April on the cheap

From Amazon….
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I’m working on the April series audio books

No hard timeline. We’re going through and editing things. They want to know for example how to read ISSII = International Space Station II. So you read it ISS2.

Personal events for the author

March 8th I’m going to have a total shoulder replacement. I’ll have a first stage recovery of about six weeks where we need household help and I’ll be sleeping in a lift recliner. Showers and other normal activities will be difficult. Writing will be one of the few things I can do. So I may actually make more progress than when I’m doing shopping, cooking, and laundry.

An unedited snippet of Family Law 7 in progress.

“Good evening. We haven’t met but your private com number was given to me by April. I’m Lee Anderson and resident on Derfhome below you. April and I are friends and are doing a lot of business together. I have an art project I’d like to propose to you.”

“I very rarely accept commissions,” Lindsey told her. “April is one of the few for whom I’ve drawn a custom image. Also, Heather, though that was through my dad. Tell me what you have in mind. It will have to be something interesting that I want to do.”

“I’m going to be striking coins for my world. Providence. I want an image of the flying Derfhome carnivore named the Twool for the coin faces. That’s also the name of a extraordinary vehicle I own and it will be struck on millions of coins eventually for which you’d be known as the artist. That’s advertising of the sort you can’t just buy and whatever fees you wish to charge me for your services.”

Lindsey was irritated with this person. She wasn’t just confident. She was well past that and just radiated arrogance. Friend of April or no, she’d dispose of her in short order. She thought a moment what to ask. A London Good Delivery Bar was about five hundred solars. One of those, no, two of them sounded about right to be an insane demand.

“Yes, I’ll drop everything I’m doing and make your image for a sample of each coin upon which it is embossed and a thousand solars.” She smiled, waiting for this young woman to faint away or erupt in objections.

“That’s fine,” Lee agreed. “I have quite a few images and videos of the creature. Would you like them to work with or would you prefer to find your own sources?”

Lindsey stared at her a moment before it registered that Lee was entirely untroubled by her extravagant demand.

“Your*pix*would*certainly*be*helpful,” Lindsey heard a stranger slowly say with an odd catch to her voice.

“Sweet, here’s a link to my Twool folder,” Lee said. “Let me know if you need any other resources. I understand you work with Heather’s mom, who understand carving and engraving. If she requires a separate fee to help with the conversion of your images to fab files for the dies let me know.”

“I’ll*put*that*to*her,” Lindsey promised, still in shock. She sat frozen staring at the blank screen for several minutes after Lee had disconnected. Finally, she recovered, realized what she’d done, and did the first very difficult step of this project.

“Sylvia! I’m sorry. I’m afraid I accepted a joint commission without consulting you.”

A small unedited snippet of Family Law 7

“You have a courier making a delivery and he insists it must be hand delivered to you rather than leave it at our desk,” the hotel desk informed Lee.

“Don’t send them up. I’ll be right down.”

Lee wasn’t expecting anything and was cautious. She slipped a pistol in her waistband and pulled her top back over it. That and having witnesses in the lobby should do. What she didn’t expect was a Bill waiting patiently with a card held in both hands. She knew there were several Bills at their joint embassy with the Badgers but had never seen one out and about other than the head Bill, Singer. This was somebody else. He was thinner, shorter, and managed to look uncomfortable and nervous. That was surprisingly obvious, although she didn’t have a lot of experience reading Bill faces or body language. The rigid bill like a duck made them tougher for Humans to read.

“Mistress, my leader, Singer, and the head Badger, Talker, send greeting and invite you to a celebratory gathering,” he said. He didn’t introduce himself and gave her a bow so smooth and unconsciously it must be a part of his culture rather than adopted.

Lee took the offered card and read it. The party was this Saturday, only four days away. Her first thought before she read it was that she’d be gone to Providence, but that date worked for her. It said starting at the twelfth hour with drinks and running all day.

“Are you taking our responses back to the hosts?” Lee inquired.

“Yes, Mistress. Verbally or if you wish to send a note, I’ll wait for it.”

“Tell them I’ll be there. Is it appropriate to bring a date?”

