About half way or a little more in April 13.
“The French announce they will take bids for rights to develop facilities on Proxima B,” Secretary of State Brenton read aloud.
“Why set up on the planet there?” his one undersecretary asked. “That makes you expend more energy than building a space station. Unless they find something to mine worth lifting from the planet. I understand it’s a hot rocky desert on one side and like Antarctica on the other.”
“Yes, but it’s a huge free shield against the solar flares. Proxima is a noisy star spewing out big bursts of radiation and particles,” Brenton said. “A space station would be a deathtrap or need ridiculous shielding.” He’d done his homework.
“That’s not a bad business model then,” the undersecretary decided.
“Tell it to Commerce,” Brenton said. “We’re concerned with the political aspects.”
* * *
“Hello, Diana. I’m sorry if I got a bit intense rushing you off,” Naito said. He looked stressed and worried which Diana hated to see.
“I took it for care,” Diana allowed. “Are you thinking of following me?”
“No, in fact, I feel more secure than when I urged you to leave. I’ve news your friends will probably be happy to know ahead of the news reports. Prime Minister Tanaka intends to step down citing serious errors and loss of confidence from his closest advisors.”
“So, he was the architect of this debacle?” Diana asked.
“He is owning it. If anyone agreed with his actions, he isn’t dragging them down with him. Has Jeff spoken with you about our conversation and his actions?”
“No, I saw April, but now I’m at Sylvia’s and didn’t even have to kick him out of my place. I did go get some of my things but he wasn’t there.”
“Tell Singh I asked him to relate them to you if he will. I’d rather not tell the whole thing with no better encryption than public coms offers. It’s a fair trade for the news about Tanaka. I was almost ready to follow you up when he revealed he was going to resign. I don’t know if he told me ahead of others in the government but he at least trusted me not to break the story to the newsies.”
“The public is pretty stupid but they aren’t going to believe he didn’t have some help from others,” Diana said.
“The uh… Crap, I don’t want to say too much. Ask Jeff what happened to the lab here.”
“OK. Is there anybody among your revolutionary buddies you want to be PM?”
“That’s a problem I’m working on right now. Tanaka promised to stay away from any association with me and urged me to be careful who I supported. I’m just not sure how to do that exactly,” Naito admitted. “I know them all too well.”
“Be careful they don’t try to foist it off on you,” Diana warned. “People, including other governments, may not be satisfied with Tanaka as a sacrifice. I predict the next Prime Minister will be on shaky grounds. The politically astute may wish for others to take the office in case more heads need to roll and curb their ambitions for a little.”
“I’ve already told anyone who will listen that I’m too young and inexperienced,” Naito said. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anybody bully me into it.”
“Good. Just remember, if the politicking doesn’t work out you always have a place with me as my pool boy.”
“But you don’t have a pool,” Naito said.
“Honey, for you I’ll put one in.”
When he disconnected, Naito was smiling. Diana felt good about that.
Thank younfor the update and the nice snippet!
Always happy to see more in this series. Thanks for the update.
Thanks ‘Mac!
Happy for the snippet, but even more happy that you’re feeling well enough to get back into your writing. Was worried about you and the missus.
I look forward to more April as you are able to work on it.
Best,
Brent
My wife is in the process of retiring. They don’t make it easy.
Yay! ! A post! And literature samples for April series to boot!!!! Life is good!
Thanks! Looking forward to the release.
Thanks Mackey!
Hooray! Hooray! Thanks Mac. Can’t wait. Sounds fun
Stay well.
I loved my job. But I love retirement MORE! So I’m sure your wife will enjoy also, just remember to have things to do (but not too many)
Thanks Mac. I,m looking forward to reading this next instalment.
Thank you!!!
Glad to get this snippet!
Thank you!
Glad to see you’re up and about again. Any idea about a publication date?
It’s still months out. Lots of stuff going on taking my time. My wife is retiring right now.
Excellent to hear from you (read from you?). I was happy you were feeling well enough to post again and look forward to buying anything you write. Thank you for the many hours of enjoyment your books have given me thus far and I will hope to see more whenever you put it up.
Thanks!
I originally found your work on Audible, I really love Family Law’s (Book 1) summery by the way. After which I started reading the April series.
I was wondering; Are you planing to continue to release Audiobook versions of your books?
I just sold Tantor two more of the Family Law books and the stand alone “Fair Trade: An Alien Invasion Story”
I have no idea how long it will take them to produce them. Wish I could judge the quality but I’m deaf.
Mac’
Thanks for the update, it’s nice to know that things have been put in motion even if you don’t know how long it will take.
Quality wise Tantor usually does a good job recording audiobooks. I was happy with the narrator and audio quality of the first 4 books.
the quality of your works above most sf writers
thank you
Thrilled to see this update! Can’t wait!… Whaddya mean I gotta wait??? 😀
My own retirement was pretty straightforward but most likely no assets to contend with.
April 13
What has the trio learned from their hab spying bots?
