All in Good Time

by Mackey Chandler

  “Show me a safe and practical way to do it, and I’ll pack up and elope with both of you.”

  “Living beside a slum with nine billion crazy neighbors isn’t anything we chose to do,” April said. “We didn’t have any choice but to make the best of the situation before. Now we have a way to leave, or at least we will with a little more development, and assuming we find some decently habitable planet. Of course, anybody would want to move to a better neighborhood without the trashy neighbors once the opportunity opened up. Moving Home out past the Moon helped, but you know that’s just a temporary fix.

  “Just remember, I do insist on certain basic amenities. I wouldn’t come to visit you here on the Moon until you had a decent shower. I’m not about to rush from one unpleasant situation to another. With just a little planning and preparation we can have a distant retreat like a nice vacation home, not a rough bunker, and still keep track of what is happening here so there aren’t any rude surprises.”

  “And a chocolate mint on your pillow at night?” Heather teased.

  “OK, the way I described it is a bit of a fantasy,” Jeff admitted. “Now that the Earthies have a basic star drive I suspect nowhere in the galaxy is going to be a little desert island we can hide on and never be found. Not once they perfect it, and they’ll keep working at it until they do. But giving ourselves a couple of centuries-long breather before the unwashed masses are knocking on our door seems practical and worthwhile. At worst, we’ll just need to move on further away when they can reach us. But perhaps we can get established to a point it doesn’t matter when they eventually find out where we settled.”

  “I believe that if a killer asteroid smacked Earth right now we have sufficient population and resources off-planet that the race would survive,” Heather said. “The risk of a natural extinction event happening has been greatly reduced with better sky surveys and the ability to intercept a big rock and alter its orbit, but the risk still isn’t zero. A big rock coming in from the fringes of the system could still be big enough and fast enough to be impossible to intercept. It serves everybody’s interests for us to be able to survive independently just to carry on the Human race. I’m with April that we want to be able to do more than just survive. I’d want to preserve all the best parts of our civilization and be comfortable, much more comfortable than just a shower. I want the ability to continue to advance our civilization, not just hold our ground.”

  “I’d miss honey for my tea,” April added to her list.

  “No, you wouldn’t. We have six hives with genetic diversity frozen and waiting until we can spare the time and air to provide them with a proper habitat,” Heather told her. “You’ll have honey.”

  Jeff frowned and thought about it. “The infrastructure to support nine billion people is so delicate, one fast hard to see small rock could mean a good fraction of them would die and there would be little support for making sure we continue to be supplied with Earth goods. They’ll be too busy surviving.”

  April shook her head no, disagreeing. “That’s why I’d say trade will never be cut off entirely unless it’s an honest planet killer. As long as there are operating shuttles from either side the very richest people will want our goods. If you are a trillionaire and need a cancer drug only made in zero-g you don’t really care if a quarter of the population just got wiped out by an asteroid strike. You’ll want to buy it even if you have to pay for a special launch to bring back a single tenth-kilogram packet just for you.”

  “You two understand people better than me,” Jeff admitted. “When you put it in those terms I can see how it would work that way. I’m embarrassed because I should have been able to figure that out on my own. You both not only understand people better than me, but I’ll grant you are both nicer than me. If I had to spend most of everything we own to save either of you I wouldn’t hesitate to do it and if somebody else needed those resources that would just be too bad. Human nature doesn’t change because a disaster happened to other people. Thanks for the lesson.”

  “People do help one another and do noble things in adversity,” Heather admitted. “But there are limits. It’s popular to say how much help should be given when you are giving away other people’s stuff. But when the disaster is big enough you either do some sort of triage or trying to meet every need will eat up every resource and leave nothing for a recovery. If there was a disaster of that scale on Earth what could we do for them?

  “Not much,” she answered herself. “I think the total off-Earth population is still not much more than twenty thousand people, unless the Chinese are lying big time. Most of them still depend on supply from Earth not the other way around. We’re in a much better situation with the cabbage mines, but almost all our excess food production already goes to Home. The other habitats like ISSII and New Las Vegas wouldn’t be anywhere I’d want to be with bulk Earth supply cut off. I’m actually starting to think about limiting and controlling who can come to Central beyond their economic ability. Imagine a large number of people abandoning those other habitats and coming here rather than going back to Earth.”

  “We have a labor and talent shortage right now, but I’m already accumulating a list of people I find undesirable. So far, I haven’t had to exclude any of them, although I’ve warned a few. I won’t allow a surge in population to change the nature of my kingdom. For example, I won’t give up holding my own weekly court and start delegating justice to others to decide,” Heather said.

  “If holding your court takes more than a day a week you should start culling some of the worst,” Jeff said. “Maybe make a three strikes and you are expelled rule for people who show up to have you solve their problems over and over.”

  “I’d have kicked Linda Pennington out already on that basis,” Heather said. “I had to create my first restraining order for her to let Mo alone. She insists she has to be able to communicate with him about their children and I ordered her to never call him in voice mode or go to his door. She has to contact him by text or mail. I had to expand it to include not approaching him face to face when he is using public facilities like the cafeteria. She applied to work where she’d be in the same facilities with him daily and Mo threatened to quit if that was allowed. I’ve about had it with her.”

