3rd Chapter next April boook

Chapter 3

Their shuttle was a Mitsubishi, and April was surprised to see it looked old. She was accustomed to most things around her looking new, until she expected it without a second thought. Something like a landing shuttle tended to become obsolete before it wore out. It would be cut up and scrapped and the stuff like electronics sent to be hand disassembled for gold and copper, and then the assemblies shredded to an almost confetti fine consistency for recovery.

Their war with North America was a couple years back, but it was probably still forcing extended service from older shuttles. They had pretty well destroyed every small shop in North America that made the components like special tires and Buckey foam shapes. You could throw up an assembly building pretty fast, but getting all the pieces made again wasn’t near as easy. Europe, Russia and Japan had picked up what they could, but half the shuttles in service had been American. She’d helped remove a couple from service rather abruptly herself.

There were two staggered seats to a side, three rows deep, separated by a very narrow aisle. The head was on the left, straight in from the lock, and extra space between the right hand seats and the front bulkhead was the entry from the lock. It made the front right seats the most luxurious, uncrowded with extra foot room, something Gunny appreciated.

Gunny picked the first row aisle seat and planted himself in it, isolating April against the port, but leaving her first access to the lock, not that it meant very much with no pressure suits. Jeff and Heather sat behind, Jeff giving Heather the port seat when asked. Barak took the front port seat on the other side of the aisle. He was looking around with a dubious expression that said he felt the vessel belonged in a museum with stage coaches and steam locomotives.

After she fastened her carry on by her seat she came back up and looked for a manufacturer’s tag near the lock. It wasn’t in the entry, but beside the hatch to the flight deck. Instead of a peel and stick plastic card it was an aluminum plate, riveted to the bulkhead, with the model / date / build all stamped in the blanks. The numbers were placed carefully, but still crooked enough you could tell they’d been done with a hand held stamp and hammer, not a machine engraver.

The vessel was two years older than April. In space ships that was ancient. There was a clean spot on the bulkhead where an older intercom to the flight crew had been removed. The greenish phosphate covering was worn away next to it, where a thousand times a hand had braced there to press the call bar, and the holes were filled in by putting new rivets in them. Above that patch was a new intercom with a twenty five centimeter screen and no switches or visible speaker grill, just the tiny circle of a camera lens, and an audio jack. It displayed a virtual call button in one corner. The crew left it defaulted to off, not sharing a view of the flight stations.

There were shiny spots where the anodizing was worn off around the hatch collar, because a hand or a foot always went to one spot coming through the hatch. Recessed in the hatch ribbing was a small stick on white board, and it had dates and initials for the last time the seal was replaced, or the hinges lubricated and checked for free play.

About a year ago C.J. had written: Last service – retiring, and then after initialing it drew not a smiley face, but a little devil with horns. The three entries after that in a different hand were attributed to D.M., and the center one had a few Japanese characters. April assumed there were more permanent records somewhere, but it was interesting.

The acceleration couch she returned to had seen better days too. The cushion edge where you slid on and off was slumped, and didn’t spring back to its full shape. The plastic caps to the arm rests had the texture worn off until it was shiny. Nothing was unserviceable, and nothing was dirty, but at a glance you knew it wasn’t new, like looking in the door of a ten year old ground car. It also lacked any trace of the distinctive smell of a new ground car or spaceship.

A group of three men were at the lock, so April sat back in her seat to clear the narrow aisle. It felt weird now, to not have the frame of a Singh acceleration compensator close overhead when on the couch. That made her wonder if Jeff had a timeline to sell them for commercial shuttles. She’d have to ask him.

The first fellow in the lock was young with close cut hair and dark spex. He was dressed in belted Khaki pants and a golf shirt. He wore Earthie style cross-trainer shoes, rather than the lighter more flexible versions station dwellers would favor. You couldn’t see his eye movements, but from how he held his head he was scanning the passenger compartment to the back corners. The fellow behind him was older and not typical. He was skinny with long hair formed in a loose braid with loose bits sticking out all messy, bare arms, which was heavily frowned upon in North America now as well as Tonga, and they were covered in bright tattoos, a double social no-no. The man behind him was a clone of the first.

“Excuse me, would you please clear this front row? He said to April and Gunny. I’d like to put my man right by the lock and sit beside him for security purposes.”

“That’s why she’s in that seat,” Gunny informed him. “I’m her security.”

The fellow’s mouth scowled, but made a silent sign to the rearmost, and they turned and went back outside.

“Wow, does that mean they aren’t going to fly if he can’t sit here?” April asked.

“Nah, they are going to go ask the airline to assign seats and force us in the back corner. I’m pretty sure ‘first come first served’ is a hard set company policy, and they will offer to sell them tickets for a later lift if they want to line up early and have the first choice of seats.”

