"Maybe they're preaching to the grandmothers expecting them to influence the generals." April guessed.
"I think you value the wisdom of elders more than the Earthies," Jeff said. "Also, it doesn't seem aimed at other groups. I don't see any push to convince academics or professional classes. Of course it may just be an initial effort and they'll phase it in to a wider audience. We'll have to wait and see if that's the case."
April perked up. "I like that. I like that more than you might think. Yes. If it's a general position they are going to push – long term - where do they start? They test it. They start with those already sorted as suggestible, and they start with those who, if they mess up and get push-back, it will do the least damage to them. Once they have feedback and an idea what works then they apply the same message, customized now, to more difficult portions of the population to manage. I expect that's what we'll see now. I think I'm understanding better now how a huge propaganda machine works. It wouldn't work here. But I think you've helped me figure it out. Thank you."
"Always happy to be of service," Jeff said. "Talking things out with another person always opens up new lines of thought. I'm afraid I didn't contribute much to this one but being a sounding board."
"This may actually mean they have accepted they're going to have to live with us for a long time, and are making accommodations to that reality, preparing to control their populations for the long haul," April said.
"If that's the case it might be in our self interest not to try to argue with them about where the plague came from or our status. If we do it could have a significant destabilizing effect, and they might feel a need to abandon accommodation as a policy," Jeff warned.
"But it rankles, to not fight back against their lies. You said you had agents who identified the source of the flu," April remembered. "Couldn't you use them to expose the truth?"
"Yes, if you want to destabilize a whole bunch of Earth governments, and cause chaos and maybe even war down below. We had two agents, one of them came up to Home already, and the other went back to his ancestral home in Russia, far away from Italy where they were in danger. As the civil situation stabilizes, who knows what records may have survived to be consolidated and collated. It might only take one surveillance camera shot or a taxi cab record matched to unravel everything they did. The testimony of the one who came here would be suspect for his coming here, and the other fellow doesn't want to be found. I don't want to endanger him by looking. I wish you'd just drop this. It's the sort of vendetta in which you may win, but you will be dead right."
"I'll let it go," April agreed. "For now. But you spoke of karma once. You know if the day ever comes the mob finds out they've been lied to, and are dying years early for it, they'll tear the politicians apart with their bare hands."
"That seems a possibility," Jeff agreed. "Although I can think of a handful of other deadly lies that never roused them to action. But I think we should always keep information about LET on our public servers. Just like the archives of our Assembly meetings and other things the Earthies are already blocking from their nets. That way, come a day of revelation, the onus is on them, not us."
"Agreed," April said, but he could tell she still wasn't happy about it. Well, neither was he. He also really wondered what eventually happened to a certain priest they'd interrogated, who was the deliberate source of the Great Flu. It was far too dangerous to try to find out.
* * *
"You're kidding," Tara said. "Why not Switzerland?" he joked. He had the comm and didn't look away to respond to Li.
"According to this, that's just as possible if they wished, and met all the conditions," Li said, waving the flimsies in his hand. He printed out physical copies of anything this important.
"If we are to be Home flagged I presume they have a flag? I never imagined they had need of a flag. Where would they fly it? Inside with no breeze to lift it? It would look silly hung on a spaceship."
"They paint an ensign on at least some space ships. That's an argument right there it is no farce on an ocean vessel. Here, look. It's not too bad looking." Li moved forward and showed him a sample image of it, a deep blue flag with three gold ellipses increasing in size right to left along the top edge of a larger angled ellipse. Tara glanced at it, and then back to the sea.
"Hmm, modern, like Brazil's. I like that it isn't just colored bars or heraldry. Are you disposed to accept their invitation?" Tara wondered.
"I have to at least sleep on it."
"Would it affect your own status? Or mine for that matter?" Tara asked.
"No, a Panamanian ship can sail without a single actual Panamanian aboard," Li said. "Although I'm seeing Home citizenship as a plus, more and more."
"Maybe you should go up and see the place before you commit to that big a step," Tara suggested.
"A shuttle ticket is a pretty expensive," Li reminded him.
"Tell your friend, Jeff, you want a ride up and back on the Chariot," Tara advised him. "They are making the trips anyway, and they never have every last cubic meter packed to the bulkhead. They always run up against mass limits first."
"Umm...maybe. That's an awfully big favor," Li said. "To forego my weight in steaks."
"They didn't have any trouble asking you to push the limits all the way across the Pacific and make a big target of us," Tara countered. "You have me to command while you are gone – for now. I'm not promising to be here forever. Would you want to leave the Tobiuo in anybody else's hands if I decide I'm done with Earth and ask for a lift myself?"
"No, not with the crew we have now. They're good hands, but you're right, I'd dread leaving the Tobiuo to any of them as master," Li admitted. He looked at Tara. "Perhaps you should schedule a trip up too, if you are seriously contemplating quitting Earth."
"True. It seems like too many go there running for their lives, or simply because this is the only chance they will ever have, and they're unhappy here. It makes sense to make that choice from a less imperative set of circumstances if you have the luxury."
"Let us think on how to put the question to Jeff then. For both of us. We'll talk about it again, perhaps start a dialogue about it, when we reply to the question of reflagging her," Li said.
