by F Stephan
“Envoy, would you say that the Federation helped deliver this pushback?” She turned toward him in a rainbow of light.
He answered with his precise, snobby voice and his foreign accent, so very foreign. Strange and haughty. Perfect start. “Earth has done most of the work by itself. We have just nudged you in the right direction from time to time.”
Images appeared behind him. Reclaim work in the irradiated deserts of South Brazil, dismantling skyscrapers in the largest city centers and, finally, the water cleaners discharged from the space shuttle in New Mexico. The first would be transported to the Columbia River. It might help bring back humans to the entire Spokane region. Charts and graphs appeared behind him. Technobabble. All of it. Don’t you see that no one understands them but you?
“And we’ll continue providing you support to move on,” the Envoy concluded.
“Isabel, what are your feelings about this?” Susanna turned to the smaller woman, subdued in her chair.
When the woman answered, her voice was crystal clear, sharp and memorable. “The Federation has helped, there’s no denying it, and we’re thankful for it. And the Envoy is right. We’ve done the work ourselves. How many Federation personnel are here to help? Less than a hundred advisors spread across the whole planet. How many devices to help? Fewer still. And what’s the price for it? Billions invested in space activities and kids indentured for years of servitude. We’re wasting resources we don’t have in space facilities we don’t need.”
Focus on Natalya’s wince in response to this comment. Truth again. Ten years of forced work for the Federation for all pilots to repay their training. On the side the air-window, she called up for her viewers the Federation bidding agreement with Earth, with the clauses regarding the students highlighted in red.
The EarthFirst representative continued, “Mind you, dear Susanna…” The flattery flows so well in her mouth. She can’t stand me, that little farmer snot. But I can’t stand her either anyway. “EarthFirst doesn’t oppose the Federation. We ask our governments to focus on our planet first and heal before looking outward to the stars. The Federation is not making enough of a difference for it to be worth our efforts. We should join again when we’re ready.”
Behind her, Susanna showed other works led only by Earth. Gaia Activists on the plastic continent in the mid-Pacific, Ecowarriors cleaning the source of the Nile, and EarthFirst themselves dismantling heavy industrial sites in Central America. We can do it ourselves! Great message.
She turned again. “Dear Natalya, how do you respond to EarthFirst claims that we’re wasting resources in space? When will the station be ready? Even with so much money poured into it, it’s still not working.”
She lashed the words fast at her prey, sending the drone to cover Tasha’s reaction. The combination of attacks had Tasha fumbling for words. Perfect confusion on her face. Now, she could say whatever she wanted, but her audience would see her limits. Quick and efficient.
“The station is the most complex construction ever attempted by Earth in space. The crew has done an amazing job and it has begun operating. So, yes, Susanna, it has not been completed yet. But I’m proud of all who have worked on it.” The answer came slowly but still firm. Not entirely cowed, are you, dear? We’ll see.
Pictures appeared around them, showing the partially completed station. Whether the structure worked or not, everyone would see the missing modules and make their own assumptions.
“How do you want to support Earth, or even yourself, in this matter?” Susanna’s voice was sensual, honey trapping an industrious bee.
The stage was now set up. The play would begin! And she, Susanna Loewre, would crush the little pilot. She should have been selected for Adheek. The Federation had chosen the little Russian doll instead, but today they would see how mistaken they had been.
Wilfried
Reborn Russia, Urals, August 1, 2140
Wilfried didn’t sleep well. The way Susanna had cornered Tasha disturbed him more than he’d have expected. It had felt like butchery, showing how unprepared they were to come back to Earth. He ended up calling Leopold while watching the moon over the Baikal.
Leopold was in the main Academy building, with green pastures behind him. He smiled brightly. “Hello, my friend.”
“Did you watch the show?” Wilfried blurted impatiently.
“Hello, my friend. You shouldn’t forget your manners. Not ever.”
Wilfried winced. He hated when things got out of control.
“And yes, I watched it. She didn’t do too bad.”
“Hello, my friend.” The words were forced, anger laced through them. “What do you mean?” Sometimes, Wilfried just couldn’t see life the way Leopold did.
“She was attacked throughout the show and she stood her ground. Not too bad. She could have done better, but she was not ready for it. And our former fellow student showed how much she hated her. The cards are now face up. Next time, Tasha will be ready. Don’t doubt it, my friend.”
The quiet serenity of Leopold’s words soothed Wilfried.
“Now that you’ve joined me, stay. I’m running the daily check with Hawkeyes Noul on the repairs and I need your second opinion on the environmental generator.”
Leopold began calling up schematics and showing the different issues they faced. The ship was a complex entity which had been used for ten millennia. The more delicate features were still awakening, and the biological support system suffered regular glitches. Wilfried was soon deep into the analysis, forgetting his troubles.
As they finished, their future crew arrived to train with Leopold on the procedures required to fly Charon. Wilfried stayed on the call, to help his friend. He’s beginning to find his own place. Human resources manager.