Sure enough, ten minutes later they came back in, carefully didn’t look at Gunny, and went to the rear of the side opposite, putting their charge in the rear port seat. One sat beside him and one in front. The young guys seemed unhappy, but the tattooed man was unruffled.

They acquired an obvious beam dog, who looked horribly hung over, a very well dressed Japanese couple, and a fellow festooned with photo gear wearing a vest with more pockets than it seemed likely he could own enough junk to fill. They were full up, so the photographer took the last seat next to the security guy in the middle row.

In the hushed cabin, you could hear the body guard speak to him. “Our client would appreciate if you refrain from photographing him.”

“That might be a problem, if I knew who the bloody hell he is, Jack.” The fellow scoffed.

“He’s Amos, lead singer for The Ancient Astronauts.” The security man obviously didn’t believe he was unaware of that.

“Oh, then if he’s a public figure, you’re damn silly to think you can say he’s off limits, but I’m not a paparazzi , I won’t waste my battery charge on him. I think my kid listens to them, useless noise as far as I’m concerned.” That pretty much ended any friendly chit chat.

The flight crew came in, an Oriental lady, and a surprisingly small blonde Caucasian man. He had a FedEx hard shell pack under one elbow like a lunch box, plastered with all sorts of blue and green safety color biohazard stickers and not even the normal orange expedited stickers, but the special square stickers instead, that said HOT in big letters on a hot pink background. Somebody paid a fortune to lift that if it was hand delivered to ride in the flight cabin. Just in case you didn’t get the message, it was sealed by a crimped steel band around the whole box, instead of the usual plastic cable tie in the lock loops.

They got things sorted out up front, stowed the hot freight away somewhere, and the number two pilot, the Scandinavian, came back to the hatch and hung on the collar looking them over.

“Jefferson Singh?” he inquired.

“That’s me,” Jeff said waving. The fellow looked at Jeff hard, like he might be joking.

“You are listed on the manifest as a licensed lander pilot. Is that correct?”

“Yes, and my friend April here is an apprentice going for the same ticket.”

“What type are you qualified on?”

“Only for our own first of class shuttle, Dionysus’ Chariot.”

“Your own? You mean it is a Home ported vessel?”

“That too, but we and Ms. Anderson here with us, are the owners also.”

“I always like to know if we have any qualified people flying with us. You aren’t rated for a Mitsubishi D body then?”

“Not at all. I don’t even know what your board looks like. Our ship can do aerobraking like a D body, but we’re able to do powered vertical landings. April and I are both rated for orbit to orbit too.”

“Indeed,” That got a high lifted eyebrow. “Welcome aboard,” he said, which was safe enough and polite. He retreated to the flight cabin and dogged the hatch closed.

“We look too young to him,” Jeff said, not upset, but certain.

“They’re Earth based even if they are spacers,” April pointed out. “There’s still some Earth Think clinging there.” Jeff just nodded agreement.

The lift was normal to the point of boring, the old shuttle worn, but just fine in every mechanical particular that mattered.

First chapter of a sequel for “Family Law”

Family Business

Mackey Chandler

A “Family Law” Novel

Chapter 1

It wasn’t like Fargone to be bureaucratic. They prided themselves on independence so it seemed unlikely the United States of North America or any other Earth power was pressuring them to not sell military supplies to Derf. The Derf had won the recent war, so it wasn’t a matter of not wanting to re-arm the defeated underdog and stir up new hostilities.

The missiles Gordon wanted to buy were no secret from him. He’d been the one to sell them the copies they used to reverse engineer them. Indeed he still had magazines over half full of the X head ship to ship missiles. They’d been very frugal with them during the war. He’d like to replace them, and alter the load out that was standard on the captured USNA ships. He really had no use for ground attack nukes. He hoped never to use one, much less the majority load out the North Americans favored.

On the other hand they were going deep on a voyage of exploration. Deep as in years away from Human or Derf society. So deep they had no idea what they would find, and more to the point who. Man had found two aboriginal races, and two technological societies already, close to home, the Derf and the Hinth both far enough along to take up space flight easily. It seemed likely sooner or later they’d find one who had progressed to space on their own. How friendly or territorial they might be was impossible to guess. But he wanted to be prepared if they tried to blow his dainty little butt off on sight.

In honesty he was irritated. Near a ton and a half of irritated carnivore with four inch gut rippers on his middle arms should have been radiating intimidation. Instead his personality was such that he got quieter and less visibly agitated the more upset he got. When he got to statue-like immobility it would be a very good time to try to defuse the situation. He wasn’t near that, yet.

His daughter Lee was also pissed. She was a loose cannon liable to say anything to the Fargone military commander they were going to meet. She was precocious, utterly fearless, which is easy to do at her age, but a cunning, calculating fearless instead of the usual teen inability to imagine her own death. At fourteen she was scarily able to imagine six different paths to your death, smiling pleasantly at you, while you were busy making nice-nice and patting the sweet little Earth girl on the head.

