Stepping Stones (Founding of the Federation Short Stories Book 1)

by Chris Hechtl

  Luigi had spent a lot of time lending them a hand with the project. He'd borrowed some concepts from defunct space elevator engineering projects to get around some of their problems. They were scheduled to begin actual construction once they got a large shipment of materials in.

  “Which is why we need more orbital industry. Here and elsewhere. Which is why we need this kid and others like him.”

  “All right, all right,” Mario sighed, giving in. “What do you want me to do about it?”

  “Your support for one. Give the kid's plan a going over. Look at it from the engineer's perspective but also dust off and use your Mars Project admin skills. Run it past some of the others; if you find holes, plug them. I want to turn over the station over to him,” he held up his hand as his brother opened his mouth to object. “Not give outright, lease.” Mario's mouth closed but his lips thinned in a slightly disapproving frown.

  “Lease. Let me guess, the kid doesn't have a pot to piss in to begin with.”

  “He does have a tight budget,” Luigi admitted. “But he's also an engineer; he focused on getting that side right. Getting the gear going, the right gear. But he does have an eye for business, I will admit that. You know Ursilla, she's …,” he let that thought taper off as Mario scowled then nodded again more respectfully.

  “All right. I'll take a look.”

  “He's really got a good head on his shoulders. I mean, he's followed in our footsteps. And he focused the plan and gear he got on stuff he can use to expand exponentially,” Luigi said ingeniously.

  Mario smiled sourly. “You already sold me, no need to rub it in. I'll take a look.”

  “Thanks. You won't be disappointed.”

