L'Gem

by Sharon L Reddy

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Bard went out into the bright late morning, said, "Hello," then reached back, grabbed Nev and pulled him around in front of him. Nev said, "Hi," and began to giggle. Case and Stats burst into laughter and Bard grabbed Blade. He was sinking. Nev leaned on him and he groaned.

  "Obviously, all my plans don't work. We're very happy we got it stopped before it really got started here. You're our neighbors. We live right over there. Lots of us are coming to visit and looking forward to you visiting us. Thank you for inviting us. This is the only official visit were making. You can see why. We're not really good at dignified stuff, but we're here to officially say, 'Hi.' Nev?"

  "That's right."

  "Officially, 'Hi.' We're glad you're here, and we're really enjoying all our visitors. One of the official things we have planned for your visit is opening our first daytrip facility."

  "That's great! We're all excited you're going to come over and play in our yard. The universities are looking forward to seminar exchanges and professors and students coming for classes and the space corps is looking forward to training and working with people from here on ships, and getting jobs here at universities and such."

  "Your people are going to look for work here?"

  "We need skills we don't have to explore. You need people who have knowledge of the new tech. Trip-chair commuting to work, getting paid and paying taxes where your home is, makes sharing those skills simple. There aren't enough of us to import much, but transpatial comm bills and employing people with skills we don't have to help explore, will get most of the money back in circulation, and businesses who bought licenses to make tech will have customers who can afford to buy it. A trip chair is transportation. It's an interplanetary car. The cost will go down fast as more people use the transpatial comm network and spread it out. That's why we encourage people to go everywhere that looks interesting, to get that cost reduction process started and make it less expensive for people to daytrip commute to work. Why not a TSC node and trip chairs in most homes? Why not employment listings for every planet with TSC bills paid as a commonly listed benefit? You can't steal, smuggle, or spread a flu. No interplanetary legal or tax issues to resolve, so treaties unnecessary. Ship traffic will increase because people can continue to work, or go to a hockey game, as they travel. Cruises will still be popular for the amenities, but part of the package may be daytrips to places or concerts. Or they can hire incredible entertainment for one night and sell additional tickets to trippers. And we make friends everywhere, and the possibility of war becomes less with every smile exchanged."

  "It's very difficult to grasp the full implications of any new technology. The 'car' analogy will help with this one a great deal. The other common-use item is the power stores."

  "They'll go in everything that's independently powered and really help reduce production costs, as part of an on-site generation system. 'Prosperity for everyone' may be an impossible dream, but we can make it possible for a lot more by bringing prices of essentials, like homes, down and widening the area in which they can seek opportunity. It will be less expensive for businesses to expand, because the cost of new facilities will be lower. They can hire more people. More people working means more who can purchase, and others can expand and hire. We're going to seem a little odd because our wealthy try to figure out ways to spend, not make more, money, and no one else works to accumulate it."

  "The good that has arisen from our suffering the greed and abuse of the mining corps and gov is the choice of response to it by the people, not good 'caused' by it. That's something that's hard to teach. Evil never begets good, but the triumph over evil does. We must take care to show evil is not necessary for good to be created. It is the teaching that is its birth. When evil arises, we know the teaching of good had become weak. It's not surprising that there is a resurgence of it after we have suffered the horror caused by that weakening. Good begets good, and evil begets evil. If we do not carefully teach it's not a cycle, we will be doomed to suffer one."

  "About time you said something, Blade."

  "You did very well, especially on the 'show them who we are' part."

  "I forgot about that. We'd have come up with all the tech, if they hadn't bombed the physics lab. They slowed down, not increased, the speed of discovery and development."

  "It took us nearly a year to reconstruct the work we'd been a half-day from finishing and get Bard, Blade, and the other heroes, who had sacrificed their freedom because something had to be stopped. When they tried to kill us to cover taking Bard, because they thought it was finished and they wanted a secret weapon, they proved, beyond doubt, they had to be stopped before any more work was done."

  "There are discoveries you didn't share, Admiral Terschell."

  "There are applications that have no practical use, or the only use they have is not something we want generally available. That's a truth of R and D. Any tech can be abused, a multi-wrench can be used to commit a crime. The trip chairs are as non-abusable as any I can think of. Where and when your first facility?"

  "In a few moments. I'm told we're having a bit of difficulty coming up with a comm code not in use for the node they've got set up over there, so our first tripper can come here."

  "Mandolin spaceport breezer."

  "Wiltens?"

  "Available!"

  "Put an unexpected word in somewhere, add a suffix, spell your name backwards, describe your cat. Using something sensible won't work. Try for something people can remember long enough to get a shortcut into their comms."

  "Mandolin Daytrip Tours is now open!"

  "Congratulations! Our uniform looks good on you, too."

  The elderly woman looked down and burst into laughter. The president led the applause. Six space force trippers from Liberty Gem arrived, and thanked the woman for the compliment. The Prime Minister and Defense Minister arrived. The Prime Minister said they'd come to invite everyone to come visit and brought an advertisement they were "calling a comm code listing." Bard pointed. Case went in the ship and came out with a datpad a few seconds later. He gave it to the Prime Minister.