Hours later, when the sun had arisen to illuminate the mountains above the lake, Wilfried stretched. Time to meet Tasha. He grabbed a cup of steaming tea from the kitchen and went to her office in the underground headquarters. It was a small room, located in the guest area of the Complex, a clear message that she was now running her own business, separate from her brother. She would have been sparring with Roman, in her regular morning routine. Ancient dueling was a foreign idea to Wilfried, but it seemed to please Tasha. Today, she’d need it.
She arrived wearing a business suit. Wilfried had never seen her dress like that on Adheek. She wore discreet makeup and her hair was pinned back. Her dark trousers appeared severe and she wore a classic white shirt and a necklace with a single jewel. This was a businesswoman Wilfried didn’t know, and not the pilot with whom he had trained.
Even so, Tasha beamed when she saw him and quickly grabbed the cup. “Thank you, Wilfried. First comforting thing after yesterday,” she said, sipping the warm liquid. “Come in.” She added sugar and continued sipping. After her exercise, her nanites would also need some fuel.
“It was a set-up. She cornered you on purpose. Leopold and I think you did well in your fight.”
“Those are kind words. I appreciate your support. And yes, it was planned,” she confirmed grimly. “Our former schoolmate has become a dangerous woman and she’s got her own agenda.”
“Do you know what she is looking for? What agenda?”
“No idea. Not yet. But we’ll find out, one way or another. Be wary of her.”
“She never looked at me while we were at the Academy. No danger.” He smiled sheepishly. The bright and unattainable Susanna. She had haunted him, at least until he had known Tasha better.
“You weren’t a pilot then. You’re going to interest her a lot more now. Whether you want her attention or not is up to you.”
He blushed fiercely in response and mumbled, “Not sure I’m interested.” He straightened up again. “I’ll be taking the plane to Geneva this morning with Wolm.” The slender red-faced bodyguard smiled behind him. With his scar running across his face, he looked like the devil incarnate.
“Anything specific?” Since no one was allowed to take a plane unless it was urgen
t, this wasn’t really a question.
“Something Yasmina Iakoubi at the CPC wants to talk about. I’ve had several meetings with her teams over the comms. But now she wants to see me. Face to face. Secure compound.” He was worried. Chief Iakoubi was the foremost police officer on Earth. She didn’t invite people for idle talk.
“Have you met her yet?”
“No, this will be the first time,” he answered with some foreboding.
“I understand. This is an important part of your job and you need to get started. Have you informed the Envoy? He will want your bodyguard with you.” She hasn’t taken the rebuke from Nashiz well, after our fight against the tigroids.
The hulking bodyguard behind Wilfried intervened in a low rumble, “Commander Poiz has been informed and has agreed to the meeting. We don’t need to involve the Envoy for such matters.”
“You’d both abandon me in face of adversity? For the first chat with our industrial partners?” Tasha said in mock disapproval. Before he could react, she continued, “Don’t answer. Go, we’ll talk later.”
She hugged Wilfried quickly and sat down at her desk. The hug was too quick but felt good. She hadn’t let anyone that close to her since Wilfried had known her. A good sign.
Wilfried left with Wolm, heading to the small runaway in the old town, east of the Compound. The strip was small, suitable only for emergency flights. At its end waited a space jet, gleaming in the sun. It boasted a new engine with improved efficiency at high altitude, allowing them to reach a low orbit. Wilfried looked at it apprehensively. Only four hours to central Europe. Never been in one of those. Well, there’s a first time for everything.
Tasha
Reborn Russia, Urals, August 1, 2140
Tasha sipped her tea for a few minutes, composing herself for her next meeting. I don’t like to see him leaving. But I can’t keep him on a leash. And now I need to focus on work. Today would be her first station committee and she had to do better than last night. Far better.
She activated the virtual environment, donning her thin googles and headset. The image blurred for a second until her eyes adjusted to the new reality. She found herself in a luxurious Japanese garden with a small fountain at her side. Comfortable chairs had been set around an ancient oak table. On the table, a samovar steamed in the middle of a collection of matching teacups. Tasha cringed at the mix of cultures. Nice to accommodate everyone, but this is way too much. Four participants had already arrived. While appearances in virtual reality were free to change, following business etiquette, everyone had chosen avatars reflecting their real appearance.
Lord John Burroughs, an elegant noble of the JapEnglish Imperium, was chatting with Feng Li, who wore a severe, dark gown, and Maricar, the station administrator, who was dressed in a jumpsuit. The small wrinkled woman represented the Chinese Conglomerate in charge of the life support equipment. Tasha knew she’d need to spend time with her, one of the powerful administrators of Middle China, her neighbor.
On Tasha’s left sat a woman she didn’t know. She held a virtual hand out. “Good morning. I’m Tasha.”
“Elisabeth Evans. Delighted to meet you, Captain. I‘ll be your new representative from Detroit General Electronics.” This was the main subsidiary of the NorAm Conglomerate of Flight. Tasha took in her fair skin, dark hair and green eyes. Brian, her pilot friend who had gone to the Core Worlds, had often talked of his bright overachiever of a sister who had the same eyes as him. She had just married, had had her first son and, according to the last news he had received, oversaw one of the most visible projects of the company. It seemed she had been promoted again.
