April 3: The Middle of Nowhere

by Mackey Chandler

  "Ah, that's why we're standing in your foyer. Well one nice thing about being King, folks can't very easily throw you out on your ear," he said continuing down the hall.

  "However I will make this brief after seeing what sort of shape you are in. If my dear Elena is not actually sick in bed I'd like to say hello. I assume all responsibility for exposing myself. You would not believe the long reception lines with germy hands I have to shake. It's a wonder any monarch ever lives long enough to be assassinated. I even smile and shake the hands of those African fellows from where they have Ebola and all those gruesome plagues and there is this Romanian fellow who seems to always have some problem with his nose that requires digital intervention to the second knuckle right before he gets to me. If it isn't something I've had I will just add a new immunity to my huge collection," he said acquiescently.

  "Sire!" Elena said when he walked into the day room. She stood too rapidly and then had to sit back down hard. Her eyes were red, her nose rubbed raw and she had a big wad of tissues in her hand.

  "Oh sit down before you fall down, you silly goose. When did you ever become so formal? Do you think I've never seen a sick lady in her robe?" He perched on a chair arm way too close and asked them, "Did you try your luck on NLV?"

  "I won at first and then went in the hole a few thousand," she admitted.

  "Did you love birds try getting a room in zero G?" he asked her, grinning.

  "Shame on you, you old goat. You should take aunt Sophie up to find out about that for yourself. But we were assured the zero G thing is strictly from bad movies. On the other hand just about everything is wonderful at a half G. I could dance in high heels all night."

  "Was there anything worth seeing at Home that they didn't have at New Las Vegas?"

  Helena's heart clutched in her chest, but James, dear man, answered with enthusiasm instead of guilt. "Well, your security guys would flip out. A good half or more of the natives all walk around wearing guns like a wild west movie. They were very friendly, a young girl befriended us and showed us around. Everything is remarkably utilitarian, but even they have a couple small night clubs now. We went to one and it wasn't exactly Monte Carlo but it was fun."

  One of the security men came in carrying a large sack. "I believe this is your dinner?" he asked James and Elena.

  "It is, but I bet you checked to make sure it isn't a bomb," Elena predicted.

  The security man had known her for years. "Of course," he agreed. "Or a very small sniper."

  "Sit, eat your dinner," their King told them, getting back up. "You can tell me more when you feel better. I'll send word to your bosses I'm writing you a sick note, just like primary school." He never used the majestic plural unless he was making a bad pun. "That should save you any complaints. We'll find our own way and lock the front on the way out."

  They sat looking at each other until they heard the front door latch and the rattle of the security detail testing it.

  "There was no way to stop him," James said.

  "You could hardly slam the door in his face," Elena agreed.

  "If he catches it we are so screwed," James predicted.

  Chapter 24

  "If anyone has a lunar tunnel boring machine they won't admit it," Jeff said. "Working in a vacuum has to be a lot different than Earth. I found a German mining engineer who would come experiment on site, but he wanted six-million EuroMarks a year plus all sorts of bennies and guarantees. I can't justify that on something that might flop. The sort that make highway tunnels on Earth are as big and heavy as an railroad locomotive and cost a couple hundred million."

  "Dollars or EuroMarks?" Heather asked.

  "At hundreds of millions it doesn't matter which," Jeff assured her.

  "How about working up a couple designs of your own and making models to test it?" Heather suggested. "If one works well we can probably even use it to bore holes for pipelines or ventilation shafts and scale it up for man sized shafts."

  "We'll need bigger actually. We're going to need tunnels that the rovers can ride through, maybe even pass each other going both ways."

  "Eventually. I'm not sure we can push ahead to that stage right away, much as I know you'd like to. What will you do with the loose stuff that comes out of the tunnel?"

  "I've been thinking about that. We should keep it for feed stock to run the atmosphere plant. I'd like to select an area nearby and throw it into a big mound with a catapult. We have cheap power, low gravity and no air resistance. Fill a bucket up and when it reads the right amount on a scale it just flings it away."