  "Now, this is for your new facility, but I'm going to give it to the president. Most of us don't remember we can't carry anything, until we have something in our hands, get back without it and have to call someone to go back to pick it up off the ground. In this listing, which was also sent to your new business, is the code for Space Corps Recruitment, and its hours in your facility time. There's a long list of skills we're specifically seeking attached. We will pay the trip cost for persons with those skills. That is not dependent upon employment. We'll set payment up in the simplest way for you to do this for us. President Waters, I ask you to accept this welcome to the fun and convenience of daytrip travel for your people and Mandolin Daytrip Tours."

  "Thank you, very much, Prime Minister Lowinsky. This list is long, and somewhat surprising."

  "We don't need just people with doctorates to train to explore new worlds. The only civilian employees we're sure we have for our new space corps bases are golf pros. We got applicants for that as soon as we said they'd be building the courses. Come play sometime and find out if that hitch in your pitch is actually physical."

  "I definitely will. We have a celebration planned. Will you stay for it?"

  "I'd be delighted. However, the Defense Minister needs to go back and we'd like to borrow your cams a moment."

  "Please."

  "Got them, boys?"

  "Now?"

  "Yes, Bard. We want to set the precedent of yelling for you to do something, without having to put you on active duty for a day or two."

  "I knew there was a catch in this somewhere. Please try not to have any emergencies. I'm sure it's someone else's turn to do the math assignments."

  "Oh, we will try, Blade. We're sure you should be building beautiful places and it's someone else's turn to do the math too. Vic
e-admirals first."

  "Two sets each."

  "Thank you, Case. These are designators of reserve status. With placement of them on your insignia, we denote your release from active duty. With them in place, you may wear your uniforms at any time you feel it appropriate to show your pride in your service, or just because you feel like it. Admirals. He caught you completely unprepared."

  "I couldn't even think of anything to say. I was waiting for places to help him and… total blank."

  "The options were sitting down or grabbing the back of his pants to stay on my feet. If I'd done that, Case and Stats would have been laying on the ground laughing."

  "You are now in the reserves. Fleet Admiral Loden."

  "The only problem with wearing the uniform is people call me that."

  "No, Bard, they call you that because you did the job, and we're proud of you. You're our first Fleet Admiral and everyone who follows will remember the task is try to keep everyone alive and uninjured, while assuring the people of Liberty Gem are free to live as they choose."

  "If the space corps makes someone who doesn't know that already an admiral, I'll yell for help to find out what's wrong, and I'll get it, because we'll all know something is."

  As they were walking into the reception pavilion that had been set up, accompanied by many news people, the prime minister told the president Alden had gone back to put on a uniform. The BNU Board of Regents had said they wanted both their chancellor and vice-chancellor back and given them a suggestion for Defense Minister. Landerton U's regents weren't happy about losing their chancellor, but agreed she'd be good, and they didn't think irritating the BNU supporters was a good idea, either.

  "We have many people who would be good as Space Corps Chief of Staff or Defense Minister, but we always have to consider who can fill the position a person had before we draft someone. We really would have liked to keep our admirals, but there's no one else who will be as much help to us out here wandering around, and aiding other worlds in preparing for the changes the new tech will bring. Some of that aid is the artistry of their design of living space, and golf courses."

  "The new tech is going to change what and how we build."

  "Yes, but that's just starting point of changes in people's lives. They're going to have more time and money for leisure, and to increase the aesthetic quality of their lives. Currently, many fear they'll lose jobs, or businesses, because the new tech will make what they do or make obsolete. That's always true when new ways of doing things are discovered. Some of what we'll be doing, with our space corps and our wanderers, is helping reduce that fear by showing the new types of work and business opportunity it brings and shortening the transition period, as much as possible. One way we'll start doing that immediately will be by reducing the time it takes to prepare and settle new worlds. We can move huge amounts of equipment to a world, use it and move it to the next, while settlers begin using other equipment to plant fields, construct production facilities for furniture, open shops and everything else, while they're preparing to emigrate and in transit. The greatest change the new tech will bring is a huge decrease in the cost of opportunity. It's going to change our definition of overpopulation vastly in a short time. Bard, how fast can a nice world get to second stage settlement?"

  "How many ships with equipment do you want to send and how many people will trip to use it? It could be done in a day, if enough people are working on it, but a year to plant and bring crops to harvest in both hemispheres is probably most practical. Three hundred people could build the industrial facilities to produce farm equipment, and tech to build more tech, to build houses, shops and everything else in a few days. Basically, first stage settlers could prepare their world for second stage settlement during the journey to it. I think we're underestimating our ability to prepare worlds from scratch a great deal, one hundred years to create atmosphere, then one hundred to develop soil, then one hundred years for forests to grow? Why? Planets in the right place have water and atmosphere. We just need to change the atmosphere to suit us and construct an ecology. We have over two hundred worlds where we can grow everything we need to transplant, and constructing vast orbital seed and bug farms to move from world to world would just take a few days. If there's not a planet in the right place, calculate the mass needed to add or subtract from one to get what we want and shove it into the right orbit. Give it a nice big moon and come back to it when it settles down a little to seed it with life. Basically, if the sunshine is nice, build a place to live to bask in it."