Indeed, she had once tracked a young Derf intruder through the woods back on his clan territory in falling dusk and been prepared to defend him from the interloper. Over a metric ton of six armed aggressive carnivore, equipped with a 20mm assault rifle. The pushy young cub had given him a hard time, challenging his territory, until matters had almost come to a head. Lee had changed the balance of that confrontation by the simple expedient of clicking the safety off her pistol from slightly behind the fellow in the quiet woods. The ‘Oh shit’ look on the kid’s face was a precious memory.

He was Derf too after all, in fact he had fifty years and about four hundred kilo on the kid. It never seemed to have occurred to her he might not need her help. In fact he’d point out – the entire Red Tree/Human war was over this one human child, and almost all of it was fought without her direct help.

The United States of North America had very stupidly broken their treaty over disapproving of his adoption of Lee. One cranky old prejudiced judge had taken her into protective custody when they were visiting Earth. The Nation of Red Tree did not take kindly to having their children kidnapped. The three Mothers declared war without hesitation, though it had been over a thousand years since they’d made war. They’d have declared war on every nation and world of all three races for one of their own. It was a matter of principle.

Gordon looked down at his daughter with a smile. The snarling grin he got back was no more comforting for being on a fifty kilo girl of fourteen years, instead of his own fourteen hundred kilos and four meter height.

“We really don’t want to plunge right in with an adversarial conversation,” Gordon pleaded. “Let’s stay calm and ask some questions, and find out what the real problem is.”

“Does this mean I shouldn’t remind him that removal of obstructing officials by assassination is a perfectly normal procedure in Derf politics?”

“It might be well not to mention it first. And if you didn’t jam your thumb under your holster flap like you just did now, it would add an air of genteel sincerity.”

“Why are we seeing someone from Ministry of War?” Lee demanded. “This is just a commercial transaction. We’re not asking credit. You have a ridiculous huge cargo of silver in the hold. That’s the basis of their currency, and an absolute necessity for them to import since it is scarce in the Fargone system. So it’s not that our money is no good.”

Gordon broke into song…”And we don’t care if your money’s no good. Just take what you want, and leave the rest. But they should never, have taken, the very best…”

“What’s that?”

“A song about an old war in North America. Money offered in war time is often worthless.”

“How can money be worthless?” Lee asked, scrunching her nose up.

“When it’s paper certificates and they won’t redeem it in metal,” Gordon explained.

“You’d be a fool to take them then.”

“Yes, but he told them to take what they wanted, probably his food, because otherwise they’d probably just shoot him dead and steal it anyway.”

“Do you think they know we are rich, so they’ll try to run up the price?”

“No, we’d still be meeting with the munitions manufacturer, or him and a Finance Minister. No, I’m afraid whatever the problem is, it will be political in nature.”

“You think they may regret selling you the three radiation enhanced weapons back in the war?”

“I doubt it, they haven’t made any noises about buying back the two we haven’t used.”

“I’m stumped then. I’m just going to sit back and listen for awhile, and try to hear how he sounds as much as what he says. You can try to pry it out of him better than me. You’re a hell of a lot more intimidating,” she assured him.

He wasn’t so sure of that. The official meeting them would know Lee was here because she owned two thirds of the Deep Space Explorer High Hopes, which was the lead vessel in their exploration fleet. She also owned the other DSE, Champion William, their escort the Heavy Cruiser Retribution, and a mixed bag of shuttles and fuel scoopers – outright. The Mothers of Red Tree had decided to send the destroyer Sharp Claws along in exchange for a share in potential discoveries.

The High Hopes was the only ship not a war capture. It was the originally North American flagged ship, in which Gordon and Lee had gone exploring with Lee’s parents. That had ended in both triumph and tragedy. They’d discovered a class A world, which left them filthy rich, but her parents had died doing a survey of the new world, Providence.

The finder’s fees and shares on a class A world where men could stand bare faced meant they never had to worry about money for even extravagant living, but April, born to ship life, tired of planets quickly. In her opinion a slow global expansion risked running up against another star faring race who had been more aggressively exploring deep, and leaving them with a foreshortened frontier, and the loss of a lot of prime real estate. Her recruits agreed, and hoped to come back filthy rich on ship shares.

If they did run into somebody out there, it seemed likely they’d be more polite to a small fleet than a single ship. Besides wanting his magazines full of the higher performance ship to ship weapons, Gordon wanted the DSEs fitted with an entire extra reactor and a greaser – a gamma ray laser that had much higher performance than mundane petawatt optical lasers. They both already had an externally mounted, extremely high velocity ‘peashooters’ a weapon that very accurately threw a rice grain sized projectile at a substantial fraction of the speed of light. One such pellet had left an Earth orbital fort an expanding cloud of plasma during the war.

