All in Good Time

by Mackey Chandler

  “Do you know what the legal age is to marry in Nevada?” Eileen asked.

  “Eighteen, without parental consent,” Vic said. “Why? What are you thinking?”

  “I could fly to Nevada and return his next trip. I’m easily within his weight limit to take passengers. Both of us are near it. If it’s still business as usual enough to have a pharmacy open or to get a prescription written, it’s worth the trip if there is any way we could pay for it,” Eileen worried. “Is there any way we can convert some of our nuggets or gold dust secretly?”

  “No need. If there are drug stores and aviation gas in Nevada they must be doing business normally in dollars,” Vic said. “I have a credit card that hasn’t expired yet. It had no balance and was set up to auto-pay from my bank account. If Chase Bank is still in business in Nevada it should still be active even though it hasn’t been used lately.

  “If that doesn’t work, I always kept some cash on hand. I should have enough in twenty and fifty dollar bills to pay for your flight and pills. I always worried the teller system might go down and I wouldn’t be able to get to my money. I just never figured everything would go down so hard that very few people would take cash for anything. I was thinking in terms of a couple of weeks or a month. If there is a branch open I may even get some more cash.”

  “Like you kept a few extra rounds of ammunition?” Eileen teased.

  “I’ve got somewhere around fifteen thousand dollars in a bank bag in my safe. What I am more concerned about is things may be too normal in Nevada. They may not accept you are an emancipated minor and a married woman and try to declare you at risk and put you in foster care if they have that sort of thing still functioning.”

  “I could lie and tell them I’m eighteen,” Eileen said. “That wouldn’t bother me.”

  Vic shook his head no, looking unhappy. “You might be in national databases even if your old California records are lost. Sworn statements from our locals that our marriage is notorious and recognized by the community might mean more. Especially from the pilot if he’s well regarded there. We need to discuss it with either O’Neil or his pilot buddy. If they need to make inquiries at the other end we’ll have a couple of weeks until he can report back what it’s possible to do there.”

  When Eileen made a face, Vic shrugged. “Thank you, but we’ve waited this long. A couple more weeks won’t kill me.”

  Eileen put her arms around his neck and leaned forward nose to nose and forehead to forehead. “Do not assume my concern was for your patience.”

  * * *

  “This is profoundly disturbing,” Director Schober of the Martian Republic said. “The Centralists brought three large masses and inserted them into a polar orbit, all within about a ten-hour span. They are likely rocky masses going by the signature of the radar returns from Phobos.”

  “The Moon Queen said they would have a station,” Director of Safety Liggett reminded him. “Does it interfere with our operations or get too close to the moons? Did they speak to our people or give notice they would be local traffic? Did they even identify themselves?”

  “They put it in a much higher polar orbit, and truthfully, it comes nowhere near enough to be a hazard. They never called or acknowledged Phobos Control, but they chatted in the clear while positioning them. Our boys recorded it and sent it down to me.”

  “It, or them?” Liggett asked, confused. “Did they string a bunch of rocks along the same orbit or keep them together? We don’t need a ring as a hazard to navigation.”

  “They are all three together, but what is alarming is they brought in a rock about a hundred meters across and positioned it. Then they returned in a couple of hours with one almost twice that size. It took the best part of an hour for them to figure out how to bring the second rock up in a trailing approach and then make them touch and stay together. Here, listen to the chatter as they did that.”

  Schober played with the screen on his desk, frowning and then leaned back. “Here it is.”

  “OK, everybody, rotate one-eighty and let’s see if we are aimed right,” Jeff said.

  “Not bad, not bad. Shift 2.377 degrees negative on our tangent line in the orbital plane. We’re closing at 32.483 meters a second, at about fifteen hundred kilometers. Close enough on path to leave it as is. If anybody has any different numbers speak up. Deloris, we will wait for you to be positioned. You have more mass to turn. We are going to do a micro-jump in a hundred twenty seconds from the numbers and computer tick I am giving you, now.”

  “I show positioned,” a female voice said.

  “So do I. Everybody on auto? Ready?” Jeff asked.

  “Aye,” Deloris said.

  “Aye,” another male voice said, and there was a silent pause.

  “Bingo,” Jeff said.

  “Is friggin’ magic,” Deloris said, awe plain in her voice.

  “I read closing at 3.121 meters per second,” Jeff said. “I’m hoping that is enough to deform the touching area without any rebound. Back off, in case there is any spalling.”

  “When can we bump them together hard enough to get some melting?” Deloris asked.

  “When we are playing pool with much bigger balls,” Jeff said. “And it’s never going to be big enough to gravitationally deform to a sphere.”

  “Maybe we could bump it with a small snowball hard enough to liquefy the ice. Make some of these gravel balls mud so it is soft and deforms.” Deloris said. “It would boil off or freeze then pretty quickly. You’d have a crust in at most months.”

  “You say the most interesting things… Contact! I see a little debris on radar, nothing that should be a problem. I’m betting it isn’t even above escape velocity,” Jeff said.”

  “Orbital parameters look good. We can nudge it around with thrusters from time to time if we need to.