  "Lack of employment opportunity is no longer a problem because transportation to wherever jobs are plentiful is now available. Moving to a new world no longer rips families apart, so singles and households will become the most probable settlers, not large extended families. Comm baby's grandma and tell her you're desperate for a babysitter for the evening. So what if she's on another world. Pick her up at the trip terminal-public transport stop a block down the street and go to where your transport to a play on another world is waiting. Want to send a gift? Drop it in the mail. It's cheap. Huge ships to carry container mail aren't expensive to build or operate, and neither are facilities to handle the mail in those containers. Lots of nice jobs for people to watch over the equipment doing the sorting. Lots of people living on pretty worlds, who work on a big transshipment station in space. Lots of companies shipping huge items built on space stations to every world. Solar power generation and storage tower systems keep a nice field around the place and nobody's actually breathing there, so all it needs to be is pleasant-feeling. Gravity or field failure wouldn't hurt anybody, and air circ is just for aesthetics. The business doesn't have to buy a huge chunk of land and build the type of support needed to hold up a building, or keep the space station from depressurizing. Opportunity for employment is not a problem. Corporate boards of directors, who don't believe the new tech has any potential benefit to their business, and investment and insurance corps sure anything without one hundred years of statistics is high risk, are. Dump them. Find someone whose brains aren't petrified and tell the insurers you don't need them at that price."

  "Blade!"

  "Nev, did you see the interest and insurance rates they're charging for facilities built with the magic trowel, and the builders using them? They're computing method and materials that are thirty-seven percent lower risk at seventy-two percent higher risk."

  "What?!"

  "They're making it only seven percent reduction in building cost."

  "That's here?"

  "It's everywhere, Gen President. The Interplanetary Institute of Fiduciary Ratings issued the recommendation about twenty minutes ago. My opinion is they're either scared, greedy or both. Basically, insurers are going to make about seven hundred percent net profit over a three-year period, unless everybody who's using the equipment drops it on their toes and breaks them. After that, they'll make about two hundred percent per year, unless everyone in the buildings runs into a wall and breaks their noses."

  "Just finished the math?"

  "I had to do a lot to come up with what would have to happen to equal the risk rate, Bard, and it was really hard to figure out some way people could hurt themselves with a magic trowel."

  "Inspired, Blade. I doubt if I could have come up with any way they could."

  "It did take most of the time, Case."

  "When did you get the figures?"

  Business news headline brief while I was in the shower, Nev."

  "They're not using any statistics at all for the computations. As far as they're concerned, we haven't built anything, or they're including the cost of the war as part of the insurance risk computations."

  "Probably, Stats. Nev?"

  "Transom IPI is pretty diversified. They'll last about two years before they're just a savings account someone with brains is using to make money. Most of the rest will be savings accounts in a half-year. The object is to maintain the replacement cost of buildin
gs, and the current rates on existing structures. They obviously don't think any governments will repeal construction insurance requirements and replace with a bond system or provide government-backed insurance programs. It should reduce taxes a lot, especially those of investment and insurance corps that aren't making the money the bonding companies and government-backed insurance programs are. Most governments could reduce taxes. The people holding stock in the finance and insurance corps won't be hurt. They'll just make less on that investment, not a lot because the insurers' costs will go down, as the companies dwindle to bank accounts. The employees won't have trouble finding jobs because other financial institutions will be expanding, and people to do data manipulation and statistical analysis will be in demand for planetary settlement planning. Basically the only thing damaged will be the IIFR and the people who did so stupid no one will hire them. Stats?"

  "I came up with seven-point three percent tax reduction plus or minus point four percent. The big insurance and investment corps would have made a lot for their investors promoting and financing new construction, but the investors will diversify and someone else will make a nice profit for them. They should come out about point six percent ahead with the tax reduction."

  "Construction cost dropped so much that individuals can finance a new factory, housing project or even a space station, personally. They don't need an investment corp to assemble enough money to do it. An upper-middle income neighborhood could pool sixty days of pay to finance a small luxury condo complex or housing project and start getting their money back in forty days. About three-fifths of the investment would go to making it luxury, including land and architects."

  "The cost of everything changes, when the cost of building does. The IIFR fears the change and is trying to slow or prevent it. They don't see the expanding possibilities, or people's delight they can have half-again the size home at two-thirds the price, just dropping cost of replacement and insurance rates. They can't see the forest because their noses are pressed against the bark of one tree. The traditional conservatism of financial institutions is very likely to make them bookkeeping services for people making direct investments with their money. They don't hear people talking about their dreams of a bigger house, a trip to hear a fantastic band, a new school for their kids, or going to school themselves because the cost of education is plummeting."

