“The Mars Project has a certain popular appeal in the public awareness,” Paul said. “They aren’t perceived the same as the rich spacers on the Moon and habitats. They don’t produce any expensive products to incite jealousy. They don’t flaunt public morals. They have a mantle of academic purity to some extent.
“The project was a matter of some pride for the Union when the Americans backed away from a Mars colony, and some of that still carries over. To show a heavy hand in dealing with them would be very bad public relations. There are space nuts even in our own government. How do you imagine they have retained significant funding during difficult times?”
“I didn’t think they’d put a handful of top administrators against the wall and shoot them,” Markus said, “although if they were a military outpost that wouldn’t shock anyone would it?”
“People don’t get elected for being subtle and deep thinkers,” Paul said. “It’s only for one supply cycle they will have people there who the public would see as stranded innocents. I assume they have been preparing to live independently for some time. Still, they are going to need some support from Earth. They can’t make so many things like their own electronics and medicines. They would be in dire straits in a couple years at most when things start to fail without replacements. Unless they have some other government outside the European Union lined up to supply them I don’t see how they will survive.”
Markus smiled, which was unsettling to see. “Then by all means let’s stress them to hasten this failure or reveal who would ally with them. We can be subtle about it. No need to do anything nasty and lethal, just inconvenient. In fact, let’s not burden our politicians with the guilt of doing so. They might have remorse and reveal things to the press from an over active conscience. You can manage an operation and not leave anything pointing back to us can’t you?”
“Probably,” Paul hedged, worried. “What do you have in mind?”
“You’ll need physical access to their re-supply. Food, drugs, even mechanical goods would do just fine,” Markus said.
“A lot of those things are sealed up just for normal consumer safety. It would be difficult to substitute our own items,” Paul warned.
“No need, just opportunity to apply an aerosol to things that will be handled.”
“Ahhh… yes, than can certainly be arranged,” Paul said confidently.
* * *
Sergio Sabato arrived on the morning shuttle from ISSII with very little luggage. He had a single bag that Christian Mackay recognized as a compression style bag with a tiny air pump on board that expelled all the air, making it more compact. That indicated he probably did a lot of air travel on Earth. It was handy to be able to compact your luggage to keep control of it as carry on. Of course, it didn’t do a thing to reduce mass which was what mattered more lifting to orbit.
Mackay was waiting for him at the security station. The way he handled himself in zero G said two things about him, he was new to it, and the the careful thoughtful way he used the lines and stanchions provided for people like him said he was intelligent and a quick learner.
The way he treated the Security officer immediately tagged him as a jackass who either wasn’t aware or didn’t care what sort of impression he made with Mackay, much less the officer. He immediately looked hostile when asked to touch the ceramic pad and state his identity.
“I thought Home was a bastion of liberty and you didn’t have all these intrusive government controls,” he told Margaret, waving at the plate.
“We like to keep a count of bodies aboard. Sometimes they turn up dead and it’s nice to have something to write on the toe tag. You will be asked to touch a screen leaving too. Tell us how you wish us to address the person we match to your genetic code so we don’t have to say, ‘Hey you.’ And we’ll be satisfied. Who you legally are by Earth records, and your business here, we won’t intrude upon,” Margaret promised him pleasantly.
“I’m Donald Duck,” Sergio said, touching the pad.
“Have a good visit, Mr. Duck,” Margaret said, and turned her attention to the next fellow. Sergio hesitated for a heartbeat, unbelieving she wasn’t going to give him a hard time back and argue with him.
Mackay was waiting and said,” I’m Christian Mackay, hired to be your guide and security by the Life Lotto. How would you like me to address you?” If he wanted to be called Mr. Duck for the next week Mackay didn’t really care.
“Sergio is fine,” Sabato said. “I’m not big on formality, and mister is just an extra word to say.” He didn’t offer to shake which was fine with Mackay.
“Why don’t you let me carry your bag?” Mackay offered. “I’m more experienced in zero G. If you can aim to jump for the hand rail there through the bearing opening, I’ll show you how to get to the elevators on the other side. It’s better to error a little bit to the wall side than fly through the opening and need to come back down off the overhead. The elevators will take us down to the level where your hotel is, and you’ll have the same perceived weight there you do at home.”
Sergio looked Mackay over with a growing grin. “Damn, dis da shitz to have armed security assigned. Are those for show, or do you really know how to use ‘em?” he asked nodding at the brace of pistols Mackay wore at his waist, grips forward.
“I’m quite qualified with them,” Mackay assured him. “Something that might not be immediately apparent to you, being new here, is that a great deal of the population has had the same sort of life extension therapy you came to acquire. I may appear about thirty to you, but I’m actually fifty six, and have years of experience as a security professional both as a partner in our own firm, as station security on ISSII, and in several police departments on Earth before coming up. I can usually resolve problems without needing to use a lethal weapon.”
“OK, that’s going to take some getting used to,” Sergio admitted. “I’d have pegged you as twenty eight maybe. How do I know if I want to send a drink over to a babe in a bar if I can’t tell whether she’s twenty or sixty?”