First they need to understand the hab’s local language (e.g. Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Korean, German, French, etc) and any geek-speak (e.g. math, physics, chemistry, biology, etc), key words ‘discovery’ ‘patent’ ‘trade secret’ ‘new’ ‘algorithm’ etc and then get into and out of their research labs or their computer systems & possibly into the security & Admin offices for political info.
Where? the Orbital habs of IISII & IISIII aka Whoops, New Las Vegas?, Japanese M1 & M2, Russian habs, French Turnip, Swiss & French hab, Scandanavian habs, Israili habs, Indian, Korean, German, ANZ or other national habs, etc plus Luna places USNA Armstrong, French Marseille, Russian New Kirov, Chinese unknown, etc.
Family Law
Central residents may have little interest in AIs but they probably make use of IAs (Intellegent Agents) that have specific expertise in some areas e.g maths, physics, chemistry, etc as communications with the Catapillars went secret fast and we know of no Central human experts in cryptography. IAs currently exist in limited specific fields and are expected to boom.
Gabriel’s Cricket “Master Dilbert Hathaway” may or may not be an AI as it could be just a merging of an IA autopilot and an IA chatbot. Traffic control communications aren’t random.
April also makes use of an IA to organise her informants’ reports. We’ll very likely have to build a robot autopilot that can deal with planets or lesser debris, navigating around a strange star system. Jeff musing about IA autopilots.
Wiley – If you can hold all that in your head you seriously need to build your own world and tell stories about it. The demand is there and you’d be rewarded. People read far faster than the few who decide to write can churn it out. Come on in the water is fine.
I would put Wiley on my list of must read authors with that kind of mental organization.
April Family Law
While April destroyed most USNA Warships in earth orbit and planned out the destruction of USNA Planetary space facilities she took no action against USNA orbital facilities in LEO or L4.
i.e. 1. the USNA LEO military shipyard(s) that built warships e.g. drones, couriers, corvettes, frigates, destroyers, cruisers, battleships, battleplates, etc. (probably replaced after Thor killed the first one by the civilian shipyard in L4).
2 The USNA L4 civilian shipyard(s) that built their explorer ships, planetary survey ships, science ships, construction & engineering ships, couriers, liners, tankers, freighters, etc and the yards that built space stations for the USNA interest extrasolar worlds, etc.
3 The USNA also has LEO Habitats (ISSII or ISSIII) and Armstrong that it can no longer supply or service.
As Central can built a new ship in 2 weeks and custom fitted it out in another 2 weeks that is Lee’s best choice for new ships but capturing the civilian shipyard and/or the military shipyard is a neat trick and could boost whatever planet gets them.
If wishing to aid the former USNA interest extrasolar worlds now cut-off from supply and funding then construction, factory & engineering ships that can make anything that is needed (and they can afford) seem like useful assistance to bring.
A construction ship to make anything in orbit and factory & engineering ships to make any needed infrastructure, robotic factories, heavy equipment or powered tools and land them if required.
These ships would be useful to Kickstart technological development on any new earthlike worlds and to create orbital habitats and mining systems in rich systems so are useful ships to have.
War against interstellar USNA
– capture (or destroy) the USNA forward bases, communication hubs and supply points (they no longer need them but others may).
– capture (or destroy) the USNA gas giant refueling points (unless the tech is secretly owned by Singh Industries as while the USNA no longer need them others may)
– capture (or destroy) the USNA warships e.g. couriers, corvettes, frigates, destroyers, cruisers, battleships (they no longer need them but others may benefit from system only military ships).
– capture (or damage) the USNA logistic ships e.g. military tankers, military freighters, military engineering ships, military landers, military shuttles, etc. (they no longer need them but others may benefit from having them).
– capture (or damage) the USNA owned and registered civilian ships e.g. Exploration ships, Planetary Survey ships, Service & Science Fleet ships, Repair & Engineering ships/factory ships, freighters, tankers, liners, etc. (they no longer need them unless family owned, but others may benefit from having them).
– consider if capturing (or damaging) the USNA spacestations around their dependent planetary living worlds and important systems would harm the system or benefit it, the supply Freighters can always be reused.
e.g. Thorn Station & Freighter (a rich system to service), Bountiful Station & is there a regular Freighter, New Troy/SS 4807 Station & is there a regular Freighter, Paradise Station & is there a regular Freighter, Hinth Station & Freighter, Elves (is there a Station or freighter), Angel/SS 2268T Station & is there a regular Freighter, Amber/SS 4799 Station & is there a regular Freighter, Benigan’s Station & is there a regular Tanker-Freighter, etc. (the USNA can no longer service or supply them but others may). USNA had 6+ freighters and a few passenger craft.
Providence Station is possibly owned by Lee & Gordon but they should capture the supply Freighter (unless family owned) and the courier drone system. Until Lee & Gordon know what assets and services are owned by USNA based businesses or other countries’ businesses or other world’s businesses, they should place them all into a Providence Trust while they seek out who owns what and who is going to ongoing pay for what.