  "Explain that one, Bard."

  "On-site power generation, multiuse configurable rooms, low-cost new buildings to replace old ones with high maintenance costs, enviro fields to reduce separate building heating and cooling systems, and the maintenance they require, no melt units in walkways or roads, shared lab and research facilities with U's on other worlds, professors of specialized subjects working at four U's, each paying a quarter of what that professor commands as salary for that subject, and not that salary for one course of that level and three that don't require the specialized knowledge, ten U's sharing a huge space platform that's both teaching facility and profitable seed, sod and bug growing place, xeno-botany labs on new worlds, not in sealed, sextuple-filtered, hugely expensive iso-domes, stadiums and fieldhouses that configure for a dozen sports each and vast reduction in the land required for a great sports program, allowing increase of class space."

  "Mining corps don't want new materials to replace the things they gouge out of the hearts of new worlds and very expensively ship to old ones, for them to do new construction to accommodate all the people we don't class as excess population. They can house and employ them, in vast complexes of apts and business towers. The complexes and towers stacked them up, so most of the land can be used to grow food for them. We wouldn't need to gut new worlds, if those people were spread across them, and the high-pop worlds could ship recycled elements to build structures on them for decades, as people spread across the land that's no longer required for crops, to feed people in stacks of boxes."

  "Case really dislikes the policy of selling mineral rights to finance settlement. Since the Human Rights Commission seems oblivious to the fact the mining corps force the cultures of new worlds into patterns they want, he plans to assure they don't get any rights or concessions on any more."

  "I'll help with that, Stats. Making new worlds minerals poor, forcing people to all use one surname and making heterosexual couple marriage the only financially viable form of household formation all irritate me."

  "Are they still doing that, Nev?"

  "It's all 'standard settlement contract' material, Prime Minister. No social experiment groups, legal marriage for insurance purposes is man and woman, woman takes man's name or they don't qualify for spousal benefits, and their children are legally only hers. If the man takes her name, they're not married. If an extended family of forty wishes to settle together, they all have to have the same surname, or a family settlement package for each surname and they may be split up. The Supreme Court knew it and named our exiles accordingly. Liberty Gem was the first world they did that shit on. They're now on the fifth."

  "Well, they won't get any more. We won't let them pay seven percent of the cost of settlement to make everyone live the way they say. If they want to do that, they can find and finance worlds themselves. Of course, they won't have much money left after they pay damages to all the worlds on which they exceeded allowed mineral depletion by a large margin, eight so far."

  "Make that nine. We just completed our survey, and will be joining the suit."

  "You're as mad as we are."

  "We're furious. They lied when we asked confirmation they weren't over, one hundred nineteen years ago. They didn't partially fund settlement of this world and we're going to press charges for theft. They took sixty-three percent more than they bought. We requested subpoena of the records of all eleven that had contracts, and we intend to close down any and all that were guilty of the crime committed against us. We suspect every world settled in the last two hundred fifty years was robbed. We want them broken into bits and sold. I wasn't supposed to announce that yet, or say we intend to destroy them, but we don't care if their stock becomes worthless and people lose money. They've been known to be without ethics for two centuries. You just said they're not a necessary evil we must tolerate to maintain our civilization. Thank you. We don't want a settlement and legal constraints. They ignored the ones that existed. We were told, 'People didn't do it. The corporations did.' If that's true, they're parasitic businesses not under the control of humans or human law and will be shut down and dismantled, like any other out of control device."

  "Oh, we do like you. We've been very careful to be moderate in our language and assignation of guilt for the events on our world."

  "They're comp-run profit mills, with no one looking at anything but their personal bank account totals. I suspect the only word that's been changed in a settlement support and extraction agreement in two hundred years is the planet name."

  "My great-great-grandfather says the whole social thing is probably the result of a document clerk, with a personal opinion on how everyone should live."

  "Considering the non-management of those corporations, that wouldn't be surprising, Nev."

  "BNU jackets!"

  "Those are my five grandchildren. They ordered their jackets the day they saw the Winter Carnival recap. I'm going to mention the two oldest girls are seventeen and sixteen, because I suspect they wouldn't."

  "Thank you. They do not look that young."

  "I know, Blade, and so do they."

  The two girls knew their grandfather had 'told.' They said they still wanted rides in cars and offered two "car-crazy" younger brothers and "why-kid" sister of one, as chaperones. The "why kid," age five, and Bard became buddies in seconds. They resolved the talking-distance problem quickly. He squatted down and she climbed onto his back. The two girls talked about societies and philosophy with Nev and Blade. The two boys talked about tech and cars with Case and Stats. Subjects changed as the four 'political kids' deftly steered
the admirals into meetings with people working to get new technology into production and new methods into use on their world.

  Bard's small rider-companion, Billie, steered too. They zigzagged back and forth across the room to talk to people who were also wondering, or would know, why. They agreed it was "the most fun official kind of thing" they'd ever attended.

