A Sudden Departure (April Book 9)

by Mackey Chandler

  "Yeah, but I can't remember which pole. You'll have to look it up," Jeff said.

  "While we are predicting. . . people are never going to say transition. Maybe military crews if they're ordered to use it. My money is on jump," April insisted. "Short and descriptive."

  "You're probably right," Jeff agreed. "It's a miracle no matter what you call it."

  * * *

  "Holy. . . "

  "Yeah, it's precious, but it's not hallowed ground," April smirked.

  "This is your money too," Jeff said looking rattled. He checked his message again to make sure he read it right. "That's about a hundred million USNA dollars."

  "It is, and my apartment is probably forty eight or fifty million dollars now the way they are losing value. If you could get anybody to sell you cubic for toilet paper dollars," April reminded him pointedly.

  "OK, point taken," Jeff said, "but we could set up in one of my housing modules. There are three in place already and they are starting to finish them off inside."

  "Are you going to take the shuttle over every time you have to load up foils?" April asked.

  "No. I'd probably have to train somebody to do it," Jeff admitted.

  "You have the present fabricators shock mounted, even as massive as the north hub is. What's going to happen when somebody slams a hatch in a connected module?" April demanded. "Your whole run of foils will be trashed."

  "Even some loud music might be a problem," Jeff was forced to admit.

  "Are you going to kick Eric out and make him start printing bits somewhere else?"

  "That might also be a problem. We need to set up another machine to make more of them actually, and I know he isn't going to commute a half hour over to the new housing every day to run them. It would have to be a separate module to have enough room. We're only using about a third of the cubic in your Grandpa's. But there just isn't anywhere here to move him."

  "Why not?"

  "I checked yesterday and there isn't a zero G vacancy of any size available," Jeff revealed.

  "And if there is one that comes open I submit it will go to a cash buyer," April said. "Happy is offering us twenty years to pay."

  Jeff sighed. "At a set rate too. Four percent interest figured in the payment, and I expect the rate to go up, so that's a bargain too. I'll do it, but it's hard for me to commit to such a huge number."

  "A unique property, at good terms. From what you just said, if we had to, we could resell it. It gives us a secure place with room to expand. Direct docking and accessible to where we live."

  Jeff just nodded agreement, looking distressed. It was an emotional issue for him.

  "Call Heather and talk to her about it," April insisted. "It's her funds too. Make her really listen since this is so big, not just rubber stamp what we're doing here. If she has reservations I'll reconsider. You do the talking and I'll listen in. I'm convinced to do it already, so I might fall into trying to sell it even if I'm trying to be fair."

  April listened to Jeff summarize the potential purchase, and that ideally they should reach a decision today since Happy was leaving. He presented it fairly despite his doubts.

  "I got the impression he was very confident we'd accept," Jeff said, at the end. "I think he'll be shocked if we don't, but this is business. I don't think we should feel obligated to do it for friendship."

  "No, I think he'd be shocked if we pass because it is very favorable terms," Heather said. "Not because he's April's grandpa or for friendship. Now it's true we plan to expand here at Central, but none of it is zero G of course. You are going to be renting zero G residential units soon. I imagine some of them will house businesses, but really, they aren't suitable for industrial use. You don't want that kind of traffic docking all the time. I don't think you are going to see new zero g cubic for sale until somebody builds a companion habitat. How far forward do you think that would be?"

  "It's a matter of quantity. Our economy is healthier," Jeff said. "But it isn't big enough yet to fund such a huge project. Even with a worldwide slowdown a lot of smaller Earth nations have economies much bigger than ours. Some of their numbers might be very mundane things, but countries are like individuals. If they have a higher income then they'll have more disposable income for non-essentials.

  "If there is a recovery they will quickly have a surplus for such megaprojects bigger than anything we could muster. I can't imagine another habitat being actually started, that is, actual assembly commencing, for another ten years. The financing has to be there, design work done and a start made at assembling the tools and personnel. The tools and scooters and things that were used to assemble M3 are outdated or scrapped, and it'll all be new."

