"I have to call in a few favors and ask questions before I can make that promise. I'll be back to you quickly," Jeff promised.
"Sooner I throttle up, the sooner we get there," Li reminded him.
* * *
"Maybe..."Jon said. "It depends on what you consider a reasonable trigger for intervention. What do you consider a hostile act and what are your desired response levels?
"If an aircraft or vessel makes a course change to intercept, especially if it must hurry to make an interception. I'd consider that hostile intent. I'd warn them with the smallest weapon you can choose. Maybe just paint the threatening vessel with radar from orbit first. With enough power density it's obvious you aren't surveying the whole region, but targeting them specifically. If they ignore the warning – kill them," Jeff said plainly. "Rods if that will do it, or a small warhead. The size of most of my stuff sends an unnecessary message. I don't want to provoke a general response. I do have a submersible on route toward their projected course from the east. It was loitering off Baja. But it's on accumulators. I can use it first to warn a North American sub or surface ship. Once I turn on the power they'll see it, big time. It isn't specifically armed, but they don't know that."
Jon wondered how it could be armed – unspecifically.
"I want this guy and his equipment pretty badly," Jon admitted. "I'll issue instructions to the militia and get volunteers to maintain a seamless special watch."
"How long before it is active?" Jeff asked.
"About ten minutes, " Jon estimated. "Nothing much is happening. Some duty stations have one guy covering, and if he's in the crapper or making coffee, he won't rush to his board unless he gets an emergency bulletin. I don't want to do that to them."
"Thanks," Jeff said, disconnected and called Li. "We are hot with an umbrella in ten minutes," he told the Tobiuo's master. "Crank it up."
Chapter 4
When April went to the cafeteria for lunch she had on her black cape with the scarlet lining. The closure was a silver chain linking silver chrysanthemums pinned through the fabric on each side below the collar. It was very dramatic and probably too dressy for the rest of her outfit.
When she entered the cafeteria Lindsey the artist was sitting with a sketch book open away from other people. She had one of the big heavy crockery mugs from Zack's Chandlery sitting a full arm's length away to safe guard the drawings.
Lindsey's face lit up seeing April, and she reached down and grabbed a shape like a hamburger bun. She tossed it at April, but it curved away, directed by Lindsey's spex undoubtedly. It made a barely audible sigh as it turned away from her. It was a tiny drone with interior ducts instead of propellers. April was impressed with how quiet it was. The little jeweled eye of a camera looked out of it at April.
Lindsey often carried a hand camera, or used her spex to take pix for her drawings, but this was something new.
April played along striking some dramatic poses and swirling her cape behind her. The little drone darted high by the ceiling one way and then the other, getting different angles, before it returned to Lindsey. She snatched it out of the air.
"That's fun, but I'm not sure about doing it with Gunny," April warned her. "He might have a reflexive urge to shoot it out of the air. Where did you get that thing anyway?"
"There's a Fuji company that sells toys, Tricky Treasures. It's meant for ages eight to adult it said. It's really light, so it was cheap to ship, except the packaging weighed more than the drone. I'll get you one if you like," Lindsey offered.
"I already ordered four," April said, touching her spex.
"You're fast. I'm not sure you can make a bunch of them fly together though," Lindsey said, weaving her hands back and forth over each other by way of illustration.
"Not my goal," April said. "I bought one to play with, one for Jeff to tear apart and see how it stays so quiet, and a second one to take apart because stuff like this you usually bust the first one beyond reassembling it. Toys aren't made to service or repair, when they stop working you trash it and, they hope, buy a new one."
"What's the fourth for?" Lindsey wondered.
"It's my experience if you buy a few of these mass produced things chances of getting a bad one are really high. Thus a spare, in case one is DOA. Their quality control on cheap stuff is horrible."
Lindsey nodded understanding. "I have some things to show you if you want to come back after you get your lunch."
"Sure," April agreed, "but I'll eat one table over, clean my hands carefully, and then look. If I don't I'm the world's biggest klutz. I don't want to drip mustard on your drawings."
Lindsey didn't argue at all.
Gunny joined them, displaying an unusually cheery disposition.
"You seem pleased about something, win the lotto?" April asked.
"I might as well have," Gunny allowed. "My house sold. The base where I was assigned before I had special duty expanded in a consolidation. A lot of bases closed, but mine ended up half again as big, and housing in close is at a premium. A lot of empty homes were in bad repair, but other than the yard looking like a jungle and a minor rodent infestation mine was in good shape.
"The houses around it stayed occupied even after the epidemic. That and being right off the main road to the base saved it. Nobody busted in and stole the metal and there weren't any busted windows. When word came down that Wiggen herself authorized my retirement, the State Department people who were charged with taking care of my house were afraid they might catch some back-blast. They went out and boarded the place up. It pays to have friends in high places."
"What about your stuff? Did they just dumpster it? Lindsey asked.
"The real estate people asked if I wanted it put in storage. I asked for my books and music and a couple family heirlooms to be shipped up standby. I told him to help himself to anything else, or give it to charity. I had a little city car, a two cylinder Brazilian gas burner, in the garage. I told them to take it too. It hadn't been started in a couple years. It would be a mess to flush everything and get it running. I don't dress the same anymore, to want the clothes, and I sure don't need stuff like a huge leather recliner that must mass a hundred kilos."
