by Ginger Booth
“Eight years,” Hugo supplied. “Since they were seven.”
“You understand, Hugo, that most girls are desperately eager to please at age seven. If they’re sensitive, even the slightest hint of criticism is unbearable. Boys at the same age,” Tori nodded to Jens, “usually conclude you’re a jerk.”
Hugo’s boy Jens laughed in surprise. Minka hit him.
Cope offered, “Thrive Spaceways can pay, Tori, if you can handle them. We need to know what we’d do about education if Sanctuary resettled here. Just over a thousand kids, newborn to age 20. Uh, they call a 20-year-old a kid.” He scratched his jaw in discomfort.
Tori pursed her lips and strode to the door. She stuck her head out. “Nico! Could you join us a moment?” When he arrived, she gave Copeland’s eldest son a warm hug.
Cope and Jules sprang their kids from school today to help Hugo tour the creches. The schools in Mahina Actual, where they now studied, left Hugo green with envy.
But MA did not accept immigrants. His twins might attend creche in Schuyler. But middle school was their terminal group, to age 14. His 17-year-old son Bron waited out in the indoor playground. Cope and Jules’ combined five kids renewed their acquaintance with old classmates from when they lived in Schuyler. They’d only moved to the posh urb enclave this past year.
“Nico, lend me your expertise,” Tori invited. “You know Mr. Silva’s young adults. Tell me about them.”
Nico clearly knew and liked Tori. His stutter was a no-show. “Bron is awesome! He led the children’s revolution. Liberated everybody from AI control! Jens is alright. And Minka’s pretty and sweet, and loves to jump-rope.”
Minka beamed at him and relinquished her soothing wall. Jens looked smug.
“Jump rope,” Tori echoed. “Do you have a feel for what grade level? Academically, not…socially.”
Nico worried at his collar with a finger. “Not too good with fractions and percents. They can read. Not for fun. Fourth grade, maybe?”
Tori released him. “Thank you, Nico. Very helpful.”
“Dad, can Bron and I –?” Nico jerked his head to indicate, escape yet?
Hugo understood that Nico attended high school in this settler town after he left the creche. He moved into his own rented room to live independently – at age 15! Though later he surrendered his budding freedom to attend the more advanced Mahina Actual high school.
The Sank dad put his foot down on this idea. Bron could not move to a strange city to live on his own! Hugo forbade it. But he could hardly argue with Nico showing his friend around. “Nico, remember that Bron knows nothing about air precautions –”
“Got it, Hugo.” Nico gave him a bashful smile. The fellow software gurus often worked side by side this past month. No matter how much Hugo respected Nico’s AI chops, his instincts still refused to accept the youth as a grown man by Mahina standards. At 16!
Jules Greer followed Nico out, herding Minka and Jens ahead of her. She’d prevent their other kids from dogging Nico. The older teens deserved to escape on their outing.
Tori Aiken resumed her seat. “It’s an interesting challenge. Cope, have you explained to Mr. Silva –?”
“They’re too old,” Cope agreed. “Except the twins sort of aren’t.”
She nodded gratefully. “The problem is that our charter extends to age fourteen. We offer various certificates. But by our standards, your children would only qualify for… Well, no.” She looked to Cope.
“No,” Cope confirmed. “Hugo, the basic certificate says they’ve mastered gravity, atmo systems, nutrition, law and taxes. Life skills. Tori, you see the problem. Hundreds of these kids. Their parents never raised them. Some, like Hugo, took an interest.”
Tori’s brow furrowed. “This is the result with parental involvement.”
“Yeah, he shielded them from the mind control nanites, what, once a week, Hugo?”
“Most weeks,” Hugo confirmed. “Bron more than the twins. Minka hated wearing her hat because it interfered with her…wall time.”
Cope offered, “Tori, the rest of the parents were puppets on strings themselves.”
Tori blinked, but forced herself to smile at Hugo. “I’m not sure we can help you, Mr. Silva. If your entire community immigrated here, we’d be required to accept your children for education. To age fourteen.”
“Understood,” Cope agreed. “But I’m offering to pay you for curriculum development. For evaluation and training. Full tuition for two students, plus reasonable fees for psych and medical consults. Knowing that you might get those younger kids. And these older, brighter twins are better equipped to communicate their experience.”
