“How long do you figure it should take to hammer this out?” Love asked.
“This evening if we were both reasonable people,” Jeff said, “but I’m very bad about social things and stubborn, so maybe a couple of days. I have people on my ship that will get tired of being cooped up and run low on supplies. So I can’t drag it out past a few days.”
“Tanaka would croak to hear you say that. He’d consider it a weakness to exploit. He lectured me about giving you the home-court advantage to meet here.”
“The danger would be I’d say to hell with it and go home, not that I’d cave in to bring it to an end. I swear Earthies are wedded to sports metaphors. There are still people on Home who follow all the games breathlessly, but for me, they just don’t translate. I get no emotional jolt at all.”
“I told him it wasn’t a basketball game.”
“Wish it was,” Jeff said. “I’m taller than you.”
That didn’t offend Love, it made him smile.
“The other fellow who went off with your guards in suits isn’t an aide to sit in?”
“He’s the spare pilot for the ship. If anybody kills me, like people keep trying to do, he’s to get it home. He’s very good at that but has no other official purpose. I’m getting hungry,” Jeff said. “I’ve got a gene boosted metabolism and eat more. Do you have room for a little something soon?”
“Easily. I try to eat light when I’m flying.”
“House,” Jeff called to the ceiling, “can you let me talk to Nick?”
“You are connected until you say you are done,” the house computer said.
“Have you laid in some groceries so we can whip up something for dinner?” Jeff asked.
“I have breakfast stuff, sandwich makings, and various snacks, but this evening Diana will serve you dinner on her patio,” Nick said. “I’ll go over with you.”
“Oh good, that’ll be a treat,” Jeff said.
“Is Diana the housekeeper?” Love asked.
“Diana is the neighbor next door. She’s known. This house is owned by April and we do business back and forth. Nick is a sort of caretaker since this hardly ever gets used. I rent an apartment to Diana on Home and she lets me use it sometimes when she’s down here. I have another apartment and office too but an employee lives there. April has her own place up there too… It probably sounds complicated, but it isn’t.”
“No more complicated than the rest of it,” Love allowed.
* * *
They walked across to the next house. One national cop came with them and said he was Captain Griswold when asked. He wasn’t unfriendly but not interested in chatting at all. Otis was introduced as having been in armor before and that he’d alternate with Christian Mackay staying in the suits. Nick was surprised they rated a Captain of police.
Diana was grilling steaks or Ono as pleased you. The side dishes were abundant and pretty. Talk tapered off as everybody dug in. Ele’ele sat behind his mistress and watched all the strangers closely.
Captain Griswold and Otis went off to let their partners come to eat. The new cop was Lieutenant Walton and he wasn’t any chattier than his captain. Griswold went back over to April’s house to do a patrol around the outside. Mackay returned, having armored up, and did a slow turn around the perimeter inspecting everything carefully.
“What’s he doing?” Naito asked. Everybody looked because Mackay stopped his patrol and was staring up into a big tree beyond the stone fence.
“Admiring the foliage?” Jeff joked.
“I don’t like it. It reminds me of when Ele’ele was standing staring across the fence recently and we found blood signs and evidence we’d had an intruder,” Nick said.
The police lieutenant looked alarmed. “Did you file a report on that?”
“What would be the point of it long after they were gone?” Nick asked. “If there was any evidence they tried to get in the house I’d have reported it.” He didn’t volunteer they’d found a weapon or that the property had a history of invasion.
“Mr. Mackay, do you see some activity?” the cop called out.
Mackay came up the hill with his faceplate clear, looking concerned.
“Do you keep some sort of security system active outside your boundaries? Your lot does end at the stone wall, doesn’t it? These suits have a pretty decent sensor suite and I am getting a reading like a phone radiating up in that big tree.”
“It’s nothing of ours,” Diana assured him. “I have a ladder in the garage. We should take a look and see what is up there.”
