“You are getting some time off now, during which you can contemplate if there are any lessons to be learned from this episode.”
“I’m on leave?” Meijer asked.
“You are on medical,” Morton said. “You were out two days already. While unaware, they fixed your broken and separated shoulder. They did a preliminary repair on your elbow and right hand. They are trying to decide if they can fix a couple of your fingers or if they should force you to regrow them. They marveled that you just had a collection of minor puncture wounds on your neck. You succeeded in protecting your spine. They are growing a mass of muscle tissue to replace what’s missing from your right cheek. That approximates a small roast. It’s going to take a month to create half your right cheek and then a couple of weeks to stimulate it to attach to the blood vessels and nerves. The doctor will likely flip out that I was so blunt with you. He’d have waited a couple more days to bring you around to let me yell at you, but I see little value in sugar-coating it.”
“No, I’d rather hear it,” Meijer insisted.
“Anything else before I let the doctors dope you back up to where you won’t be fit to talk too?”
“No, that sounds pretty good. Thanks for saving me,” Meijer said, and closed his eyes.
* * *
“They’ve had three supply launches in as many days,” Chen informed Jeff and Walter. “That’s heavy traffic for North America. I’d run your detector past them if it was mine to decide.”
“Did they dock to the ship?” Jeff asked.
“No, but each of them docked with the little zero g station they keep there. I suspect that will dock with the ship once. That way they reduce the risk of so many docking maneuvers with the ship. Easier to repair a lock on the station from a docking boo-boo than the ship. The station has a lock with a docking collar at each end,” Chen said. “That wouldn’t even put it out of commission.”
“Define little. How big is this station?” Jeff asked. A docking collar was pretty massive.
“About fifteen-hundred cubic meters,” Chen said. “Part hard shell, part inflatable. It probably can house thirty with storage and work areas.”
“That’s not little to me,” Walter objected.
“It’s tiny compared to Home,” Chen said.
“You have any objections to doing it?” Jeff asked Walter.
“Me? No, I’m hot to do it.”
“Go ahead,” Jeff agreed.
* * *
“Cal DeWitt is being rationed getting aviation gas,” O’Neil informed Vic on the sat phone. “He may have to cut back his flights. The regular filling station in town has regular gas but he’s scared to try it. He’d have to retard the engine timing and climb slower. It might not have the same range and would run hotter. The agency has broken down in the peripheral states for documenting rebuilds and licensing in civil aviation.”
“Has he tried offering more money?” Vic asked.
“They seemed to be fishing for a bribe, but turned down more money.”
“I might be able to help,” Vic said. “Will talk with Eileen and call Cal direct.”
O’Neil didn’t reply. They all tried to keep their text costs down and it was already chatty.
“Babe, how would you feel about spending some of our gold to keep Cal flying?” Vic asked.
“If it can’t be traced back to us yeah. We need his service. But what do we get? I’m willing to do it but not as an act of charity. That’s our ticket to orbit.”
“I’ll have to see what he can offer,” Vic admitted.
Eileen frowned. “The bar you made is nice and easier to transport than loose dust and flakes, but I’d offer Cal the panned stuff. It’s more likely to stay anonymous.”
“Good thinking,” Vic agreed. “I won’t even mention we can make bars so he doesn’t think about that option and convince himself it would be better.”
* * *
Linda was surprised to get a postal letter. She didn’t even have a mailbox. They received it for her in the apartment complex offices and sent her a text message to pick it up. She stopped in on the way home from work and signed for it. It was heavier than she expected. When she got home, she ripped it open and read…
North Florida Services Corporation
Tri-State AeroSpacePort Parking Authority
Port Parking Billing
14623 Narcoossee Rd.
Orlando, Florida 32827
TSPPA.com
Federal Employee Anonymous Delivery
Linda Pennington
Bureau of Labor Allocation
Ms. Pennington,
The authority finds you are once again listed as a North American resident and Federal employee. From a records search, you are the co-owner listed on the title of the Jeep Vagabond VIN-1GUH7NMV2L4564324, issued short term parking stub 17483572.
