"You're welcome Ms. Paddington," he said in his usual formal manner and opened his computer back up. It wasn't a rude dismissal at all, he'd judged the moment exactly.
* * *
"They think they got us all," Col. Allister told The General with a sneer.
"They damn well got enough of us," the man acknowledged. He felt no sense of elation over dropping off their radar. It had cost about a third of his effective fighters to do so. Allister would be shaken instead of gloating if he knew that and this was not a good time to tell him.
"What is your direction now, sir?"
"We wanted to do this with some delicacy," The General explained. "The idea being not to alarm the public with images of tanks in the street or flames shooting out of the White House windows. Words have very little power to rouse people today, but they respond to images. Well, time is past to be subtle. We are well past when we anticipated firmly holding power. Some of our assets are perishable and some of our sponsors are impatient. Here's what we'll do…"
* * *
Lindsy looked over the tailor shop when they went to supper. From outside it looked very conservative to her eye. Almost like the bank with dark wood, brass fixtures and a green carpet. In contrast, most of the stores that catered to girls her age on Earth had glowing colors, brilliant lighting and loud music playing. Also conspicuously missing was security at the front door.
When they got home she looked at her clothing and picked out the least flashy items she had. She suspected it would be better to error on the drab side than trashy. She laid out black slacks a white blouse with fancy stitching on the collar and a sweater.
After she went to bed she lay awake a bit, nervous and she couldn't have said why if she'd been asked directly. It wasn't what she was going to wear, or that they might not get her jacket back together, it was really the way Faye sent her off on her own, to walk in cold and introduce herself to a stranger. Her mother never sent her off to an appointment with an adult, unescorted. In all honesty Lindsy had protested that to her mom a number of times recently. It spoke well of Faye's confidence in Lindsy, but strangely, it was terrifying, suddenly getting what she wanted.
* * *
"Jeff, can you put a hold on it and not load these bricks coming out now to the catapult?" Mo asked on com. They weren't really bricks, but they were similar in size to a big paving brick, though square, The name had taken hold and nobody was sure who coined it.
"Why? I don't really want to pile them up here and have to load them twice."
"They changed color the last load that came out. I want to know why."
"How about if I move the aim point of the catapult a little east and start a new pile?"
"That sounds good," Mo agreed. "Do I need to shut down for that?
"No, five minutes will do it," Jeff assured him. "Have you pulled some samples to test?"
"Yes, I have six of them set aside. Do you have any assay equipment?"
"No, we'll have to send them back to Home to have lab work done."
"When do we get the Happy back?"
"Not for another ten days. I don't think it's worth a special trip, do you?"
"No, it's not like we're going to lose them. The pile will be sitting there. I just have to watch so if it goes back to the old color rock I can get you to switch the catapult back. If there's anything valuable in it I still doubt it would be worth hand sorting. We might tunnel through it if it's limited. The geology is such it's unlikely to be a vein, it is more likely a layer. If it's thin we might break through fairly fast on a seven degree incline."
"How deep is it?"
"About six hundred meters. I wish we had some data from the other bases. I can't believe nobody has even done any deep cores. Armstrong claims they did a core two hundred meters deep and found nothing remarkable. They have to be lying."
"If anybody found anything worth exploiting, it would be pretty hard to hide the scale of operations you'd need to recover anything," Jeff asserted.
"Likely yeah. Don't plan on finding anything that would be considered ore on Earth. You know some of the regolith in polar craters can run a couple hundred parts per million of copper and gold and uranium don't you?" Mo asked.
"Yes and we'd need machinery to scoop it that works reliably in double digits – Kelvin."
"I didn't say it was easy, or somebody would already be trying it."
"If we get my beanstalk up it would be worth trying to solve the problems. You could vacuum distill the stuff in zero G a lot easier than processing it down here. It would just be automatic to top off the up-bound loads with it as standby freight. You'd do some basic processing to make concentrates. Take the majority of iron, oxygen and titanium out on site. Ship it as dust."
