April 6: And What Goes Around

by Mackey Chandler

  "You just called him in the clear?" Jon was horrified.

  "Yes, it beats not calling him at all, and we spoke in generalities and did all real communication with video. In all that chaos how long do you think it will take for them to analyze all the back logged video if there were no key words in the conversation to trigger them to look at it? In fact how long do you think they will keep that old data with nobody going in to man the data centers? Perhaps somebody will recover it for historical interest in a couple decades," Jeff predicted.

  "It still seems risky to me," Jon said. "You have caches of payment in other places?"

  "No, I wish we had prepositioned some," Jeff said, obviously unhappy he hadn't thought ahead to do that, "but we've delivered help to a few key agents."

  "Are we on the same side or not?" Jon asked. "What possible reason do you have to keep secrets from me? Am I going to act against your interests?"

  "This, is a conversation April reported having with Gunny," Jeff admitted. "it's hard to break habits of need to know and organizational boundaries. She made the case that it's Earth Think and they shoot themselves in the foot as often as not denying information to their own people."

  "And you reject that idea?"

  "No, not entirely. It's just difficult to apply the general concept to a specific instance," Jeff said, taking a deep breath. "I will, however, force myself to do so now. We can't exactly do bank transfers. If we could it would endanger our people down there to associate them with us. In several key areas like Italy we dropped reentry vehicles and sent some supplies to our agents. Dave took about twelve hours to crank out a couple prototype vehicles when we decided to do it. They got a supply of small gold coins, some compact nine millimeter pistols and some laser com gear to contact us directly. We counterfeited the coins like Earth issue, so they would be recognizable to people."

  "Nobody thought these were missiles and shot them down?" Jon asked.

  "They were compact. About like a six liter bucket," Jeff demonstrated with his hands. "We stealthed them as much as possible and put them on a trajectory that didn't leave an ionization trail low enough to alarm anyone. They looked more like a natural atmosphere grazing meteor than a bomb. They also came down in daylight and were aimed at remote areas of farmland or park. If something with almost no radar signature comes down out in the boonies and there is no sonic boom it's easy to ignore. Especially with reduced manpower on duty to run radar. They aren't going to intercept some odd return that doesn't profile as an attack. We dropped them within a couple tens of meters so they grabbed them and left the area quickly. If we had to we could have hit the bed of a truck driving down the road so they didn't even have to stop."

  "Why not some emergency ration bars? You can't eat gold. Is anybody taking it?" Jon asked.

  "We can spare gold at this point easier than sending back food we paid to lift. I'm sure if you offered the gold to professional economists they'd agree it isn't money and worthless. However go up in the hills to the tiny villages and the people who hoarded food and farmers will feed you for a week for a little gold coin. We have more platinum but it just doesn't have the recognition or favor gold still has to Earthies. The landscape can be a picture of total devastation and gold will still bring out goods you thought unavailable. Call it peasant logic but it is still the reality except among the intelligentsia."

  "Thank you for trusting me with that. I have a mission for some of your agents if you would include it with whatever tasks you need," Jon requested. "I'd like to have them talk to some of the news people while there is still enough order for them to be found, and see what they can find out about the source of some of the flu stories we have seen."

  "Oh really? Jeff seemed interested. "Tell me more. "Does this benefit us all?"

  * * *

  "I worry about Li and the people on his boat," April said. "The last time we were with them on vacation they said Italy was so rough they avoided docking there. That was before the flu. How much worse must it be now? I'm afraid now we'll never have another Earth vacation. It'll just be too dangerous if this flu is established in the population."

  Jeff and April were both in one of the big Hardoy chairs. He was near as slightly built as her and in the low gravity it was plenty big for both of them. They naturally found the same center in the fabric sling. That was fine with him. Her arms were tucked up between them and Jeff was holding her loosely. It was very comfortable in the light gravity. She seemed disposed to be melancholy tonight and Jeff didn't want that. His reply was calculated to be upbeat.