  "How much oxy will we lose just by the tunneling process?" Heather worried.

  "Good question. I'm picturing a combination of thermal shock with lasers and mechanical scooping. It would be good if we don't have chunks big enough for any sort of milling to be needed. The problem is storage. I'd love to store the oxygen as nitrous oxide, but we need a source of nitrogen. There is very little in lunar soil and rock except a little from the solar wind. Iron oxides seem a good possibility since both are abundant. But I need a process to remove the oxygen from more reactive metals to store it with the iron."

  "What do the other lunar bases do?"Heather asked.

  "Import their nitrogen as liquid and recycle carefully. They make up lost oxygen from imported water. They don't really want their moon bases to be independent."

  "Yes that would agree with what the Armstrong people are telling us."

  "Oh and the lunar underground should be shirt sleeve temperature at about five point six kilometers. Being on the equator helps actually, it may be a hair closer. It should be a lot easier to attain that deep a hole than on earth. You have almost no seismic activity to contend with and not having any water to run into and pump is a very big help," Jeff said.

  "That's still a long elevator ride," Heather said discouraged.

  "Unless you tunnel down at a shallow angle in a big spiral. You can run side tunnels anywhere you please and maybe level out and make a complete circle level when you get to where the rock is the temperature you like."

  "How big a circle are you picturing?" Heather asked.

  "Well I was thinking one that circles the entire area you staked out. It would serve as a sort of perimeter road for the optimum lower level."

  "Oh my goodness, would that be pressurized? Think of the volume of air you'd need to produce to fill that!"

  "Well I'm leaning toward just gathering the nitrogen from Earth with a ram scoop by the time we need that much. Maybe processing it to nitrous oxide onboard," Jeff said. "Then we just recover extra oxygen from rock if we want to run higher ratios at lower pressures like in a suit. At about a hundred-thousand Pascal you can run a mix converted straight from nitrous oxide."

  "What do you want to bet somebody would complain we are stealing their air and they will run out in a year or two?" Heather asked.

  "Calculate the amount of lunar rock needed to return the oxygen and drop it down the gravity well," Jeff suggested. "As close as you can aim to the complaining party."

  "I think you have been hanging around April too much. We have to get away from solving everything by orbital bombardment," she insisted.

  "That would be fine with me," Jeff agreed. "But it has been working so far," he pointed out.

  * * *

  Papa-san leaned on the rail looking at the busy Chesapeake Bay marina and restaurant where he'd soon take Mother for dinner. He could hear lively music faintly across the water. "Lin, when we pick these two lieutenants up for Miss Lewis, we will have to transport them someplace they can safely lift for home," he said, in his thinking out loud mode.

  Lin kept quiet. This was how 'T' worked slowly around to saying what he wanted.

  "I'm grown tired of looking over my shoulder, even before the difficulties with the Chinese and the uncertainties of North American politics. I'm not sure various agencies will allow me to pursue my retirement in peace," he lamented.

  "That appears to be a real possibility," Lin admitte
d.

  "I'd like to take Mother and lift with the lieutenants when we deliver them. But I also want to leave you and all the other people in my service in a safe, stable condition."

  "We have been compensated generously," Lin said.

  "And you have served generously too," Papa-san said making a weighing motion with his hands. "I'd like to have the Hawaiian property sold off so it no longer has any attachment to me to attract official attention. You should divide up the proceeds according to both length of service and the level of responsibility. If anyone has particular needs or weaknesses of health or family needs you should adjust for that of course."

  "That is a very valuable piece of property," Lin observed.