"Who knows what we'll find at five or six kilometers? Nobody has been that deep I'm sure. It'll be sort of exciting when we get down there. Even if it's pretty much the same, then we'll know, when we didn't," Mo said with enthusiasm.
That was interesting. Jeff couldn't remember the last time he'd heard someone get excited about scientific discovery, not for the money, but just for the knowledge. He hadn't expected that from Mo for some reason.
Chapter 27
"Do you drink coffee dear?" Cindy asked. Lindsy already felt funny that Cindy didn't want to be addressed by her last name. and on Earth you just didn't offer coffee to children. and what was considered to be children, socially speaking, kept creeping up all the time. They invited her to sit in the office, which was as comfortable and near as big, as the apartment the Paddingtons were sharing. A big screen showed the store entry and sales floor to them. They sat at a table with four real chairs, not folding or sling type seats and Lindsy was perched on the edge of her's, tense.
"The few times I've tried it I didn't care for it," Lindsy admitted. "I've heard some say it is an acquired taste, but I'm not sure how you can acquire it, if you just don't like it."
"I can tell you exactly how I came to like it. My family brewed it strong, Louisiana style with chicory. Awful stuff. Then I went away to college in Boston. I went ice skating, which was not a thing we did in Louisiana and I didn't dress warm enough. Well, I didn't own much that was warm, or have any idea what I should be buying. My idea of warm was to put a sweater on when it got under sixty degrees. That's Fahrenheit, dear," she said to Lindsy's scrunched eyebrows.
"Anyway… I was cold, actually shivering and someone had a Thermos bottle of hot coffee. We went in the shelter and I had a cup. It had real cream and just a little sugar. It might as well have been the nectar of the gods. After that it seemed a natural choice in cold weather."
"I thought it was my arm around you that warmed you up," her husband Frank objected.
"That was welcome, but the coffee was a god-send, scalding hot and I chugged it down so fast. I remember I stopped and bought coffee on the way to class the very next morning. It took awhile before I branched out and tried it without sweeteners and cream. Would you perhaps care for some sort of tea instead, my dear?"
"I'd like that, but am I taking too much of your time? If you need to be running your business I can show you my project and get out of your hair."
"See all the customers bothering us?" Cindy asked, waving at the screen. "We rarely have much business Monday through Thursday. You are likely to be our only diversion today."
"Why do you open then?" Lindsy wondered. "Why not just open three days?"
"I suppose it's old fashioned, but we feel like having regular business hours separates us from the hobbyists. If we weren't here we'd be back in our apartment and we're nearly as comfortable here anyway. I keep my knitting things here and Frank has been trying his hand at writing, which he can do anywhere, so we might as well be here if we should get the occasional rare weekday customer. Just starting out here, we need all the clientele we can attract."
"It gets a lot busier on the weekend?"
"Oh my, yes," Cindy said, putting the suggested tea in front of Lindsy. More a mug than a dainty cup. A squ
eeze bottle of honey, a tiny pitcher of cream and lemon wedges accompanied it. "Fridays and Sundays are steady and Saturday is sometimes busy enough we have people sitting waiting their turn to discuss what they'd like made and get measured up for it."
"There are also the occasional customer who doesn't agree with our fitting and wants things altered to be tighter or looser. Sometimes they wish a hem up or down and I had a fellow just recently who wanted two extra belt loops close on either side of the fly to control his belt running up or down better. People get strange ideas, but we are here to accommodate them. If they wanted mass produced they'd buy ready-made," Frank allowed.
"Wouldn't you like a little honey in that?" Cindy asked, pushing the bottle forward when Lindsy removed her teabag.
"I had honey so long ago, I'm not sure I remember anything but that it's sweet. Honey is really expensive now. My mom just buys sugar. She won't buy the cheap artificial stuff."
"It'll be a treat then," Cindy encouraged her.
"Mmm, that's good. Is the lemon compatible with the honey?"
"I think so, try it, if you like."