“No need,” Mackay said. He trotted back down to the waist-high wall, hopped to the top of it, and then in a stunning demonstration of the power armor leaped to the first massive branch a good three meters higher. He scrambled up from branch to branch with graceful agility to put a monkey to shame.
He returned with a tiny black box that had a hair-thin antenna wire hanging, a lead to a separate small solar panel, and the protruding lens of a steerable camera. The lens moved as they watched trying to decide where it should point from its confused and very limited AI. Mackay removed a memory card and the lens returned to zero and retracted.
“It’s not radiating now,” Mackay said.
“It shuts down without a memory card,” the lieutenant said. “That’s a very typical commercial spy cam. Pop the case and there should be a cellular sim card.”
Mackay looked carefully and popped the case open, but the extraction of the card was too delicate to do with his armored gauntlets, so he passed it to Lt. Walton.
“I’ll find out who pays this cellular account and get back to you,” Walton said. He pocketed the sim card and carefully sealed the pocket shut. “Unfortunately, it probably isn’t illegal being on state land. There are all sorts of nature cams watching bird nests and game trails. They’re perfectly legal and sometimes a cover for things just like this. But if the memory card shows it focused on watching your home and the owner foolishly never programmed it to pan off in the woods to feign innocence, you might have an actionable case for an invasion of privacy.”
“There are different kinds of action,” Mackay said in an ugly growling voice.
“My, you people are certainly interesting to be around,” Love said. “The Commerce Department picnics never have anything this exciting.”
“Be aware. We have had a constant flux of fairly sophisticated spy bots try to penetrate both houses here,” Naito said, waving his hand inclusively. “Our Spacer friend gave us little hunter-killer bots that seem to have been effective in excluding them. However, those attempts ended about the time we saw Ele’ele acting territorial and saw signs he drove somebody off.”
“He seems quite gentle,” Love protested.
“Don’t bet your life on it,” Naito warned him. “Don’t move suddenly on Diana or raise your voice to her. He won’t waste a single bark trying to warn you.”
“I see,” Love said, reappraising the gentle giant.
“Let’s go back to the house and talk a little bit before you need to go back down the hill with your bodyguards,” Jeff said. “I’d offer you a room but I didn’t see any luggage. I’m betting it was all delivered to your hotel suite.”
Jeff got up and they strolled away from the others.
“You’re right, but that would also scandalize Tanaka and convince him this is just a farce and I’m in your pocket to accept that much hospitality. Why don’t you call me in the morning so I have some idea when you are ready for me to return?”
“You might as well just come up the hill when you want,” Jeff said. “I’m gene modified not to need as much sleep as usual too. I’ll be up at 0300 looking at business proposals and reports. Talking with the lag is irritating but I don’t do much business by voice anyway.”
“It’s isn’t just life extension then?” Love asked.
“No, it’s lots of little things that are quite legal even in North America. Reduced inflammatory response for vascular health, cancer suppression, protecti
ons from several forms of auto-immune diseases, dementia, and diabetes. All the things that keep you healthy for a normal lifetime without really extending it. But add on the illegal age slowing and other things. The sleep, extra strength, faster reflexes, I can synthesize my own vitamin C. That may seem silly but it was so cheap, why not have it done? You never know what your circumstances might be in the future.”
“So it’s kind of like ordering dim sum. You go down the list and check off what you want?” Love asked.
“Yeah, but there are options with trade-offs I’m not willing to make,” Jeff said. “There are gene mods to give you perfect pitch or enhance your memory. I know one fellow developed a mod to do multitasking, but it made changes in his personality he didn’t like so he removed it. I agree with him I won’t take a mod that doesn’t have an undo available.
“The idea that LET makes you crazy because they messed up and hurt a few people when it was first introduced in Germany is like refusing all vaccinations because a couple of bad polio and flu vaccines in the twentieth century injured some people. The Europeans, in particular, are still pounding that drum hard, and we’re quite tired of it,” Jeff said.
Jeff was sort of embarrassed he went on a rant, and Quincy was given a lot to think about, so they walked the rest of the way in silence.