  "It is lot worse. But we've helped them. I've dropped stuff to them in the open sea and they have work to do for us. Papa-san is still interested in their welfare even if it isn't his boat any more. I suspect they do things for him too, but I don't pry. Among other things they are getting some of the mushroom spores your friend Jelly requested. They are collecting a lot of little things that we can't get shipped to Tonga and routing it to what few shuttles are still lifting from Australia.

  "Dionysus' Chariot is scheduled to drop to meet them in international waters and take the other stuff they've collected onboard. They said they are sending us about a half ton of frozen fish too. They volunteered that and named some things they would like in trade. I was assured they have as much fish as they wish to eat and more. So we aren't running them short of food for themselves. They are loitering in a very safe area."

  "Where are they now?" April asked. "Someplace safer I hope?"

  Jeff lifted an eyebrow and considered. "I guess there isn't any reason not to say. They've gone around Africa, went around the Cape and are over south of Australia now. Australia isn't hit as badly as North America and Europe. So they were able to get some things for us there. They're going to stay in that part of the world for now. There are lots of areas they won't go. Nowhere near the Horn of Africa or Southeast Asia. Li said entire villages have gone out in boats and won't go back to shore, avoiding the flu. They fish and land in uninhabited places, but they live by piracy too."

  "I remember the storm we went through in Papa-san's boat," April said. "I wouldn't want to be stuck out there in small boats in a real storm."

  "Perhaps that will thin them out over a few years. The atoll we dropped to for vacation is so far from any big population center I think it would be safe from pirates or anything else. I can see us visiting somewhere that remote again. Besides we could have an overwatch for anything approaching. We could probably do it again if we have time and can justify the expense. But we'd have to have Dionysus' Chariot drop a second time to lift us again, instead of going to Tonga or someplace else to lift. But you are right that visiting Earth where there are lots of people may be effectively closed to us for a long time."

  "Li may ask to be lifted off Earth if it stays bad. They might not be able to buy repairs or parts and get to where their boat is unserviceable," April predicted.

  "We owe them. If that happens we'll pick them up," Jeff promised. "Even if they can't get a final load for us to pick up too."

  "Thank you," April said. "I still feel like I owe them."

  "Gunny assures me you have a rescue complex," Jeff told her, grinning.

  "And if I do, the people I've rescued have turned out to be assets, haven't they?"

  "You know, I can't argue with that. To be fair, I'll mention that side of it to Gunny at the right moment," Jeff promised.

  "Good. Sometimes I still worry he thinks I'm silly," April said.

  "Sometimes you think too much," Jeff insisted. "You can get stuck in a loop."

  "You are undoubtedly correct, but how do I break it?" April asked.

  "You have to reboot," Jeff said. "Think on something different, something sufficiently distracting to demand your full attention and banish those other thoughts."

  "But isn't that just trading over to another loop?" She objected.

  "I certainly hope so," Jeff said, and demonstrated what he meant by distracting.

  * * *

  The trays
were spaced on shelves stacked fifty millimeters apart. The bottom of the shelf above had a glow panel printed on its bottom. By the time the plants needed more headroom the next tunnel would be done and they could move half of the shelves to racks with double spacing. The tiny green sprouts were almost identical. Two leaves on red stems in a Y, reaching up at an angle like spread arms, a hand's breadth apart. A bud just starting from between them. There would be no thinning of this crop. They didn't have the seed yet to waste planting three or four together knowing they would thin them out. There were just a few spots missing a spot of green color. The seed had germinated very successfully.

  These were sugar beets and the isolation suit the young woman tending them wore was to protect the precious plants, not her. She would get a rinse down and step in a sanitizing solution before going in the next tunnel that had racks of cabbages.

  There were three long lines of racks and one narrow access aisle. The center row could be rolled over to move the open aisle to the other side. Eventually it would be motorized and even more compact and efficient. After the beets bolted and the seeds were collected there would be yeast tanks awaiting them as feed stock. It would be awhile before they could sacrifice a tender young beet for greens or direct consumption in salads or pickle.