  "So we would have a rare if not unique property for twelve or thirteen years before you'd expect there might be competing cubic for sale?" Heather asked.

  "That's a realistic assessment," Jeff agreed.

  "I'd say we're safe in this as an investment for over half the period we'd be paying on it," Heather said. "when such other space does become available do you really think there will be such a glut of it that it'll drive the value of ours down?"

  Jeff thought on it a bit. "That could happen, given unusual circumstances. Maybe with peace in China and a rational government in North America helping the Earth economy boom. But I think it more likely that there will be tremendous pent up demand. That all the new space will be quickly occupied, sold out ahead even, and prices are unlikely to drop. At worst they'd plateau for awhile. But I'm risk averse. I hate to owe money. Especially this much."

  "We pledged our fortunes together before the revolution," Heather said, picking her words carefully. "I realize it's been some time since any of us have needed to kick in a little extra. I can't deliver up a chunk of cash today, but you seem more concerned about twelve years out, or more. I feel confident to promise to contribute five hundred Solars a year starting three years from now. That should cover any shortfall from our usual income."

  "What did you do?" Jeff demanded. "Find a gold mine?"

  "Yes," Heather answered, without any trace of humor.

  Jeff and April couldn't even crack a funny at that. It was a stunning amount.

  "I may need a little bit of help with the practical side of selling a mixed bag of commodities, various metals and volatiles, but I'm sure you know who to ask or hire. Does that make you feel more confident about obligating us to a twenty year note?"

  "That's enough to convince me," Jeff admitted. "You're confident about this income?"

  "I estimated it very conservatively," Heather assured him.

  "Then I vote we have April confirm the deal with her grandpa, if you agree."

  "Please do," Heather said. "I think we'll be very unhappy if we let that cubic get away."

  "I thought of something," April said. "If you have any lingering doubts, call one of the brokers and tell them you are acquiring a large zero G property on the north hub, and ask what sort of market value they think it would reasonably have next year, if you decide not to retain it."

  "No, I don't want to do that," Jeff said. "But your point is well taken. I really do know how they'd answer. They'd have a hard time naming a value, because there aren't any sales to compare, and an honest one would tell me I am insane to consider letting it go. I just wasn't ready to sign off on this, even though I knew it was a good deal. If I ask a broker that they'll hound me every day to know if we want to sell it. I'd have to filter their messages and avoid them in the corridors. Go ahead April, call your grandpa and you can sign off on the deal for the partnership."

  "Good. He's probably wondering if we forgot about it." And she went to do it.

  * * *

  The contract, when April shared it with them, had a note attached. Not really an addendum. It said:

  "Please deposit payments for the property at the Central Branch of the System Trade Bank with the funds in deep safe lunar storage. I intend to send other funds from time to time. When the bank has a branch on Mars I'll transfer a
portion of the funds there." – Robert Lewis

  "All in good time," Jeff said.

  "I gave Gramps a couple hundred bits," April said, "to use for poker money."

  "I haven't forgotten you were interested in getting a foothold on banking services for Mars."

  "And Armstrong, and maybe a teller machine on ISSII," April reminded him.

  "That, I'd kind of forgotten, but I might be able to get one in New Las Vegas easier," Jeff said.

  "Even though it is USNA controlled?"

  "The casinos want to make money. We wouldn't make a big announcement that we were putting a machine in, just a quiet deal with a casino to put one in their private cubic. They would refer clients who inquired to it without a fuss. Not out on the public corridor."

  "You surprise me. Do we really have connections to do such a thing?" April asked.

  "We don't, but certain of Eddie Persico's relatives have more than ample connections inside the gaming industry," Jeff said.

  "You want to deal with the mafia again? I thought it made you uncomfortable."