“I was told you are Talker’s friend. I can’t imagine he wouldn’t welcome and accommodate anyone you wished to accompany you. We are all being instructed on Badger customs and culture as they are being instructed about ours. I’m aware now that friend means much more to them than it does to us or Humans.”

“I’m glad to hear you have such programs. I had to learn the hard way by getting it wrong a few times,” Lee admitted.

The Bill’s eyes got bigger. Enough to be easy to read. He was surprised not at Lee’s experience but that this important person was being chatty with him.

“Did they by any chance share what this event is celebrating?” Lee asked.

“The Badgers have at long last received all their domestic goods and Talker’s family is in residence. The supply ship brought extra personnel for them, a few Bills, and a race spox for the aliens that I’m told you call Cats. That was a surprise and a separate wing for her use was immediately started.”

“Do you by any chance know why it took so long to get his pots and pans and family packed and moved?” Lee asked.

“May one speak anonymously, Mistress?”

“Sure. We’d say in confidence. Only between the two of us,” Lee promised.

“Talker told them plainly not to send a Voice to replace Singer. He said he was doing quite well and all the Derf and Humans got along with him famously. That was another new English expression I had to look up. He published that as an open letter. They wanted to ignore him but his wife refused to board with a new Bill spox. The embassy staff like her for that before we have even met. The officials debated sending a separate ship just to carry him. The final consensus was that would solve nothing because Talker is so stubborn, he’d send him back or refuse to support him in any way.”

“Ha! Talker has been so corrupted by my influence he might just shoot him,” Lee said.

The Bill bent at the waist and seemed to be choking. Lee finally figured out he was laughing uncontrollably. Then she remembered some of the things she was told about how crude Bill humor ran. Apparently, she made a direct hit on his funny bone.

“We’d have to throw another party to thank him,” her courier told her.

“I predict they’ll start giving all of you lessons on Cat manners and customs with this new person arriving,” Lee told him.

“I hadn’t thought of that, but I think you have the right of it,” he said.

“Here, thank you for your message and the extra information. I always welcome talk about what’s happening and to trade juicy gossip about people we know.” She gave him a silver dollar Ceres and a small bow that was way above his station.

Thank you, Mistress. I will remember that.”

Oops

I did a failed save and briefly had The Long View live with an extra dinkus and an extra blank page. It’s corrected if you bought it that way you can update to get the fix.

The Long View published

It may take a little time to work through their system. Here is my temporary cover.

OK – URL live now. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJYL6JZ7

I got my cover from Sarah Hoyt. It will catch up when Amazon propagates it.

Title change

The Long View works much better than Here’s to the Future.

April 14 is done

Tentative title: Here’s to the Future. 122k + words. Out to betas soon and need a cover.

April 14 at 101k+ words – Tiny snippet

“Let’s go have a substantial lunch,” Kawasa said. “I don’t want to appear the sort of boor who loads up on a buffet like it’s his last meal.”

“Now, if I had said that you’d reply that one never knows,” Akari said.

“You know me too well,” Kawasa admitted. “If I fall to misadventure, I guess going out hungry won’t make it much worse. But you do make me rethink it.”

“I have that much influence?” Akari teased.

“My dear, some days I think everything is run by a shadow government of spouses, pulling the reins from behind the scenes. It would explain why the flaming idiots can never come to a decision in one brief meeting. They need to check at home to find out what they believe.”

“If our hosts speak about politics, you should advance that theory to them,” Akari suggested. “I’ll be watching closely to see if it changes how they regard me.”

“You tempt me,” Kawasa said.

Another unedited snippet of April 14

Mike Morse joined the coffee pot crowd at the cafeteria. His status with them went up when he became self-employed. Although they still made ritual fun of Glen for buying into Eric’s lotto, a few secretly bought into Mike’s numbers game. When it became obvious that he wasn’t talking their personal business around that enhanced his reputation too.

Glen sat next to him as was often his habit now if there was a seat open. He’d appointed himself Mike’s buddy. So far it wasn’t often enough to be irritating.

“They said they’re going to put the ball on the big screen if you want to come to watch it here Saturday,” Glen told him

“Ball?” Mike said, oblivious.

“The sovereign’s ball on the Moon,” Glen said. “Do you live in a cave man? If you look at the news and gossip boards that’s the big topic right now.”