  They were talking to Billie's mother, when her aunt called. The fuel regulator on her car had "gone crazy, then died." Bard ran for the door as soon as her mom said, "shaking and crying." Billie got directions from her mom on her comm chron and relayed them. Bard ran for a vehicle that looked like it would make the hill. A woman yelled a key code for it. He commed Blade, as soon as they were in it.

  "You know why run or someone wouldn't have yelled a key code."

  "A fail-safe that didn't work fast enough. Case wants that part and so does security. They're sure it was just a part failure, but she's the president's daughter-in-law's sister. Rodney says she's also twenty-seven, single and beautiful, and he wants the part too. They're working hard not to shake. There aren't many places to get off the road on the road and most of them are cliffs. Nobody's died taking curves too fast because comps override."

  "She did it perfect the first time."

  "She knows the road. She drives it four times a tenday for volunteer work."

  "She teaches guitar to people who want to learn at the Kelston Elders Center. They make sure people who really want to have guitars to play. Aunt Wendy plays mandolin too, but that's not very unusual here, for the obvious reason."

  "Guitar is?"

  "Not in Kelston, but I haven't met anybody else who plays it here. Aunt Wendy teaches six and twelve-string and whatever kind of music they want to learn. There's a boy learning classical and she's real excited. He's the first one."

  "Was she going or coming home?"

  "I don't know. Comm connect Aunt Wendy. Hi, Bard and I are coming to get you. Which way were you going? She was going to Kelston. She says it's been a too exciting trip, but some of her students come a long way."

  "Blade, apologize to people for us, please. I'm going to take Wendy and Billie to Kelston. I'll tow the car out on the way home."

  "We'll get it. Case, Rodney and Security Officer Mitchell can't wait that long to get their hands on the part. That's a two-year-old car."

  "Get that part now. Comm out."

  "Why?"

  "Fuel regulators shouldn't wear out in two years, Billie, even on cars that people drive a lot. That one didn't just quit working. It surged, pushed a lot through fast. Those two things together may mean something in the fuel regulator was made wrong, or the equipment, to check it was made right, didn't do its job. Either one of those things would mean many people's cars might do the same thing soon. If it's a manufacturing defect, something made wrong, the carmaker needs to know now, so it can get the part changed in every car it sold."

  "Wendy, Bard's going to take us to Kelston, and Case, Rodney and Sec Officer Mitchell are going to check if there's a manufacturing defect. No, not even driving it lots and not surge like that ever. Bard always tells me what the words mean too. He asks as many as I do. We're lots alike. Do you want us to stay on comm, so you don't feel all by yourself? You don't have to walk to the road. Bard was going to tow your car up the hill. Blade would have said if he couldn't. Right?"

  "Yes, Billie."

  "You're going to like all Liberty Gem's… Reserve admirals?"

  "I don't know, but admirals reserved sounds weird, so probably. We'll ask."

  "You call us if you want to talk instead. Comm out. She's going to play her guitar to get calmed down."

  She was sitting on the ground looking down at her guitar, so the first thing Bard noticed was her hair, a cap of dark curls, with silver-blue highlights. Then he noticed she was a very good driver. She'd steered the car going too fast down a hill too steep in a place almost too narrow.

  He whistled. Billie almost whistled too. He said it just took practice. She practiced while he drove down the hill, and got a good whistle, just as they got to the bottom of the canyon. By then, 'Aunt Wendy' was standing, and he was working to keep his eyes on where he was 'at,' not the tall slender woman in front of them. When he stopped, Billie got out fast and ran for her aunt.

  "That was almost scary slow!"

  "It was real scary fast, Billie. Hello."

  "Wendy Stanhope, this is Reserve Admiral Bard Loden."

  "You are a good driver."

  "That was my best performance. I retire."

  "I wouldn't do an encore. That's when people keep clapping, so the performer, usually musicians or singers, comes back and does one more song."

  "Thanks. See? He tells me what they mean too."

  "He sure does. It happened so fast I didn't have time to yell, 'Shut down,' which the comp may have been trying to do. This was scary, but it was 'the' place to get off. I thought it was going to flip when it hit the ground."

  "The disk is going to need work and one of the rim wheels has a bent shaft. We'll leave it for close-following well-equipped. I'm going to check your pretty neck. That shaft says you took quite a jolt. That's sort of the jerk all over, and more than just surprise, a shock, Billie. When the car came down hard, your aunt's head went forward then back hard. That's called 'whiplash,' and it's been the most common injury to people, since we made things to ride that go faster than we can run. It almost always happens when those things come to a sudden, wham! stop. That shakes us from our toes to the top of our heads, a jolt, too. You need treatment. It won't take long and you will give your students a better lesson. You're going to get stiff and ache all over quite soon. We'll take you to the clinic, then Billie and I will host a small celebration of your driving performance for your students while you're there. I'll take care of extra time for babysitters or other expenses of the type."

  "Aunt Wendy, your students don't want you to ache either!"

  "Arguing with a Fleet Admiral is silly?"