The vehicle incurred 342 days of short-term lot occupancy at $275/day.
The fee for that is $90,050 outstanding.
The vehicle was towed to our long-term storage before a year per local ordinance.
The towing fee was $890.00.
It occupied a space in the long-term lot for 421 days at $155/day for a fee of $65,255.
After the fee increase for long term storage increased to $175/day it spent another 113 days in storage for an additional fee of $19,775.
Per a DOT order declaring all vehicles in that model year no longer legal for road use, it was sent to mandatory recycling on day 114. There was a uniform processing fee of $15,500. No additional storage fee was assessed for day 114.
Per state law, we charged the minimum published regional commercial interest rates on the balance owed after 90 days. As of the first of this month that stands at $52,239. A spreadsheet of these charges with detailed dates and statutory authority is available at our online site using your stub number to search. If you wish to make arrangements to pay the sum of $243,709 please contact us by the end of the month. If no arrangements are made, we shall initiate the garnishment of your wages under the Federal Workers Safety Act which hides all relevant Federal Employee personal information for your privacy and protection. The Act allows this since we can’t know in which local court to file against you. If you make payment with any credit instrument, a 6.25% fee will be added for processing.
FinCorp Payments Clerk # 152 on behalf of the TSAPA
What would she do? Linda thought dismayed. That was a third of her annual salary. She was barely scrimping by as it was. Would they count her subsidized housing and heroes' retail discount to federal employees as wages towards the garnish rate? This was all Mo’s fault…
Chapter 24
“We got it!” Walter said, and clutched a fist triumphantly.
“I had every expectation you would,” Jeff said.
“I could have had it transmit the data as soon as it was clear, but it seemed a needless risk. Now that they have the probe in their hold, they’ll plug into it and we’ll have the scan in a few minutes.”
“If Barak can figure out the cable doesn’t plug in either way,” Chen remarked. They were coming to find Chen wasn’t a big fan of Barak from his occasional comments. Jeff had long decided that he’d never try to have the two of them work together with no buffer. Since he was fairly oblivious to social clues it was a blatant dislike. Barak on the other hand didn’t seem to reciprocate Chen’s attitude, or didn’t reveal it. Jeff found that a much better image to project even if Barak secretly felt the same about Chen.
“Here it comes,” Walter said and a couple of the screens started displaying images and lines of data. They all silently watched waiting to comment until it was sufficient to be clear.
“First thing I see is that there are three very faint radiation sources in the station,” Walter said, “not the ship. We expected that, but what I don’t understand is the spectrum. I’d expect either uranium or plutonium for a nuclear kernel, but this says we have both in each.” He looked at Jeff.
“Don’t ask me. I found my own solut
ion to those sorts of weapon so I never spent time studying the Earthies’ solutions or the history of their development.”
“I have read what unclassified information can be found,” Walter said. “Now it’s true, the basic tech is 1940’s, and nobody wants to talk tech on fusion weapons publicly at all. If Pakistan and India can both build advanced versions, you’d think you it was so well known you could order do-it-yourself plans off the net, but they still frown on that. If you read a few nuclear engineering books on top of the published information, you get some ideas on your own pretty quickly. But that scan signature makes no sense to me.”
Chen did that squint-eyed, pursed lipped thing Jeff suspected was supposed to make him look inscrutable. Jeff didn’t have the heart to tell him it looked more like indigestion.
“I don’t know myself, but Tetsuo can probably tell us,” Chen said.
“Go ahead and call him,” Jeff said.
Tetsuo, once on the screen with the question put to him, briefly looked hard at Walter. To his credit, he didn’t question his need to know, since he was with Jeff and Chen
“I’d rather come speak to you face to face,” Tetsuo said. “I can be there in ten minutes.”
