April 4: A Different Perspective

by Mackey Chandler

  "We refuse, Earth Control. We would alter our course for safety, for flight hazards and potential collision, but not for political stupidity," Jed explained. "Too late anyway, our vessel is in the air already, climbing out of lower level controlled air space even as we speak."

  Indeed, the bright spark of the shuttle lifting grew brighter and more circular as it tilted away from the camera, climbing to their level as they caught up to it.

  "Yesss!" Jeff breathed.

  "Didn't blow up twice," Dave said, smugly. "I can't wait to tear that thing down and see the surface wear and what kind of stress we put on the drive housing."

  "Yeah, with a little luck we can reduce some of the weight of that housing. It's a pig now. But I'm just relieved to get it back."

  "You think the Earthies had a fit about us landing there," Dave told him. "Imagine the horror if it had blown up like a bomb on lift-off and strewn parts and pieces a kilometer in every direction all over their pristine environment!"

  "Good point. Well, we are clean away and they don't have any cause for complaint now," Jeff said.

  "Dionysus' Chariot just made a corrective burn," Jed informed them. "It has sufficient reactive mass to reach Home and everything appears to be operating correctly. I'm going to shut down this com feed if you are satisfied and we will follow her in."

  "That's fine Jed, thank you. We're shutting down this party here. Thank your crew too."

  Jeff shut down all but the plot that showed the two dots tight in polar orbit. They wouldn't change that until they were on the other side of the Earth.

  "I'm going to the beam dogs' place and have a drink and I'm buying if anyone wants to come along," Jeff invited them.

  Chapter 33

  "That's remarkable," Nolan Gilroy said softly. He studied the drawing intently, but didn't touch it, as if he was scared he'd mar it. "What made you put a sweater on her?"

  "The water is rough like there is a pretty good breeze and you mentioned it was in the fall. If it's bad I'll redo it." Lindsy offered.

  "No, it's actually correct. She did have a sweater, but an Icelandic one, not a button up. I just assumed you'd copy the photo exactly, but you got it closer to reality, all on your own."

  "Did you have a jacket on?" Lindsy asked. She'd put him in a windbreaker.

  "No, I froze my butt off and she gave me a hard time over it," he laughed. "It's fine just like it is. I'll recommend you to some friends."

  Lindsy took that to mean he was accepting it as a gift, but when he carefully put it back in the portfolio he took his hand comp out.

  "Let me swipe your port," he demanded.

  Lindsy didn't look until he was gone. He paid her five-thousand EuroMarks. She wasn't sure how much that was in dollars, but EuroMarks were bigger, if she remembered right.

  * * *

  "Will you be able to continue installing the final systems and the acceleration couches, while you tear the drive chamber down?" Jeff asked, over a mug of local brew.

  "Yes, but you want me to do a thorough analysis on that drive. Every kilogram I take off of the chamber is a kilogram of lift capacity, or better acceleration," Dave reminded him.

  "If it x-rays clean and the outside passes a dye test, can you cut it down instead of starting from scratch. That was an expensive hunk of steel to lift to orbit."

  "Sure, we'd have to fabricate new mounts, but that's cheaper than a hunk of die steel the size of a beer keg."

  "Could you leave the mounts the same and just mill pockets on the outside and leave a grid of ridges on it to stiffen it?" Jeff suggested.

  "Maybe, I'll run a simulation, that's going to be a high end analysis, it may take a couple hours to run. I'm not sure how you optimize the size of the pockets either. Where did that idea come from?" Dave asked, surprised.

  "I saw it on some pix of old hot rod cars," Jeff admitted. "They used it to lighten all sorts of housings."

  "You'll read just about anything won't you?"

  "I've never been able to get into romances."

  * * *

  "Turn on the Earth news," Jon urged Jeff. "I've got CNN and the BBC both running."

  "OK, I was sleeping. It's going to take me a minute to get up to speed." Jeff cheated by going in the bathroom first, donning his spex. He'd be out in a minute to see it on the big screen. He wasn't going to sit out there very long at all with a full bladder.