  "He's a reserve Fleet Admiral now, but he still right, and real pretty."

  "Thank you, Billie. What do you need besides your guitar case?"

  "Two more guitars. I checked them for injury before I called my big sister."

  "I'll get them."

  "He's real nice, Aunt Wendy."

  "Yes, Billie, he is."

  "You sure you don't want to go to the dance tonight?"

  "I changed my mind."

  "I would if I was big."

  "I brought this case too."

  "The music and picks! Thank you."

  "Put on the safety webs, please. The computer would complain as soon as we started up the hill."

  "Your neck hurt when you turned your head to look at me."

  "Yes, Billie, it did."

  "Let's get it fixed. Comm connect Nev. Tell the clinic in Kelston I'm bringing a whiplash injury. Arrange a nice little celebration we're only waiting for that at the Elders Center. It grounded hard. The left front rim wheel shaft is bent."

  "I'll inform, arrange and worn tow may not be simple. I'll get back to you with the time estimate."

  "Nev?"

  "They all left, including the kids and the Prime Minister. I have the reception all to myself."

  "You were set up."

  "They enjoyed it immensely. Comm out."

  Larry watched the news, and saw what Alden meant, but didn't have time to look for a reason for the oddity. He was in the middle of the test bank. He set it aside. He had no doubt Bard, Blade and Nev would stumble onto the reason. He requested references on Mandolin, then went back to his tests.

  After they took Wendy to the clinic, Bard and Billie worked on "strategy." He'd gotten "pretty famous," so it wouldn't be easy to get people to relax and call him Bard. They went into the center with her on his back, wearing his beret, practicing whistling.

  One of the elders was a 'real whistler' and Bard practiced too. T
heir strategy worked well. They got him from "famous admiral" to "nice young man who did a good job as admiral." People called him, "Bard," and he learned what they thought about the new tech.

  "No, it won't put you out of a job, William, but it will change your job, and give you a chance to change what you do completely, if you want. The situation now is some places have more jobs than people and others have more people than jobs. The trip chairs will help change that. We're going to make thousands of new jobs with our space corp, but we don't have thousands of people who need them. Houses will get lots cheaper, so almost everyone can move out of a dinky apt into a nice-size house, lots of jobs building them. Lots of jobs building on-site power generation systems, so business costs go down. More people with money to buy what they make, so they can expand and create more jobs. New worlds that people can build their homes on, while they're on the way to them. Transpatial comm will have lots more business and need to expand, but they won't have to pay people to spend a half-year on a ship to work six days total. So the cost of a trip goes down, and more people can afford to use trip chairs to get to jobs on other worlds, or the other side of one."

  "You don't have to go through space to use a trip chair, but it's a little silly to use one to go to the grocery store, because you have to have somebody bring your groceries to your house."

  "That's right, Billie. Currently, people are noticing things happen on this end of human space, and they're so surprised. Between us, that's a lot of why we hunted for some way to make it possible for almost everyone to commute anywhere. Excuse me, but there's no such thing as an uninteresting inhabited world. We found out any that look boring should be watched real carefully. We also found out every world's culture is different. We thought they were all about the same. They're not. We had transpatial comm, but no one knew anyone to call to talk about what they did yesterday, so none of us knew their usual thing and ours were different. We knew the culture of different places on our own worlds was a little different, but the cultures of worlds were the same? The differences aren't big, but a lot of little differences make a visit to every world an adventure. Traders told us that, but there weren't many and most of us never met one. That will change real fast."

  "Why?"

  "Because ships are cheaper, they don't have to stay on them, everyone who goes somewhere buys something they want delivered, and lots of businesses make things no one else does. Trade ships become nice big homes in space, and traders go to hockey games, concerts, dances, fishing and lots of us meet one."

  "I want to see your ship."

  "How about as your first daytrip?"

  "Kids can use them?"

  "Kids Billie's size can. A baby can't decide to go, or go back. Once they've learned enough to do that, they can use them. The chairs have to be able to adjust to any person's size, shape and nutritional needs. School trips on which no kid can get hurt, lost, sick from eating too much candy, and everything else that makes insurance half the cost for most, should be really popular, even before comm prices go down a lot."

  "I need more explanation about costing less, I think."

  "May I borrow a datpad? Thanks. It costs this much to do something, Billie. Now in that is all the equipment, power bills and pay for people who figured out how to do it and the ones who did it. For TS comm, that included spaceships and a lot of time on them. This is maintenance cost, all the equipment and people to keep it working. You pay it yourself when you buy a car, but comm services, water departments and such do it for everyone and charge for the service. This service only had this many people using it. They had to pay this whole thing so was a whole lot each. Divide to get a whole lot. Now there are this many. They have to have more in equipment but it's cheaper to get there and work on so this number doesn't get much bigger. Now, we figure out how much each of them has to pay."

  "Lots less!"

  "And it works that way for about everything. That's why a bowl that's handmade is lots more expensive than one made in a factory. You pay for all the work done on it, not share the cost of the equipment and pay for a few people with thousands of other people."