  “Everybody game to do one more?” Jeff asked. “If we double the diameter we’ll have to be below the horizon from each other and have to coordinate off a relay drone.”

  “You made provision for that in the software?” the other male voice asked.

  “Yes, it times our signals back and forth to the drone and syncs our clocks,” Jeff said.

  “OK, one more,” the male said, “and then we’ll do an after-action and let some others watch it and critique us.”

  “Deloris?” Jeff asked.

  “I agree with Kurt, let’s do one more trip and a group analysis tomorrow.”

  “OK, sending target coordinates. Let’s assemble ten kilometers higher so we don’t bump the rock, and go together just like dragging this puppy.”

  “You’re on,” Kurt said.

  “Roger.” Deloris agreed.

  “I take it they returned with a third rock?” Liggett said.

  “Indeed, they vanished off radar very much like their vessels did before and returned with a rock near four hundred meters long, though kind of shaped like a peanut in the shell with a smaller nut in one end. Have you seen those?” Schober asked. He was older and many things he took for granted mystified the men like Liggett from a younger generation.

  “Sure, I’ve been to a bar in Texas where you cracked them open and tossed the shells on the floor,” Liggett said.

  “They brought it back and had a great deal more trouble because it wanted to tumble. At one point they considered just tossing it away, discarding it into a solar orbit, but eventually nudged it into the other two already together. They seemed a bit surprised and happy it didn’t knock them apart although it closed on them much slower. Do you see why I am concerned?” Schober asked.

  “Sure, if they can move a large body around so easily they could probably aim one to drop right on us,” Liggett said.

  “Yes, although they already have the ability to wipe us out with one missile with one warhead, this could be used to make it look like an accident. Worse, it’s a big enough weapon to do the same to our allies and Earth nations upon whom we depend,” Schober worried.

  “We agreed that would ruin the leg
itimacy of their claim on the southern polar region. At least this sounds like it is a new thing for them, not a polished skill,” Liggett said.

  “For now,” Schober agreed. “Think to the future though. Someday we need to have an equal deterrent to balance them as a threat. The day may come when they have sufficient presence and improvements on their land to have a valid title in the eyes of others without our grant.”

  “Creating a moon may aid their claim,” Liggett decided. “Would there be any advantage to leaking this development to Earth?”

  “I’m conflicted. The Earth authorities aren’t blind. They must know Central has its own starship technology, yet they say nothing publicly. Our own supporters on Earth might not appreciate us forcing a public discussion. This recording and the radar records suggest they have a technology similar to the French.”

  “More advanced than the French,” Liggett insisted. “We don’t see the French moving objects around and showing up various places unexpectedly inside the Solar System.”

  “You’re right. And after dealing with the Moon Queen I sense trying to blackmail her over exposing this would be a dangerous undertaking. I see no path to getting weapons that would intimidate her either. Let me think about it. Discuss it with me another time.”

  “I have my serious doubts any of the Earthies would sell us nukes if that’s what you mean. Even the richest of our initiates and supporters might balk at helping us there. They do still have to live there for the most part, and there is a considerable sentiment on Earth still to try to limit or jam the nuclear genie back in the bottle,” Liggett said.

  “Still, keep it in mind and cultivate any possible sources,” Schober said.

  Liggett nodded agreement with a serious expression. He didn’t trust himself to say anything. If Schober did a voice analysis he would be able to see Liggett had reservations. Strong reservations, because the idea of Schober controlling nukes actually scared him far worse than the Moon Queen playing cosmic billiards. She seemed calmly reasonable and sane, but every day he was a little more certain that Director Schober didn’t have all his screws turned down tight.

  * * *

  Heather didn’t get many requests for a private audience from her landholders. They could speak to her after she held her weekly court, but most were too busy to want to sit through the judicial matters to speak to her. The doors were locked after she started hearing cases and there was no telling how long they would take. That would still be in a public forum if others were waiting for a chance to speak with her. There weren’t many people she’d grant a private meeting without some substantial need for privacy being given in the request. All of that was by design to save her precious time. Most of them communicated with her by text instead of demanding a face to face, which was just fine with Heather.

  Several described discussing issues among themselves before having one of their number approach her. She wasn’t offended or suspicious of that. A less confident ruler might have worried about the potential for conspiracy. It just made good sense to her. It probably saved a lot of her time that would be wasted rehashing everything with them one by one. The number of people who were habitually finding something to propose could be counted on the fingers of one hand anyhow. Frymeta Obarzanek was not one of them and had not in her memory ever been the spox to present a group proposal. The family had enough wealth and status to request a private audience. They had never wasted her time in the past so she’d give them the benefit of any doubt at least once.

  The whole Obarzanek clan kept to themselves to the point of being reclusive. Heather hadn’t seen Frymeta for some time and she obviously had gotten Life Extension Treatments. When she first walked in, Heather had a momentary disconnect, thinking she’d sent her daughter instead, because the woman now looked so much like her older daughter Yetta. It didn’t help that she had her younger daughter Laja with her. Heather was used to seeing the pair of sisters together. They did most of the clan’s business dealings with the public. It helped Heather clue up on who she was, and not say something stupid, that the woman looked younger now but still wore the same dark clothing as before. An American would have immediately labeled it as ‘old country’. The daughters were both thoroughly modern in their dress, wearing bright colors of a stylish cut.