"Good for you," April said. She was done with her sandwich so she cleaned her hands carefully with a sani-wipe and moved over next to Lindsey. "What are you working on?"
"This is something I told you about," Lindsey said, closing that portfolio. "It's an illustrated history of Home. It might not be done for a long time, years even."
"This is what's new," she said opening another folder. "My dad is designing official space for Heather. She wants a meeting hall and court for her kingdom. Well, she wants it, but she'd probably make it look like the security kiosk at the mall. Jeff is really the one who cares how it looks. He insists people take you much more seriously with the right props. What do you think of that?"
April didn't just give her a glib answer but seriously considered it. "I have to agree. One side of me wants to say that in an ideal world it shouldn't matter. And yet I spent some serious cash when I was down on Earth having clothing made. I've seen how people treat me differently when I'm dressed well. You surely have seen how important clothing is to Cindy and Frank's customers. It's the same thing – image. Governments don't have pants, but they have capitols and courthouses and things, including some things just decorative, like monuments. That's sort of like jewelry," April said, running with the idea.
"My dad has been studying impressive architecture on Earth, looking at collections of pix and doing virtual walk-throughs. He got some architectural software, and has been doing floor plans, but the drawings it renders are pretty sad. They give you a sense of it, but the lighting never looks believable and the people might as well be little Lego guys," Lindsey said, with an eye roll. "They all look like Earthies too. Anyway...look at what I have. It's a start. Tell me what you think."
"Wow...It's big," April hadn't expected the high ceilings. Her mind was kind of stuck in th
e mode of station life. Cubic was expensive and you made things as compact as possible. The first drawing was of a domed room. The deck, floor she corrected herself, wasn't carpeted. She could tell it was hard and polished, because it showed reflections, the more so as it got further away from you. There were two huge arched doorways showing , neither centered. But the one closest to center you had the angle to see through better. It had repetitions of the arch framing the doorway periodically, but the view cut you off from seeing how far they ran.
"I've seen pictures of big churches on Earth that had these things," April said, making a high arch with her hand since she didn't know the terminology.
"My dad used a lot of Earth buildings for models. Cathedrals, and capitol buildings, he mentioned the Taj Mahal, and a couple famous mosques, some modern buildings too. A couple art galleries and airport terminals. He even mentioned a train station. So it'll have a lot of influences."
Lindsey's style was to detail the portion she wanted you view in detail, sometimes in photorealism, right where she wanted your eye to go. The perimeter tended to fade off in detail and intensity of the color. Thus the one exit door with the hall beyond in view was very detailed the other exit from the circular room and the dome structure above not so much.
"You have the texture of rough rock just perfect," April said. "But up above where it is fading out I see some lines and shapes suggesting a pattern. What is that going to be?"
"Dad isn't sure if he wants to leave the rock bare. He says that has a power all its own, especially if the tool marks are an interesting texture. Or he might make a couple bots to polish it all over a long period of time. It depends on the color of the rock down at the level they want to build it too. He said if it is really ugly he might even paint it. But up above on the domes and vaulted ceilings he wants art. I'm not really a muralist, but I'm trying to see if I can learn enough to do them like he wants. If I can't he'll have to find someone," Lindsey said.
Gunny and April glanced at each other. They didn't think that would happen.
"The room is magnificent," April assured her, "but the couple in the foreground..."
"Yes? Are they too close?" Lindsey worried. "They don't obscure anything important behind them. And the couple against the far wall gives you scale for the room, because the near couple are standing near the center of the pattern inlaid in the floor."
April hadn't figured that out. Or rather it was so cunningly effective that her brain made those assumptions like it would in a real room, without having to really think about it consciously.
"That's fine too, but that gown, where did you see that? I'd like one made for me."
"Oh...It was just something in my head," Lindsey said with a little dismissive gesture. "I used to sit in my boring Civics class back on Earth and doodle fifty of those in a period, to keep from going nuts. I'm at the shop tomorrow. Come by and Cindy will help me make a pattern off your scan and we'll have it fabbed. Unless you want it hand sewn, then we'd have it done in Hong Kong. Freight is back up pretty good. We should be able to get it lifted OK in a couple weeks since it would be so light."
"Machine sewn is just fine," April assured her. "I'm not a fashion snob. I doubt anybody looks at my seams that closely anyway."
"Wouldn't do them much good anyway," Lindsey said looking at the drawing like it was somebody else's work she'd just seen. "Just about all of it is going to be blind seams, except to keep it flat back by the closure."
Gunny stood up and leaned close to get a better look at it before Lindsey closed it up. He didn't want to bring food or drink close either. He must have approved, of the dress that is, not the room, because he looked at April and waggled his eyebrows.
"OK, I'll see you at the shop, tomorrow mid-morning," April promised.