Tori frowned skeptically. “Are they? Brighter?”
“As if,” Cope conceded. “But they were older before nanites took over their brains.”
“Rego hell,” Tori acknowledged faintly. “Pardon my language. Yes, well, it’s a fascinating challenge. Cope, we’d charge double compared to a regular student. To cover the evals. I can find some grad student hungry for a paper.”
“Take her offer,” Cope advised Hugo. “At least until we head back to Sanctuary. Couple months maybe.”
The creche was a scary prospect, trusting his young dullards to this sharp lady. “And they’d be able to attend the university?”
Tori’s eyebrows rose, and she looked to Cope as cultural translator.
“No,” Cope confirmed. “Hugo, Mahina University is run by and for the urbs.”
“We’re shooting for five percent settlers now,” Tori suggested.
“Sure you are.” Cope shot her a dismissive glance and turned back to Hugo. “I only graduated middle school myself. Abel had high school. Ben attended university, distance learning, one of the first settlers. That was a big deal. Jules never went to school. Her parents are some fruitcake religious sect. Teach a girl household skills and arithmetic at home. Keep her brain blank for a husband to scribble on.”
“But this world is completely dependent on technology!” Hugo argued. “Your atmosphere isn’t even stable, is it?”
“No,” Cope agreed, a haunted look in his eyes. “It’s gotten better. Point is, Hugo. Education is scarce here. And done is done. The goal is for Minka and Jens to become independent adults.”
“And Bron?”
Hugo caught a glimpse of where Nico’s warm smile came from. “Bron liberated a world at age 17. Some guys you can’t keep down.”
Tori flourished a hand in Cope’s direction. “Case in point. Bron will land on his feet. You must be very proud.”
“Yes. I am, thank you.” Hugo rose from his padded mushroom and extended a hand to shake. “Yes, let’s proceed.”
Tori declined the handshake, but rose to see them out.
Hugo filed out first. He overheard her final comment to Cope. “She doesn’t even have breasts.”
Cope allowed, “I tried not to notice.”
Hugo sighed. He should have gotten up the gumption to instigate the revolution sooner. The situation was humiliating.
As Tori left, he asked Cope, “And me? Would they allow me at this university?”
“Hell, yeah. Head of AI wants to talk to you tomorrow.”
Well, that was something.
Hugo had hoped that choosing Mahina was a slam-dunk. He could stay here with his kids and just call in his verdict to Sanctuary. Pack and come fast as you can! Mahina is great! Yet here he’d have trouble settling his own family, let alone 5400 AI-addled migrants, including a thousand educationally lamed children.
No. They’d proceed to visit the other prospective world of Cantons, hoping for an easier, softer way. Hugo’s role was to serve as Sanctuary liaison to Thrive Spaceways until his people came to an informed decision on their fate, and completed their migration.
This wasn’t a software problem.
They stepped into the domed play-yard, where Minka was skipping rope. The local student girls danced in grass skirts and colorful bras, including Jules’ daughter Portia. Jens banged g
iant drums in accompaniment under supervision from Portia’s brother Ham. And yes, Cope’s 11-year-old Frazzie could fill more bra than Minka.
Cope collected his younger kids, both misbehaving instead of participating in the dance. Frazzie kicked the playground equipment. Sock used his forbidden grav generator to walk balance beam on top of the swing set. Hugo joined Jules, who gazed darkly at her daughter’s bra top and bare midriff and shins. Jules herself went clothed from collar to wrist to ankle. Like Sanks, the other crew switched to T-shirts and shorts for exercise, but not Jules.
A blank mind for a husband to scribble on?
“Hula dancing,” Jules explained. “Mahina, Aloha, Pono – the names come from a place called Hawaii. Sass claims it was a bad joke. Hawaii was this island paradise, surrounded by sparkling water. Mahina is dust, rego hell.”
Cope called over to say they were leaving. Neither of his children joined with the other kids in this school that was once their home. Jules blew them a good-bye kiss.
Hugo felt for them. Kids could be cruel. “Will the children be mean to Minka and Jens?”