  "I have other assets," he assured him. "It will not leave me impoverished. You have always had a fondness for the Tobiuo," he acknowledged. "I'd like to leave her to you as a severance package. I'd encourage you to retain her crew, but once I am gone that is your judgment as Master. You can even sell her if you wish, but she will serve as the basis of a business that will provide a fine return if you wish. If you do retain her I will ask April to make good on her offer of a compact fusion power plant to propel her and supply bountiful auxiliary power."

  "Could I return her to her usual name?"

  "You could, or I have documentation to show she can be any of three other ships too. I'll leave that and a number of contacts who can render aid such as we just received in the Bahamas. I suspect Miss Lewis might have the occasional errand for you like we are on right now, or you might specialize in cruising vacations for the space folks. They don't mesh well with Earth society already and I suspect the gap will only grow. But time at sea and in remote places can give them the refreshment of open skies and a planet their body fits, without the stink of cities and the press of the common herd. They certainly can afford it."

  "I can only accept with gratitude. But I have to ask, are you sure your daughter will not resent so much of her someday inheritance disappearing, scattered to the winds?"

  "Mama-san and I have the best of Life Extension Therapy. I think you will find that the techniques will advance now so much more quickly than the aging process itself, that waiting for an inheritance is going to become a futile exercise." He thought about it a little. "Unless your relatives happen to be of a conveniently conservative religion."

  "In any case Adzusa seems to be making her own way in the world successfully. I doubt she will every fall into any real want even if she should never see any further help from me or Mother. Nor does she seem fiercely accumulative to envy your portion."

  "I've noticed she travels light and fast," Lin admitted.

  "You should see to getting LET yourself soon. I'm leaving you comfortable, but you never know what can happen on a grander scale than we can control which might reduce your worth. Best to see to the important things like that while you have the means."

  "Is that something you anticipate?"

  "Frankly, yes. These things are cyclic and we’ve been very prosperous with minor glitches since the time of my father. Eighty years is an average for such a period. New technologies and the corrections of the last generation have prolonged it, but the people who remember the dark days of the Twenty-Tens and Twenty-Twenties as adults were too old to benefit from Life Extension. It may give them some extra time, but it can't restore them back into their prime. We are losing them and their caution," Papa-san said sadly.

  "So that is why you have significant assets in gold and platinum," Lin said, very aware of the heavy boxes they took from Hawaii when so many other valuables were abandoned.

  "Yes, it may not be a good investment at any given time, but it is a safety net for when the other investments fail with little warning. They do have counter-party risk no matter what people say, but even in the worst of times it has usually been possible to find someone who wanted them in exchange for necessities."

  "And if things should as you say, change down here, there is always the possibility I may follow after you," Lin said.

  "That's a good option to hold open," Papa-san agreed. "Just don't misjudge and wait too long to do it because the window may close for a time. I'm not sure what is going to happen when the knowledge that longer healthy life is available runs up against the fact most people can't afford it. You push against human nature at your peril. I know every religion that was serious about total abstinence eliminated themselves. For all their wonderful art and wisdom there are no Shakers today. People want to live and pass life on to their children. I can't see a special class keeping that to themselves for very long successfully."

  "Everything you said is agreeable then," Lin told him. "I suspect your counsel may be as valuable as your physical gifts in the long run."

  "Then let's hope April's young men show up and let us complete this plan," Papa-san said.

  * * *

  "There must be something valuable about any process that welds such a tenaciously bonded layer of stone to a metallic surface," Jeff concluded. The layer on the face of his half-meter bore tunnel machine could not be chipped off with a ballpeen hammer. At least not without destroying the coated parts. As close as he could figure, it put a centimeter of fused crud on the face of the machinery for every fifty meters of advance. That wasn't going to work.

  "I'm sure it could be used to coat statuary or something," Heather agreed, helpfully.

  "At least it doesn't build up on the lens," he said searching like her for some plus.

  "Not at that power density it won't. How about backing off the face so the plasma has time to cool before it reaches the boring machine?" Heather suggested.

  "I'm already so far back we are losing almost a minute every cycle to back off, shatter the face, roll forward and scoop up the debris, back up to shoot again."

