April 4: A Different Perspective

by Mackey Chandler

  The man directly in front of him slept, having grabbed a pillow before they even took off. The fellow beside him in the aisle seat stayed awake like Otis. The one time he had gotten up and walked to the toilet he had gotten Otis's attention, because he examined everyone in the cabin much like Otis had. Indeed it seemed to amuse the fellow a little when Otis returned his stare without embarrassment. He was perhaps a couple years older than Otis, in fact he looked a bit like his older brother, with a little grey at the temples and a neatly trimmed moustache.

  The engines eased off cruising power and the airplane slowed enough he felt himself shift forward a tiny bit. They were starting the long descent for landing.

  An attendant came back from the flight deck and said something to a man in an aisle seat further up front, on the opposite side. Something about the tension in her stance caught his eye. The man got up and came toward the rear of the plane, with the uniformed attendant following. When he was close, but still about two rows away, he produced a badge case and displayed it to the attentive fellow in the next row forward.

  "Mr. Polzinsky? You are under arrest sir." His right hand, hidden behind him, came around with an automatic pistol held in close to his side. He had his finger laid over the trigger guard with good discipline, muzzle dipped toward the floor slightly, but Otis had definitely heard the safety being taken off and the hammer was back.

  Otis checked the pistol out quickly. The light caught familiar lines of engraving under the muzzle so he knew it for an Ed Brown made weapon, although he couldn't really read it at this distance. That was reassuring. Anybody carrying six thousand bucks of pistol instead of government issue likely knew what he was doing with it. He also favored the 1911 model himself, though he liked the modern 12mm Hornady cartridge over the old .45 ACP. Otis was so close to the fellow's line of fire that he welcomed any small comfort to be found regarding the man's competence.

  The man he'd thought sleeping, directly in front of Otis, turned in his seat and produced a set of cuffs holding them in close to his chest.

  "Air Marshal, I don't know who you think I am," the man protested, "but you must have me confused with someone else."

  "No sir and we're not Federal Marshals. Look closer," he suggested still holding the ID folder out, "we're ONI Protective Services. If you'd turn slowly to your left and put first your left and then your right arm behind you my associate will cuff you." He was attentive to the point he refused to blink and Otis felt sure the slightest twitch on the seated man's part would be fatal.

  The fellow complied, slowly enough not to alarm them. Otis was relieved when he heard the cuffs ratchet closed. The seated agent felt the man's arms and waist band before ordering him up.

  "I'll have people meeting me at the gate, or their driver at least and we can get my identity cleared up with no problem," the fellow was still protesting.

  "Yes sir, I'm sure they would vouch for you," The agent agreed. "We're quite aware you have deep local resources. That's why we're not getting off the aircraft in this jurisdiction. We'll remain in the back of the aircraft for the layover and return to Atlanta on its normal turn around." The ONI agents ran a wand over him in the aisle and Otis hoped they would do a full manual pat down in the rear before they got too comfortable.

  The boy beside Otis was quite awake now, watching the drama with rapt attention. He leaned out looking back as the agents escorted the fellow out of first class cautiously. The attendant went ahead of them telling the passengers to stay seated and not interfere.

  The speakers instructed them to belt up again. Otis had left his latched, just loosening it a bit. The boy turned and looked Otis in the eye for the first time, obviously excited at the arrest, but too well trained to speak to a stranger. Otis knew better than to speak to a strange child in public too. That was a quick way to get a trip to the local lock-up and a court ordered search of his home and computer spaces. Instead Otis turned and looked out the window at the rooftops flashing by and growing closer. They must be under a thousand feet now and the airplane's wheels went down with a clunk.

  Chapter 3

  April had a lot of issues to settle with Heather and Jeff. She told Gunny she wanted her privacy this morning for breakfast. He just lifted an eyebrow and didn't object. Gunny probably thought it was some sort of lovers spat or something, she thought in a foul mood.