“Come on then, Papa-san,” Jeff invited.
Tetsuo nodded and disconnected.
“Papa-san?” Walter asked at the informality.
“Tetsuo, Tetsu, Papa-san, Illustrious Lord, or Benevolent Master. They all work,” Jeff assured him.
“Maybe if he’s in your employ,” Walter said.
“I’m going to make some coffee,” Jeff said. “He never turns it down.”
“I’m going to sweep the place,” Chen said.
“Will he expect that?” Walter wondered. “I assumed your security was very tight.”
“It is, but he’ll do it anyway, through his spex. If he ever caught me missing something, I’d never hear the end of it or live it down,” Chen said.
Tetsuo did gratefully accept a coffee and praise it. Walter noted he did seem unusually active with his spex while chatting. He suspected the coffee gave him time to do so more politely.
“Yes, I understand what this indicates,” Tetsuo said of the data. “It’s one of the most important pieces of intelligence I ever stole for North America. The version of this for which I obtained the details was of course the Chinese version.” He winked at Chen in good humor, because Chen used to be a Chinese intelligence agent. “I was supposed to be too dense to figure out the North Americans had a version of it and were merely interested in any technical differences.”
“I never encountered it in my work,” Chen admitted.
“It’s a hybrid nuclear kernel,” Tetsuo said. “Due to the difference in capture cross sections and spontaneous neutron emissions, plutonium requires a much faster assembly than uranium to form a supercritical mass. If you have the chain reaction start too early in the process you can get a wet firecracker, a reaction that prevents the full assembly and wastes a great deal of the fissionable material. They figured this out very early. That’s why Little Boy used a slower gun sort of assembly mechanism and Fat Man used a symmetrical implosion device. This uses a uranium core inside an asymmetrical plutonium sheath.”
“Why bother?” Chen asked not seeing any advantage.
“It’s hard enough to quickly assemble a plutonium sphere. To assemble a supercritical prolate spheroid of precise geometry is much easier to do as a composite with the uranium as a core. It yields more towards the pointy ends, where reflective cones are attached. The longer you can stretch it the better. They’ll also have fusion boosters serving both cones optimized for x-rays. When it detonates, the x-rays are directed down a curved and tapered cone of graphene layered with other crystalline materials and a spike core. It directs a substantial portion of the radiation by shallow angle reflection and interference into a narrow beam, rather like a lens, or perhaps a funnel is a better analogy. Technically, you could have it create one beam or even multiple beams, but in practice having an equal back beam gives you a more realistic possibility of detonating it between two targets. One has to be careful not to fire it straight on of course, and get caught in your back beam. The classified term the Chinese used for such a weapon was an X-head. Of course, that was a couple of decades ago. They may have made some advances in the tech since I became aware of it. It occurred to me, from seeing the graphics, that a somewhat steerable beam wouldn’t be impossible.”
“It’s a stand-off weapon,” Jeff realized instantly.
“Yes, and suited much better to space warfare than a conventional warhead which has to get close enough it will risk interception,” Tetsuo explained.
“We will not allow them to take something like this past L1,” Jeff said.
“How do you intend to stop them?” Tetsuo asked.
Jeff explained in some detail. Unsurprisingly, Papa-san had some suggestions.
* * *
The door alarm sounded which was surprising. April hadn’t ordered anything. Nevertheless, when she checked the corridor camera there stood one of Eric’s couriers waiting with an envelope. That too was unusual. Normally he made a point of doing deliveries to Jeff or her personally.
“Hello, what do you have for me?” April asked.
“Ma’am, Eric is instituting a new mail delivery service now that UPS is no longer handling it. He is also originating Home mail with stamps and philatelic services. He is gifting you with this first issue stamp and first-day cover in appreciation of all the support you’ve given him, and because you’ll find it of particular interest.” Although he was blond and visibly not Asian, he offered it double-handed in the Japanese manner with a respectful bow. You got that on Home now and then.