Jules shrugged. “How kids learn. Gotta take your lumps.”
No, Mahina was not an easy choice for Hugo’s people.
Then again, the Colony Corps hadn’t spoken with Cantons since settlement. Perhaps better the evil he knew.
4
“You want what?” Abel cried, dumbfounded.
He visited Aurora this gloomy Monday in her tastefully appointed ‘embassy’ in Mahina Actual. Cope and Jules dropped him here for the day when they picked up the kids to tour creches with Hugo.
Aurora, her golden bald beauty ageless, stretched languorously on her divan. Denali weren’t big on furniture, and she used her office to celebrate the culture of her homeworld. Though her face makeup was garish, mercifully she’d quit going topless in MA. The simple loincloth look just felt naked without a properly groomed layer of living bakkra.
To Mahina eyes, a woman wearing nothing but a loincloth looked reprehensibly naked regardless of how her skin was painted.
“One thousand Denali immigrants,” she repeated. “I have an indenture scheme in mind.”
“Ah, I was thinking…skins,” Abel stammered. “Indenture?”
That could work, he realized. Spaceways could take a cut of their income for a year or three to pay off their passage. And they’d pay in Pono currencies. Schuyler offered some reputable indenture management firms. He could even borrow against future repayment, with interest, of course.
“Geisha – sex workers, you call them,” Aurora itemized, reading from a artful scroll of elegant calligraphy. “A few more scientists like Teke, under-trained due to the volcano debacle at Denali Prime. Say thirty of them seeking sabbaticals with Mahina University and Sagamore Orbital. Technicians, a quarter of them bound for Hell’s Bells. Medics, new embassy staff. But mostly geisha. I believe they’ll have the easiest time earning a living here.”
“Whores,” Abel muttered. “You want to ship prostitutes to Mahina.”
Aurora pursed her lips. “You will recall that I began my career as a geisha? Our guild is highly trained and among the most open-minded and flexible of all professions on Denali. Socially adroit.”
“Y-yes.” Abel and his wife, by far the most straight-laced of the Thrive family, had grave difficulty with that point. Besides, it took Aurora years on Mahina to break her annoying habit of reading people out loud. “Aurora, we don’t have passenger transport for a thousand people.”
The envoy laughed. “Of course you do! Ask Ben and Cope sometime how many paddy slaves they’ve smuggled to Mahina. Emancipated slaves. I’ve funded them myself. Slavery. Barbaric.” She shook her head in disgust. “I tried to talk our technicians out of studying at SO. But apparently the Saggies excel over Mahina in sonics. And sky drive mechanics, of course, mining, manufacturing – Hell’s Bells excels.”
“MO is getting pretty good, too,” Abel defended.
“Getting there,” Aurora agreed in edged sweetness. “But most of our emigres for MO are geisha. I’m not sure of the split between MO and Schuyler. They’ll be in hot demand either place. Paddy sex kittens are already mopping up in both venues.”
Abel was momentarily diverted. “Not SO and Bells for the sex workers?”
“Oh, Hell’s Bells of course!” Aurora confirmed. “SO, no. Their hospitality industry is slave-based. I’d fear for our geishas’ safety.”
“And skins? Like, not bare skins,” Abel corrected himself. “I mean, like loincloth skins. Those sold well here.”
Aurora waved a hand in agreement. “Maybe one container. How many containers may I fill? Both ways. I’m sure you have ideas on what you’d like to sell.” A raised eyebrow and quirked lip suggested his notions would be inferior to her ideas. She unrolled a second scroll, this one penned in florid blues and purples. “I could fill three containers worth of manufactures from Hell’s Bells, one from MO, and two of specialty equipment from Mahina.”
Abel scowled at her. “Mahina makes excellent trade goods! I hope those are at least half settler-made!”
“Do settlers make refrigerant?” Aurora inquired, batting her eyes.
Abel conceded, “I already planned on a container of the refrigerant.” He sighed and showed her his list of suggested goods to bring to Denali this time around. Though he expected to load a single ship. How many containers will I need for all this?