Mac has mention some of the mods April, Jeff or Lee has and some obviously needed meds e.g. anticancer vaccine but there are other mods people might buy
Other mods
Lactose metabolism, Favism metabolism, alcohol boosted metabolism,
hDEC2 super-short-sleeper, ACTN3 super-sprinter, TAS2R38-PAV supertaster + perfect Taste memory, LRP5 super-dense bones, CETP super-low-cholesterol,
Physical skills: endurance & resilience, strength & speed, agility & flexibility, precision & mirroring, fetal errorless healing,
Veronica Seider’s super-sight, + tetrachromatic sight, perfect Colour, Person & Shape memory,
super-hearing, + Musical ability (perfect pitch, aptitude for harmonic analysis, aural melody memory, and memory to reproduce what is heard, memory to sight read music & encode music + manual skills)
Joy Milne’s super-smelling, perfect Odour memory,
super-drawing (visual memory for detail, awareness of perspective, and an ability to depict what is seen + manual skills)
Harold Whitmore Williams’ multi languages ability,
Shakuntala Devi’s mathematical ability
Nicola Tesla’s clear visualisation,
geomagnetic sense,
enhanced memory (eidetic, autobiographical/episodic, semantic, spatial, VAKOG, procedural/skills, emotional, conditioning, nonassociative; encoding, retrieval),
super-intelligence, enhanced working memory, enhanced mental speed, autocalculation
,
M3 when originally built had 5 rings (A-E) each with 3 decks with a corridor in the centre and rooms on either side.
A ring had 1G and E ring had .5G. Occasionally Mac mentioned .7G level but that doesn’t work. If A has 1G and E has .5G then C has .75G and B has .87G and D has .67G. 5 different sized rings need 5 spin gravity levels not 3.
Movement along the decks is by walking, cart, powered chair, scooter or standing frame (and someone brought a bike). Throwing something along the decks is different depending on the direction of spin.
Movement between the rings is by elevators within the spokes or stairs around the spokes.
Movement between decks is unknown but ramps are possible as well as the spoke elevators and stairs.
Movement between the latter built ring sets (second and third set of rings) is by train in the core unless spokes were built between all A rings, all B rings, all C rings, all D rings and all E rings (for structural support).
Movement between M3 and the Rock or the two Iceballs could be by jumpbug, scooter or shuttle.
M3 has a main shift between 6am-6pm, then a Fore shift between 12am-12pm, an Off shift between 6pm-6am, and a Back shift between 12pm-12am. But sometimes the Cafe runs a on a 3 shift 1st 6am-2pm, 2nd 2pm-10pm & 3rd 10pm-6am.
Hot Slots: 2 sqm, Bedrooms & Storage: 4 sqm.
M3 Apartments
Micro: 8-24 sqm, Small: 32-48 sqm, Ave: 56 sqm, 64 sqm (April’s), 72 sqm & 80 sqm, Large: 96-128 sqm (Sylvia’s), Earth 2 bedroom Apartments ~100-110 sqm
M3 Offices
# persons,
M3 Workshop-Laboratories
# persons + equipment
Thank you so much. I’m glad you and your wife are OK. I’m looking forward to more April books.
Family Law
First, I just want to say that I love both the April and Family Law Series. I am sorry but I just have so many question as I have just discovered these series and bought all the ebooks on amazon. Also it is great that the new family law books with be available soon through Tantor.
My question/comment is the following:
1. Will the April Series eventually be available as well?
2. Will you be including anything in the way of information on Clair as to what happened to her after she went to fargone? Such as, did she actually get life extension therapy?
3. As Lee has repossessed her Class-A world, will you go over what will happen to the system such as:
a. Transport to/from the system using a freighter line type operation that Heather set up between the Moon and the three habs.
b. System infrastructure such as :
I. Gas station
II. Smelter
III. Shipyard(s) (to build freighters, liners and tankers, and a few passenger craft like landers and shuttles)
* This is also useful to hide the drive tech from prying eyes due to the remoteness of the system. This should help hide the tech further from the spy’s that are on Derfhome already.
IV. Orbital habitats and mining systems, will their be a setup like what was over earth and the habs there?
c. Courier drone system (banking and information exchange such as the Earth, lunar, fargone and New Japan fraction(s) as this was not mentioned in the previous book.
d. Life extension therapy to all residents?
4. Also what of the derf island to include her residents/home?
5. Will her being on planet now make her a mother responsible to give and report back to the other mothers on Derf as to the progress on planet? This was unclear as the island was given to Red Tree clan separately and not apart of the overall governance of the planet, but seemed to be included in the governance later on in the previous book?
I wish you well.
Tantor approached me so we’ll see if they want more. I’m filling the gap between the series. I haven’t given thought to how I’ll extend Family Law. I won’t ask Tantor if they want more until they produce what they’ve bought rights to.
Reading “Magic” again and noticed something. On the test flight of the Twool they came back and landed on the dollies. Remember that the first thing that happened after liftoff was that the pods swiveled to balance the load. If they tried to put them back to the same spacing it would make the craft unstable. Maybe if one of them exited and positioned the dollies by hand.
It was unnecessary as they already had good control and could have parked it under power. Alonso only used the dollies as it hadn’t flown before. He should have used his phone to open the hanger and flown it in as Lee later did on the moon.
Looking forward to the new book.