  * * *

  Mr. and Mrs. Oswald were delivered by corridor cart to the Fox and Hare. That wasn't their real name but they had dropped 'Doe' that they had declared on entry as unusable. They were newly installed in their apartment, which they found abominable, on the half G level of Home. Their doctor was being pushy for them to come every other day for physical therapy and Mr. Oswald would, when it suited him. Mrs. Morrison needed it much less than her husband, but said she needed it and looked forward to it, more for the purpose of encouraging her husband to go. She saw how diminished he was compared to her husband of a year ago and wanted him to improve. He was a very stubborn man.

  They had a Polish and much less Anglo-Saxon surname on Earth, and were staying incognito with the goal of being able to return to North America without being prosecuted for gene-mod criminality if conditions improved. They had a very comfortable life, significant assets, and a position in society worth returning to if they could.

  He walked in with a cane, a new thing he detested, his wife taking his elbow on the other side, but it was she who was steadying him. The lesser weight on the half G level helped a lot both at their new apartment and here at the club in this stage of his recovery. He looked young from the LET they'd had, but thin and ill still from the ravages of the flu.

  They'd called and made reservations assured by reviews that this was a nice club. Of course there was only one other club offered on the habitat. It sounded as if this one had the livelier sort of atmosphere they preferred. It had been their custom to attend New Year's in a club for the last forty some years and they didn't intend to change habits now. The place seemed at least clean if not of dazzling decor. There was little in the way of special themed decorations for the holiday. The furnishings fell short of luxurious. The chairs looked more like lawn furniture to his eye and there wasn't a fresh flower or candle to be seen on the tables. The area of M3 through which the cart brought them to reach the club had a disturbingly industrial flavor to it.

  There were only three tables occupied at this early hour. They were shown to a small table for two with quite a good view of the stage but out in the open under the gaze of everyone.

  "We'd prefer one of the tables set back in an alcove with a little privacy," Oswald informed the host, Phillip, before he could seat his wife.

  "I'm sorry sir, those were all reserved, and they are all for four people."

  "Then unreserve one if you care to keep our custom," he suggested, sharply. He was leaning on his cane eager to sit down, but not here.

  There were four people at one of the better tables a bit above and behind them from the stage. The one man overheard them in the quiet room and called out to him.

  "Our table is plenty big for six if you want to join us," the man offered. "Those web chairs can be hard to lever yourself out of, especially with a cane. You can sit on the pull down seat at the wall and my wife and I will be happy to take the sling chairs on the outside."

  "No, thank you." Oddly the woman looked familiar. The women were dressed nicely, but neither of the men had a tie. The one speaking to him didn't even have a jacket. He had on a sweater. A gorgeous expensive sweater certainly, but more suitable to a ski lodge than a night club. It put him off. "My wife and I are newly arrived. I have no idea what sort of society you have here, if any at all. I will find out when we are properly introduced to it, but I doubt we will be socializing with people who meet others at," he looked around, "bars," he concluded, downgrading his opinion of the club. "I'm not sure I want to be here at all," he told his wife.

  "As you will. I meant no offense," Ben Patsitsas added kindly.

  "Oh please dear, it is too late to go elsewhere, and our place is so empty still and dreary. Let's do stay if only this once," Mrs. 'Osgood' pleaded.

  "Very well. I've give them one chance to impress me," her husband allowed. "I'd appreciate being on the other side though," he said to Phillip, nodding across the center of the room.

  The host switched them, which put them out of earshot of the fellow who had been so familiar. That was exactly what he intended.

  Jesse Duval was their waiter and arrived to take their drink order.

  "It's New Year's Eve," Oswald said, "What is there to drink but Champagne tonight? We'll take a bottle of Krug with appetizers now, and reserve another chilled for later, please."

