Prologue:
The guy at the nursery seemed to think I was being thickheaded as I looked over the selection of tangerine saplings.
"It's the twenty-seventh of June, sir. What I'm trying to tell you is that the ideal time to plant citrus trees is long past."
I looked at him skeptically.
"Then why are you selling them in June? Are you telling me the thing's gonna choke and die the day after I plant it?"
He rolled his eyes and said, "No, no. I just mean that it may not do as well for you as it might in the hands of someone who... Well, let's say, um... Someone who knows a bit more about landscaping, for instance."
I pointed. "Uh, huh. Well, that one looks like it's ready to go home with me. Look, I have a good reason for doing this now. Got any advice that will help?"
He shook his head slightly and wheeled the little tree to the register, rang it up, and tossed some items in a bag with two brochures about citrus trees.
"Over there on that shelf," he said, pointing, "You'll see some root starter. I've already charged you for it, so grab a bottle. It'll help some."
I retrieved a bottle of the stuff and he gave me advice about planting, watering, feeding, and other such details. I listened carefully and thanked him.
When I returned home from the nursery, I placed the small tree near where it was to be planted and went to the garage for a shovel. I stepped to one side of the blue towel that marked the spot I'd chosen and sank the spade into the earth. It stopped cold a few inches below the surface.
Roots all over the yard, even over here. Gotta be twenty feet from the nearest damned tree and I'm still hitting oak roots.
I looked again at the direction of the root's tapering as I labored to hack through the inch-wide obstructions. Correction: pine roots. Damn. Make that thirty feet.
The roots yielded to my spade and I kept digging. A car horn beeped out front and I turned to see who it might be, but the car was already either gone or pulling into the driveway, so I turned back to pull a few more spadefuls of dirt from the hole.
The hole was deep enough. I stuck the spade in the mound of dirt I'd created and wiped sweat from my face with a couple of paper towels from my back pocket. At the sound of the gate latch, I turned around to see Linda approaching. She waved.
Linda had called Tuesday to tell me that she wanted to see me before the weekend, and when I'd told her I was heading to Atlanta on Friday, she said she could clear her office decks enough to drop by on Thursday.
'Drop by' meant that she'd snag a ride on an agency flitter or commandeer one from the agency pool if one was available so close to a holiday weekend.
I asked why she didn't want me to swing by North Dakota and pick her up in my flitter, or at least send it for her, but Linda declined to talk about her reasons over the phone. I agreed, partly just to find out if the reasons were personal or whether I was going to be asked to shepherd aliens again.
Our short-lived affair had ended in November at a diplomatic party in the offices of 3rd World Products, and except for turning a jealous Senator's goons over to her security outfit's gentle ministrations that same evening, our contacts had been sparse and business-related over the last many months.
"Gardening in late June?" she asked, indicating the little potted tree as she put her briefcase down. "I'd never have figured you for..."
Her eyes fell on the towel-wrapped bundle next to the hole and she stopped as she saw the dark fur protruding slightly at one end.
"Oh, no... Not your cat? Not little Bear?"
I nodded and wiped sweat again.
"Hi, Linda. Yeah. The liver cancer finally got him this morning. He was on my lap when it happened."
Linda's hand reached toward me flutteringly as she came forward, but she'd never been the huggy, gushy type, and we'd broken up months back. The hand fluttered back to her side and she stopped a few feet away. She glanced again at the bundle.
"Poor little guy..." she whispered. Her eyes rose to meet mine. "He was with you a long time, Ed. Are you okay?"
"It wasn't unexpected. The vet diagnosed it some time ago. I'm just glad he was in his favorite place at the time."
Linda nodded. "Yeah. Me, too. Is there anything I can do..?"
I gestured at the tangerine sapling and said, "If you don't mind taking a chance on getting your jeans dirty, you can steady the tree when I plant it."
She glanced at the thorny little sapling and said, "Sure. It's Thursday, our old beach day. I expected to get a little sand on me, just not like this."