  Not least of what she wanted to hash out was that Heather had accepted her real estate customers suggestion and declared herself sovereign. When the administrator of Armstrong had pursued them across the moon to their new homes and tried to arrest them, it had been a brilliant expedient to confer authority on her quickly. However, April still disapproved that she'd not dissolved the arrangement after saving the refugees. In fact, Heather had instead accepted the fealty of the remainder of the Armstrong people when she returned. That wasn't sitting well with April.

  She, after all, was owed a lot in Heather's development for her support and transportation services. April had not known she'd be owning a lot in a kingdom. One whose existence was likely to be quickly disputed by other powers.

  That bothered her enough, but the cherry on top was that Heather named her and Jeff as peers. She was getting a lot of involvement she hadn't asked for, but she certainly hadn't asked to be Dame Lewis!

  Her partners were already at a table as she expected. Jeff had barely started on his meal, because he was busy waving his hands and talking to Heather. Heather was further ahead, because she was methodically eating while she listened. April got a tray, heavy on calories and protein both, as she was gene modified and needed the extra fuel.

  "How long are you here?" April asked right away.

  "Maybe three days," Heather allowed. "When are you coming to visit?" she countered.

  "When you have a shower," April answered without hesitation.

  Jeff thought that far funnier than she intended. He launched into a description of the horrors of moon dust that did absolutely nothing to change her mind about the shower.

  "Look, you don't need an entire sanitary plumbing system," April insisted. "How about just a shower stall standing on a base tank. The mechanism vacuum distills whatever is in the base to an overhead insulated tank. Total capacity say thirty or forty liters. It heats it on a timer when you expect to use it. The base tank has a one liter trap for the solids that get distilled out of the waste water. You remove that and dump it outside every few days. The only loss is what gets carried out on your skin and the humidity lost with the air getting in and out."

  "Thirty liters isn't much," Jeff objected.

  "You set the temperature at one level. No mixing. You have a momentary contact switch that gives you a quick blast to get wet. You blast – shampoo your hair – blast again, soap up your body. Hit the other switch and it runs steady to rinse off. You have a selector to pick fine mist to make it last or a heavier spray, maybe pulsing," she speculated. "And it isn't just for you. It is a product to sell. Broken down to assemble or in a box ready to bolt in.

  He liked the manufacturing part of the idea.

  "A sealed box," Heather said dreamily, "that could fit in the back of a Russian rover,"

  Jeff just looked at her open mouthed.

  "You have that much headroom in a rover?" April asked.

  "You can just barely stand straight in the rear. You couldn't stand it on top of a holding tank," Jeff insisted. "You'd have to put a thin centrifugal lift pump in the floor drain in one corner," he said, immediately visualizing it, "the motor spinning it just outside the stall, with a waste tank and then a holding tank vertically beside the stall," He drew it in the air with his hands as he spoke. He looked at Heather again and realized he'd just admitted it was not only possible, but he basically had the whole design in his mind already. He bowed to the inevitable. "I'll draw it up tomorrow and let the specs to a prototype shop," he promised, before she even asked.

  "So I understand your refugees are willing to pay for the stuff they took from Armstrong when they fled
," April reminded her. "Have they ever got back to you and named a price or negotiated at all?"

  "No, not only are they not talking, but even though the Lunanet satellites are active again they won't take calls. They tried to sucker a bunch of people back to Armstrong because they need their skills, but they won't send a contract ahead. When you can't call in or out you know it's all a lie. I see why they want their critical techs back. They are asking how to run systems that are failing on them without experienced workers."

  "I heard about the lawsuit some of them filed. I understand their motives," April agreed, "and most of the accusations seem entirely accurate, but I wish they hadn't named President Wiggen on that list of defendants. In talking to the woman she is one of the few USNA politicians who doesn't irrationally hate our guts. I doubt the woman had anything to do with, or was even aware of, the oppressive atmosphere at Armstrong."