Guessing from that, April bowed just slightly and said, “o-tsukaresama deshita.”
The courier bowed deeper and said, “dou itashi mashite.”
Since he didn’t politely disclaim it as nothing April laid a two-bit tip on him. He looked pleased.
April went back to her seat and drink before she slit the rather large envelope. Folded over the contents was a handwritten note.
April,
Please accept these as a token of my admiration. You were the obvious choice to honor with this first issue. I hope you’ll regard these as keepsakes, but I frankly hope they are also investments.
Eric
Alarmed, she pulled out the next item her fingers found. It was a single large stamp four centimeters high with the aspect of a golden rectangle. It was mounted in a card stock folder with a glassine window. On it, in portrait mode was an artistic interpretation of a well-known photo. It was her firing her laser, taken by Adzusa, and published by Genji Akira clear back in the revolution.
April didn’t have to read any credits to know who drew it. The style was Lindsey Pennington’s. April’s face was bright in almost photo-realistic detail, as was the beam of her weapon and another crossing from behind below hers in a fluorescent green so bright it seemed back-lit. The young man who appeared just behind her in the original photo was cropped out, but everything else faded away in both sharpness and color brilliance away from the main subject.
You could still clearly read the Japanese and English corridor markings on the corner she was braced against, but they were dull and didn’t distract the eye until you started looking for details.
April could see Eric doing this, but as an artist, Lindsey should know even an artistic representation of a photo encroached on Adzusa’s ownership. Home didn’t have copyright laws, but Lindsey needed to make this right with Adzusa.
In the big envelope was a first day cover with a special cancellation stamp that featured a silhouette of Home. Finally, she withdrew a sheet of twenty-five stamps in an archival folder. She checked carefully, but only a stiffener remained in the envelope.
Once upon a time, she’d have been outraged by Eric’s audacity in assuming she’d be honored. She used to object to anyone addressing her as Lady too. Finally, she’d grown up a little and d
ecided it was petty reverse snobbery to reject people trying to honor her. She sent Eric a text thanking him and offering to autograph his personal first-day cover if he was keeping one.
“Oh sweet, thank you. I didn’t want to impose,” Eric’s reply came right back. “Is it a good time to come over? But if I’m coming, might I get one for Diana? She’s my partner in this venture.”
“Sure, bring whatever you want to be signed,” April invited, amused. She should have figured Diana would be involved being a partner in the lotto with him. “As long as you don’t go nuts and have me signing crap until my hand cramps up. I’ll stamp it with my hanko too,” she offered.
* * *
“The North Americans docked the Constitution on their little space station,” Chen reported. “If they are doing serious loading instead of moving small items across piecemeal, I expect they will be making another extra-solar trip soon.”
“Should we scan them again?” Jeff wondered.
“I’d wait. I don’t expect them to bring up the crew until after the ship is loaded and provisioned and all the systems are given a thorough check. Wait until they move it off the station and then you should have a day to do a fly-by and scan it,” Chen said.
“Coordinate with Walter, would you, please?” Jeff requested. “Make sure he has his probe all serviced and ready to sweep past on short notice.”
“I will, and I’ll contact you both when I see them undock,” Chen promised.
“Go ahead and copy Heather and April next time if you didn’t,” Jeff requested.
* * *
“That’s lovely art,” Nick allowed of the stamp with April’s image. “I was relieved when our mail service went down. I was fined once for failure to empty my mailbox until no new mail would fit in it. Of course, North America fined everything any official could think to fine. They never had enough money. I’m not sure I want to encourage anybody to start it up again. FedEx Australia still services us no matter how it grates the North Americans. All I ever got was a bunch of catalogs, political flyers, and advertising circulars. Would you like to be the Republic’s first Post Mistress? I could toss the idea out to a few agencies and see if anybody is excited by it. You probably already know more about it than most folks from starting up the Home Service.”
A12 Who Can Own the Stars? Page 36