  "I bet the composition of the vapor that condenses on the face of the machine is different than the grit that falls at the base of the tunnel face," Heather predicted. "Let's have it analyzed for chemical composition. If it is doing some of the separation for us it's a feature not a bug."

  "I could seal the tunnel up once the machine is in far enough to install a lock behind it," he thought aloud. "It would mean removing the debris in batches again instead of a continuous process. But the gaseous buildup might mitigate the plating effect. And the gasses might be worth harvesting in themselves."

  "Let's collect some and see what we have," Heather agreed.

  * * *

  "Mr. Crawford? You are served," the young man informed him dropping a rather thick portfolio in his lap.

  When they told him he had a visit from a lawyer he expected it to be a USNA prosecutor or someone appointed to defend him. This didn't seem to be either. "Briefly, what matter does this deal with?" James asked confused. "I've never heard of someone already in custody being served like this."

  "This doesn't have anything to do with any USNA case against you," the fellow said with a savage smile. "I have no knowledge of that. Indeed the USNA is a co-defendant to the charges against you, administrator Loesher, his head of security and several administrators on Earth and their department heads as well as NASA and the civil service administrators and executives up to and including the President."

  "For what? What is the accusation?"

  "That you held thirty-seven members of four extended family groups including two children in involuntary servitude. Conspired in a criminal enterprise to deny them civil rights, freedom of movement, property rights for the basics of survival and freedom of expression under color of authority by both civil and misapplied military law and administration under terms of both your own Constitution and the United Nations resolution on human rights and dignity. The suite before the World Court asks to include others still held at Armstrong under the same oppression not able to speak to their own situation. They ask an injunction to stop action and relief and punitive judgment."

  "Oh. I suspect Col. Loesher is dead," he told the man.

  "Yes, it has not been confirmed yet, but it is re
ported the entire expeditionary force was wiped out to the man." That didn't seem to bother him especially.

  "I will need to get a lawyer to make a reply to this and for whatever my own country is holding me. They haven't notified me yet why I'm being held." It finally penetrated that he was in trouble. How could that have happened when he always did just what he was told? He looked again at the man and it finally hit him. "They're going to throw me under the bus, aren't they?"

  * * *

  It surprised Huian when the taxi didn't go downtown to a big bank building in Bago. Instead they drove out into the suburbs and even past some plantations with rows of trees. She had no idea what sort they were, except obviously cultivated in orderly rows. The compound they stopped at had an actual gate house and her husband identified himself and was treated with courtesy. Their driver was escorted with them, but he was seated on the porch with a cool drink of some sort. They were taken inside and she was separated from her husband. He gave a very small nod to her that it was nothing to worry about.

  She was still worried about the children, the hotel provided a nanny to supervise them for the day but she was still uncomfortable. It was a grand glorious hotel, with a suite she'd have been happy to live in forever. But she didn't know them.

  The TV news in the hotel suite this morning had said the party chairman had died of a heart attack. Huian had expressed surprise. "Does anyone die of a heart attack anymore?" she asked.

  Her husband had made a pistol of his finger and thumb and said it depended on how big a hole the heart attack made. She found that disturbing too.

  The woman who escorted her to another room sat her at a table and joined her. When she called for servants to open the screens to the courtyard garden and bring refreshments she realized this was not a menial, but a member of the household. A closer examination of the fineness of the woman's clothing and the rich color of high karat gold jewelry made her chide herself for not being more observant.

  A very young girl, twelve or thirteen, came in with a tall slender silver pot of tea and a tray of cookies, sesame covered, dusted crescents and something plain looking. She suspected they were the source of the liquorice odor. The young woman surprised her by speaking neither Arabic, of which she knew only a few words, or Chinese, but English. "It is between meal times for us, but you have been traveling and might be off schedule. If you would like a plate of sandwiches or something more substantial tell us please."