"That sounds good to me," Tara said, hands on the wheel.
And if both he and Tara eventually emigrate, what would become of the Tobiuo? Li thought.
* * *
"It's still too big for everyday transactions," Zack complained, tossing the one gram Solar on the counter between them. "And what am I supposed to use for change? People are turning their nose up at USNA dollars and outright refusing EuroMarks. There isn't enough Tongan money to be found and I think people are hoarding Australian dollars. They are getting so ratty I'm getting them laminated in clear tape now. The tape is probably worth as much as a single, but we see very few of those."
Jeff had simply stopped to buy some things. Not intending to get in a big discussion. He needed to set up Dr. Walter Houghton as a roommate. The man took his offer of employment. He didn't wait until the last day either. That was tomorrow. Jeff appreciated not needing to run and make arrangements in the last hours of Walter's quarantine.
He'd gotten an entirely unexpected earful from Zack when he made his purchases. Apparently he'd been saving this particular rant up for some time. Not that Zack didn't have a valid point. He had Eric Pennington with him to run the bedding, towels and things back to his office for him on a hand cart. The boy seemed very interested in the discussion.
"Zack, I'm just as aware of the problem as you are," Jeff assured him. "Don't you think if I had a solution I'd have gone public with it by now? I can't make something like a centigram Solar for pocket change. It costs more to make it than the face value.
"Why can't you make conventional coins?" Zack demanded. "I understand encapsulating the metal and making it traceable for a significant amount of gold. But you could make cheap bare silver or copper coins just like Earth governments did years ago, and count
erfeiting wouldn't be an issue. The metal itself would be the value. You could even make them open source, and let anybody who wanted mint them for that matter. Or offer to mint their metal so cheap it wouldn't pay anybody to make dies and counterfeit them in the first place. It would be cheap and easy to make testers that check the weight and volume or even the thermal conductivity or something to validate they were the proper metal."
"We don't have enough copper or silver," Jeff explained patiently. "The Rock seems to have only about a hundred ten parts per million of copper, and even less silver. Every bit of it is too valuable and scarce to use for coins. If you struck coins from it they'd just be taken out of circulation and put into electronics and other things. All you'd do is drive up the value of the metals by increasing demand, and distort the local economy. Maybe ten years from now we could do that, if we have a dozen asteroid mines here or out there on site, churning out a whole lot more metal."
Zack just looked irritated. But he was smart enough to recognize a valid argument.
"OK, how about doing the reverse of Earthies, and having coins, Solars, for the large denominations, and paper or plastic money for the small change?" Zack proposed.
"Earth currencies work very nicely right now, as far as security," Jeff said. "Look at EuroMarks. They expire in a few months, so they have to be produced really cheaply. Don't you think I've looked into it? But there are a half dozen countries big enough to produce their own. The other countries use the German mint or two other big bank note companies, one in England and one in North America, to produce their own money. It just requires a huge scale to get the needed economy. I am not willing to outsource our money to Earthies. I don't trust them, and Earth governments could interfere with even the commercial printers, and use our own money as a weapon against us."
"Yeah, I can see that," Zack admitted. There was a short silence as both of them were out of ideas.
"I can see a solution," Eric volunteered.
"Well, enlighten us," Zack said. Fortunately he didn't taint it with sarcasm, because Eric was determined he'd tell them to stuff it, if they talked down to him because he was a kid.
"Not for free. You guys need a fix. I have one. I want either a job in your bank as head of monetary creation, or one tenth of a percent of the cash made using my methods," Eric demanded of Jeff.
"Go for the set fee," Zack counseled Jeff. "If you let him get a foot in the door the damn kid will have your job in a year." It was the nicest thing Zack had ever said about Eric.
"I don't know. I have enough jobs on my plate without fighting this problem. Maybe it would be worth hiring him to have it handled, and free up my time. What kind of a cap or time limit on the tenth of a percent? Assuming it is valid and works," Jeff added.
"No cap and in perpetuity, Eric said, stumbling over the word he'd recently learned from his banker Irwin Hall. He thought it made him sound much older and more sophisticated.
"Cheap at twice the price," Eric said when Jeff didn't respond right away.
Zack just did a face plant and groaned. That wasn't helpful at all.
"This will take a lot of your time," Jeff warned. "Are you willing to cut back on your second hand sales and courier business? Can you work with people and suppliers, to make the parts of this scheme you can't do happen? I'd expect you to work on making Solars too, not just smaller denominations. I have no trouble with a tenth percent fee to make them."
"I have people to do all that stuff," Eric assured him. "I only come do courier work for important people, because I want to have a relationship and opportunities to work with them. Like this, now."
"He has minions...I should have known," Zack said.
"You're hired, and the tenth percent fee of small money as your base salary, if you can convince me it will work," Jeff allowed. "Now tell us."
"You didn't talk salary or bennies beyond the set percentage for small stuff," Zack protested. It wasn't clear to whom that objection was directed.