  "I hear what you are saying. Wiggen is one of the few things we have going for us, keeping Home and North America from war again and yet they have a point. If she didn't know about it, she did have a responsibility to know what her government was doing. If her underlings hid things and kept them from her, well, it is her responsibility to keep that from happening, if she is really in charge."

  "You may regret setting such a high standard for yourself," April pointed out. "As Queen of the Moon, you have a lot of head-strong, smart subjects there already. Are you really going to be able to keep them from slipping something past you ?" This was the first talk they'd had about Heather's new position.

  "I'm not Queen of the Moon," Heather assured her, refusing to be baited. "I am Sovereign of The Center of the Moon, which is a very limited thing and administrator of the Central Lunar Ranches. I advised them against this very suit, but they did not take all my advice. I will not limit my subjects' freedom to file in other jurisdictions, although I agree with you about Wiggen. If you hadn't been a trip wire on your recent trip down to Earth and precipitated the Patriot Party coup attempt before they were ready, I doubt we'd be worrying about Wiggen. She'd have been dead by now."

  "My advice," April volunteered, "is to get everything you can from the Earthies while she is in power. We really don't know what is coming after her. and it wouldn't surprise me if they try again, so you might not have a couple years. If you can get a write-off of the rovers and stuff they took, I'd think about dropping at least some of the terms of the complaint in turn. If you can get real freedom for the folks left behind in Armstrong who didn't escape that's the biggie isn't it?"

  "I'd think so. If they all insist on being vindictive it will disappoint me. I'm going to quote you about yielding on some points, if Armstrong reciprocates. You don't seem to realize it but they respect you."

  "Do they respect me or Dame Lewis?" April asked darkly.

  "Now April, be reasonable," Heather pleaded."If something happens to me I want to give both Jeff and you the authority to have a say in what happens to Central. If it were a corporate structure I'd have named you to the board as officers. If it were a legal partnership I'd have named you as junior partners. It's a sovereignty, so you are named as peers, as are my first subjects and heads of household Dakota and Ted. Do you suddenly have some irrational hatred of monarchies? I seem to remember you heartily recommending involving the King of Tonga to me as a partner in this adventure. Did he mistreat you when you lifted through Tonga that you've changed your mind?"

  "It's just a general feeling I've picked up from history lessons and things people say, that monarchies are outdated and tend to end up harsh, despotic. The object of bad jokes about 'Off with their head' and such. I feel uncomfortable being identified with one."

  "If you see me being despotic I'm sure you won't be shy to tell me. In fact if you just see me being stupid I'd really appreciate your saying so."

  "So, we don't have to wear funny clothes or do any rituals in your kingdom?" April asked.

  "Absolutely not. It's a responsibility not a privilege. In fact, nobody is obligated to address people by their titles. If somebody addresses you as Dame Lewis it will be because they respect you and want to."

  "Or because they want to be sarcastic and know they can get my goat that way."

  "In which case it is political expression I dare not stifle," Heather asserted.

  "Great," April agreed, grinding her teeth. "How benevolent of you."

  "I think April is right about one thing though," Jeff spoke back up. "It's to the good for now that President Wiggen stays in power and whatever small influence we have on Earth we should hope she remains and do anything we can to encourage that. We have no agents in place, so we are sort of at the mercy of people like those two lieutenants you had rescued, whose agenda just happens to agree with ours. and that's kind of scary."

  Chapter 4

  Otis sat still after they landed, letting all the aggressive people who enjoyed jostling each other recover their things from the overhead and elbow their way to the door. The couple behind him were on their feet before the seat belt sign went out, pushing their young boy between them to squeeze past those recovering their things from the overhead.

  When most of the crowd had cleared, he pulled on fresh sheer gloves. The increased spread of disease made them simply prudent, but he resisted wearing a mask or a nosie in public like many people did now. He recovered his one small carry-on and compact computer and made his way to the exit.