  "Now I know why art is expensive too!"

  "Yes, but some of what you pay for in art and music is all the time the people practiced to get good enough people would pay for the art or music, and because they're really good at it. We get paid more than others to do someone's yard because we have talent and skills that make the yard beautiful and just right for people. It's the art, not digging the hole to plant a tree, that costs."

  "You picked that way to make money and gave all the money for the tech inventions away."

  "We didn't need it, and designing and building things is more satisfying. That's more important than the money, but the nice pay we get for it really helps keep people from chasing us down the street trying to get us to invent something for them. Blade says money is only important when you don't have enough to buy your own food and pay for a place to live."

  "And people are scared the new tech could make that happen to them."

  "Yes, and because so many people are always a little worried about it, a lot of people start to think money and things are most important, and having them makes them important. We don't really know how to fix that, but everyone on Liberty Gem knows how dangerous to all of us thinking like that is. Giving away the tech patents makes people ask us why, so we have a chance to remind them most of them know better, when they think about it, but they don't talk like they do, and their kids hear the talk, not what they really think."

  "Aunt Wendy makes chances to remind people, too. She could make lots of money playing guitar concerts, but she can buy food and a house and teaching here is more spiritually satisfying."

  "She's that good, Bard. Once in a while she does a benefit concert, and music lovers and other performers get tickets fast."

  "I need a guitar, or five, William."

  "Six. She can't bring one to your ship to give you a lesson."

  "Thank you, Billie! We need somebody to do something like that so other people get ideas about what they could do. Six guitars?"

  "Bremerton Music will have that many, but they won't be alike."

  "Were not alike. We just dress alike, sometimes. I saw Bremerton's on the way here. Do you want to stay here or go with me to get guitars and Wendy, Billie. I'm asking not assuming… Know that one?"

  "Yes."

  "Because you might want to stay here and get more whistling lesson from Alan."

  "I'll go with you. My pucker is tired."

  "Mine's a little tired too, but we'll get our pucker muscles stronger fast and they won't get tired so soon."

  Bard was delighted with the selection of guitars, three of them used. He asked Fem Bremerton if he'd deprive someone of an instrument if he bought all ten of them. She said they could get more in a few days, including one or two used and the Elders Center had three to loan to start lessons. He bought those, two banjoes and two mandolins, then noticed an acoustic piano.

  Fem Bremerton smiled and suggested something else to "go with that ship." She brought a catalog up on the comp monitor and he smiled and nodded, then bought the smaller used one too, for Case and Stats' garden lounge. Since it would fit in the utility vehicle he'd commandeered, only the grand piano would have to be delivered. It was on the way before they left the store.

  Billie carried a guitar out too. It was a tenor and hers, a thank you gift for helping him talk to "just people," to the ease their nervousness about the tech, and suggesting a way to spread the idea of commuting by trip chair to teach.

  Bard also planned to spread the idea of acoustic instruments for personal enjoyment. On other worlds in the area, very few were made and those were orchestral. Fem Bremerton told him she didn't know of anyone, other than the two companies she bought from, who made flattop guitars or banjoes. When they took Wendy back to the Elders Center, Bard learned which type of guitar was used for different types
of music.

  Though any could be used for all, they had different sounds and the "character of the tone" was part of the music styles. When she got out her twelve string, "just to demo," Bard discovered what he wanted to learn most, classical and twelve string, and he had two, one of them used. It had been hers and she'd traded it in there in hopes of interesting a student with a much lower price. It hadn't worked quite as planned, but Bard wouldn't have bought just one, and she'd gotten a student who truly wanted to learn that instrument.

  When the five admirals walked into the ballroom that evening, Wendy was seated not far from the door. All of them noticed her immediately. She was in a devastating shimmering royal blue gown, and laughing.

  "Hi! What happened?"

  "You called home."

  "Nev called home, but I played the lullaby you taught me."

  "His mom loved your 'one lesson performance.' Evidently, the entire town loved it, then the world loved it."

  "Yipe!"

  "I found four more guitar teachers for them and our two guitar makers are hiring people, to teach to make them, to fill orders still coming in. I'll be teaching four classes at BNU. It's one of five universities that added classes, and community centers and music stores are hoping I can find more teachers for them. Kellony Institute had a class, but it was classical and not acoustic. I've been patted on the back so many times I'm against the wall because it's getting tender. Our first 'big' export to your world is acoustic musical instruments, and they're sure nothing else would be as appropriate."

  "Your back is pink."

  "We do it as a bit of a tease, Blade. Here, it's the usual way to acknowledge a job well done. Billie turned for me to pat her back. It was a great example of the surprising little differences that make visiting every world fun, and an adventure."

  "I'm going to find some quick-heal for it. People may not notice it's pink before they pat."

  "It's not… Arguing would be silly. I'd wince and they'd feel bad because they didn't notice."

  "Smart, beautiful lady. We're all jealous. Keep her out of pat position until I get back."

  "We will."

