “I know we do,” Dakota said. She was then silent, so the order must have been sent by spex.

  The lady who brought the coffee used a cart with a large tray for the coffee service and a separate tray with some small sandwiches, pastries, crudités, and the Coke. They went on the low central table.

  His security looked at Porter and he gave a nod of assent. He hardly thought they would poison them.

  The
cups were so thin they looked impossibly fragile but were opaque. When Porter used a spoon to stir it had an odd sheen. He was certain it wasn’t silver but it wasn’t stainless either.

  Heather came in with a large man trailing her and sat opposite them across the table between Dakota and the new man. The fellow immediately poured coffee for himself which seemed an odd protocol. He seemed a man of few words, just lifting an eyebrow to Heather and poured for her when she nodded.

  “This is Mack Tindal,” Heather said of her companion. “He’s security on loan from my partner and peer April. I don’t usually keep personal security present, but she has been concerned for me so I am accepting his services to comfort her. She and our partner Jeff Singh have both been targets of assassination attempts. I have not, if you discount nuking the entire city. I can understand why they have developed a healthy paranoia. Don’t be surprised if he or my secretary Dakota feel free to comment in our discussion. We’re not terribly formal that way.”

  “We will be more formal that way,” Porter said. “I don’t normally introduce my security. Nor do they have any standing to speak for North America.”

  “Which brings up the question of how binding your agreement is on North America,” Heather said.

  “I was sent directly on the President’s orders. If we can’t get any concessions, you should expect it will result in the failure of our government so the point is moot. You’ll have to deal with our successor if that happens. We are willing to push it to that point.”

  That was such a blunt assessment of their precarious position that Heather was shocked he’d admit it. Porter’s bodyguards looked rattled too, but they’d already grown progressively twitchy since Heather arrived. The one with extra weapons had shifted his weight forward when he took his coffee and never returned to his previous relaxed posture. Gunny didn’t like it and decided if they became a threat the tense man would die first. He consulted the veracity software in his spex. It could provide much more about a subject’s mental state than the likelihood of a statement’s truth.