  The scene in both views was of the UN chambers. "Emergency Meeting called by China," proclaimed one banner. "Invasion of protected territory," said the other. The Brussels building was vast and dwarfed the old New York headquarters. The seats didn't appear to be packed for an emergency meeting. Jeff wondered what sort of quorum they needed to resolve anything.

  "The robot freighter Dionysus' Chariot," the speaker was saying, "owned by a Home company controlled by Jefferson Singh, landed on Earth territory which all the permanent members of the Security Council have agreed to hold in trust and in common, as the heritage of all mankind. We have agreement in principle to this arrangement since 1959, from every legitimate Earth government."

  "Point of Order! The representative from Madagascar shouted angrily, standing up. "There are forty-two members who are active participants in the Antarctic Treaty or have formally acceded to it, but there are between a hundred and ninety or two hundred nations in existence, depending on your prejudices and how you count. We strongly protest our nation and indeed three quarters of the world's governments being characterized as illegitimate. Carry on," he invited and sat.

  "Point taken. This arrangement has been agreed to by every important Earth government," he corrected. He was fortunate that looks can't literally kill. "While there is no previous UN resolution directly dealing with Antarctica, we feel the intent of the permanent members and supporting states, makes our will obvious."

  Jeff kept his spex on and started the coffee maker, before taking to the sofa and activating the main wall screen. The fellow was still talking.

  "The People's Republic feels it is time to add teeth to the treaty, given the defiant attitude of this Home citizen, Singh. I remind you Home has a history of ignoring their citizens' piracies. They not only refused to acknowledge the need to apply for landing privileges, but ignored a direct order not to take off again. We thus advance the resolution appearing on your screens. It calls for the active members of the Treaty to be obligated to enforce its provisions, by the use of force if necessary."

  "Do you think Wiggen will have their rep veto this?" Jon asked on the still open link.

  "I can't think why," Jeff decided. "Her political survival is better served by not seeming too favorable to us."

  The debate devolved into all sorts of details that didn't seem relevant. Jeff needed the coffee and even opened another screen and did some work, while the representative from Brazil rehashed some grievance from twenty years ago.

  When it finally came to voting it went quickly, Partially because of how few were there. Jeff and Jon didn't really care if Iceland or Algeria disapproved of his landing. When it came to North America it was interesting. The United States of North America abstained. The Russian Federation abstained too. China of course voted for their censure. The surprise was when the representative from France stood and invoked their veto privilege. He could have done that and sat down, but he explained why, the translation scrolling on the screen as he spoke.

  "The Antarctic treaty has survived for over a century despite being created during a time of great international tension. It wisely ignored the claims of various nations to territory on the continent, some of which were in conflict. Article IV sets aside these claims of sovereignty, yet the actions you request, by their nature, would raise issues of sovereignty again, even if a different, joint sovereignty. We believe it would destroy the Treaty. We are not unaware you have other issues with Mr. Singh, that would leave anyone in a bad humor. However the actions of this robotic space craft, examined alone, do not rise to the level indicated in this document," he said, waving a ha
nd at his monitor. "The possible damage to a few lichens and moss would be much less than you already accept from authorized exploration. We are not willing to throw away this Great Treaty for a," – the captioning stopped. The translator made no attempt to caption the last few words and he was done speaking, sitting again.

  "I don't speak French. What was that last they didn't caption?" Jeff asked, frowning, "A fair casa nervous?" he approximated.

  "A colloquialism," Jon informed him."A snit fit you'd say, or even cruder taken literally. It wasn't complimentary to the Chinese. It would indicate a lack of self control they might take as a loss of face."

  "I appreciate the French support, but I'd rather they didn't provoke the Chinese. I've been very happy to avoiding fighting them," Jeff reminded him. "Let's hope he didn't stir them up."

  "Seems to me they have to be awfully low, if not completely out of spaceships to trouble us," Jon pointed out. "Between what got shot up in orbit over the last year and what you caught on the ground at Jiuquan how much can they have left?"