Lindsy was unfamiliar and awkward squeezing it, but eventually got most of the juice out, if not in the mug and wiped her hands on the napkin. "Yes, they're quite good together." She was finally relaxed, not poised on the edge of her seat ready to jump up.
"May I look at your pieces?" Cindy finally asked, gesturing at the bag.
"Oh sure, I got this jacket on sale, it's better than I can usually afford. I like it so much I ration wearing it so I don't wear it out." She pushed the bag across.
Cindy stacked the pieces of cloth in a pile, inspecting each, then sorted them into four stacks before she went back to her coffee. "We sell to an older clientele than you, you understand," Cindy explained. "Professional people who are fussy about their appearance on the job and can afford to have things custom made for them. It used to be when people rotated in and out they waited and had things made on Earth where it is cheaper, but we have folks now who live on Home permanently and have no desire to visit Earth for business or pleasure. People your age I find are not even aware you can have clothing made to your measurements, without being rich and famous. They think it is something musicians and royalty do."
"Did you see the pictures of April Lewis that were on the net a few days ago?" Lindsy asked. "I wonder if her dress was made just for her?"
"No, I know of Miss Lewis and I've seen her several times. But we have never had occasion to speak or do business together."
"Let me find it for you on com," Lindsy offered and looked around for the console.
"Use my pad dear," Cindy said sliding it across the table, "and I'll freshen up your tea."
"Here it is. She seems to be in some sort of club."
"Very nice I have to say," Cindy admitted. "The way it fits, yes, likely it is bespoke. and that needle work is most uncommon, fine handwork. They call it Boutis Provencal. It's like quilting, but instead of covering a solid mat you stuff defined areas after they are sewn up. It produces well defined loft against dead flat areas right next to it. and the pearl work is nice too."
"I've seen embroidery, but this is new to me."
"Ah, well there are all sorts of ways to decorate a finished garment. Let's lay your jacket on the scanning board." She led the way into the shop and spread the pieces symmetrically on a table with a grid of centimeter squares. The screen on the wall showed the pieces and defined each by size. Several had highlighted edges or corners. Cindy smoothed a couple places and nudged two pieces on the grid until most of the highlights cleared.
She took a mouse and clicked on points and corners of the pieces showing the machine what point on one panel attached to another.
"Why does it have arrows and yellow highlighting a couple places?"
"This was sewn on machines, but still by hand. One person did not sit and finish it. They would instead assemble pieces and pass it on the someone doing the next operation. The computer looks at it and sees where it would cut the pattern differently for its assembly methods."
"So it can't put it back together the way it was?" She'd been afraid of that.
"Oh, it can, but for example at the end of the seam that runs down the top of your shoulder. Where it meets the sleeve it has a little square stitched, where all the seams meet. It would cut and sew in such a way the fabric lays flat there, instead of the layers overlapping and being thicker. It's really no problem with this style, because it wants to emphasize the seams. It's part of the look. But if we wanted a sleeker look in a softer fabric it would look funny."
She typed in a few commands and the assembled jacket appeared on the screen.
"Oh, neat," Lindsy breathed, very impressed.
"Now if you wanted the same thing in black velvet with a butter yellow satin lining, which would flatter your coloring," she tapped a few keys and it transformed on the screen. "You get rid of the lapped seam and top stitching and in the soft fabric you need more length and a little flare." She dragged the hem down with the mouse and considered it. "And the front needs to open up just a hair so the softer collar lays further out," it changed, "and the button moves down a hair for the new length, becomes gold metal colored and we add buttons to the cuff. There," she said, satisfied and smiling.
"Oh my God, it's beautiful. You do that like painting a picture."
"Thank you. It comes easier after you do a few hundred. Why don't we measure you up and see what it says about the fit for you?"
"I'm really happy with how it fits. You really think it will suggest otherwise?"