Looking up at me, she asked, "Unless you'd rather not go..?"
I shook my head. "Nope. This isn't a reason to break our plans, especially after all these months. But I need to be back at a reasonable hour so I can pack for Atlanta."
"Atlanta? Oh. Yes. The dragon convention. I forgot."
"DragonCon," I corrected her. "It isn't about dragons, Linda, it's about science fiction. All forms of it. Books, movies, TV..."
"Yeah, yeah. Science fiction, not dragons. Got it. So why are you going? Isn't that something more for kids than people your age?"
I looked at her archly. "Hardly. SF has been around a long time. Those kids grew up, and some of them even made it to space and walked on the moon. Nuclear physics was once a rather esoteric college course. Now we have nuke power sources. Lasers were just a fantastic theory for decades. Now we have lasers in everything from CD players to mining tools. Aliens from space dropped in on us a while back and started a business here. Some things are only science fiction until they happen."
Linda gave a ladylike grunt of ambivalence and shrugged.
I lifted the towel containing Bear and lowered him into the hole, then retrieved the towel and said, "Thanks for being part of my life, Bear. You were a fine little friend, and I'm going to miss you."
As I began to shovel the dirt back into the hole I heard Linda's slight sniffle. She'd liked Bear. When the refilled hole's depth was about right, I stuck the shovel in the remaining mound of dirt and picked up the sapling tree.
Linda pulled the container off the bottom while I held the tree above the hole, then she steadied it as I filled around it and patted the dirt down. I arranged the rest of the dirt into a loose circle around the tree and used the garden hose to soak the area until the water began to puddle around the tree.
Linda pulled the plastic tag off the tree, then stepped back, dusting her hands on her jeans before retrieving her briefcase.
"Ed?" she asked, "Why a citrus tree?"
"I like tangerines."
After a moment, she softly asked, "I mean; why a tree?"
"I may want to sell the house someday. How would a headstone in the back yard look to a potential buyer? This is Florida. A fruit tree they won't mind."
Her questions stopped. Linda wasn't a pet-person. There were no dogs, cats, birds, or fish in her personal world. She'd enjoyed Bear's occasional company, but apparently never enough to make her think she needed a pet of her own. I heard her fingernail tapping on the briefcase. Impatience? Nervousness?
I turned to her and quietly said, "Because he was my friend, Linda. Every time I look at this tree, I'll remember him. As a kitten, maybe, scampering across the floor to greet me. As an old cat, on my lap or sitting outside the computer room's screen door, bitching about his box or food or water or the fact that I was on the wrong side of the door. That's usually what any problem was, you know. All he ever really wanted was to be wherever I was. He was my friend, Linda."
I hadn't snapped at her or spoken harshly; I'd just told her the why of it. I picked up the shovel and the plastic tree-pot and carried them to the back porch. Linda caught up to me and opened the screen door. I pu
t the shovel and pot down and started to go turn off the water and coil up the hose, but she stopped me.
"I'm sorry, Ed. I didn't mean to upset you."
I continued my task, gathering hose and talking as I worked.
"You didn't, and I wasn't trying to give you that impression. I was just telling you why there was a new tree in my yard. Now, why don't you tell me what made you want to come see me after more than half a year? Want a drink?"
"Do you have any tea?" she asked.
"Got some in the kitchen somewhere. You can make it while I clean up out here."
Seated on the couch sometime later, she regarded me over the rim of her cup as she sipped her tea. I parked myself in the sofa chair and waited for Linda to give me some idea why she was visiting.
Instead of addressing me, Linda spoke to the room. "Elkor? Would you put the asteroid and factory data on display for Ed, please?"
At the sound of his name, the computer answered, "Yes, Linda," and the wall lit up instantly with a display field. On the left was a column of names, dates, and locations. On the right was a still picture of the roof of a man-made structure that protruded from the surface of an asteroid. I zoomed out four times and saw the structure as a tiny dot on the featureless landscape. Zooming out two more times finally showed me the surrounding stars at the corners of the picture.