“I’d make the case that the Moon people are the ones living in caves,” Mike said.

“I never thought of it that way,” Glen admitted. “Literally instead of allegorically.”

“Why is a ball such a big deal?” Mike asked. “Haven’t you had balls before?”

“No. They dance at the Quiet Retreat but there’s nowhere else to really have a ball. Nobody has bothered to organize that sort of thing on Home. I’m told the Moon queen has a fancy big room that’s suitable. I guess we’ll see Saturday. What changed, why she has a sudden interest I don’t know. Her partners are often seen in public on Home but she stays holed up on the Moon and very rarely comes here. We normally don’t hear a peep out of her. Not that she isn’t a political force to be reckoned with.”

“But they’re going to stream it on video live? On Earth nobody streams things like state dinners live. That’s kind of brave to do,” Mike decided. “If there are people who don’t like her governance and know it’ll be on camera, they might use the event to raise a fuss.”

“I wouldn’t want to try,” Glen said. “She holds court every Sunday and dispenses justice. You can look up all the old court days on video. They post them just like they intend to do the ball. Believe me, she’s a no-nonsense kind of judge. She’s banished people before and she sits with a pistol on the table right at hand. She hasn’t shot anybody but one day she made a note for heads or tails, tossed two guys at odds with each other a coin, and invited them to flip it. Then she’d shoot the loser.”

“But she didn’t?” Mike asked.

“They begged off. Their dispute suddenly seemed less important in the face of a lethal solution. But I took that to mean they were sure she would shoot. Quite a few of the people who bring her complaints withdraw when they see she’s going to resolve their problem and it may not be the way they’d like. There’s no years of appeals and such nonsense.”

“That sounds a lot more interesting than the gossip boards. I may check that out.”

“It’s entertaining and amazing the damn fool things people bring to her court knowing they will be recorded for posterity and freely available,” Glen said.

“You’ve got me interested now. I’ll watch it Saturday,” Mike decided.

Snippet of April 14 unedited

“Of course, dear. Come in tomorrow and we’ll look at some designs and pick something for you. Your measurements are stable so no need to take them again. You’ll be close enough to our numbers that a final fitting can go either way,” Cindy assured April. “I’m glad you didn’t wait any longer. Besides regulars, we’re getting several new customers from Heather’s party. I have reservations for fittings weeks ahead. I’ve even had appointments made ahead for Earthies passing through to the Moon.”

“I should have thought of that,” April said. “We don’t have to do anything with a lot of elaborate hand work. It can be simple but I wanted something new for such a special event.”

Cindy laughed. “I wish she’d throw a grand ball every couple of months. There are plenty of people on Home who can afford new things but the social scene is too thin to motivate them to come in and get new things.”

“You’d be shocked at the number of people urging her to have more of a social life,” April said. “Even her housekeeper keeps trying to get her to engage more.”

“Does she even have appropriate clothing for her own affair?” Cindy wondered. “Not that it’s any of my business but one wonders if she cares about such things.”

“When is Frank going to fit the lunar trumpeters?” April asked.

“Next week,” Cindy informed her. “We’re just waiting on some fancy brass buttons.”

“Have Frank contact her late tomorrow and ask for a time to measure her and show her some choices. I’ll inform her it’s my gift to her and ask her to make time for him. She’s too polite to decline a gift from me, large or small. I admit most have been on the small side. If I simply fetch dessert, she’ll always take a few bites. It’s about time I did something more significant than cheesecake for her.”

An unedited quick snippet of April 14

The Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs, Taikan, considered the fold over invitation on his desk carefully. The paper was thick and had a faintly shiny surface without feeling slick. It was slightly translucent and had a sprig of rose leaves and a few pink petals embedded. The use of inclusions in the hand-made paper wasn’t overdone. The entire effect was subtle. The English text was in a light green ink that complimented the leaves and the Japanese text was in a color he immediately labeled as Flamingo to compliment the petals. Both were done by hand and the translation was so correct that he couldn’t tell which was the original message and which was the translation. It invited him or his chosen representative to join the Sovereign of Central at a state ball and dinner buffet to celebrate life, friends, and allies. The event would start at 1800 Zulu time on May the sixteenth.