The cab they were riding in left the fast left lanes and drifted down a exit ramp into the heart of the Fargone government campus. Nobody stopped them to check identities or inspect the vehicle. It was their own Fargone agency limo, and it would have never been allowed down the ramp if they didn’t have business here.

The open cart that they transferred to however had a driver. He gave them a gracious bow and indicated it was his pleasure to take them to Admiral Hawking, the head of Fargone Space Forces. The driver’s name tag indicated he was Propensity Jones, the Fargoers being given to a different custom in names.

At least they’d be dealing with somebody who understood what they were doing, and nobody suggested Lee hand over her pistol. As for Gordon, he was much harder to disarm. Even without the ritual ax in his belt, a Derf could make his way through most human building by creating expedient doorways.

The cart took them right to the Admiral’s door, and they were not trifled with by any Earth games such as making them wait to show status. The Admiral stood to greet them, letting them see he wore canvas cargo shorts under what Gordon would have called a golf shirt. Fargoers were not much given to symbols of authority. He wore a medallion of rank around his neck on a stout chain, and would have expected quick obedience and respect if he were otherwise buck naked.

“Miss Anderson, Mr. Gordon,” he bowed as deeply as their driver had. He addressed and looked at Lee first, so he knew what the deal was there, and that was one less thing they could bullshit him. His name plate on his desk said Admiral Serendipity Duvochek Hawking. That was a very favored name for both sexes on Fargone.

Laying on his desk was a hammer, the square head of which was about three kilo of unpolished steel. The thick handle was carved of a dark native wood to be grippy, and there was a rawhide lanyard looped in the end and braided for a half meter. It was Fargone’s second highest military award. You had to be not only a marvelous bad ass and scary vortex of unlimited violence to get the first award, but you had to die winning it too, so they tended to be found hang on the mantles of clan houses.

“It is my custom to have a break for coffee and a few snacks about this hour of the morning,” Serendipity explained. “Would you join me in a cup and help me keep my blood sugar up and retain my good humor this morning?”

Gordon allowed he’d take a cup with a little honey or brandy. Lee suggested a mug with a shot of bourbon would be welcome. If serving alcohol to a fourteen year old at ten in the morning bothered him at all, he never let a twitch or hesitation cross his face. Maybe that was normal here for all she knew. It would give an Earthie all sorts of problems, their society going increasingly Puritanical. The age to buy alcohol in North America had been twenty-four for some time now.

“I can see written on your faces that you are unhappy Fargone put a roadblock in your supply plans. We are not intransient on it, or we wouldn’t be meeting here to discuss it.”

“Not a roadblock,” Gordon assured him. “A speed bump at most. We have plenty of copies of the ship to ship weapons, and we’ll simply go to New Japan to have them copied. If anything New Japan is ahead of Fargone on rapid prototyping and fabrication. We had major battle damage repaired there in four days during the war. Fargone may have the edge at present in actually improving on the design, but we can forego that to get what we need. In the future we won’t be sharing captured designs with Fargone since you don’t show reciprocity, so I expect the edge on improvements will go over to New Japan as they are the opener more accommodating society. Which is ironic given their reputation for being the more closed xenophobic society.”

“Yet such a supply switch would be an unnecessary delay. You’d have to keep your crews on hold drawing salary for another six weeks or so plus transit time.”

“Better that, than to let your supposed allies start managing you,” Lee assured him. “As to expense, we have the entire fifteen percent take on the leases and development rights and outright sales of the best class A planet to hit the economy in a decade, equal to something over five percent of your GDP right now and accelerating. In addition we have unusually large private land holdings for a prize crew, and could sell mineral leases or tracts of land to raise considerable capital. So we can carry our crews indefinitely without it being any particular burden.”

“You know Fargone has always followed a course of slow and cautious development,” the Admiral reminded them. “We don’t mean to get into a pissing contest with outside powers, especially fast growing ones, but we have only seen public releases about what your intention is in mounting this expedition. We have legitimate concerns that you will be representing three races and many cultures, including Fargone, to anyone you meet.”

“We hadn’t intended to storm through the Beyond like Cortez through the Americas,” Gordon assured him. “We are in it for the loot, but only what is laying about unclaimed. If we run into any intelligences you may assume we’ll treat them with respect. Pillage and burn, or bombard and subjugate, wasn’t on our play card. It is Lee’s opinion our global expansion by its nature gets slower as it has greater surface area. If there is another aggressive expander out there they will meet us far closer than half way, and rightfully claim all the territory they bypassed in detail, and hold it reserved for their exploitation.”

“But how shall you present yourselves if you must negotiate with a new civilization, particularly a technological one?”