  The clan was one of the bright spots in her domain as far as business activity. They were the first of the landholders to start sinking an elevator big enough to handle freight and they took it all the way up to the surface too. Other owners started their vertical lifts smaller and lower, avoiding any surface exposure for safety. Central had been bombed once and might be again.

  “I’m going to have coffee,” Heather informed them. “Would you care for something?”

  “That would be fine,” Frymeta said. Her daughter waited on the mother’s response before adding her own, “Please.”

  Heather looked over her shoulder getting a nod from her housekeeper that she was on it.

  Heather didn’t waste time on ritual chit-chat by asking after their family. For one thing, they had imported so many relatives she’d lost track of their names and relationships. They’d also put a sizable deposit on another lot as far away across Central as possible from their first holding. They had a twenty-year option on that property to redeem it or lose the deposit. Heather didn’t expect them to lose the deposit.

  “What can I do for you?” Heather asked and sat back relaxed. She’d learned to do that to signal to people she intended to hear them out and they needn’t rush to get their say in.

  “Have you observed we have accumulated a mound of broken rock in the middle of our property?” the Matriarch inquired.

  “My engineer, Mo Pennington, mentioned it some time ago,” Heather remembered. “He remarked on it because other landholders are also bringing up material from tunnel boring, but most of them inquired where they could dispose of it. We obtained permission from Robert Lewis to dump them on the south slope of his mountain.”

  Frymeta nodded. “That side already has a gentler gradient. I expect in a few years he’ll be able to plow a series of switchbacks up the contributed material and have a road to the top of his holding. I’d charge him if he wanted our fill, but that’s others’ concern if they want to donate it. Once they abandon it there as waste I don’t think anyone would argue they can claw it back should they find it has value or they find a personal use for it after all.”

  “I’m sure you are aware that is a source of litigation among the Earthies right now,” Heather said. “Landfills and waste storage are suddenly resources and claimants are trying to regain rights to what they paid to throw away. It’s a mess with much of the trash having been hauled across county or state lines. There is even an international case where New Jersey wishes to mine the ocean floor beyond the national limit where they dumped millions of tons of garbage for decades.”

  “I don’t expect any better of the Earthies,” Frymeta said. “We fled North America before we too were reduced to being rag-pickers. Australia is better off, but some of our cousins and Grandfather Blas have joined us from Australia, unsure of their long-range future.”

  Heather felt the same but just nodded and stayed silent. As Sovereign, she realized everything she said had an official component to it. She didn’t have the luxury of a completely private opinion except speaking with her partners April and Jeff. Australia was, if not an ally, a trading partner who treated them better than most Earth nations. It would be better if she could not be quoted as viewing them negatively.

  “I try to have as light a hand in governance as possible,” Heather claimed. “It’s no concern of mine if you want to build your own mountain. If it gets high enough I assume you will put a radar reflector and a warning light on it. Mr. Lewis did that with his mountain even though it is a natural formation and nobody asked him to do so.”

  “So shall we,” Frymeta promised, “and we will stay back from our property line a good margin, so whatever the natural angle of repose turns out to b
e with our waste it won’t intrude on our neighbor’s property. Have you wondered why we have all this rock?”

  “I try to mind my own business and not speculate,” Heather said. “I’m happy you are tunneling like a bunch of demented groundhogs and I assume you are just going to keep excavating your elevator indefinitely.”

  It was Frymeta’s turn to nod noncommittally. “We stopped the surface shaft with a break at ten kilometers actually. We’re going to have parallel shafts running from six kilometers down to wherever it gets too hot or the composition of the rock is unfavorable.

  We’ve put measures in place to prevent any blast from the surface damaging the parallel shafts. It’s safe from anything short of a ground penetrating nuclear device, coming straight down the center shaft. We put the elevator at the corner of our property to facilitate selling lift services to our adjoining three neighbors. They are welcome to make connector tunnels to our bottom stop as long as they build in certain safety features. Their tunnels must have jog-backs from blast attenuating dead ends and provisions to collapse large sections on command.”

  “That seems like sound practices,” Heather agreed.

  “Where most of that pile has come from the last couple of lunars is a new shaft on the opposite corner of our property,” Frymeta said. “We are building an elevator six times the area of the old one to be able to carry the largest anticipated rover or a spaceship.”

  Frymeta stopped talking and just looked at Heather as if she expected a reaction.

  “Did you think I’d object?” Heather asked, surprised. “Knock yourself out. Just because we own a few ships doesn’t mean we’ll regard you as competitors. We’ve never thought of ourselves as primarily freight haulers. I’d be happy if Central were known for ships. It’s too bad we can’t really compete with Home for shipyards because building in zero-g is easier.”

  “Who are we?” Laja spoke up for the first time and asked, a little irritated. “I dislike having undefined terms when we are talking business.”