April 6: And What Goes Around (22 page)

So she tapped it and got a message immediately.

E-Solar number 1 - created Nov. 2
^nd
 
2087  Status: ownership unregistered  - 25gm Au.

The System Trade Bank at Home

Registration will document ownership with The System Trade Bank. The
verification function will display the recorded ownership when testing until
such a time as you wish to unlock it. Please enter an owner name and password
if you wish to register this coin. Be advised ownership of bullion coins is
prohibited in some legal jurisdictions and speed of light lag may delay
verification outside the Earth/Moon system. In the event of registrant death or
loss of password, coin registrations can only be changed with appropriate
documentation or identification by presenting them in person at TST Bank – Home
at L2. Coins registered under fictitious user names may not be reregistered
after loss of the password. Physical recovery by unencapsulation is the only alternative
to a broken chain of registration.

She didn't need to
see the whole process so April tapped no. She turned the coin over and let the
light play on it. The rim seemed faintly frosted and the recessed face glossy.

"Why is the
edge hazy?" April asked Jeff.

"It's
sapphire with a thick diamond coating. The first one was so slick it popped out
of your fingers and kept getting dropped. That's why we made the rim higher and
gave it enough texture to hang onto."

"But you can
still get the metal out?" April wondered, holding it up to the light.

"It's not
easy, and it will destroy the chip, but yeah the sapphire can be shattered or
cut once the diamond is breached. It looks clear but it's polycrystalline
diamond. You can't shatter either easily by just smacking it with a light
hammer," Jeff said.

April handed the
coin back and took the next one.

"I modeled
that after an old Chinese coin," Jeff told her. The metal coin inside was thinner
but the encapsulation the same size. The gold was a circle but the  hole in the
middle was square. It was a ten gram coin and had a lot of pretty engine
engraving in a band around the outside edge. The assay and bank name were on both
sides. The chip was suspended in the middle of the square through hole in the
gold.

The five gram coin
when April examined it was a nine sided polygon of gold with a round hole in
the middle. The assay and weight repeated around the edge, as did the bank ID
on the other side. The center hole apparently represented the sun, and the
planets were artistically represented around it, not to scale or realistically
at all. The orbits an oval at the angle of view. Each planet was on a line
running to an apex of the polygon. A configuration that seemed unlikely in
nature. The metal had to be quite thin to give enough area for the engraving.

"Why are they
all the same size?" April wondered. "Wouldn't it make sense to make
them in different sizes so you could sort them in your pocket by feel?"

"It might be
convenient," Jeff agreed, "but Trick Proto gave me a much better
price to just set up for one size of capsule instead of several. The set up and
machine time are much more than the material costs. We can get lunar sapphire
very cheaply. I had to guarantee I'd eventually buy ten thousand units to get
the price down where I want it, and that's running them as filler jobs whenever
they don't have other work for the machines or they would have capped the final
delivery date.

"But that's
fine because we only get so much precious metal from the Rock. It trickles in
as they process the iron and nickel out and separate the trace elements. We
really need to position ourselves to bid up a decent share and demand payment
in metal when somebody does another asteroid capture too. Because I think
somebody will do that long before they run out of material from the Rock.  

"So you
better hope people want these smaller coins as badly as you think, or we'll
have to eat the fees for unmade coins. I went ahead and ordered another five
hundred of the verifying chips too."

April looked
concerned. "Things are so crazy down below. I hope you can get them
delivered."

"Not to
worry. These chips are made by an Indian company on ISSII, Jeff said."

"They're
nice," April said of the coins. "Are you going to do even smaller
ones too?"

"I'll
probably have to if we're meet our obligations with Trick Proto," Jeff
said.

"OK,"
April agreed, and went to hand the five gram coin back.

Jeff made no move
to take it. "They were your idea. If you want to keep the serial number
one coins I'll debit your account for the face value. I suspect they may have
some 
numismatic value
in time."

"That's sweet
of you. I'll do that. I'll probably give them back to you for safekeeping, but
I want to show them to some people first."

"You might
register them," Jeff suggested.

"I suppose,
but you already know I have the number one coins."

"I do, but if
you ever do want to sell them they'll be worth more registered to your name.
The new owner would likely leave them with that registration. You are a public
figure, like it or not so do register them please," he begged her.

"OK,  but people
are silly."

"Yes, My
Lady," Jeff agreed.

April just rolled her eyes.

* * *

"You need to
listen to this,
soon
," Chen said. He looked unusually concerned on
Jeff's com pad.

"OK I'll break and look at it right now." Jeff said. He wasn't
used to seeing Chen like this.

Radio intercept – North
American agent – name redacted per employment agreement.

Source of message:
Small mining camp in northern Saskatchewan.

Time: 0550 this morning.

It captioned the intercept as the voices spoke.

"Hello? I'm
not sure how to use this thing. The panel has "Emergency" written at
this frequency with a felt tip. Is anybody listening?"

"This is the Beauval
Federal Police Post. You are correct this is for emergency calls. If this is
not an emergency call you are in violation of several regulations to use it. Do
you have an emergency?"

"We sure do.
This is Dennis Harrow at the Belt Mining camp. We're north of you and
accessible only by air this late in the season. Even that's kind of iffy right
now with this weather, but we sure got big trouble."

"Would you
explain the nature of the problem?" the officer asked quickly.

"Sure, just
catching my breath. I tried to call the company first. That's marked on the
radio too, and I got no answer. We don't have a sat phone. There's seventy some
guys here and most of the work is down the hole so we keep going with a bit
smaller crew all winter. We just cut back on processing what we dig until
spring. There's about half of them sick, some too sick to get out of their
bunk, and that includes our guy who had medical training and the radio operator
and the main cook. We're kind of in bad shape and I don't know much what to do
for them."