“Why would it matter?” Mackay asked. “Surely the sixty year old has the benefit of experience over the youngster. The truth is, after you observe them for awhile, you start picking up slight differences in those who are young and those who look young again. But you’ll see differences in attitude first. You might expect the sixty year old to send a drink over to you.”
Sergio’s eyebrows went up, and he laughed. “I guess that works too,” he allowed. He jumped close enough to grab the rail on the first try.
* * *
Sylvia smiled at the text and reported it to Diana. “Mackay says he didn’t bid enough and does it release him from his contract if he shoots our winner dead?”
“If he’s going to do that, tell him to do it before Doc Ames wastes a treatment on him. Would it be unethical to offer him a split on the recovered cash?”
“Don’t tempt the man. I doubt it would be good for his business or ours. We’d never be able to keep that out of the news,” Sylvia said. “One hopes the Pravos are easier to deal with. I’m sending Eric to escort them. April was very satisfied with how he handled the French guy. But we’ll take them to the Quiet Retreat the first night. They should arrive tomorrow. We’ll have to do that ourselves of course, Eric couldn’t. Once they start treatment they won’t feel like going to a club or anything else.”
“I remember,” Diana said. “The accelerated treatment plan was draining.”
* * *
Most of the food items to be shipped to Mars were bulk in low mass packaging. A few were in commercial packaging, and a few things such as small individually bagged snacks were secured in larger thin plastic bags and added as low mass volume fillers after the main freight of pallets and boxes were secured. The shipping clerk followed quarantine protocols, and fumed the entire hold with a non-persistent agent to prevent the transmission of pests such as fruit flies, weevils, or cockroaches to Mars.
An agent for the Committee on Public Order had replaced
the aerosol can with their own formulation. The CoPO agent chatted with the clerk after the switch, mentioning he’d been gifted with a bottle of expensive scotch by his brother-in-law, and the stuff tasted vile to him. It just happened to be the clerk’s favorite, so he was happy to re-gift it to somebody who would appreciate it. The story had the advantage of not even needing to replace the broken seal.
Another agency might have poisoned the scotch to create a dead-end should the matter be traced back as far as the clerk. The CoPO was running this as a clean operation, and was benevolent enough to put the counter agent to the altered bug spray in his booze. The fact he didn’t get sick would be almost as effective as a termination in stopping any investigation targeting him.
* * *
“Do what you feel you have to do,” Mo invited his wife. “I don’t have the time or energy to ask time off and make a special trip back to talk to you face to face. You’ve never really committed to Home. You’ve never wanted to apply for citizenship, and you know the tax rate is so low there’s no real excuse. You won’t even come visit me here, and you knew when we came up this was where I’d end up working. I’m not going to tell Lindsey to move back in with you.
“I don’t understand what you think would happen if you did force Lindsey to return to North America. She’d be an adult in a year, a full adult in three years, and special rights in another three. Even if you could convince a court to withhold her rights to contract and hold property it would be temporary. You aren’t going to convince anybody she’s of diminished capacity or anything. She’s too bright and articulate. Do you think she would support you indefinitely after you dragged her back there? She’d end up buying passage back to Home at terrific expense in a couple years and all the angrier you made her do that.”
“Do you really think she is mature enough to live on her own at seventeen?” Linda asked, “There are reasons people picked the ages of majority.”
“Yes, and not all those reasons were to serve the young person. Lots of them have to do with controlling labor and serving the purposes of agencies and factions like education. I’d much rather see her living on her own on Home than trying to be safe and make her own way in Chicago. But she isn’t living on her own. You didn’t ask, but she’s with two middle aged ladies who are providing a safe place to live and letting her pursue her art both for herself and as a business.”
“I just assumed she was with that little… with Jeff’s so called business partner, April. She’s been an influence on Lindsey since practically day one.”
“I’m much more worried about you than I’ll ever be about Lindsey. You’ll end up living on negative tax. The whole point of coming up here was to avoid that. I understand housing is so tight they don’t give single negative tax recipients private apartments any more. You’ll end up in a project like a college dorm with shared showers and a cafeteria. You’ll hate it,” Mo concluded.
“We’d have the family allowance for housing and everything else,” Linda said.
“You think they’d grant you space for an absent husband who is a despised citizen of Home, and let you keep an apartment after Lindsey left?” Mo asked. “You really are delusional.”
“You said single. Are we back to considering divorce then?” Linda asked.
“All you have to do to divorce me on Home is make a public announcement. You can send an all addresses text on HomeNet or publish on the public boards. You know North America doesn’t give a hoot for Home laws or customs, so you’d have to go through the full legal procedure on Earth if that’s what you want. I still have feelings for you, no matter how foolish you’ve decided to act, but I’m not seeing it reciprocated. Do what your heart tells you there too.