Tasha’s mind raced. Her arrival might mean an ally around the table. “Nice meeting you, Miss Evans, and welcome on board. You look just like Brian, you know. Maybe we could talk a little in the coming weeks?”
Elisabeth nodded quickly, blushing a little at having been recognized.
At that moment, Vladimir, the head of the Podorovski space operation, appeared. He nodded at her and chatted excitedly with Jeanne de Savigny, the head of space operations at the European Space Consortium. She had worked within all existing space agencies, spent most of her life building the space station, and she knew just about everyone in her field. She was tall and very thin, her skin unnaturally smooth for someone her age. In the real world, she always wore an exoskeleton, the result of too many years in low gravity. With the dark metal frame around her pale skin, some had taken to calling her the Space Spider. She might be ruthless, but there was no hiding her depth of knowledge. Tasha would need to face her, probably soon.
The Sheikh Salah Mekki, representing the Middle East Cybernetics Industries, arrived moments later from a side door. He was a large man with a neatly trimmed beard and the blue eyes of the tribes of the deep desert. As was usual for him, he was garbed in a traditional gandoura. With him arrived Anaru, wearing his Federation official outfit. Sizwe Ngozi, leader of the African Manufacturing Union, materialized at the same time, wearing a classic brown suit and a blue and yellow tie, a sign to his Ndebele forebears. He was accompanied by Jorge Da Silva, a Brazilian entrepreneur, and Kris Konstantinoupolos, the Academy director, who looked bored. Too many people here and I don’t know them well enough. The entire world was contributing to the effort in a display of previously unknown cooperation, but Tasha could see dark looks shared here and after. They swapped places until everyone felt comfortable with their neighbors.
“Welcome everyone,” Tasha said. “Before we begin, let us spend a moment in remembrance for Iain Mitchell, a good man and a friend to many of us here.”
Each person reacted according to his or her own culture, many mumbling a quick prayer. Feng drew a white scarf from a pocket and tied it quickly around her neck.
After a minute, Tasha continued. “This meeting is the one hundred and eightieth since construction started. I know a slot in your agenda is dear. So, let’s hope we stop at two hundred, four months from now.”
A polite round of applause followed. A glass of champagne appeared in Jeanne de Savigny’s hand and she raised it in salute.
A schematic of the station appeared in the middle of the table, and Tasha highlighted in green all the completed areas. They were tiny islands, surrounded by yellow zones representing issues, and red non-working areas. This made for a dangerous place in space.
The Sheikh rose. He didn’t look Tasha in the eyes. “The problem, Madame, is that the Federation asks for quality at low cost and with no delays. It doesn’t work that way. Maybe in a century, when we refit our third or fourth station, we will have learned enough to comply with them. Not one of our engineers has had the experience of a space station so complex. They can’t cope with the insufferable arrogance of the Federation.”
Anaru had encouraged Nashiz not to attend the meeting. Now, Tasha knew why. Still, the President and Maricar both began to rise, red-faced, and Tasha saw where this would lead. Everyone would complain that their resources were too limited, or that they didn’t have the necessary technology.
This is my turf. She raised her hand and said in a mild voice, “We know, circumstances are adverse. The devil is in the details, it is said, and we have many details to make right.” There were a few chuckles in response. “Currently, those non-working details make life unbearable over the long term. Yet we have crews up there who struggle every day. We need to provide them with more than a raft in space. We need a secure shelter to run our operations. Remember the vision. Once the station is fully functional, the charter will activate.” It appeared in her hand, a thick bundle of old-fashioned paper. “You’ll be entitled to a share of the benefits. Our mining operations in the asteroid are producing high quality rare-earth elements. Charon will run back and forth to the belt to bring them back to the station. And Acheron will send them back to Earth. Without the station, we can’t conduct this trade. With it, we will provide a real value for all your countries.” Rare-earth elements had been cannibalized in the mid-twentieth century tech rush and were
now the most recycled material on the planet. The charter was simple. Once all operating costs were covered, a third of the benefits would go into a fund set up with the Federation to run the spaceships, a third would go to the ecological restoration projects, and a third to the consortium, split between members. “And rare-elements earth are only the first step.”
Maricar nodded to her gracefully and Tasha saw smiles around the table, while Anaru sat down again, along with the Sheikh. She knew his company had been requested by the Peninsula Caliphate to contribute more to the desert funds. He needed desperately that money. In fact, his teams were among the most reliable Tasha had on the project. Her father had also warned her: “Those who talk and deliver, you should not beware, whatever they say or how much they are upset. Beware the silent, incompetent ones.” So, she looked around the table, searched for anybody silent and then picked her target deliberately.
“Sizwe, you have had issues in the past weeks. How can we help you?” She knew he was facing a lot of dissent in Central Africa and couldn’t spare anyone. She could even understand the current problem he faced. But it didn’t help her get the station running.
He sighed. “Well, what we would need to move forward would be…”
A long meeting began.
Hours later, Tasha had wrung out all the concessions she needed for now, reprioritizing work on the station. Until then, they had tried to get the whole structure working all at once. Maricar has used her energy coping with its complexity and had failed. Tasha would try another approach, one module at a time. She also would use her ace, the Ancient computer, which was fast enough to increase the efficiency of the station.