“As what we are, a family business,” Lee asserted. “If they desire political entities with which to seek treaties and relationships, then they will have to seek them out or request they send an emissary. We on the other hand can offer trade.”

“These theoretical aliens may not believe an armed fleet represents a family enterprise.”

“I think you are the one having trouble believing we are a small commercial venture. These aliens may not have much more use for governments than I do,” Lee said bluntly.

“If you mean you will only supply us if we put an official government commander in charge of our expedition, so it is not a private enterprise, then let me make it clear. Over my dead body,” Gordon said.

“No, no. I can see where you’d think that was the direction I was headed. Actually what we had in mind was far more moderate. We’d like to send a ship along with you.”

Gordon and Lee looked at each other. That wasn’t anything they’d anticipated at all.

“Not in a command oversight position?” Gordon asked.

“As an observer, subject to your overall command, except as any commander is responsible for his vessel both as to its survival and to refuse any orders he finds illegal or morally reprehensible.”

“Can your active duty military legally draw crew shares on discoveries?” Lee asked.

“That is something I have the power to regulate in ten minutes with my signature. Do you want them to have shares, or depend completely on Fargone to compensate them?”

“I think it is unreasonable to ask them, even if they are genuine volunteers, to serve elbow by elbow with others who may end up Billionaires, or Trillionaires, risking their lives and being gone from civilization for some indefinite time, but years certainly. If we even find one class A world, it hardly matters if the bonus is split two-hundred fifty ways or three-hundred.”

“I agree,” Gordon jumped in. “If there is not resentment going in there may be as they think on the matter and feel the burden of the voyage. I don’t want partners with conflicted feeling, who may decide they are being used badly.”

“So this is something you’d consider?” Serendipity asked.

“What kind of ship?” Lee asked, suspiciously.

“What would you have us send?”

“The baddest big assed heavy cruiser you have in service, and give the commander authority to pick his volunteers from your whole navy, and set anybody he doesn’t want on the beach without explanation. A fast courier grappled externally would be welcome too. I rode one of those and was impressed.”

“And send one high ranking civilian official of your government, so it isn’t just military minded,” Gordon added.

“All that is what we wanted and more,” Serendipity assured them. “I’ll see to it you have access to anything you wish to buy.”

“Next time, you’d get less suspicion, and easier cooperation, if you go straight to asking that we talk, before laying out what we saw as threats and obstruction,” Lee told him.

“All this originated above me, but I’ll pass that thought on to the architects of our government,” Serendipity promised.

New snippet of 5th April book

Chapter 2

“I’m thinking on what Lin told us yesterday,” April told Heather. “We’re getting none of that picture about what life is like on Earth from the news agencies. How do we know what’s happening on the street level? Sometimes I get hints about it from reports of ‘wrecker’ busting windows or shooting down electric wires. There was a whole bunch of fires in Baltimore a few months ago and none of the explanations in the news made any sense. I think it was all arson and they just wouldn’t say it. And last year there were way more forest fires than usual, but the weather was actually better, so there should have been less. Also the pattern seemed to be that a lot of those fires threatened well to do areas with expensive homes. But it’s hard to tell what is sabotage and what is coincidence.”

“Jeff has Eddie working on creating an intelligence network now. Tell them you want some hard information on how the average person is coping with shortages and regulations. I know a lot of the crop fires last year were set, after the cops destroyed guerilla gardens people hid out in the woods. If they can’t grow food they get pissed off and figure if they can’t grow it, they’ll keep the big industrial farms from growing it too. It’s just way too easy to drive by a field and throw something out the car window that will sit a couple days and then ignite and set the field on fire. You watch the weather report, pick a dry stretch and toss it to the upwind side, and it’s going to burn a lot of grain before they can stop it. They promised they’d guard the fields this year, but there are just too many fields and not enough cops. There wouldn’t be enough people to guard crops if they called the whole army out to sit and watch the fields,” Heather said.

“You’re right, I’ll ask Jeff and Eddie to pass that along to their people. They don’t need to spend anything to pursue it, just be observant when they are gathering other intelligence.”

* * *

“You seemed so dubious when I told you we’d teach you to swim back home,” April reminded Barak. “I’m glad you like snorkeling so much. It’s really pretty in the lagoon isn’t it?”

“It’s prettier than I ever imagined Earth could be from photos. And Tara has been talking to me about diving other places. He said the reefs in other locations are just as nice, but sometimes completely different coral and fish. He’s dived in ship wrecks and places where there are old buildings underwater. He was even telling me people dive in underwater caves, but he hasn’t tried that.”

“I’m not sure I’d want to be all closed in like that underwater.”