Aurora helpfully sifted through the list on his comms tablet, crossing out a few and explaining why. Others she highlighted and suggested he double or triple the quantity. “What is ‘rare metals’?”
“Our most profitable item from our first trip. The stuff is heavier than lead, so Cope wouldn’t let us carry much. From Hell’s Bells,” Abel added sadly.
“Well, I don’t imagine you could carry much else in the cryo boxes,” Aurora said practically. “You need all their shelving. Heavy metals would go perfectly.”
“I – really need to discuss that with Cope,” Abel hedged. “I’m not up on the…”
“One hundred corpsicles per box,” Aurora provided helpfully. She used her hands to describe, “Two feet wide, a little less in height, six foot long per slot.” She stabbed the numbers into her comm tablet to translate to centimeters for him. “They roll out in racks.”
How would that work? “And we freeze them before lifting to orbit?”
Aurora laughed out loud. “It’s summer on Denali, Abel! You freeze them the same way we came here, silly. Transport them up to orbit, then stow them away. I hear Sass’s crew refined their cryo technique on her trip to Sanctuary. I demand the absolute best cold-sleep methods available for my people! They are not disposable.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He tapped his tablet around in circles with a finger. “I’m dying to hear how you’re going to pay for this. Let’s talk money.”
“Let’s,” she purred happily.
Abel sighed. Could Aurora best him at this game?
They put their heads together and calculated it all out. The indenture scheme seemed speculative at best. Denali would supply every kilo of fuel needed to lift goods out of their painfully robust gravity well, 1.1 g. And the minimum profit margin Abel would countenance was five hundred percent.
He had to ask Cope for numbers on expenses for three ships to visit the other world. Cope, leaning heavily on Ben, included a month’s prep time and expenses, as well as loading time, selling time, and time spent on Denali. Abel was sheepishly glad he asked. He’d been thinking one day to Denali, one day back, but of course the whole company had a ton of work to do to prepare, then each following stage took time as well, including personnel fanout across Pono’s rings.
Cope was right. The more Abel ran the numbers, the more he appreciated the engineer’s conclusion that the best way to make money with his new invention was transit as a service. Faced with direct payment for time and expenses and delivery, most customers would happily offer a cut of the profits in exchange for lowering the fees.
Abel lounged back on his unfamiliar divan in satisfaction at a deal well sketched. Oh, they’d need to fill in real numbers over the coming weeks, but the outline was sound. Both Aurora’s interests and Abel’s would come out very well indeed.
“Tell me, Aurora. What are you really doing?”
Aurora rolled onto her side and graced him with her most predatory smile. “Profit isn’t good enough for you?”
“Oh, profit is key,” Abel agreed. “But you? You’re up to something.”
“Denali,” Aurora mused, “is a challenging world. So uncomfortable. So deadly.”
“True.”
“I want to take my people to Sylvan, Abel.”
Abel’s eyebrows slowly rose. The Colony Corps dispatched a dozen wildcatter ships to find a better world than the crappy emergency ‘first shell’ worlds colonized from Earth. Only one team reported back with a promising planet, Sylvan. “You’d abandon Denali?”
“My people did everything right. But that planet is killing us. You located an Earth-like world. We’re going to claim it.” Her eyes gleamed the conviction of a zealot.
Abel’s satisfaction with his profit margin shrank to a point, then vanished with a plop! Compared to the cost to terraform Sylvan, this deal was nothing. Earth’s billions managed to launch a scant couple million into the stars before succumbing. And those colonists dwindled instead of increasing. They had no margin to afford this ambition. “Wow. You dream big.”
“You’ll see, Abel Greer. This is the dream that will propel the next generation.”
“Have you ever, you know, done it?” Nico asked his Sank friend, Bron Silva. They stood in the downtown arcade in Schuyler, ogling girls. Nico wasn’t sure, but he thought that cute one with the blond afro and Denali loincloth winked at him. But maybe she was into Bron instead.
Her gaudy coloring wasn’t real bakkra, of course, just a glistening body stocking in abstract whorls of color. She wore shin-high protective regolith boots, too. He kinda liked it. He tried smiling at her bashfully. Even his dad Ben had lost his virginity at 14, same as Dad. Dad Teke was probably younger.