  “I hope not.”

  ~~~-=>

  “Mario is on board. With him will come Wanda and the others, though I may have to do some horse trading,” Luigi told Jack as Jack came into his office. “He's going over your inventory and business model now.”

  “Cool,” Jack said with a nod. He had known it would be tricky to get support, but he hadn't expected Mario to be the tough nut.

  “I think selling Mario on the idea of a discount for use of equipment helped sell the idea. He wasn't keen on leasing you the station,” Luigi admitted. Jack nodded soberly. “I'm going to pick his brain over dinner tonight. Which,” he smiled wickedly, “you could help with if you take on babysitting duties.”

  Jack's eyes bulged in surprise and then he chuckled. “Are you serious?” he asked in consternation, recovering slowly. “Sure, whatever floats your boat as my uncle Ed says.”

  “How is he doing these days?” Luigi asked, crossing his arms.

  “Better. He's still on the anti-tissue rejection treatments; the doctors say he'll be on them for life most likely. Which means his immune system is compromised. But he's back on his feet and working. And we managed to get him his artificial eye,” Jack said smugly.

  “Sounds good. We could use that sort of tech here,” Luigi admitted.

  Jack blinked.

  “Oh, not just the medical part but also the electronics and cybernetics. One of my projects, one Wanda is keenly interested in, is a Mars University.”

  “Ah,” Jack said with a nod.

  “We have kids now. Kids that will grow up have been attending classes virtually for some time now. But attending a college virtually is good for theoretical subjects, but hands-on requires a personal touch.”

  Jack nodded. “There is only so far you can take an online course. Gotcha.”

  “Yes. Your mother is helping out from time to time. While you are here, we'll pick your brain too,” Luigi said with a grin. Jack snorted in self-depreciation. “No, I'm serious. You have the necessary skills and training. More importantly, yours is current. Mario and I have skimmed the changes, but we haven't been in the lab or doing stuff like reading the trade manuals and publications much. There is too much to do here. And I know we're falling behind. One of the objectives with the Mars U is to change that. I want it to be tight, to be very focused on what we need, but also cutting edge.”

  Jack nodded thoughtfully.

  “We've got scientists coming through keenly interested in the planet's fossil record. We need to build on that, so exopaleontology of course, math, other sciences …”

  “Medicine … you are going to need to do a different style of school. At least in the initial decade or so. You can't have dedicated classrooms and labs. Not when you need people working. You'll need more of an apprentice-master approach,” Jack mused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he turned the problem around and around in his head. Luigi sat back and nodded thoughtfully. “You'll need to have online courses, of course, and anything they can complete ahead of time is to your advantage as well as their own. But … you are looking at this long term, aren't you? A bid for independence? Statehood?” Jack asked.

  Luigi blinked in surprise, caught off guard. Jack saw the unguarded look and nodded. “Yes, that's why the interest and the interest in a university. In being self-sufficient, I get it. It's been in science fiction for nearly a century; I'm pretty sure some form of independence is on your mind. Hell, you technically are independent. If the United Nations tells you to do something, well, they are on Earth a couple of million kilometers away.”

  Luigi shook his head. “Telling the French to squat in a barrel and pee in a corner isn't going to be very diplomatic,” he said.

  Jack couldn't help but grin. “I was going to say one of Uncle Ed's favorites, 'go piss up a rope,' myself. Since they are at the bottom of the gravity well, they could call it rain,” he quipped.

  Luigi winced at the horribly mixed metaphors and quotes.

  “Seriously, you could do it, but you need a carrot to let them let you go. And they won't since there are so many problems with global warming cropping up. It's kicking the atmosphere up and changing things. All the meteorologists are saying it's making a hash of their models.”

  “Yes. Yes, it is,” Luigi replied with another nod. Conservatives who still doubted the idea that mankind could influence his own environment pointed to the cold bitter winters and odd weather as proof that the planet wasn't warming. What they deliberately failed to understand was that when you warmed the water temperatures up in the oceans that drove more severe weather systems which eventually cascaded. He shook his head to get the thought out.

  “You think once something big enough hits they will be more concerned with humanitarian concerns groundside than in space. But that will backfire since they'll call for a retreat from space to concentrate on the weather situation,” Jack mused, eyes darting back and forth. “I'm kicking myself for not seeing this before I left. Now I'm wondering if I backed the wrong horse.”

  “You?” Luigi said shaking his head. “You and me both. But my ship has sailed.” He inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly. “We can't do anything for the Earth. Not now. But we can do something for the future.”

  Jack gave him a wan smile. “Under the theory that the Earth has been spinning this long, it'll keep spinning no matter what people do down the road?”

  “Something like that,” Luigi replied. He rather liked Jack, and the kid was smart as a whip. He grasped concepts and found connections … it was scary what Ursilla had wrought in her son.

  “We need to shape the message. Get it out ahead of the others. Self-investment, not government. Not corporation,” Jack mused, still brainstorming. “Or at least not out front. The importance of the frontier, in people moving out and exploring new boundaries, and most importantly, in making their fortune. In building a new future for themselves and their … progeny,” he finished.

  Luigi nodded slowly.

  “Podcasts will help I suppose, but we need to do better. I can check around,” Jack offered.

  “I will too. We don't have much of a studio here. We use webcams for the podcasts, and due to broadcast constraints, the end product on Earth can suck.”

  “Which isn't good. So communications infrastructure investing is importan
t. So is better electronics,” Jack said thoughtfully.

  “Right.”

  “I'll look into a few things.”

  “I will too,” Luigi replied. “But you can look into them after you play tutor and deal with the brat pack.”

  Jack pursed his lips then snorted. “This a stress test?”

  Luigi grinned. “Something like that. If you can't handle them, you definitely can't handle space,” he said.

  “Joy,” Jack said with a grimace. But he shrugged mentally. He was up for the challenge.

  ~~~=>

  “We're going to do it?” Paul asked, eying Phil and Robert.

  “They are doing it. They've gotten the minimum to do the job; they are tight though financially. It is a shoe string. The board is initially on board, it is something different. Discovery network might be interested in picking it up. We're green lighting the pilot.”

  “So we're really going to do this,” Paul said, suddenly excited. His eyes gleamed in fervor.