“It’s not much different than being in a pressure suit,” Barak said with a shrug. “He’s used a SCUBA outfit with a tank, but says a lot of folks now use rebreathers that let you stay down a lot longer. I figure Jeff could build me a rebreather that uses one of his miniature power sources. It could generate oxygen from the water, and you could stay down as long as you want. I just have to figure out how you could sleep wearing it.”

“I’ve been stuck in a p-suit for sixteen hours,” April remembered. “You can sleep in a regular p-suit, but I sure wouldn’t do it for fun. After that long you are so happy to wash, and scratch, and eat something you don’t have to suck through a tube, that you don’t want to ever crawl in one again. I’d say you’d need a helmet instead of a mouth piece for a start. And if you have a helmet it has to have some sort of collar and shoulder yoke to attach to. I’m not sure you wouldn’t just be better off with a full suit. What happens when your skin is in salt water for hours and hours? It has to be irritating.”

“You probably look like a big prune,” Barak guessed. “I’ll ask a bunch of people what works and what has been tried before. Thanks for all the ideas.”

“Just be safe. Nobody begrudges you having fun, but we’d feel terrible if you hurt yourself trying something reckless.” She reached across and ruffled his hair playfully.

“Thanks April. I’ll try not to be stupid,” he vowed, and for some reason blushed furiously.

* * *

“We need to catch the tide running outbound in the channel to clear the reef toward evening. If you want one last swim or any souvenirs, now is your last chance to get them,” Lin told them at breakfast. “I think you all know, but just to remind you, no coral, even broken old pieces off the beach, and no shells that still have the mollusk inside, or any on the endangered list, even if it was cast up on the beach and rotting. If you have anything like that it may be confiscated in Tonga and you could be fined, even if they can tell it isn’t from their waters.”

“How much time between when we dock in Tonga and our shuttle lifts?” Barak asked.

“We should arrive midmorning the day before your shuttle flight,” Lin said. “I wouldn’t suggest arriving the same day and trying to rush to the airport. If there are any complications you want the airline and officials to be able to reach you. We have reservations at a decent little hotel close to the space side of the field. If they can’t get ahold of you and confirm you are in the area they start to worry they are going to have an empty seat. I know you guys wouldn’t argue, but a lot of people will give them a hard time if they charge them for a reserved seat that goes empty. Some folks would try to do a chargeback and tie their money up. Just having a contact at a nearby hotel is reassuring to them.”

“Do you think maybe we can walk around near the hotel after we check in? Don’t forget, I’ve never been in an Earth city. The only dry land I’ve been on is the atoll, when Gunny and I set up his telescope. I’d like to see some buildings and people like in a video.”

“The area around the hotel is nice. If you stay in the area and don’t go off in the less desirable parts of town you can do that, but I want you to take my man Tara along. April, could you send Gunny along too? None of us can carry weapons on Tonga, but there is safety in a group, and both of them look formidable.”

“Yeah, I want to go too, so Gunny is a given. That makes four of us so we should be fine.”

Lin paused just long enough he must be having second thoughts, but he just nodded. “I might even find time to come along myself. There’s an open market no more than two hundred meters from the hotel, and they have all sorts of hand crafts and things. I think you’d find it interesting, even if you don’t buy anything.”

* * *

The hotel room wasn’t that luxurious, although it was a suite with a large L shaped living room that had a balcony along one leg. The rooms seemed huge to satellite dwellers, and their boat, while big for a boat, had nothing on a regular Earthie building for size. Barak in particular had never been in an Earth hotel, so when he became concerned that his bag didn’t show up they had to explain to him that he had his own room down the hall he’d share with Tara, where he’d find his bag, and all seven of them would not be sharing these rooms to sleep. There was no mint on the pillow, but there was a restaurant and a very nice small pool inside. After having the whole wide lagoon to themselves it had little appeal.

Tara and Lin both knew Tonga fairly well. They didn’t argue with Barak’s question about seeking lunch outside the hotel. The poor kid was pacing he was so anxious to go. But in the end all of them went, a mob that April could tell Lin was not entirely happy about.

The street was crowded, the more so since it was near midday and the Tongans tend to eat a heavy lunch and take a nap from the heat of the day, so a lot of people were on break from their work. Most of the crowd looked to be locals, most in western clothing, but a few in the wrapped skirt. There were few hats despite the fierce sun, and nobody was bare chested like they would have been some other tropical countries.

There were a few street vendors selling food you could eat standing, but Lin insisted they go to a sit down restaurant. The place he pointed out was a roofed over slab with open sides, and the cooking area visible. It smelled wonderful. They picked a table next to the street to watch all the activity, and a young woman brought them bottled water and menus.

After much indecision Barak got grilled chicken, which was well charred on the edges, strongly marinated in both lime and something sweet. With that he got a sweet taro cake in coconut milk and a cold chopped fruit salad, some chunks of which he couldn’t identify. It was good but the drink appealed to him better than any of it, a slurry of coconut and watermelon.