Chapter 29
Jeff stopped in the kitchen and got a couple of bottles of cold water and handed one to Love. “Out on the balcony OK with you?” Love just nodded. They found chairs looking down over the swimming pool house and the nature preserve below.
“In the intercept video I released most of it was from April’s view,” Jeff started.
“I haven’t seen that video,” Love said.
Jeff just looked at him shocked, then pulled his pad out and made a call. It seemed a long time to make a connection and then Love realized where he was calling.
“Chen? Yes, I know this probably isn’t secure. You define secure differently than me anyway. To you, secure means it can’t be decrypted before the sun grows cold. In this case, I don’t even care if it’s being intercepted and freely broadcast to the public in real-time. Is the video we released generally available in North America?”
Love felt free to lean over and look at the phone given Jeff’s statement. Chen looked at the strange face in alarm and froze up for a second trying to decide if he should cut his feed to audio. With the lag, Love had seen him so long it seemed pointless to cut it.
“If you know how to bypass the restrictions to access European or Asian servers it’s pretty easy to find it. Getting archived feed from Home itself is a little harder. Any of the space nut sites have it. But if you listen to the commercial news in North America, they simply didn’t carry it. Most folks get their news and entertainment feeds off fiber or are hardwired. Those that get it off the air do so from short-range cell services. There isn’t much long-range broadcast left in service, so no, most North Americans haven’t seen it.”
“Thank you, Chen. This is Quincy Love. Tell Chen you forgot you’ve ever seen his face so he doesn’t have a heart attack,” Jeff requested.
Quincy picked up on it right away. “A pleasure to have forgotten you,” he agreed.
Jeff cut the connection without elaboration.
“He’s a spy?” Love asked.
“A spymaster, for all three of us. I doubt he’ll ever risk himself to visit Earth again, but old habits die hard and good spies are rightfully paranoid. There’s no point in talking further until you see the video. I’ll cast it to you and you should keep a copy.” He initiated it to Love’s pad and set his down. He’d rather watch Love’s reaction to it than watch the whole video again himself.
“I think I want to go to my hotel now,” Love said after he watched the long video. “I’ll watch it again going down the hill and make some phone calls tonight. I want to do that before we talk anymore.”
“It’s near sundown and that happens surprisingly fast here in the tropics,” Jeff said. “Especially with the lee side behind the ridge from us. It’s good to get down the long windy road before it is full dark. I’d be pleased to serve you breakfast in the morning if you want to wait and have it up here.”
“I’ll plan on that,” Love said and got up to go collect his guards. They could see their people at Diana’s from the balcony and Jeff went with him to rejoin them.
* * *
Griswold joined them at the door and called his lieutenant on their collar radio when told they were leaving. They met at the stone wall and turned uphill to their car with a nod. Jeff rejoined the others on Diana’s patio and claimed a chair.
“Done so soon?” Nick asked.
Jeff nodded his thanks and took a local beer from Nick’s hand.
“Mr. Love had never seen the video of our intercept,” Jeff said, “although it is released to the public. He also didn’t have any sort of a bio on me. From the set of his face, I’d say he is tired of the mushroom treatment and said he’s going to going to make some phone calls tonight from his hotel.”
“I have a small gift of prophecy,” Johnson said, touching fingertips to his temples. “I think they will fail to offer Mr. Love any support or just promise it and never deliver. I think he’ll pack up and go home when that happens.”
Jeff noted he had three empty beer bottles beside his chair.
“What? No rebuttal?” Johnson asked.
“If you were certain you’d have offered it as a bet for anybody who wanted a piece of it,” Jeff said. “I know you are an inveterate gambler. I have to ask, however, if we need to jump up this instant and run for our lives, can you fly by the time you get to the ship?”
“Absolutely,” Johnson promised him. He fished in his breast pocket and displayed a white capsule. “Fifteen-minute sober pill. Though you pay for it the next day.”
“I took one of those once,” Diana said. “Never again.”