  "The Russian mafia was scary, even dealing with them third hand. But the good old North American mafia with Eddie as a go between? They did exactly what they were contracted to do, took their money and were polite. They didn't try to kill me, which is more than I can say for trying to deal with Earth governments," Jeff reminded her.

  April just tilted her head to acknowledge that. She didn't say what she was thinking, that perhaps the mafia was smarter than the government. If you run the Chicago mafia you treat a fellow with jumbo thermonuclear weapons politely, because he can remove Chicago from your life and business. You might not think he would do such a thing. April was certain he wouldn't in any circumstances she could imagine, but there are certain bets no sane person makes at any odds. A lesson the North American government or governments, whoever seemed to be ahead among the factions down there at the moment, were obviously still learning.

  * * *

  Karl had a message on his phone when he took lunch. It was from the System Trade Bank inviting him to activate his new account. He didn't have time to read it and eat. The head cook's rule was only emergency over-ride messages during working hours. Aaron informed him one guy had already been fired because his wife sent him emergency messages every day. Emergencies like there was no gin in the apartment or the kids wouldn't stop fighting.

  Aaron wasn't eating. He disappeared for lunch some days and Karl had no idea where he went. When he went back to work he asked Aaron if he'd have supper with him and help him with the message from the bank. He didn't think about it all afternoon, because it didn't seem important. He'd been expecting to be paid and Aaron was already being paid, so he'd know all about it.

  Aaron was really irritated with him that he had no clue how to set up his bank account. How would he? He got an allowance transferred off his mom on payday and that was it. He could swipe it at the pay points and once it was gone it was gone. His mom put in all the numbers and his sub-account wouldn't show any of that stuff.

  He got two tenths of a Solar every two weeks, and his mom had given him half that when he lived at home. Also there were four bits debited already for his phone service for the last two weeks. He told Aaron how unhappy he was.

  "Dude. . . you are getting fed and have a place to sleep, access to plain vacuum laundry and showers and sanitary. You don't even have to buy your own bath soap. I looked up your mom and she's high-powered help at what she does. She could afford to pamper you. A trained monkey could do most of what you are doing but he'd cost more to keep. Be happy they haven't built a robot to do it."

  That was insulting, but he didn't dare make Aaron mad at him. He was about the only one at work who cared to talk with him. He even nodded like he agreed when Aaron told him to hold a little back and not spend it. He's have another pay in two weeks wouldn't he?

  * * *

  "I'm having a weapon retrieved from high Earth orbit," Jeff revealed in conference with April and Heather. "I have some ideas about applying a gravitational solution to Jim Weir's equations using the quantum fluid from it. It's the sort of thing where I can collect some data without risking the material."

  "Are you going to rent a drone again from Dave?" April asked.

  "I don't think so. This will be a fairly compact device. I think I'll just build it in a framework and put a grapple coupling on it so we can grab it on the nose of Dionysus' Chariot. We can carry it off from M3 a distance in the hold for privacy, and shove it out the door and grapple it. We can carry some very small drones," Jeff demonstrated with his hands just how small, "to measure the disturbances the device creates at several distances. They will help us take the device in and out of the hold too. I don't want to bring a rigger along. Then we can take it back aboard and fasten it down to return. I won't be surprised if it takes some changes and tinkering with it to get the maximum effect."

  "Just watch to make sure nobody shadows you like you did Weir," Heather suggested.

  "Indeed. The camera on the exit port was something we should have done a long time ago. Right now we have some people assembling a set of wide angle cameras similar to the sky watch cameras that look for asteroid and comets. They will run with software to tell us about the traffic around Home and provide automated alerts for unusual events," Jeff said.

  "This thing won't actually let the Chariot jump?" April asked.

  "You mean make a quantum transition? No, it's going to take more velocity than the Chariot can produce, and I won't be able to generate a gravitational gradient on the same scale as James' electrostatic field. But the instrumentation in the drones should give me a good idea how much more field strength we'll need to make it work.