The note left unsaid if he and thus Japan were foremost friends or allies. It wasn’t even tied to any political event or anniversary. That was carefully neutral but wouldn’t deflect certain other nations from condemning anyone attending. Taikan didn’t care to demonstrate cowardice for his nation by turning down such an eloquent invitation. His personal politics were such that he’d enjoy sending a message to the sorts of joyless uzeee naysayers who could be offended by a party.

Unfortunately, there was no way he could alter his obligations to be away as many days as travel to the Moon would require. His deputy, Kawase Toyo, was younger and would travel easier. He called him.

“Kawase, how would you like an all-paid exotic vacation for your nation?”

“Greenland again? Or have you found somewhere as hot as that was cold?”

“How suspicious you are,” Taikan reproved him. “That wasn’t even in the depth of their winter and you were warned to have adequately warm clothing. This is a wonderful assignment, literally a party! Your wife will find it makes up for your previous task.”

“Is her presence requested or is it required?” Kawase asked. “She is as suspicious as me.”

“She wouldn’t want to miss it,” Taikan assured him. “You will attend a ball that is a state function. Come to my office and I’ll show you the invitation.”

Kawase took a long time examining the invitation.

“This isn’t the work of a barbarian,” He reluctantly admitted.

“I’m sure the whole experience will be tasteful and disagreeable to all the parties we wish to irritate by treating the Moon queen with honor and legitimacy.”

Kawase actually smiled at that. “That will make up for any minor hardship,” he agreed.

A short snippet of April 14 at 50k words

When Nick came in the kitchen door two workers facing it looked up.

“Delivery?” one asked with a scowl.

“No, I’m the new dishwasher.”

One worker went back to seeding tomatoes and the other took his time looking Nick over head to toes.

“Fresh off the shuttle,” the other one said. It wasn’t a question. “At least you aren’t dragging luggage along so you must not be sleeping in hot slots.”

“I’m with a friend who has a very nice apartment,” Nick informed him. “I’ve been up here before and had a standing invitation to move permanently.”

“You went back to Earth?” The cook asked. He didn’t seem impressed.

“We’re both from Hawaii,” Nick said. “It’s really about as nice as Earth gets. She was my neighbor next to the place where I was a caretaker.”

“Ah, the neighbor is a she,” the fellow said cluing up. “You’re relieving me of dish duty on our busiest days so I wouldn’t care if you were a werewolf Sunday through Thursday. I’ll show you what to do. First of all, the rack of lockers behind you are for anything you need to store while you are working,” he said pointing. “I’m Hans and I’m not your boss but I’ll still tell you what to do even though they don’t pay me to supervise.”

“There’s no lock on them,” Nick observed of the tiny square lockers.

“No, but there’s a camera watching it and if anybody screws around with your stuff he won’t work here and any of us will cheerfully help you break his thumbs. Now, this is just my advice, take it for what it’s worth. I’d put my phone in there for at least the first couple of weeks. Karl over there at the stove is your real boss and he has eyes in the back of his head. Literally, with the spex he’s wearing. If you take too many calls, he’ll let you go even though it dumps the dishes back on me. Rushing off to the toilet every time your phone buzzes isn’t going to fly either. We’ve had problems with that.”

“I’ll do that and I have an extra shirt in case I’m too dirty to wear this one home.”

“Lovely, you plan on working. Stow your stuff and I’ll show you how to do your job.”

Snippet of April 14

April consulted with Michael Brightbill again. “Are all six trumpeters available to pull our prank or do I have to find somebody to fill in?”

“All of them thought it was a wonderful idea. They were all paid to pose for Sylvia’s entry video and are happy to do it for free if they can just keep the uniforms and join the party after the guests are all arrived.”

“Do you know if they still have the trumpets?” April asked.
“If Sylvia is storing them someplace, I can hardly ask her. Maybe Heather would remember.”

“I’m sorry but the trumpets were dubbed in by CGI just like the uniforms. Sylvia gave us all a piece of aluminum conduit to hold so we got the arm positions and posture exactly right, but there were never any real trumpets,” Michael told her.

“Oh, wow. Now I have to research trumpets.I’m sure it’s going to be complicated.”