"That is one big-assed rock," I said, looking at Linda. "How big?"
"A bit more than two hundred miles in diameter. We assembled it - pardon, they assembled it - for the flitter factory out of surrounding debris. It was then hollowed and chambered to house the factory and people. What you were looking at was the main entrance."
Linda handed me her pad and told me to touch any of the items in the left column for more info. I tapped the entry titled 'Incident Report Summary'. Until I knew what the problem was, it didn't matter who the people were. As I read, Linda spoke.
"We've had several incidents of sabotage. Most were interruptions of production stages and one was an attempt to contaminate construction materials. We think the latest attempt was interrupted. One of the senior officials was found dead, well outside his usual haunts."
"Away from where he worked or lived, you mean? He wasn't visiting a girlfriend or something like that? How did he die?"
Linda took the pad and tapped a name. The picture of the asteroid was replaced. A picture of the man's face appeared, flanked by an autopsy report. It was summarized by the words, 'cause of death unknown'. He'd been in perfect health, but he had died for no apparent reason.
I raised an eyebrow and looked at Linda. "Unknown? Well, you just don't see a helluva lot of those anymore, do you? But when was I ever a detective, Fearless Leader? You can't be asking me to find out who or what killed him, obviously. You have people far better qualified for that stuff. What is it that you want me to do?"
Linda put the pad on the coffee table and sat back.
"Nothing, really. You'll have a vague title, an office, and carte blanche. No specific job description. You'll be a deliberate enigma. No office or factory area will be off-limits to you, and you'll be expected to pop up anywhere at any time, for no apparent reason, without explanation of any sort to anyone. Except to me, of course."
"Oh, of course. You want me to draw attention while others do the real sleuthing. I'll bet you even want me to wear a suit while I do it. Do you mind if I actually look into things a bit while I fake it?"
Linda smiled. "No suit for daily wear. Maybe for some of the social stuff. As long as you don't get caught actually doing anything, I don't mind at all."
"Kewl. Will I be on your timeclock or 3rd World's? Both would be nice..."
She shook her head. "We never officially retired you, in case you hadn't noticed. You've been on our clock since the day you were reactivated to guard Ellen, so it's the usual, plus a couple of routine bonuses that apply to flight personnel and duties presumed to have a potential for turning hazardous. No double-dipping."
"Yeah, I noticed that my checks didn't revert to pension-size after I signed out. I guess all that paperwork is still sitting in a drawer somewhere, then?"
Linda nodded again. "In one of my desk drawers, to be exact. I let you see me sign them and all that, but I never sent them upstairs. If you'd bitched about it and waved your copies around, they'd have been found and labeled 'misplaced', and you'd have wound up giving back several months of pay or staying active. Do you mind?"
I shook my head and gave her a Texas accented, "Nah. Truth is, I've been bored plumb spitless, ma'am. I just can't seem to get back into being retired, y'know, and I wasn't really all that good at it before, anyway."
Linda smiled and said, "There's a transport leaving from Carrington on Sunday afternoon. I'll make the arrangements."
Chapter One
We talked so long that 'beach day' was put on a shelf for another time. Once Linda had left, I made a fresh coffee and gave matters some thought while I punched up the asteroid's specs on my pad.
The Amarans had gathered up a big wad of primarily iron-composite stuff and directed the sun's energy to melt it together, then had kept adding stuff until it was the size they wanted. The result was an almost-perfect sphere that was two hundred miles in diameter and had an iron core and a slag exterior covering layers of other metals that had separated during the smelting. The cutaway view reminded me of the inside of a jawbreaker candy.
The stats said that there were more than six hundred people living on the asteroid, mostly families. Since the Amarans had been on Earth less than two years, it seemed likely that most of the children were infants. The stats went on to describe the living and working facilities and other such details.