"It can't change a great deal because there is no seam allowance to do it. But I'd like to see how close to ideal it is, since your feelings about it are so strong. Besides, we can make similar jackets now easily, so we should have your true measurements to work with and I want to show you how it's done."
"OK, what do I do?"
"Stand on the red oval in the carpet. Just stand relaxed. Good. Now raise your arms straight out to your sides. Then straight up. I like to do one more thing. Get one of the chairs from the office and I'd like to scan you sitting in it too."
When Lindsy carried the chair out and sat in it, Cindy considered the readings. "Do you commonly cross your legs when you are sitting?"
"No, I sit on one leg or cross them at the ankles."
"Do that then. Please."
"Well that's a different profile," Cindy laughed. "If I sat like that, after a bit you'd have to help pry me out of the chair," she joked.
"Mom and I intend to do something about that though," Frank interjected. Lindsy gave him a quizzical look. He didn't say much and then, when he did, he was mysterious.
"Oh, he means we're going to get Life Extension Therapy," Cindy explained. "It should limber us up a bit. I've been dragging my feet, but the idea is starting to look pretty attractive."
"Am I done then?" Lindsy asked.
"Oh, sure. Put the chair back and how do you feel about going over to the cafeteria and getting some lunch with us?" Cindy asked.
"I'm ready for that."
* * *
"Eddie, I want to give you a job," Jeff said.
Eddie didn't know what to say. He looked startled at first, then unbelieving, finally he flashed briefly through irritated and finished on amused. "Oh, thank you Mr. Singh," he said in an awful put-on Southern drawl. "You don't know what this means to me. The Mrs. and little Eddie had given up all hope. We'uns was gonna to be thrown out of the shack in a few days and didn't know where we'd go. Every since they shut down the garlic mines, folks here-'bouts has been doing poorly, so you're a God-send."
"Sarcasm ill becomes you Eddie. It isn't that kind of a job."
"Oh no! It's one of those jobs that doesn't pay anything isn't it?" he said in horror.
"Worse, it's one of those - "Somebody needs to do it." – jobs."
"Dear God, what did I ever do to you?' Eddie asked.
"Now really, if I'd offered you a million dollars a month, w
ould it have impressed you?"
"It would have gotten my attention. I'm doing pretty well, but a million is not yet a nice evening's dinner and entertainment with my friends."
"This is the sort of job that the pay day comes unexpectedly, five or ten years from now, when you call up and cash in your favors. When you remind me I owe you a big one."
"I'd rather you owe me five or six," Eddie quipped.
"I just might before we get through. I already owe you a big one for whatever you did with China. Jon was very plain in admitting that he handed it all off to you. I have no idea how you pulled that off. I realize I'm not as socially sophisticated as you are. I'm not even as slick with people as Heather. She has to be my minder at times and nudge me with her toe, or lift an eyebrow to tell me I'm going off in the wrong direction. People who are openly hostile, like the Chinese, I get and can deal with myself. But I'm in way over my head dealing with merely devious people. I'm trying to understand how they think, but it's hard. I need your help."
"You're not being sufficiently clear. What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to be my spy-master. I want you to create an intelligence agency. I can do the tech. I can get sensors in place and collect data, but I don't know how to interpret it, or what else to do with it. I need you because you understand people."
"In my spare time." Eddie said softly.
"Yes, in your spare time. If you spend ten minutes here and there on it, you'll accomplish more than me, beating my head against a wall all day long. I didn't say you couldn't delegate," he added. "I certainly am learning to do that myself. I'd love to be designing this lander Dave is going to make for us, but all I can do is review the design and try to direct the general form it takes. I can't sit and place every bracket and calculate every moment arm, like I did with the Happy," he said in frustration. "It would be a treat if I could."
"I already have a sort of network of ship owners and shuttle pilots, reporting scuttlebutt and dock rumors back to me," Eddie revealed. "I give out a few favors and contracts in payment. I've never really hired someone directly as an agent, or even given explicit bribes for information. You're talking about taking it to a higher level."
April 4: A Different Perspective Page 23