“The pitch of the trumpet depends on its length,” Michael said. “I’d just make them look like the ones in your video and play the fanfare from the recording. They can go through the motions just like lip syncing a song. It’s too much to expect all six of them to actually become proficient at playing them anyway. You’d have some off notes spoiling the scene for sure.”

“OK, that’s easier,” April said, relieved. “Any decent proto shop should be able to print me six light weight shiny horns.”

“And my tipstaff,” Michael added. “That was computer generated too. I was holding a piece of conduit just like the trumpeters. Make it heavy and sturdy so it will sound right. The horns we can fake. Nobody will be able to tell if they are blowing them but I’d never be able to time cracking the staff on the floor exactly.”

“Right.…” April made some notes on her pad. “This is far more complicated than I ever envisioned.”

“Isn’t everything?” Michael asked.

A snippet of April 14. Unedited.

“Did you know all this about Home?” Vic asked.

“Very little of it,” Eileen admitted. “Mostly, I knew that it and the Moon colonies are the only places that have no regulation of life extension therapies.”

“And yet we have the public cameras on the corridors and places like the cafeteria and docks,” Vic said. “Even without regulation I don’t see freaks like China produces.”

“Technically China has regulation, thousands and thousands of pages of it I gave up trying to wade through,” Eileen said. “It doesn’t prohibit stupid modifications like webbed hands and feet. That would be great for Olympic swimmers if any other country would allow them in. But it doesn’t have much to do with extending a normal life.”

“It doesn’t seem like Home has much regulation of anything,” Vic said. “They certainly don’t regulate banking. There are basically two banks, a couple of payday lending companies and some odd little companies, usually individuals, who buy and sell currencies, stocks, jewelry, lift tickets and such sort of like pawn brokers. But pawn brokers aren’t regulated either. On the plus side, I admit the interest rates for those kinds of services aren’t ruinous like here. It’s still scary to have no deposit insurance.”

“Shouldn’t it be just the opposite?” Eileen asked.

Vic opened his mouth, blinked, and shut it.

Eileen looked worried at his reaction. “I mean, the purpose of regulation is to keep unscrupulous people from taking advantage of the public, isn’t it?”

“In theory,” Vic admitted, frowning.

“And in reality?” Eileen asked. “I never learned much about business. I was still in school when The Day so rudely interrupted that. I’ve never even had a job.”

“In reality, it’s often about sucking in more fees for the government creating the regulations. Also for creating a body of merchants beholden to the regulators for keeping the barriers to starting a business high so they have little competition.”

“Oh.”

Think about it,” Vic invited. “How many people do you think died of dirty combs because barbers were once unregulated? They once did minor surgery too. That’s where the red strip running down a barber sign comes form. But that was when a real surgeon hardly existed and you were lucky to have a barber who had the tools and would help you. They were pretty much gone by the end of the nineteenth century. But barbers and hair braiders and nail salons are all regulated. If you can see a shop isn’t clean you can go elsewhere. In truth, under regulation the banks can charge more for credit card debt than just going to a loan shark you know is part of organized crime and paying their vig.

“We’ve spent the past couple of years with no regulation. Instead of everybody being anxious for it to start up again we’re worried about them taking our radio net off the air and finding ways to pay sales and income tax when that starts up again. Maybe the Spacers have the right of it. They just went so completely radical that it was a shock to read about it.”

“I don’t know how you know all this stuff,” Eileen said. “It took me forever and learning how to get past the net censors just to find out about life extension. I’ll be too old to go back to school by the time they open. I’m too busy to go back anyway.”

“I didn’t really learn all that stuff in school,” Vic said. “My head is stuffed full of irrelevant and usually useless facts because I read everything I could in books and so many web sites.”

“Our teachers constantly warned us away from reading the web,” Eileen said. “They told us we didn’t have the tools to know what was right or wrong.”

Did they tell you they had the tools to do so? Or give you any idea when they intended to gift you with these mystery tools?” Vic asked.

“We were kids. I can see that was pretty self-serving, now. It was just a way to say believe me, because I say so. If somebody I trusted hadn’t told me the official view of life extension was a lie I’d have never made the huge effort to investigate it. It does make me wonder what else is a lie. Once somebody lies to me I don’t trust them again.”