  “Yes. Didn't I just say that?” Phil said, knitting his fingers together. “But, we're skimping to the basics as much as possible, and we're going to do as much teleoperating from here.”

  Paul grimaced. That meant drones. But it also meant a crew to keep the machinery functional on site.

  “Right now we're going with two drone operators, one medic, director, one space veteran, and a couple of support types to keep everything running.”

  “Cooks, bottle washers, and such need not apply?”

  Robert nodded. “And since space is a vacuum we don't need a sound person,” he said.

  Phil winced. They were going off suit coms, and Robert had seen that as an opportunity to save costs. He didn't realize the end product would still need to be filtered, if not for noise than for content. There was only so much the censors would allow. Miners were known for being coarse.

  “The pitch was accepted by the studio, and the test audience went nuts when they realized it was reality programming not fictional on a sound stage. But we need to hit the ground running with this if we're going to make the fall season line up and get a good time slot.”

  “Frack,” Paul muttered, automatically juggling his schedule and other projects he was committed to.

  “Get someone, an intern or no, someone with experience on to consult.”

  “Luigi Irons has consulted a few times,” Robert suggested.

  Phil eyed him and nodded. “He might work, but we'd need an NDA or something to protect our interests. And transmissions would be a pain in the ass. The costs …,” he grimaced.

  “And Irons charges exorbitant fees for his services,” Robert agreed. “So, keep him in mind but only as a last resort. So, a father-son rookie team of miners are taking a batch of greenhorns to space to make their fortune. This could be big or blow up in everyone's faces,” he said rising to his feet.

  “The drama should make for good television. Once we get something more, we can start lining up sponsors and start selling it. But we need a product first, not a pitch.”

  “Gotcha,” Paul replied with a nod, rising to his own feet. He didn't envy the crew he thought as he looked over the approved budget. He winced. He'd padded it to give him some wiggle room and let the bean counters cut the fat without hitting bone, but they'd cut anyway. It was going to be tight. He'd have to find some wiggle room somewhere, somehow. Finding outside suppliers for instance. Did they need everything over-engineered? Space equipment was going at a premium and was expensive. He frowned thoughtfully as he turned the idea over and over in his head.

  ~~=>

  “Part of the problem is the lack of a market for rocks. The only three markets are dropping them into the gravity wells of Mars, Earth, or Venus. No offense,” Jack mused, looking at Luigi.

  “None taken,” Luigi replied as he spread his hands.

  “We need more orbital industry. A place to take the resources in, process them, and then send them down as goods or refined materials ready for additional processing, or use them in space,” Luigi mused. “The stuff supporting the space colonies aren't cutting it.”

  Jack nodded. “The same argument I've been using for years. Go on.”

  “Which is what Deep Space Industries has been trying to do,” Luigi pointed out, eying his student.

  Jack nodded. “They've had some problems. But they have managed to get some of their bugs out. But the gravity well is still an issue. And the largest market is Earth of course. But they are restricted on the size of a rock they can bring to market. People are scared of the sky falling … literally.” He frowned thoughtfully and then shrugged. “Of course, one thing at a time,” Jack mused.

  Luigi cracked a smile. He liked the kid. Ursilla was right about him.

  “What I've got is a seed. With your station and a bit of work, I think we can grow it. But we need raw material and marketing,” Jack said, rubbing his chin.

  “Positive marketing. Self-interested marketing, like you pointed out earlier, to get the public interest and to get the word out. You'll get competition,” Luigi warned, testing him.

  “I want competition. I want this to take off, not flounder like it has. It's growing but too slow,” Jack growled. He looked at Luigi who was hiding another smile. “Sorry. I didn't mean to insult you.”

  “It's okay. I'll chalk that one up to the impatience of youth,” Luigi replied dryly.

  ~=>

  “Jack, I know you are busy, but I got word of this thing in the works. I thought I'd give you a heads up,” the email started. Jack's eyes went back and forth as he read about it. Slowly his mouth pursed in a thoughtful frown.