Everybody got the chicken but Gunny, who went with a very un-Tongan pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw. But he ordered the local drink after everybody raved on it.

The market was jammed, the stalls each seller was allotted unusually small. They made up for this by displaying their goods vertically. There were carvings that didn’t impress anyone, some local wraps for men that Lin and Taro both bought, and a lot of western clothing that looked used. Some of it well used.

Gunny however, found a carver tucked in a corner who had much different wares. He caught back up to them with an object wrapped in paper, but shaped like a canoe paddle. The way he held it said it was heavy.

“It’s a Tongan war club,” Gunny said to Jeff’s raised eyebrow. “It feels heavier than aluminum, and it has some really good inlay work in it. I’ll show it to you back in our rooms.”

There were local fruits and vegetables, in stunning variety, the colors making April take some pictures with her pad, after buying some fruit she’d take back to their rooms. If any objected to her photography they didn’t say anything after she’d spent some money.

Some vendors had little bottles of vanilla, the fancy bottles seeming to be more important to the tourists than the vanilla itself.

There were a couple people selling elaborate panels of bamboo cut and arranged in geometric patterns. They’d have one full sized, as a backdrop to their stall, and a number of other designs rendered in miniature.

April pictured a section of that for her new cubic, but decided it was too big an investment to lift to orbit for something she’d get tired of eventually and want to change. If it was removed after awhile it would be big to have to store somewhere. But then they found some people making mats called tapas, of the inner bark of the mulberry, dyed and patterned beautifully. That April could see in her new home. There were smaller ones, no bigger than a place mat, some with bright colors she suspected were for the tourist trade. The bigger ones tended to black and white and shades of brown.

One old man had a variety, but behind him was a mat standing rolled up vertically, only the one edge pulled open to show the pattern. It was a checkerboard of squares, three patterns repeating in a sequence April couldn’t quite figure out. One a swirl inside a border, one a pattern that reminded April of a Navaho rug she’d seen, and the last a solid pattern of dark and light parallelograms. It was of very thin fibers tightly woven and very fine.

April stood looking at it quite a long time, thinking. The old fellow could see where her eyes were going but pretended indifference, sipping on a cup of something. “Sir, is that rolled up tapa for sale, or do you just display it as an example of the art?” she finally asked.

He couldn’t hide the fact that pleased him. “It is lovely isn’t it? There aren’t many ladies who can do this level of work now, and there are a lot of hours invested in it. There are bigger tapas in the royal residence, and in the museums, here and on Samoa, but few commercially available even this big these days.”

“May one ask what you’d consider a fair exchange for it?”

“Let me think on that,” he countered, like he didn’t know to the centum. “You are a spacer aren’t you? You’d pay a lot just to lift it to your home.”

“I am. I already considered that. Some of my friends and I have been down to relax and enjoy the open spaces and the sun. We spent some days on an unpopulated atoll and swam and dove. We are from Home.”

“Ah, your country has a special relationship with Tonga. I understand most of the freight lifting from here goes to Home. That’s why we have so many Japanese lately, though I have to say we seem to get along with them better than the Chinese. We kicked most of them out in my grandfather’s time.”

“The Japanese built our habitat,” April told him. “My father manages the physical structure for them. But I am also a resident of Central on the moon, and if we can only get it sorted out to your King’s satisfaction, we’ll have Tongan residents there too.”

“Are you a subject of the new Queen that we hear about on the moon? I was shocked to hear of a new monarchy. Earth seems to be discarding their royalty, which we Tongans are not ready to do. They may not be perfect, but we see them as stable, unlike the mob rule some places.”

“She hasn’t used the word queen in my hearing, but the young lady in the teal shirt is the sovereign of who you speak. The young man with her and I and are close friends, business associates, and by her word, her peers.” She laid it on thick, hoping it helped the price if he was fond of royalty. She didn’t mention the idea had not thrilled her, indeed she was upset Heather didn’t drop the sovereignty after she felt it had served its purpose, and miffed she was Dame Lewis. She had a hard time accepting it at first, giving Heather a hard time.

“That’s good. Most of the mats of this quality are owned by the royal family. I am happier knowing it would be preserved, and not allowed to deteriorate like it could in a common house.”

“I had in mind to put it on my wall, with other fine art.”

“You might seek help from a museum archivist, to hang it so it doesn’t get bent and distorted over time.”

That was good that he was talking like she already owned it.

“My home is in half gravity, it will only weigh half as much as usual here, so that helps to preserve it too.”

He got the oddest amused look. “Don’t you fairly bounce off the ground if you weigh so little? I’m trying to imagine it, but it seems odd.”

“You do step differently, and dancing has a much wider range, but you learn to shuffle along quickly, and sleeping is much easier when it feels like you are floating on your back.”