“Just be aware I won’t beg Singh to give my ex-wife a free apartment if you do so. I know you somehow think he is evil for not kissing your little butt, however he supplied where you live as a perk of my employment. Stop and really ask yourself what he gets out of the arrangement if I’m removed from the equation. I seriously doubt you could rent a full family sized apartment on your current job. So you’d end up in hot slots not even as nice as a negative tax dorm down below.”
“Are you still coming back to Home for your next leave?” Linda asked.
Mo looked out of the screen at her and something shifted on his face.
“Do you know what? No. Next leave I have, you can join me here at Central or not, as you wish. I have no need to run back to Home. If you want to visit I’ll have time to show you around, and I have room for you. I have more room here just for myself than what we have on Home.”
“I’ll let you know,” Linda said, wary a flat refusal now would precipitate a complete breach with him. She wasn’t ready to do that.
“You do that,” Mo agreed with surprising cordiality. But neither did he end with any terms of endearment before he disconnected.
Chapter 16
The Three welcomed their star travelers back. It was enough of a special occasion to take their report face to face but it was too late in the day. They invited them to sleep and share a buffet brunch the next day.
When they arrived at Heather’s private quarters Kurt was in a soft cast around his ankle and using a cane even in lunar gravity.
“What did you do?” Heather asked.
Kurt blushed. “I got up early to play handball with a friend. I simply tried to make a return I should have let go, kissed the wall much harder than I expected, and recovered very badly. It ripped some tendons that are going to take some time to heal. I’m afraid I’m out of it for a couple weeks if not a month. There’s an electric stimulator on it inside the cast. If the next survey is as easy as this one, a single jump to a local star, the rest of the crew really could do it without me.”
“We can talk about that,” Heather said, noncommittally. “Why don’t you make your presentation before we get into further planning?” That was directed at Delores.
“There were some interesting bodies in the Gliese systems,” Delores allowed, “but we were limited by being unable to land on any high gravity bodies. Gliese 667 Cc is a weird depressing place if you did land. It’s in perpetual dusk. There’s water but from high orbit no signs of life. I don’t know what sort of plant could get enough energy from the infrared sunlight to support life.
“There were a couple smaller bodies like Ceres we could have marked with claims, but really – how many of them can we exploit? They seem common enough none of us could see bothering to mark them this close to Earth unless we found one just lousy with copper or diamonds or something that could be scooped up easily, not just extracted with a French mill. If we keep claiming them we might end up having to run around keeping the generators fueled up or just write off the investment in the radios.”
That made April grimace. She hated to waste anything.
“What she’s trying to say, but is too polite and subordinate, is there isn’t really any benefit to fiddle-farting around visiting close stars when the whole idea was to go grab real estate far enough away the Earthies won’t be knocking on our door next week,” Kurt said. “That is, unless you are just compiling a catalog to selflessly give a treasure trove of astronomical data to the Earthie scientists for the advancement of humanity.”
Heather looked amused at that but stayed silent.
“Humanity would probably reject it as being impossible to peer review.” Alice warned. “I think my mother used to frequently quote something appropriate about casting pearls before swine.”
Barak wasn’t very talkative, but nodded agreement with Alice.
“I’m really conflicted,” Jeff admitted. “I didn’t see this coming when we were planning. I know that going far away is necessary to the basic plan, but it’s hard to take the leap to make a really big jump. If we cautiously keep jumping a little further each time we’d have some idea what our limits are if you don’t come back. If we go long all at once we’ll have no idea if it was too much distance or if you ran into a rock or met unfriendly natives
or what happened.”
“If we had two ships it would be a lot safer,” Delores suggested. “If we have mechanical problems we could come back on the one running OK. We could jump in far enough apart the follower could see if the other had problems like finding hostiles and jump back out. You could even go in stages. If you found radio emissions or something to make you worry about the next star, you could have one ship wait in the last system visited, and wait for the other ship to jump in and then back out to report.”
“We just really can’t afford a sister ship right now,” Jeff said.
“How about a sort of lifeboat?” Kurt asked. “Something we could grapple on, about the size of the old Happy Lewis, but without even the freight module. It’d be jump capable of course, but without all the instrumentation, high powered radar, and fine tuning for the in system navigation. With just enough cabin volume to jam everybody in and make our way back home eating ration bars and ignoring the fact we have no shower.”
“I like it. I know there are at least three construction scooters sitting surplus nobody wants to buy. Dave could convert one for fairly minimal cost. We wouldn’t need all the systems of the main ship.”
“If I may, I’d like to suggest a name for the lifeboat, if Kurt doesn’t mind,” Alice said. She looked at Kurt and then around and there was no objection.
“I think it would be perfect to name it Remora,” Alice proposed.
“Indeed, that’s perfect,” Kurt agreed.
“We could still do another close survey while we are waiting for our… Remora, and for Kurt to heal,” Delores said. “Better to keep our hand in than sit idle, and who knows, we might find a big asteroid of solid silver or something.”
“Yes, I’m sure you could, but I’d like to come along and sit the vacant fourth seat,” April said. “I have experience and can be an asset. And I don’t expect voyage shares. As far as I am concerned Kurt is just on temporary sick leave and can collect full pay.”
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