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.

Rank in Amazon / Science Fiction

“Friends in the Stars” audio coming

Preorder available at: https://www.audible.com/pd/Friends-in-the-Stars-Audiobook/B0BDC9QP8C?qid=1662635905&sr=1-1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=83218cca-c308-412f-bfcf-90198b687a2f&pf_rd_r=GXY33BMMAY1RS828XWMP

I have a book cover

I’ll try to get this published tonight.

And live now at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BD672FBB

Updated book

I did a fairly extensive edit of “Down to Earth” today to bring it up to my current ability with spelling and grammar. I’m sure it’s not perfect. That’s unobtainium. You may have to ask for an update in your Amazon digital content list.

Last snippet of “Let Us Tell You Again”

The book should be published in a month.

“Radar return on significant reentry body number 14 today. Bolide or cometary fragment. Its trajectory indicated a natural source in solar orbit. The radar return is gone now as it broke up at altitude already.”

The controller touched the bracket on his screen to remove it after his voice note was logged. Nothing exciting happened for a long time. Four hours later into his shift, he got another radar return of a bigger snowball on its ionized plunge into the atmosphere.

“Diffuse return that visibly fragmented on radar. Body 17 for today. Object broke up low enough to expect possible reports of a flash, sonic boom, or seismographic reports.”

He thought about how closely it mimicked the previous object.

“A repetition of a significant object on the same impact zone is of a very low probability. Note to oncoming shifts. This sequence may constitute a probe of our defenses.”

There, that felt safe. At least they’d know he was awake. It was a relief when another didn’t happen before his shift ended.

The next operator read the station notes and sneered. The other operator was an alarmist in his opinion. He’d hit the panic button three times this year, worrying people needlessly. In his opinion, they needed to force the fellow to switch to decaf.

Object 19 for the day was right on the same impact path as the previous two. It wasn’t a snowball and it was big enough their radar painted a return off it just before it hit the atmosphere and left a trail that would reflect radar. The scope said it was twenty to thirty meters across. He hit the alarm without a second thought. Three down the same line was no accident of nature. Once he figured that out another part of the pattern occurred to him. The next one would be bigger.

* * *

Constable Howard stopped for lunch as soon as the restaurant opened at 4 am. Everyone else was having breakfast and he did the same, ordering a breakfast special for his lunch. It wasn’t dark when he went in and almost sunrise when he returned to his cruiser. It was a lovely eleven-degree day and clear for August. He was going to park observing a main road and intersection until called. He needed to conserve fuel because it was rationed even to the police. Churchill was still a quiet little town without much stirring coming up on 5 am and he’d just turned east when a flash over the horizon dazzled him. The flash faded briefly and then grew again covering a quarter of the horizon. It was further to the north than the natural sunrise.

“Dispatch, I’m uncertain what just happened unless somebody bombed the snot out of Quebec, but I think you should send out a local alert on the phone system to stay away from the bay. Something just came down to the east, man-made or natural I can’t tell you.”

“Yes, we are getting all kinds of alerts on the national systems. What kind of alert should I issue?” his dispatch asked.

“Do you have one on your list for a tsunami?” Howard asked.

“That’s amazing… I do.”

“I’d issue a tsunami alert, a boating hazard alert, and a dangerous weather alert. If folks can’t figure out something strange is happening from all that they are pretty dense.”

“I’m issuing those on your say-so,” the dispatcher said. “If I didn’t have all kinds of weird warnings off the national systems, I’d wake up your supervisor and ask him to make sure you haven’t been drinking.”

“Call the Tundra,” Howard invited her. “I just had breakfast there and they’ll tell you I was as sober as can be.”

“Did you feel that?” Dispatch asked him.

“Feel what? I’m in my cruiser. I didn’t feel anything,” Howard said.

“Like somebody stomped on the floor or dropped something, but I’m alone here for another couple of hours.”

Howard thought about that. He wasn’t stupid and he’d been in the military. He cracked both windows down.

“Don’t be surprised if you hear a boom,” he told his dispatcher. “I think you felt the
ground wave and we’ll have an atmospheric shock wave follow on.”

When it arrived, it wasn’t much of a bang, it was more like a muted roar.

“Was that it? I heard something,” Dispatch said.

“Yeah, I have my windows down. You’re all sealed up and it wasn’t that big a deal.”

“Should I leave the warnings up then?” she asked.