  "I will, Nev."

  "Bard, she's our best chance to meet other beautiful, single women. So far, 'single' has been the missing part of that description."

  "There are several who intend to assure you know they're here tonight, Case. They're all disappointed your leave was canceled."

  "Shh, we're coming back. Billie said people need to see our 'house and garage ships,' so we can spread the word of how much they don't cost."

  "Ships like ours would be quite expensive, but that's because of the luxury installations and furnishings, not the ship itself. A 'space house' with large cargo area attached, and I mean attached, would cost about what a house, with the same amenities and living space, currently does here."

  "Attached?"

  "Fields negate the need for the type of single unit construction that made cargo holds inside ships most practical. A cargo container, or platform for several, that attaches to the ship is now as practical in space as for haulers on gravways. They'll attached on top, not in back or below, because of the drive and a-grav. Many will still be built with cargo holds, but those will be more akin to light or mid-haulers and transports. Vast ships will be constructed in space, but they'll be passenger ships. That's probably where large cargo containers will be made too, just because they'll be big, not because they'll be heavy. Many will probably have power systems and a-grav, especially the smaller ones. That reduces the cost of handling. Those may be designed to hook on to a hauler."

  "The materials and diminished need for shielding reduce the mass to move so much, everything would be cheaper to ship if ships weren't faster and didn't require far less human time."

  "Traders will still trade, because they love the hunt for cargo that will sell well elsewhere, selling it, then finding another, but a lot of people will choose contract container delivery, many companies will deliver their own product, many shipping companies and delivery services will expand into space, and many will begin there."

  "Stuff for back. I just learned ours is a little better for contusion and theirs a bit better for laceration. An information exchange began a half-second after I said that to an emtech. She wasn't pleased to think about why we had to develop better."

  "We're all a little angry at ourselves, Blade, everywhere. A brutal oppressive government, four sick societies, two more worlds about to fold to them and it was starting here, and no one noticed. The one thing no one does is say, 'that's only two-and-a-third percent.' We think of the individual suffering and the stamping out of creativity in each child. We're disgusted with ourselves and a bit proud we are."

  "It's a very civilized response. We know we're quite civilized because we waited until we didn't have to kill any innocents. That was always the reason, but we wouldn't have waited much longer. One incident somewhere, one act of abuse would have been one too many, and the people would have arisen, and bloody revolution would have raged around the world."

  "Nev, you shocked her."

  "No, Bard, he surprised me. The anger had to be there, but you're all so friendly and pleasant it's hard to see it in you. And you didn't kill them."

  "We didn't kill all, or most. Seven who'd ordered the slaughter of ten to fifteen thousand, as a 'demonstration,' were executed. We don't know how many others were judged too dangerous to live, by those who had been their victims. We do know those were all who died. No one killed anyone just because they were gov or IS. They were injured by the corruption, too."

  "If they considered hurting people fun, and screams and begging them to stop music, they're dead. We know that because they couldn't have changed to live peacefully among us, but we don't know who, how many, or who had too much proof they were too dangerous to live, and we don't want to."

  "I think that's something we're all working to understand, Blade."

  "Do you have a bug or animal you classify as vermin?"

  "Several."

  "Are any of them deadly?"

  "One is poisonous enough to kill a pet or small child."

  "When you spray, or whatever, to kill that deadly vermin, do you want to know how many you killed? Or just that they're all dead and your yards and families are safe? They had chosen to be deadly vermin. They had no human qualities. We don't want to know how many deadly things were in the yard, just that our families are now safe."

  "Thank you. Twice. My back is definitely better. Would you like to meet some of my single friends."

  "Please."

  "He wants you to introduce us to them, so he has all your attention."

  "Yes, please."

  All of them met interesting women that night, and quietly told them they planned to be back in ten days. They also told them what time it was to them, so the ladies did understand why they ended the evening at the end of the ball.

  The next day they attended a luncheon in the southern hemisphere and several time zones east, to celebrate the production of the first magic trowel. They wore their winter-weight uniforms, and their lunch was served at eleven twenty-three ship time. They spread the word a bit more, then called Tatton to come meet the builder who had bought the first trowel. They went to the space portal, so she could go back with him, before the luncheon ended.

  Bard got another lesson from Wendy, then they left Mandolin to meet their ships at sixteen eighteen ship time. They had a somewhat early dinner and started the test bank at seventeen thirty. Thirty-nine minutes after they went to bed the second night, Kail called from the clinic. He'd waited a while, but they still spent over an hour in the midst of Nev's family, everyone from the neighborhood and several of Kail's and Lillen's friends, who "couldn't stay away," even though they knew the clinic would be packed.

  Day helped. He set up his party tent in the parking lot and got enough out of the waiting room two other happy families could also get in.

>   Carla Terschell was born at two fifty-two Teal Valley time. As they left the trip lounge, Nev touched his shoulder. Bard and Blade hugged him and promised "soon." His shoulder had been damp, but the evidence of the happy, loving tears of his family had been left behind.