"Jeff will treat me right if I do the work," Eric said with conviction. "He has a reputation with a hundred shops and sources to protect. From shipbuilders to security guys. I think he really is an OK guy, besides being trapped in the local net and under everybody's scrutiny. Would you sell me something junk and not make it good?" Eric asked Zack.
"You? No way. You'd post it on every blessed public board, and write it on the corridor walls," Zack said. "I might as well close the Chandlery down and be done with it."
Eric nodded, satisfied. "My sister sells prints of her drawings. Of course they're cheaper than the original drawing. I think she hates to let those go at all, so they sell very high if she decides she can part with them at all. You'd be surprised how many sell down to Earth, even though she has never advertised there. Of course, you know Earthies, as soon as she started selling them down below they started copying them. Nothing you can do, if you can't declare war on them like Jeff here. But now when she sells a print to Earth she sends along a little card with a seal of authenticity for that print. It's like the seals you get on aerospace parts or tamper proof tape to put on stuff. If you lift it off it's ruined, and can't be put back down or on something else.
"But the kind she uses doesn't say 'VOID' or 'DISTURBED' underneath when you peel it. It has a hidden number. If you peel it yourself then it is automatically voided. If they want the print authenticated they have to send the card back to her asking to authenticate print number 1207 or whatever. She'll peel the hologram and check the hidden number against her record. If it's valid they pay her a few dollars for her trouble and she sends them back a new letter of authenticity with a new hidden number registered to the print. It's not just out there and dependent on being hard to fake, it stays in her control.
"The tags are mass produced and really cheap. She buys them a thousand at a time. I suggest you sell the same sort of seal on a card. Maybe business card sized, not a bigger one like she uses. They'd be awkward to carry a bunch around. But each one would be a certificate for a hundredth of a gram of gold. People could trade them around, but you would only accept a hundred of them at a time to redeem for a real coin. But only cards with the seal intact and you check the certification to redeem them. For a small fee of course. Or maybe free for enough to get a full Solar." Eric added.
"What happens if somebody starts buying seals and making their own?" Zack asked.
"It's like Jeff said about the money, it costs a lot to set up and make these. It isn't a generic seal like shipping tape, she gets a thousand at a time because that's the minimum to have her own design. If you order ten thousand they don't even add a fee for doing your own logo. Nothing is going to be impossible to copy, but you can make it not worth the trouble to try. You'd have to go around to a whole bunch of places and pass them. It would be as stupid as counterfeiting one dollar bills when it costs a buck and a half to make them. If you deal with a company in Switzerland or Japan, someplace that isn't hostile to us, it should be pretty safe. Safer than the places he's talking about for printing bank notes."
"And what happens if I take one of these and it is fake?" Zack asked. "Do I just eat the loss?"
"If you are dumb enough to take a whole stack of them, yeah," Eric said. "But that's not the kind of purchase for which they are intended. If I get one from a customer for courier work for example, I'm going to know who gave it to me. If I start getting a bunch I'm going to write numbers on the back to be able to track who gave which to me, and if somebody wants to give me more than two or three I'm going to want to have him initial them or rub each one to get his DNA signature on them, if I don't know him really well."
Eric stopped and thought. "Maybe it should have a peel cover or a fold over, and only rip it off and touch the card when you give it to somebody who is going to turn it in to Jeff to redeem it. I can't see many of these going down to Earth to complicate things. It's for local use."
"I will go see your sister and look at these custom security tags," Jeff said, "You know, it all still depends on
everybody trusting me to actually have the gold on hand to redeem them. If I print them like crazy and don't hold the gold back it would all fall apart," Jeff said. "That's usually what happens."
"Modesty is nice, but I think you underestimate your reputation," Zack said. "If it depends on your reputation I'll take them in trade. Besides, your women are officers of the bank aren't they? No way all three of you are going to turn crooked."
"They aren't my women," Jeff protested. "They might...object if they heard you phrase it that way. They each have their own businesses and reputations and integrity, indeed, Heather is a head of state. And April..." He hesitated to say what April was out loud. It was complicated.
"And everybody knows April," Zack finished for him. "Indeed that was my point, that I would do business with either of them, independent of you, or of each other. No offense intended in the usage."
"Do you have the gold to put out enough of these certificates?" Eric asked.
"By the most fortuitous of circumstances, yes. But I want an agreement with other parties to issue them in that form. They were expecting the larger Solar denominations." Jeff frowned. "I don't know what we are going to call them but certificates is too big a mouthful, and I don't want to call them 'certs'. We need something short and descriptive."
"They're small," Eric said. "Just call them bits."
Chapter 12
The Sovereign of Central, characterized by some of the Earth press as Queen of the Moon, Heather Anderson, pulled her blue terry robe around her snuggly and stirred some brown sugar into her oatmeal, the sugar was precious, imported, as was her cup of coffee. At the moment it was a privilege of royalty, although she had assurance they would be getting more soon. It was very early in the morning which was the only time free for an impromptu meeting.
Her breakfast companion was her best driver, all around handyman, and loyal subject, Johnson. He was really a good solid fellow, bold and reasonably smart, but Heather had found out over the last couple years he lacked an expansive imagination. That was one reason he'd never been made a Peer.
They Said It Would Be Easy (April Book 7) Page 16