  "I don't know, but you raise a good point. I really need to task some of my people to get an accurate count."

  "You have - people?" Jon asked with dramatic pause and visible amusement. Let Jeff explain what sort of people he had, who could be given such a project. Jon was pretty sure Jeff was running some sort of intelligence group, but it was bad form to admit it.

  It was too late to retract his slip and Jeff just frowned. Anything he said now could only make it worse.

  * * *

  "Some of our folks are determined to test Armstrong's offer of employment," Dakota revealed to Heather. "I'd do it myself, but not if I have to commute in a rover. It would be expensive, tiring and take way too long to come home for the weekends. Which is the minimum time sharing I'd consider for even a few months. They can't offer enough to get me to move back full time."

  "What do you want me to do about it?" Heather asked. "I can barely afford transport here from LEO to bring in the things we need to expand. If you want to hire the Happy to fly back and forth nobody is stopping you, but you know it'll eat up most of your wages to do that. I certainly can't subsidize transport. If there are several of you, could you ride-share and get the cost down to a reasonable level?"

  "We were talking it out. Two ideas seem workable. Would you talk to Dave, who has been doing your ship building and ask him how much a dedicated local shuttle would cost? Not capable of returning to Earth orbit and back, but just point to point on the lunar surface. Enough delta V to make lunar orbit and sit back down, with a little margin of course. Say six or eight seats, one of them being for the pilot. Not even pressurized, we'd ride in suits and just carry a little emergency reserve for the suits. He'd take it more seriously from you than us," Dakota predicted.

  "I'll ask Jeff to talk to Dave," Heather promised. "Jeff is the one who has always worked directly with him. But what is the second idea?"

  "When you get all the local roads fused, we sort of wondered if you'd make a road from Central to Armstrong? We'd supply free labor to do it and chip in enough to offset the wear and tear on the rover. Central could own it and charge toll. Maybe give the volunteer workers a pass or discount. But we're going to have wheeled vehicles for local traffic anyway. They'll be so cheap to operate, they'd let us commute easily."

  "I'm not sure I want to fund a paved invasion route for the North Americans," Heather explained. "Their last visit wasn't that pleasant. Are you really that trusting suddenly?"

  "Hey, the road goes both ways," Dakota reminded her. "We are allowed arms and in Armstrong they are restricted to authorized personnel on duty. They can't even take a Taser home off shift. I predict Central will have a bigger population than Armstrong within two years. Who is going to invade who? Let them sweat a road, not us," she scoffed.

  "Perhaps, but I still like your shuttle idea better, if only because it lets you visit other bases too. I'll get us an answer about that and give me some time to think about a road, OK?"

  "Sure, but consider this too. If you have a road, you might sell more lots to Armstrong people. Folks who would buy a place here for a second home, or a weekend retreat, because we are going to have shops and restaurants and things they have no plans for in Armstrong. They may be freeing things up a little, but they still have one government run cafeteria and a commissary. and we want to produce those wheeled vehicles locally. We have people figuring out how to make them with local materials, so you'd have a head start on sort of an auto industry."

  "That seems ambitious. Local materials?"

  "Sintered steel and titanium. We're thinking in terms of modules, kind of like Lego toys. A drive module and a passenger compartment module. Plug a flat bed on if you need to haul something like a truck, put more wheels under it for bigger loads, add another passenger unit if you need to carry four people. Picture it?"

  "Very much so," Heather agreed, amused. "Will I need an entire department of motor vehicles to make traffic laws and write vehicle standards?"

  "Heather! Why mess up what's working?" Dakota asked. "Consult with the guys designing them and publish a set of standards by Royal Decree. Maximum length, maximum width, minimum speed capability, allowable speed range for manual control vehicles. Maybe a high speed lane with automated control. Maybe a privacy protected log in system, so we know who is responsible for operating it if there is a wreck. You were going to have to do some of that eventually for local traffic anyway. I'm sure you can figure it out."

  "Your confidence is touching."

  * * *

  "You have three days, you act sixty-eight hours from now," The General told Col. Allister.