Jeff saluted him and dropped it. Diana had better sense. She probably had too much sense to fly a spaceship like it was a video game that didn’t matter if you crashed. Jeff thought about that. If he had weekly shuttle service here like Nick wanted it was going to change a lot.
“Diana, why has that house next door been for sale so long?” Jeff asked.
“The economy hasn’t recovered from the revolution,” she said. “It wasn’t that great before, and nobody has been sure where things are headed to buy an expensive property. April and I weren’t certain we’d be allowed to keep our properties or if there would be a massive seizure and redistribution to native Hawaiians. Nick helped keep them rational about that. It would have destroyed what economy was left to chase all the money and the skilled workers out of the country.”
“Is it a decent house? Have you been inside?”
“The old boy who owned it kept to himself. He never had me over. I spoke across the wall maybe a half dozen times over the years. It’s a fee simple place. All these on the ridge are, and that’s so valuable it would be worth it even if you had to tear it down and build all over from scratch. Why? You thinking of buying it?”
“I was just thinking if we are having closer ties to Hawaii, we need a consulate for Central,” Jeff said. “Maybe even an embassy. We could buy it and make it our office. You could be our consul and just walk right next door when you needed to do some rare business. Being up here on a dead-end would keep bums from wandering in off the street. You could hire a local to answer the phone. Remotely if they don’t want to drive up the road. Maybe Home would like to be represented out of the same building, sharing the costs. It could promote business, which would make Nick happy.”
Privately, Jeff imagined Annette might be the first intelligence officer at the consulate after some training. That was how the game was played and it wouldn’t hurt to give her an assignment in paradise after what he put her through in Camelot.
“I’ve already told Nick I don’t want a job. Why do people keep trying to rope me into doing stuff? If you did that some damn fools will probab
ly drive up here to demonstrate with nowhere to park and block my driveway,” Diana warned.
“Think on it,” Jeff said, undeterred. “I have money left from selling Camelot. I may just go ahead and buy it on speculation.”
“You’ll be surrounded,” Nick told Diana, looking amused.
The tropical sunset Jeff warned about was suddenly done. “House, bring the outside lights up halfway,” Diana said.
* * *
Love showed up surprisingly early.
“I hope you didn’t cut your rest short for me,” Jeff said. “I’m used to waiting for sleeping people to wake up and use my time productively.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Love said.
“Heavy matters of state weighing on your mind will do that,” Jeff acknowledged.
“So will seething with anger,” Love said.
Jeff’s eyebrows went up. “I’m not very good at reading people, but you don’t display classic anger to me. I confess, I’m frequently accused of failing to display what I feel internally for people and confusing them.”
“I already figured that out yesterday,” Love said, “so I’ll just explain in words. I’m a minor functionary in a bureaucracy that gets disrespected as stodgy and uninteresting. My job is to make sense of torrents of data that are fascinating to me but that often gets ignored because they refuse to reflect the reality people want them to show.
“I called the Undersecretary of State who asked Commerce to send somebody to talk with you. I wanted to know why the Constitution was armed, what sort of orders they had that they refused to speak to you, and why they spun the ship in such a way to endanger themselves.”
Jeff nodded. “I wouldn’t mind knowing those things myself,” he admitted.
“He informed me no State Department assets were available to pass those questions on to the Space Force and he didn’t expect they would tell him or me in any case because I’m not cleared at a level to be privy to operations at that level.”
“Seems silly to send you if this is above your trust level. We sort of gave up on keeping everything secret in separate tiny compartments,” Jeff said, marking off little squares with his hands. “You either trust your people or you don’t. If you do it like they do, you have people working away at cross purposes, and one person sitting on information another person needs or unaware what he is researching is already known to be false or useless. We don’t have billions of dollars to throw away in a usually futile effort to keep everything secret. Sad truth is, when we finally told people the things we’d been trying to keep secret, we found they didn’t believe us anyway.”
A12 Who Can Own the Stars? Page 44