  “I don’t think the woman will ever shuck off her Earth Think,” Jeff warned.

  “Agreed, we don’t need to be supporting disruptive people,” April said. “We aren’t expanding much beyond being able to take care of our own. The time factor wouldn’t allow us to expand food production either. We can bore more tunnels and make more trays and lights, but it would take a year and maybe longer to double our capacity putting all our resources into it, and get enough water and carbon to fill them. That would still only support a couple thousand more people. When millions of Earth people need help they need it in days not months. If they can’t do local disaster relief all that well themselves, how can we?”

  “Well, we just can’t worry about that,” Jeff decided. “It will never be within our ability to help any significant number of Earthies. There are just too many of them.”

  “Neither could they ever repay what it costs to produce food here,” Heather said. “I don’t mind a reasonable amount of charity, but I’m not up for world saving. They have to bear some responsibility. They deliberately run the whole system right on the edge of capacity with no safety margin, because it’s cheaper that way. It’s horrifying to a spacer used to demanding a margin of capacity and redundancy in vital systems.”

  “If we did save them it would become a permanent condition,” Jeff predicted.

  The women thought about it, surprised. “Yeah, it would,” Heather agreed.

  “Now that they have a working star drive I’m more concerned about somebody deliberately tossing a rock at Earth than a natural event,” April said.

  “Their sort of drive isn’t up to hauling large masses through a jump yet, though I’m sure they will improve it. Besides, they’ve had thousands of nukes for a
hundred years and very few have ever been used,” Jeff said. “If it gets out of hand and becomes a general exchange it’s like dueling in a room with hand grenades. So far even they haven’t been that crazy.”

  “The Martians might,” April said.

  “Oh crap yeah, they’re a problem. Those people are nuts,” Jeff agreed. “I can see them convincing themselves they could get away with it and never be blamed.”

  “And they are just the sort of fanatics who’ve rationalized genocide before,” Heather said. “I think we need to make it a doctrine not to allow the Martians any sort of stardrive as long as they remain a closed cult with their supposed secret that aliens exist.”

  “It may never be a problem,” Jeff said, hopefully. “I agree that is just as important as prohibiting armed vessels past L1. Once the Earthies find out they have the wreck of an alien ship, the Martian’s secret won’t have any power. If we declare they can’t have a starship it just gives them a warning that they have to keep any attempt to acquire one secret. Let’s just watch and keep our mouths shut and hope the window of opportunity passes for them to get one without our intervention. It’s going to be a while before you can just order one up from a shipbuilder. If the Earthies are ever stupid enough to let them get their hands on a starship we can arrange an accident easier than if it’s all taking place publicly.”

  “We could take the wind out of their sails by announcing there are aliens,” April said.

  “If anybody believed us,” Jeff said.

  “Well, we could tell them where they have that alien wreck hidden under a roof and you know they would check it out even if they publicly mocked us as lunatics,” April suggested.

  “They’d send a military expedition to Mars, and breach our L1 limit no matter what we did. That would be the end of containing them militarily,” Heather said. “They would push past us even if we killed a thousand ships. We contain them now because there isn’t any prize worth the price they’d have to pay, not because they can’t.”

  “I wouldn’t care if they send troops with small arms,” Jeff said.

  Heather shook her head no. “A solar says the Martians have militarized their moons by now, and any invasion would have to have armed ships that could defend themselves and carry armed shuttles to land directly on the surface.” She didn’t bother to lay a coin out.

  “No bet,” Jeff decided. He had a perfect betting record with Heather. He’d never taken a single wager against her.

  “But I’m not sure having their secret exposed would be enough to remove the Martian government from power,” April said. “I think they are unbalanced, and will still see themselves as the only true priesthood to preach the danger of aliens. They are obviously terrified of the idea since they expect the rest of us to panic at their secret. I see the whole situation as unstable and unpredictable. We need to watch it closely. I’m not sure who is watching them. It looks like France lost their network there so I doubt there were other Europeans running intelligence on Mars.”

  “I’ll ask Chen if he can explore who else might have assets there,” Heather said. “As much as I dislike them, and would just rather forget they exist. We may have to use resources to spy on them or even support them, as distasteful as that would be.”

  “Why?” April asked, making a face.

  “They do have an entire alien spaceship,” Heather reminded her. “True, it’s pretty badly wrecked. The front is compacted as badly as a ground car that hit a concrete bridge foundation at speed, but who knows what tech they may pry out of it? Ask yourself if you’d rather see the Earthies in possession of it, with all their assets to analyze it better and faster.”

  “Oh, I can see that,” April allowed.

  “I noticed they care enough about public opinion to have styled themselves the Martian Republic,” Jeff said.

  “Oh sure, and they’re functionally about as much a republic as the various ‘people’s republics’ are,” April said, “they’re more like a cult than a legitimate government.”

  Jeff just shrugged at that.