  * * *

  The >BOOM< jarred her physically, rocking the bed. She woke to complete darkness which was wrong, she always had enough of a light to find her way to the bathroom. Even outside the window was pitch dark, wrong again on so many levels.

  >CRACK< >CRACK< >CRACK< disturbed the brief silence, from inside the house.

  >BOOM< sounded again, but followed by a long shredding sound and a horrible scream. President Wiggen threw the covers back and went to the closet. She had to get some real clothes on for whatever was happening. She wasn't about to face it in her flannel nightgown. She was angry at herself for not having a flashlight and knowing where it was. The closet was closer than she gauged and she bumped into the door hard.

  Light flared behind her and her empty bed was illuminated. "Oh my God, where are you Wiggen?" her security chief cried. He panned the room and caught her in the beam. "You scared me," he told her, "I thought they beat me to you."

  "I've got to get dressed," she informed him. "Shine that light in my closet will you?"

  "Yes, yes and dress for outdoors, some good shoes, running shoes or cross trainers, not some silly dress shoes!"

  "Are we running then?" she asked.

  "Unless you want to stay here and die," Mel Wainwright answered bluntly.

  "Not especially," she agreed, already fastening jeans. She sat and pulled shoes on, sturdy ones he'd approve of, not taking time for socks, but she jammed a pair in her pocket. A pull-over top and a sweater, it was cool out. She reached for a white one and then threw it on the floor, it would just make her a target in the dark. Instead she pulled on a chocolate brown one.

  "Gloves if you have them too."

  She pulled a drawer open and grabbed fine leather dress gloves, all she had. "Lead on," she commanded, as she was pulling them on.

  "First you need this," he stuck a spray injector to her neck and triggered it, before she could object, or fend it off. It burned and felt cold all at the same time.

  "You're knocking me out?" she asked, hand on her neck, angry at being tricked.

  "Not at all! That's a stimulant. It will help you run, not slow you down." Come on."

  He went not to the door, but the window, pulling a strange weapon. "No visible beam. Polycarbonate target. Sixty percent power." He wasn't addressing her, oddly he seemed to be talking to the weapon. He us
ed it to cut away the bottom half of the thick window, tilting it to cut a taper wider on the outside. The smell of burning plastic was choking and the plug melted back together on the bottom. A hefty kick fixed that and sent it tumbling into the dark. The rush of cool clean air cut the chemical smell quickly.

  Mel was dragging a case from beneath the bed. One of many equipment boxes tucked here and there, she was encouraged to ignore. When he flipped the lid open it was a stout bar and a rope ladder folded back and forth accordion style. Mel scooped this up in an awkward bundle with both arms barely going around it, the bar against his chest. He waddled to the window and stuffed it in the opening, the bar coming up against the window frame noisily.

  "Out you go, I'm right behind," he assured her, offering her a hand to back out the window.

  "Look down, don't look back up here," he commanded, as she felt him join her on the ladder. That seemed odd advice, until there was a dull concussion and flaming fragments of something sprayed past them from above.

  There was a funny rushing sound in her ears and when she couldn't find the next rung with her feet, she just lowered herself with hands suddenly stronger than normal. She took a breath that seemed deeper than any she'd ever taken before. When she reached the end of the ladder there was no ground under her feet and she let go without being told. It was only a meter or so to some bushes and they cushioned her fall. If she was scratched by them she never noticed. The drug had her heart pounding and she was insensitive to mere pain.

  Mel rolled off the bushes and up against her. "Run with me," he said, taking her hand and pulling her up. She ran like she never had in her life. There was just enough light from distant lamps and sky glow to see the fence. Mel jumped for the top and swung over with drug induced strength. She was crouching to jump even before he reached the top.

  She let out an exultant cry of joy at the sheer physical power the drug gave her. She hooked her foot on the top rail and levered herself up and over the points with a push of her foot and both hands clutched around one of the uprights. Grabbing the bars below the top rail, she slide down, the metal shredding the palms out of her thin dress gloves.