  When Jesse knew how to decant and present a bottle of champagne smoothly Oswald was somewhat mollified. When Jesse came back and gave them menus he apologized. "I'm afraid commerce with Earth is so disrupted we have a much reduced selection. We normally have fresh oysters and live lobster, but that and some of our fresh produce is missing. What we do have I can assure you is first quality or we wouldn't offer it."

  "I can see why that would be," Oswald agreed graciously. "Things were a mess when we left Earth and you couldn't get half the usual things from the deli or your dry cleaning picked up. I never was one much for seafood. Do you have a decent steak that I can have blood red and hot through the middle with Potatoes Lorraine?"

  "Yes sir, I'm sure we'll please you," Jesse said, then he took Mrs. Oswald's order out of turn.

  Oswald asked before Jesse could leave. "The people over there, who spoke with us. The one woman looks familiar. Do you happen to know who they are?"

  "Yes sir, they usually reserve that table. The man who spoke to you is Ben Patsitsas, he's a well know novelist." Oswald said with his dour face how little that impressed him.

  "The lady next to him is now his wife. She is President Wiggen previously of the USNA."

  Oswald looked surprised. Jesse decided to reveal a small secret because he felt Oswald needed his attitude adjusted. "The other couple are the King and Queen of Spain who recently retired and left the burden of the throne to the younger generation."

  "Thank you. How nice you know your customers," Mrs. Oswald said. She spoke up because her husband didn't look like he could say anything.

  "I'm pleased to be of service," Jesse said with a nod, and retreated.

  * * *

  "We have a candidate," Chen informed Jeff.

  "Do tell? Already? I didn't expect anything so soon."

  "We interviewed quite a few news people, but we lucked out with a lady anchor in Rome. It seems her brother was feeding her information on gene mod people and the supposed church position about it, but she caught him out contradicting others public Church statements. She had a little falling out with him about it. She'd relied on some of his false statements in her reporting. You can imagine why she'd find that upsetting.

  "Then she made the mistake of saying she might want LET someday herself. That immediately led to a huge heated argument. In fact she never saw him again. He used to help her get thin
gs in short supply and then that ended just as the local economy collapsed and you couldn't buy anything for EuroMarks. He stopped arranging things for her right when she needed it most and her job vanished. Pretty harsh treatment for your only other living relative."

  "What does he do for the Church?" Jeff asked.''

  "He was high up in The Institute for the Works of Religion," Chen said. "What you'd call the Vatican Bank. But he is a Jesuit connected on many levels to scholarly societies who are not unfamiliar with the sciences and medicine. He's had access to impressive resources."

  "And she said what that led you to suspect him?" Jeff asked.

  "She said that when he went ballistic because she expressed a desire for LET, he used almost all the same language in condemning her as was in the documents he was leaking to her. This lady is no dummy. She heard him drop naturally into using the same words and phrases he was handing off to her as somebody else's thoughts when he got upset with her. She said at that moment she was sure he was the author, not just the conduit of the manifesto condemning LET and us."

  "How interesting," Jeff said. "How is it she has survived the pandemic if she is gene-mod?"

  "She never had opportunity to have it done. Things fell apart just then to where she needed to use her resources just to survive, not buy life extension. But he'd already disowned her and said she was committing the sin of suicide. As far as she knew he never came out of the Vatican again. Certainly not to see her. There's some hard feelings there so she didn't hold back telling us about him. Rather she vilified him," Chen said.

  "That is promising but it is hardly sufficient. In fact it's barely more than gossip," Jeff said.

  "Don't worry. We won't do anything without much more proof. His sister is wrong. He does leave the Vatican, even now with the conditions much deteriorated outside. We'll interview him," Chen promised.

  "That's good. I leave it in your hands then." Jeff agreed.

  * * *

  "Let me adjust this for your smaller hand," Dr. Ames, AKA Jelly, said. It was a grip in a frame with an adjustable spacing and a meter that retained the maximum grip reading until released. "Squeeze smoothly as much as you can comfortably without hurting yourself. Don't jerk it violently because that will give us a false reading."