* * *
Li had the sails down and the Tobiuo under power. He was holding the power level where the temperature on the electric motor looked safe. They'd never thought to add cooling. The installation had never been intended for long range cruising. He already had the access hatches open to the drive spaces with an air scoop improvised, and made sure the oil cups were full. It was an older rebuilt industrial motor rather than a specially built drive motor. It was cheap, but it ran fine. If he was going to modify the drive train much more he might as well look into a prop with a more aggressive pitch. He'd already installed a much bigger propeller when they added the electric drive. He also needed to know if the shaft could take the added power. It hadn't been designed as an integrated system.
Still, they were making 23 knots, which was nothing to sneeze at. It wasn't particularly comfortable though, with a quartering chop. The hull wasn't shaped for this speed. And undoubtedly they were making a racket with some prop cavitation. They were turning the screw faster than they would with a diesel. None of them had imagined they'd run on full power for three days. It made Li nervous because they were a changed datum in somebody's system, if anyone noticed, or cared.
* * *
Jeff looked tired. April decided a few months back to set the door to his palm, but he still used the door chime. It obviously pleased him at the time, and he'd thanked her. But when she reminded him he could just come in, and give a shout, he'd declined. He said it wasn't like he lived here. April was pretty sure that wasn't a veiled request to do so. Jeff wasn't that subtle, he'd just ask. But he said it was good to have another port, should he need it. She'd been tempted to ask what he was expecting with the nautical references? A storm? But she let it go.
April made coffee as she'd promised. Jeff looked like he could use it if he was going to be any company and not just go to sleep on the couch. She didn't stint on the coffee either, as she'd been doing some days for herself. No need to do that at all soon, she hoped.
"You look whipped. Do you want to get carry out instead of eating out?" April suggested.
"Yeah, whatever the special is. I'll pay the courier," Jeff offered.
"I'll have Lindsey's little brother do it," April said. She checked the net for the cafeteria specials today. All of them sounded decent, so she dropped a text on Eric Pennington to buy the first four specials on the list today and deliver them to her cubic. If they didn't eat everything she knew Gunny would never let it go to waste. There was room in the fridge, since she hardly kept anything there with so little coming up from Earth.
April sat back beside Jeff with two mugs of coffee, and gave him a solicitous pat on the knee. "So, did you get all your fires put out?"
"No. I'm not sure of any of them yet. We have the Tobiuo headed north in the Pacific to pick up a fellow we need badly. He has tech to test people for viral infections very early, within the first few hours of the virus starting to multiply. OK, maybe that fire is dampered a little," Jeff admitted. "It would have been a major undertaking for me to put an overwatch on the boat, but Jon is really the force behind this fellow coming up. Jon and Doctor Lee want that tech so they can loosen up the travel restrictions, before people get tired enough of them to vote they be lifted."
Jeff took a long appreciative sip of the coffee and didn't sit the mug back down.
"Good, because I'm not sure how I'd vote," April told him. "I'd like to see some evidence there's still a threat since things seem to be returning to normal on Earth."
"Jon and Lee aren't certain," Jeff admitted. "But if we open entry up too early we can undo all the good the quarantine did."
"OK, I can see that. I can be patient a while longer. But just remember, I trust you and Jon more than a lot of other folks. I'm glad you're taking care of Li and the Tobiuo. I'm attached to them and I'm sure Papa-san will support you in caring for them if you need to call on him."
"Papa-san is a customer of the bank. I hate to look like I need help from him. I'm fond of both just like you are. I'd love to have another vacation on the Tobiuo sometime. Even if it's never safe again with the flu we can still visit a remote area. The ketch is a significant resource for us too. She isn't just picking the scientist and his handler up.
We'll have a shipment of goods to drop off also."
"For North America?" April asked. Her face said that worried her.
"No, no. We never send anything into North America directly now. It's gotten too dangerous. Li will take her back south, at a much more leisurely pace, and move everything through Australia or New Zealand, even if it is headed to North America. It may seem crazy to haul it across the Pacific twice but it's safer. The Australians become responsible for it. I understand the Aussies repackage a lot of it to show local origins. It's pretty much a polite fiction, because everybody knows it wasn't made there."
"I've always kept the Tobiuo in mind in case my grandparents ever decide to come to Home," April said. "They live on the beach, and if they can't go get to a shuttle Li could send the little boat, the inflatable, in and take them right off the beach. But they've found one reason after another to not come up for years now. They have a very comfortable home and they're well off – for Australia."
"You never say much about them," Jeff said, cautiously.
"They have my com code," April said with a shrug. "When they call things have gotten awkward. If I tell them what I have been doing I have to stop and explain most of it in painful detail. They don't understand how things work here, and when I explain they don't seem to remember the next time they call. They were freaked out that I moved out into my own cubic before I'm eighteen. I can tell they think the Australian age of majority is a natural law. Once they called and saw Gunny in the pickup behind me and had to be assured I employ him, and he isn't some scoundrel taking advantage of a naive young girl. When I talk about you or Heather they fret similarly, about what sort of influence you are on me. They never seem to worry how I'm influencing you...My mom says her mom calls up and they have nice long talks, but it always gets strange and breaks off pretty soon when she calls me."
They Said It Would Be Easy (April Book 7) Page 5