  His uncle Ed had heard about the idea floating around the media … something about a new show called The New Gold Rush. Ed's email went on to explain how he had heard about it from a side conversation he had started up during an interview with a local blogger who had been covering his ongoing story of being a cyborg.

  When he was finished with the email, which was bereft of any links or supporting material, Jack did his research. But he found he couldn't get much publically without owning shares in the production company. So, he bought a share of the production company with his reserve funds. He knew he could sell it later on to recoup the investment.

  That investment earned him an email a day later with a treatment about the production company's current and upcoming projects. It was all sales pitch, but it got him the confirmation he needed, plus some contact information and dates. He wrote up a quick proposal to sponsor or advertise in the show then looked up. The building had grown ominously quiet. With the kids, that was probably a bad thing.

  He rose fatalistically to his feet. “Okay, where are you now, you little monsters,” he growled, picking up a pillow to use as a shield.

  => o

  “So, who did you get to watch the thundering herd this time?” Wanda asked, smiling at her husband. She was enjoying the rare moment of peace and solitude with her husband. Now, if she only had a glass of wine, some fruit, candles, and a hot tub, it would be perfect.

  “Looking a gift horse in the mouth, dear?” Mario teased, eying her.

  “Now that you mention it,” she said wickedly, grinning his way. “One end of a horse … or another,” she said, eyes glittering with mirth.

  Mario's face scowled mockingly at her. “Watch it, lady; you kiss this face, remember?” he teased right back. That made her stop her tease. It was his turn to grin as his brother and sister-in-law snickered. “But I am curious myself. The usual sitters have gotten wise and … scarce,” he said eying Luigi.

  Luigi spread his hands apart. “Hey, what kind of leader am I if I can't get the troops in line? I made a few calls …”

  His wife back handed him on the chest lightly. “Oh stop. He got the new kid to do it—his new protégée.”

  “Lagroose? Now that is mean. Taking advantage of the kid's desperation like that,” Mario said eying his brother.

  “You know you like it,” Wanda said with a grin.

  �
��I didn't say I didn't. I just wished I'd thought of it sooner,” Mario said with as much dignity as he could muster. The others snickered.

  “So, we're going to back him?”

  “Looks that way. He's good on paper. I just got word of a few things that might help. We'll word the contracts right. Shares in the company … the usual bit. And the good news is, some of the equipment is here so if he goes under, we can keep it to recoup our losses.”

  Wanda and the others nodded soberly.

  “Not that I expect it to happen. But, we'll see.” Luigi said lifting his fork. The salad looked good and crisp. “Now come on. We haven't gotten any emergency calls, so let's enjoy the quiet time while we can.”

  “Here, here,” Wanda said, toasting him with her glass as her husband dug in. “Slow down,” she scolded, eying him. “Chew your food!”

  Mario just kept eating. He raised an eyebrow her way. After a moment he paused enough to get a drink. “I want to get this out of the way so we can get into more … fun activities,” he said with a leer. She had the grace to blush as her sister-in-law giggled.

  => o

  After he recovered from his day care adventure, Jack checked with Luigi on his proposal. Luigi looked a bit smug and rested but also ready and eager to get back to work. “Your idea and lead are good. I got a call about consulting on it. I'm going to do more. We can use this.”

  Jack nodded.

  “They will need a resupply in space. We can do it cheaper from here than Deep Space Resources can do from Earth orbit. I have a guestimate of what they will need based on what I know about their crew and environmental requirements. LOX is big of course. I already shot Mario an email about it, but he hasn't responded.” He grimaced. His brother was most likely in the field and ignoring his email. He'd have to call him to get him on board.

  “I just …,” Luigi finished typing and hit send, “as in just now, sent you what I've got. Work on that and work up a pitch to the producers as well as the Houffman family, 360 Mining. You can find them on the web, and there is a contact.”