“That must be a marvel. I doubt I’ll ever get up to experience it. If you think the tapa suitable for your home, I’d offer it to you at thirty thousand dollars USNA, or twenty eight thousand EuroMarks, and an introduction to your sovereign.”

“Sure I’d be happy to do that, I’m April Lewis, what is your name?”

“I’m Papahi Fetu Helu.”

“Heather?” April waved her over, and she came with Jeff following along. “Heather Anderson, this Papahi Feta Helu. He is aware of Central, and your declaring sovereignty, he asked to be introduced. We may do some business together. This is Jeff Singh also.”

“Mr. Helu, a pleasure,” Heather declared and offered her hand.

He hesitated and looked surprised, if not shocked. “That is permitted? We may not touch the King in Tonga.”

“We are of a different custom,” Heather assured him. “It is not offensive at all.”

“Thank you,” he took her hand like he might break it, and gave it a single gentle pump. “I am honored, and glad to see your family too,” he added, including April and Jeff in his glance.

“We were close long before she founded Central,” Jeff added smoothly. It was unusually social for Jeff.

“I could see that from your faces. You never look away long before you check to see where each other are,” he said, with obvious approval.

Well, I never knew I did that, the old boy is perceptive. April thought.

“I’d be happy to have the tapa in my home,” April assured him. “Dollars or EM it doesn’t matter. Which would you like?” she asked pulling her pad out. She liked it too much to dicker.

“Ah, well Tongans don’t use credit much,” he said regretfully, “Just the big resorts and airlines and such. We have pretty much a cash economy. I’d send you to a bank, but you might have trouble getting that much cash without arranging it well ahead of time.”

“Perhaps you’d accept this?” Jeff asked and handed him a gold Solar coin.

Papahi frowned, unsure what this strange object was, and then jerked like it burned his hand.

“Ah, I’d like to, but you must not be aware gold bullion and coins are forbidden to us on Tonga. We can own gold jewelry, but it is tightly regulated, and hard to find anything for less than double the cost of the metal, three times for small items like rings and earrings. I suggest you keep that in your pocket so some excessively law abiding person doesn’t report it,” he said, handing it back.

“I saw a jewelry store back a ways,” Jeff remembered. “Might the jeweler buy this so we could trade?”

“Yes, but it will get reported. And it may make my sale come to the attention of the authorities. Most of our business is cash for a reason,” he said.

“Oh, OK I understand,” Jeff said. Cluing up that there were tax issues. “I think I might have a solution. Barak, there is a fellow back a few stalls selling tools. Would you please go back and buy a center punch or a screw set, an awl or an ice pick, and a hammer?” He went over to Tara and had a few words and Tara took off back the way they’d come.

They stood chatting with the merchant about life on the island, and life on Home, finding plenty to talk about and unstrained. Barak got back first.

Jeff put the coin on top of a post marking the stall corner and picked a point in the plain area of sky on the front art work. A smart strike of the center punch left a conical indention with a raised rim. He switched to the awl and drove it in further and he wiggled it loose and struck it a few more times. When he had a bump on the reverse side he used the punch there, and switched back and forth until he had a hole through the coin, with a bevel leading into the hole on both faces. The gold was just displaced, not removed, so it retained its weight.

Tara got back while Jeff was finishing up, and handed Jeff a small package when he was done. Jeff removed a very thin gold necklace, about a half meter long. The ends had a lobster clasp and a thin jump ring on the other end to engage it.

The ring wouldn’t fit through the hole, so Jeff put the ring over the point of the awl. He pulled a small case of dental tape from his pocket and looped a double thickness through the same ring. Pushing the awl in the post to anchor it he pulled on the floss until the ring was bent oval shaped. It fit through the hole now.

Jeff, fished the chain through the hole, forced the awl in the jump ring to force it round again, fastened the chain closed, and offered it to the tapa merchant. “Would you take this gold chain and decorative pendant in trade Papahi? If you can trade it for double the spot price or more, it’s twenty-five grams, worth considerably more than you asked.”

“I believe you’d say, that’s a deal,” Papahi said, taking the ‘jewelry’, and hanging it out of sight under his shirt. “I just need to get a shipping address for Pilinsesi April, and I’ll package this up securely and send it along to you.”

Walking back to the hotel April asked Lin. “What did Mr. Helu call me back there? ”

“Pilinsesi? It means Princess. I’m not sure their titles of nobility translate across well, but he said it very seriously. I’m sure he meant it as an expression of respect.”

Heather held it in as well as she could. But every once in awhile April could hear a giggle escape back there. She ignored it.

The Author

Is still alive, and home from the hospital late Sunday. There is blood in the toilet this morning so I have no idea how long I’ll stay home. I’d really really like to finish the next April book before I croak. – I’m pleased people want to read them. – Mac’