"We're having
a significant outbreak of influenza in the province, but if you are isolated I
don't see how you would have it there. Are their symptoms consistent with
influenza?"

"Oh yeah, few
of them said 'I got the flu' right away. They got headache, cough and feel
miserable. All wrapped up in a couple blankets and shivering to beat anything.
Musta been the big wheel, company vice president, who came in a week ago in an
aircar to talk to the site manager and swap out the assay guy for a new one. A
couple commented the VP looked like crap. Not that I seen him myself. Then
there was three – four guys sick a few days later. Including the one who flew
with him."

"That's
likely your source then, if he was sick," the policeman agreed.

"Is there
anything you can do for us? I have the assistant cook mixing a little bit of
baking soda and salt in water and keeping mug of it by each of the guys. We
read that in the handbook in the first aid kit. We started doing that early
this morning, but we got twice as many sick this evening now. It's running us
ragged taking care of the sick and nobody went down the hole to work this
shift. I know you can't hardly be expected to haul forty guys out of here in
the winter and shut the place down. But do you have somebody you can send in? A
doc or medic? Or at least drop some medicine? Way this is going, we're going to
run out of aspirin and Tylenol even."

"I'll pass
the request to the regional hospitals, but the word I'm getting is they have
been flooded the last two days and don't have enough people to cover shifts
much less send out teams to villages or camps. They have a lot of their own
sick. For that matter so do we," the cop said. "Also I was told that
this doesn't seem to respond well to the common antivirals. So that wouldn't do
you much good either. You might try to isolate the healthy from the sick."

"Kinda hard
to do in a bunkhouse," the miner said.

"Yes, I can
understand that. I'll ask the health service to call you. You see where the
Emergency channel is? Go up to the next channel with a bigger number, and check
back in an hour. If nobody is waiting to talk to you try again at six this
evening. Can you do that? You feel OK yourself?" The cop finally thought
to ask.

"Yeah I can do
that. The second cook and I are both fine and we both had the mouse flu a
couple years back. Maybe we won't catch it. Thanks for having them call,"
he said, but he wasn't happy.

"I'm sorry I can't do more. This is FPA Post 317
clearing the channel, out," he ended.

"Wow,
I'm picturing those guys. I feel for them. Stuck out there in the sticks,
sick."

Jeff
seemed sincere. It wasn't something Chen was certain he'd see in him. He'd seen
Jeff's side that seemed pretty ruthless and the Earth propaganda painted him a
monster. He wondered if Jeff knew?

"That
point about the mouse flu might be worth looking into," Chen suggested.

"That
it's a related strain? Yeah," Jeff agreed, "we'll find out for sure soon
when we get a sample. The USNA is saying it's a common type that went around
three years ago. The Europeans are saying it's one from last year. I think
they're both flat out lying. The Europeans said it is an A strain but didn't
even name a subtype."

"Being
vague has the advantage of not making a liar of yourself later," Chen
pointed out. "I have a dozen intercepts like this. The point I'm making being
it's spread beyond dense urban areas into the countryside. If our agents who
have contacts in the hospitals are right then two more incubation periods from
now we are going to see a significant disruption of business. It's too early to
know for sure, but the three paid agents we have in Italy and San Marino say
the early morbidity is high too."

"So
we have a week to get some supplies lifted before things get a lot worse?"

"Yes,
but a lot of them are in motion already. Bob Lewis ordered all sorts of
supplies that are already on ships or in the air freight system. The squeeze
will be getting them loaded on shuttles at Tonga and actually lifted. That's
why we want to take the 1430 to ISSII and get a connect to Tonga. If we miss
that we'll either need a private shuttle or lose fourteen hours until the next
flight, which is a double connection, ISSII to New Las Vegas and down. We can't
afford to delay that long."

"No,
grab the 1430 please. You have a bit more than an hour. I had a few Solars
uncommitted I could send with you, but bullion coins are illegal on Tonga. Instead
I had eighty gold wedding bands in pure gold made. I haven't picked them up yet,
but I'll have a guy from Presto Prototype meet you at the dock with them. They
are five grams each and all the same ten and a half size, but you can use them
for anything that a little
baksheesh
will help you accomplish,"
Jeff said, and made the thumb rubbing gesture.

"We
call it
zou hou,
" Chen told him, "but the application is pretty
much universal." He frowned and looked serious. "We'll try to return
on one of the late supply shuttles, but if we get stuck down there you may be
supporting us for awhile. I hope you noticed that clause in our contract."

"If
I have to we'll pick you up with
Dionysus' Chariot,
" Jeff promised.

"They
may shut down the spaceport and stop all traffic," Chen warned.

"It does water landings. Buy or rent a boat and
we'll meet you in international waters. If you can't get a boat," Jeff
shrugged, "it wouldn't be the first illegal landing we've done. It doesn't
need a hard pad to land either. I don't think Tonga has anti-air weapons. We
can worry about apologizing and smoothing it over later if we have to do that."

* * *

The courier
delivered a large flat package. Ben and Martha weren't expecting anything, but
they thanked the lad and tipped him. They opened the attached envelope to see
what it could be,

"I wish you
much happiness in your marriage and a long and prosperous life together. I feel
Home and all of us benefit from your presence and hope to be counted as a
friend and ally by both of you. Please accept this drawing as a wedding and
home warming gift." – April Lewis.

None of the
drawings for which Lindsey had sketches spoke to April as a gift. So she'd
given Lindsey recordings off her spex of Martha and Ben sitting in the Fox and
Hare. April remembered a particular moment that had touched her when
ex-president Wiggen had laid her hand on Ben Patsitsas' arm. The utterly comfortable
way she made the gesture left April feeling sure they were a couple.