  "I do have a report back on how the Brazilians got such a high velocity out of that drone. There were so many confusing things that didn't add up. The spectrum from the open polywell reactors showed both hydrogen and helium. The lack of enough pressure vessels for reaction mass and fuel was also odd. Also there was a covered section to the rear, but we couldn't see how it could contain any known drive system. The answer is it doesn't. It probably has a secondary system to generate electricity from the drive stream, but the drive stream is fed down the center axis of all three reactors in common. The exhaust plume isn't generated in a separate system using power from the polywell reactors. It bleeds it out of the reactors directly through a hole in the confinement. It ups the efficiency by going direct."

  "Could you stack as many as you want in a line like that?" April asked.

  "Now that's a very good question" Jeff allowed. "The stream is all positive charged, so it would tend to spread. But I don't know the dynamics of their plasma flow. They must be able to refocus it back to a point at the transition from reactor to reactor. But how many times? Even if three reactors is the limit they can gang them up side by side. What we can't figure out at all is the helium part. They're using helium 3 for fuel, and I have no idea where they could be getting enough for the fuel load this needed."

  "Nobody has filed any patents or offered it for sale?" Heather asked.

  "No, and I thought I was the only crazy person keeping trade secrets," Jeff said wryly.

  "You and the Loonies. . . " Heather said. "I need to tell you that Mo is not only going to start mining for minerals and metals, but he said we'll get volatiles, including Helium 3. He even has a scheme for storing it efficiently at the testing stage. So I bet they got it off the moon."

  "That would be a wonder. It's very leaky stuff," Jeff said.

  "Is this something we want?" Heather asked. "We're going to have stockpiles here of all sorts of materials. There will be different items we'll have more than the market can absorb. We're separating it all, so there is little advantage in dumping it back together as waste. If we have need of something for our own use, like Helium 3, I won't offer it for sale or even publicly acknowledge we're processing it. I don't even know what it goes for in the Earth market."

  Jeff looked to be thinking h
ard for a moment.

  "Yes. If you can afford to set it aside, I'd like you to save that for us. The price has occasional spikes up and down, but has stayed pretty much within the same order of magnitude. Most of the time a gram of helium 3 has been worth an ounce of gold."

  "Wow, I had no idea," Heather admitted.

  "Well, it's not like you can make a necklace of it," April said.

  * * *

  Happy's cabin was as close as you could get to a hot slot without having to pull it open like a drawer or crawl in from the end. He had a cubic meter plus a little of storage. Given his mass allowance that was generous. He hadn't thought to bring a bag of popcorn to fill it up. He was a spacer, so having anything out loose just never occurred to him.

  The only thing he did to personalize the space was put the image he's been given of Chuck and him working together on the screen to display when it wasn't in use. He was already anticipating getting its mate, and his imagination was working at how Lindsey would render it. She was way beyond just good.

  Most of his clothing and things like his playing cards he left in his duffle which filled the bottom of the locker. He repositioned the shelf down snuggly against it and put the three outfits he intended to wear in transit on the shelf. A very light but tough clear plastic box held his tooth brush, comb and similar items. He had a power trimmer with a vacuum and intended to grow a beard during the passage.

  From inside the lid of the kit he extracted a camera Mackay Christian and his security group sold him. It was the size of a postage stamp, if anyone younger than him had any idea what a postage stamp was, and not much thicker. The edge tapered off even thinner. It recorded video and he had it set for a wide angle and to only record when his pad was not present in the room, but there was motion.

  It had a sticky back that would stop gripping after fifty or so applications if you didn't clean the mounting surface carefully. No need to touch it again, it would talk to his pad when interrogated with robust encryption. Happy carefully picked a place that would allow it to see both the hatch and his locker. He gave the bulkhead a swipe with a sanitary wipe and applied the camera. Over the next couple seconds it changed color until it perfectly matched the bulkhead.