“Oh yeah. Any wave will be much slower. I have no idea if it will be three centimeters or three meters,” Howard said. “Better not to take any chances.”

“Fair Trade” is available on Audible books

I have six free copies to offer to the visually impaired who are often low income. If that describes you or a friend/family member it’s on the honor system. First come first served. Email me at gordonderf@gmail.com and I’ll send a code and instructions.

For paying readers: https://www.audible.com/pd/Fair-Trade-Audiobook/B09ZN1Z6QX

Another snippet from: “Let Us Tell You Again”

Mike Morse was in Kansas and driving late at night which he didn’t like. He was well away from any town in the middle of seemingly endless fields. Some were just showing early sprouts. Most of the farmhouses were empty. The owners having sold out to huge mega-farms and the new owners saw no urgency about tearing them down for the little extra acreage they’d get. Some were visibly well on their way to falling down. So, there was no traffic and nobody to note a strange vehicle passing by. The police didn’t patrol it unless called since almost nobody lived on these county roads now and fuel was too dear to drive around looking at cornfields during the day, much less at night.

Why didn’t they drop his package closer to his destination? Mike wondered irritably. Probably because the coasts were heavily guarded and any small object falling on Kansas corn fields would be assumed harmless. He figured that out for himself.

The GPS told Mike the next intersection was the place he was instructed to pick up his load. He stopped at his yield sign and inspected the road signs. They matched but there was no package visible. He was ten minutes early and a stopped vehicle was more suspicious than a moving one, so he did a sweeping U-turn in the intersection and drove three kilometers back the way he’d come. Reversing in a field access carefully he approached the intersection again and pulled over where the shoulder was wider in front of the yield sign.

He had a powerful spotlight if he needed to hunt for it. If it landed out in the fields it would be a difficult hunt and trespassing. It was still thirty seconds early but he took his light and walked into the crossroads. Nothing showed in the beam either way.

A noise made him turn around. There was a half-meter long black box in the center of the intersection with a gossamer black parachute still collapsing to one side. As he watched the box tipped on its side and a cylinder rolled out. Immediately a mechanism reeled the parachute in and a clear plastic balloon started inflating. It soon lifted the box, still expanding. The wind was slight but it carried the delivery vehicle away over one of the fields.

Mike tracked it with his spotlight until suddenly the box part hanging vanished in an orange flash. The balloon above, unencumbered, rose faster but it also vanished with a blue flame. There was a report from the orange detonation but the balloon was a silent flash.

He walked over and tapped the cylinder tentatively but it wasn’t hot. It was exactly in the middle of both roads. Mike looked at the stars overhead and shouted, “Show off!” before he took the cylinder and headed west to find a cheap motel.

A snippet from: Let Us Tell You Again

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.

For the fun of it:

A tongue in cheek cookbook. Very minimalist.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09P8WVJL6

Site being managed again.

I can now get comment emails forwarded. Also note that the book links to the right have been updated.

Site will be repaired or replaced.

The very kind lady who started maintaining this site for me is older (like me) and at that point in life she has more on her plate to deal with than taking care of my site. She was doing it basically as a favor. But some things like the e-mail redirect for comments don’t work. and I also lost my Ameritech address as unusable. AT&T has had our accounts screwed up for a long time. It got to the point my wife was needing to call every two weeks to get them to reset my password because this big TECH company only offers voice support and I am deaf.
I asked for my domain name back and am now negotiating with a capable young man to either repair this site or create a new one. It’s not going to just disappear. – Mac’

On readers and reviews

I have 312 reviews this morning on my latest book. They are entertaining if you don’t take them too seriously.
Let me tell a story about weighing other’s input too seriously.
When I was in high school I worked as a bus boy at a sort of a half restaurant / night club. The place had a lady playing requests on an organ at the center on a raised stage and she would sing on occasion.
They served some high end items but normal family dinner type things too.
The owner was cost conscious – which is good in a manager – but she had no FILTERS.
A 90 pound little old lady would say – Oh, honey your chicken dinner is wonderful but I can’t eat that much! She would immediately run into the kitchen and tell them to cut back the portions. Then a 300 pound truck driver would complain the chicken dinner left him hungry. Back to the kitchen she’d go…
One of my reviews today said the story went too slow like “drip coffee’.
The very next review said I flew through it too fast and it should have been three books.
You can’t make everybody happy and you will drive yourself and everybody around you crazy trying.
If you liked it well enough to finish it and not demand a refund I thank all of you. – Mac’