  When he talked to the studio yesterday, they had insisted they would send a driver to meet him. He'd said they didn't have to bother, but he suspected they might ignore that, as they had repeated that they would be happy to pick him up. He refused to play - How many times must I tell you to mean it? Sure enough, there was a man in a chauffeur's outfit standing well back, holding a card that said - Duggan. He was looking concerned, probably because the plane was almost emptied.

  "It's just one G in Dugan chief, but thanks anyway," he said holding the small case out for the flunky to carry.

  "Yes sir, but, uh, close enough for government work," he said in the oddest stilted manner.

  Otis looked around, wondering why the man stood so far from the exit.

  "Dead spot for the cameras here," the fellow said at Otis' inspection, smug at how bright it showed him to be. "Would you follow me please?" he invited, turning away. Otis was hard put to keep the fellow in sight, as he was still stiff from sitting. But why did he care about cameras?

  Outside the terminal, instead of meeting a car at the curb like he expected, they walked around the building, to a small lot for employees. The fellow looked back once, to see if Otis was following, but made no effort to let him catch up. Instead of a normal limo, or simply a full sized car, which so many businesses used now trying to look greener, they headed straight for a mildly stretched Jeep Dunestar. The big grey box had a driver behind the wheel already, which surprised Otis. The second man implied they were a security team instead of just a driver. Usually when people were hiring Safety Associates they were getting security for the first time, or expanding on very informal in-house arrangements. Otis wondered if they were replacing these men, or if the company would be asked to absorb them in their organization. He couldn't remember the contract addressing any existing personnel. The man didn't display any hostility, which was quite professional, if he was serving his soon-to-be replacement.

  The fellow held the door for him and handed him his case as he entered. The interior was set up with seats front and rear facing each other, with the driver partitioned off. Even with the slight stretch it was cozy, although so wide three could sit without crowding on each bench. He hadn't expected anyone else would be sharing his ride, but there were two men already seated on the rear bench, so he took the front. He settled in and made polite eye contact with his companions. He was prepared to ask if they too had business with the studio, but one glance told him they were very tense and expectantly waiting to speak to him. How odd.

  Whatever was going on they weren't just some other businessmen, waiting
to share the studio limo. Then the fellow holding the door gave a nod to the older of the two that was an obvious OK, before he went up front with the driver.

  Otis suddenly realized with crystal clarity that the misspelled placard and the man's awkward reply, had been sign and counter sign. What were the odds of such a random exchange working? Infinitesimal certainly. His phrase must have been embedded in his statement, certainly the whole thing wasn't a match, but the fellow accepted it, probably even admired it as slickly conversational compared to his stumbling reply.

  "Go ahead Henry," the fellow who was dressed a little nicer than the other instructed. He hadn't reached to switch any intercom on, but the Dunestar pulled away smoothly with no delay. His fancy cowboy boots and pearl buttons amused Otis. In other circumstances he'd have asked where the hell he'd left his horse.

  "Give us a minute to get away from the terminal," the same fellow advised. "There are cameras that can see through the tinting," he said waving a hand at the dark windows, "and there are laser systems that can read sound off the windows of even a moving vehicle."

  Otis nodded agreement, he was aware of such systems, but why would anyone use them on this vehicle and why was there was such need of secrecy? The first thought that had flashed through his mind, was that the studio deal had fallen through for some reason while he was in the air and they had dispatched a couple middle level executives to try to mollify him and make apologies for the wasted trip. But that wouldn't require such secrecy, nor explain the explosive undercurrent of emotion he read in these two's body language.

  One thing he'd learned was not to run his mouth when he didn't understand what was going on. He'd wait for them to explain what they were doing and why.

  He leaned back in the seat and tried to have much more than a poker face, working at looking bored and managed after thinking about how a yawn would feel, to trigger a real one. That produced a blink that shouted disbelief from the number two man. Whatever had them so uptight, they expected him to share their tension, not yawn.