  “We’ll see,” was as close as Heather would come to agreeing with their analysis.

  “Speaking of tossing rocks,” Jeff said. “Now that the Remora is built I’d like to take it and the Hringhorni and Dionysus’ Chariot out and try some ideas I have about dragging rocks along in their drive field. It may be a while again before we have three jump capable ships in-system at the same time while the Hringhorni is out exploring. I’d like to try to drag a couple of rocks into Mars polar orbit to make a start on assembling your space station,” he told Heather.

  “Can you time three of them jumping out close enough to not endanger anyone? Not just that, but we absolutely can’t afford an accident that would involve all three ships.”

  “Easily, we have much better clocks by two orders of magnitude than are needed across a hundred meters, and they will constantly cross-check with each other and abort without human intervention if they lose sync right up until the last clock cycle,” Jeff promised.

  “Redundant clocks?” Heather demanded.

  “Triply redundant, I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Jeff said.

  “Have you been out to see the Remora?” April asked Heather.

  “No, but I’ve seen video of it. I’m sure Jeff is doing a competent job, despite my interrogating him about the clocks.”

  “You should really go stand in it,” April urged her. “I know it’s a lifeboat and not intended to even make single jumps unless they are forced to do so, but it’s really small.”

  “How small is it?” Heather asked in her “What is the punch line?” voice.

  “Well, it’s a good thing they are all family and live in the same apartment. It would be just as jammed as the Happy Lewis was after we rescued Jeff’s dad and step mum. Easy and I had to do a long hard EV and then strip out of our suits and clean up with sani-wipes in front of strangers. At least they were strangers then. It wasn’t anything I remember as a glorious adventure. When we got back I stood in the shower and let it beat on me as hot as I could stand for a long time. If you wonder why I’m so fond of showers, that’s reason enough. If they ever do have to use the Remora, don’t be surprised if they ask for a couple of weeks vacation away from each other after they get back.”

  “There goes my plan to borrow it while on a layover for a fun weekend trip,” Jeff said.

  “Don’t believe him for a second,” April warned Heather.

  “I’ll get it done then,” Jeff said, looking at both of them to make sure he had consensus on the matter. “The crew are all chomping at the bit to get this test out of the way and go survey some more stars.”

  Chapter 2

  In Northern California, Eileen was still in her first year with her new husband Victor Foy. He was a local and older than her. She was a refugee from Southern California, displaced by the bombardment of Vandenberg that April had carried out a couple of years previously to make them stop shooting at Jeff. She really hadn’t used excessive force. The damage was far out of line with the level of her response. There was some splatter from the primary weapon into the adjoining counties, but she really hadn’t targeted civilian areas.

  The problem had been that all of Southern California was a hodgepodge of obsolete and barely adequate infrastructure waiting to do a chain-reaction collapse if any important piece was damaged. Southern California was depopulated and reverting to desert within a month of the strike. People who built luxury seaside mansions on the Baja after the Mexican annexation fled or died.

  The northern part of the state and parts of eastern Oregon were more like the tribal areas of Pakistan now than part of the United States of North America. The new seat of North American governance, Vancouver, looked dangerously close to being cut off from the rest of its populated areas when you looked at an honest map.

  The Texas Republic in the South and East was keeping the USNA too busy to do anything about the autonomous areas. Nevada wasn’t exactly lawless, but it w
as a lot emptier than before The Day. Many businesses were closed, including all the casinos, and available services were limited. You might get mail if you could get to your post office, but forget delivery or seeing state services like the highway patrol. There was no city water in Las Vegas, and when the power went down in outlying areas, nobody was fixing it now.

  Eileen walked from near LA to her grandfather’s home after The Day, with a stop to winter over halfway. She quickly became eager to leave there, chafing under their father’s thumb, and picked Victor Foy over younger men for his substance. She’d left her family early when things had come to a head and walked to Vic’s late the previous fall. One thing she’d made clear to Vic when he first showed any interest in her was that she eventually intended to get off Earth. It was a long term goal from when she was about eleven years old.

  “When we go to the Fall Festival I want you to talk to Mr. O’Neil and arrange for him to get me a prescription flown in from Nevada,” Eileen said. She was standing close in front of Vic, her hands on his shoulders. He was sitting on his favorite kitchen chair, which put her eyes just a little higher than his. He’d been reading but sat the book aside when she wanted to talk.

  “Feeling poorly?” Victor asked, but he knew better.

  “Feeling entirely too good, and you also have that look on your face that says you are tired of being patient and understanding about feeling half married. I’ve grown enough this year that there’s no arguing a pregnancy would be too risky for me. Well, no more than all the other women here in the autonomous zone who don’t have modern medicine like before The Day. But I still have the same goals. I not only want to go to space, but I want to take you with me. I’d be pleased to have children with you – later – out there. If we have to get passage for three or four, my guess is it will never happen.”

  “We can try,” Vic said, “My understanding is the doc in Nevada will issue a new prescription against an old pill bottle. I’m not sure he’d send a new prescription for a seventeen-year-old girl he’s never met or had as his patient before.”