The asteroid had only minimal natural gravity, so they'd put some spin on the big metal ball to simulate one G for health and comfort. That meant that most activities, while 'underground', would still be relatively near the surface. I wondered if radiation would be a factor, but a couple of screens later there was a description of the fields surrounding the asteroid. Nope. Radiation wasn't a problem.
Two hundred miles seems fairly large, but if the asteroid were spinning fast enough to fake Earth-normal gravity, the spin would probably be noticeable and take some getting used to.
"Elkor, can you whip up a surgical implant that will let me keep in touch with you while I'm up there? And a gadget that can install it for me here at the house?"
"Yes, Ed, but is that really necessary? There would be a communications delay of several seconds and a revised copy of me is already resident at the asteroid."
"How revised is it?"
"I adapted it to suit the facility's necessities and functions. Other changes and additions were suggested by the board of directors."
"Somehow I find it difficult to envision what changes anyone could or would want to make, Elkor. You were already capable of running a starship."
"Do you want me to list those modifications for you?"
"Later, maybe, unless there are any you think I really need to know about."
"Just a few. That program isn't sentient and won't respond to my name. To command it, you must preface a command with the word 'computer'."
"Uh, huh. Like, 'computer, do this or that'?"
"Correct."
"Dull, Elkor. Very dull. Whose idea was that?"
"The directorship didn't think sentience was necessary."
"Uh, huh. Well, will my briefcase, pen, and watch work there?"
"Yes. They're programmed to draw power from the nearest field source."
That seemed fine to me. Effective field energy range is almost twenty thousand miles from any source.
"Will I be able to take Stephanie?"
"Yes, but would that be necessary? There are many flitters available. It is, after all, the largest flitter factory."
"It's necessary unless it becomes impossible for some reason. I want my own flitter up there with me, and if anything happens to me, I want her returned to Earth."
"As you wish
, Ed. Space is not currently a problem on the transport vessel."
"A thought, Elkor. Two thoughts, really. The problem up there is sabotage. How can field generators be sabotaged, and can you make a generator on the asteroid that is subject only to your control or mine? A standalone unit, just for us? A big one that nobody up there will know about, maybe placed where nobody has any reason to go?"
"It will be ready before you arrive, Ed. There is much unused storage space aboard the asteroid. It will be located near the center."
"Good deal. Set it to take over instantly if the usual generators are taken off-line for any reason. Conceal it from all sensors, prevent any access to it, and don't tell anyone about it, not even Linda."
"Why shouldn't Linda be informed?"
"Well, for one thing, it's going to be for our use only unless there's an emergency up there. Until I'm back on Earth, nobody needs to know about it except us, Elkor. Secret safety measures are best kept secret. We can tell Linda after the mission."
"Since what you propose has no potential for harm, I can agree to do as you ask."
"I'd also like to make a change to my briefcase's programming, Elkor. I want it to be no more than three feet away from me at all times. It needs to know how to follow me around without being underfoot, and preferably without being seen. How about telling it to hover upside down, two feet above me, in stealth mode? If I'm about to pass through a doorway, it can descend to accompany me on either side of me, as closely as necessary, and tilt or reshape as needed to accommodate an opening. In a vehicle, it can park on my lap or near my seat. Or under it, I guess."
My briefcase floated quickly upward to the prescribed height and seemingly disappeared as its field began shunting light around its perimeter. I walked across the room, watching the area above my head. Except for a very slight disruption of the pattern of the ceiling at the edge of the field, there was nothing to betray the case's presence there, and it even turned sideways to float between the ceiling fan's blades and the ceiling during the transit.
"Wow. Damned fine, Elkor. You have to know it's there to see it at all. Now for some automatic responses. I'm going to need a field around me instantly if the atmospheric pressure drops suddenly. Can the field be used like a space suit?"
3rd World Products, Inc., Book 2 Page 1