“See? You have good instincts,” Vic said. “I’ve seen you immediately not trust somebody right when you meet them. Some people never learn that, skill of identifying a liar or a crook from the subtle signs when you meet them. Just like face to face, there’s all kinds of tells online that somebody is self-serving or lying. I can tell you have the capacity already. You don’t immediately believe gossip and you reasoned out why it was not in our gold refiner’s self interest to cheat us. We’ll do some lessons in the evening. Not dry school subjects. I’ll more formally introduce you to what constitutes critical thinking. Consider it getting ready to live up there. I’m pretty sure Home is short on stupid people to deal with. If you want something like math that isn’t opinion based there’s lots of free university level courses online. We don’t have to be frugal with data now.”

“I’d like that. Maybe you aren’t too old to consider taking some?” Eileen suggested.

“Maybe,” was as far as Vic would go.

A little snippet from April #14

“I think we have a good enough team assembled to return to the second living world we discovered,” Deloris told Heather.

Heather’s brother Barak was with her but stood back silently supportive. The explorers were all equal except for the necessities of command but Deloris was clearly dominant and Heather would be a fool to pretend otherwise. The other team members were absent but one could be sure they were thoroughly briefed what Deloris was going to tell her.

“Why good enough instead of magnificent?” Heather asked. She drew the word out with the sort of breathless wonder used to sell things on the video channels. She had some ideas what limitations Deloris was working with so it was at least partially humor. Some of the experts she’d hired were marginally qualified or rank amateurs. Deloris and her crews hadn’t complained so far and she was inviting her to speak up if they had any serious objections.

“Because the way rank and tenure work among the Earthies the most qualified of the academics are insulted to be offered a berth on our explorer. They want to come based on when they can get a sabbatical rather than our schedule. The idea of quitting their slot at the pig trough of higher education would never occur to them. They expect a private cabin if not a suite, and be allowed to haul along a few graduate students and a secretary to do all their heavy lifting for them.”

“There must be exceptions or you wouldn’t have any support people,” Heather said.

“Oh sure. We have a few round pegs in square holes so smart I think they could do just about anything if we gave them a week or two to read up on it. Maybe even my job. We wanted a botanist and if possible one who specialized in grasses. The survey from orbit saw no large woody plants like trees. The radar returns at different frequencies indicate the height of most ground covering foliage is from three centimeters to a meter. So, there isn’t even anything we’d call a bush.”

Heather just nodded. She’d read the survey report and remembered the details like those numbers better than Deloris would have expected.

“What Jeff got for us was not a botanist but a Nobel Prize winning biochemist. Bobby won the prize for explaining the exact chemical path of cellular differentiation in plants. I’m guessing he isn’t worried about having a job when he returns, given his credentials. There will be plenty of institutions eager to take him if his present employer is dumb enough to let him go. Jeff asked if he was too specialized to conduct a general survey of an entire new biosphere? The fellow said he wouldn’t take offense but that was like asking of the builder of race car engines if he could do an oil change. He didn’t have to be asked if he would do other support duties when not busy with his primary job. Bobby volunteered he was a passable cook and not above scrubbing toilets if that’s what it took to get a ride to another star system. The man got major points with me for asking how many kilograms he was allowed for personal items like clothing and entertainment. I’ll take six more like him, please.”

“In what area are we weakest?” Heather asked.

“Animal biologists,” Deloris said. “We didn’t see an animal from orbit with a three-centimeter resolution survey of several different areas. I suspect they may not exist. There might be insect analogs or life in the ocean, but it’s weird to see all that grass and no herds of herbivores munching on it. In truth we didn’t try to recruit awfully hard because I’m not sure we need one.”

“No birds either?” Heather asked. “I didn’t see that addressed.”

“Not unless they are hummingbird sized. There might be flying insects,” she speculated.

“I accept your analysis we have a workable support crew,” Heather decided. “We three will come along again to see the world for ourselves after we orbit awhile in the Chariot and allow you to establish it is reasonably safe. I suppose eventually these landing will be routine and we won’t always join you. Not yet though.”

“That was my next question,” Deloris said. “I suggest you make a separate landing so one local problem like a storm can’t catch both ships in the same location.”

“With a relay satellite to keep in touch?” Heather asked.

“See, you’re not as dumb as you look,” Deloris praised her sovereign.