April (18 page)

"Why?" she insisted.

"Because I think they are in a situation very much like our own here, but on the moon. Otherwise they would be rushing to make a buck off these things, instead of keeping them secret. I think the Earthies are putting some kind of squeeze on them too, but they've never been frank about how."

"Have you offered the fusion generator to them yet?"

"No," he admitted. "I'm not sure what I want to do. I may offer them sealed units. I'm reluctant to actually offer the design and license them to build them. I might regret it later, just like they regret licensing the storage units to us."

"So the storage cell. The battery version from the Loonys, is it as simple to explain as the generator?

Sorry, but it's a bit more exotic. It involves the storage of positrons in an artificial atom of very high atomic number. Suffice it to say, at very high atomic numbers - in the hundreds. Positrons and electrons form separate structures of distinct energy levels binding them tightly. They are held far too tightly to leave where they are bonded and interact with each other. The crystal, which absorbs the energy, actually shrinks as it holds more energy. I suspect it will also get stronger and more rigid, but testing that theory will be really difficult. It is just one of the things quite counter intuitive about the device."

"And you came up with the fusion device all on your own, without a big research facility or lab? I'm impressed," April admitted.

"Well, I just built a little bit, on all the work which was done for years by others. It's often the way these things happen. When the time comes for something to be invented. A lot of supporting factors need to be in place. If I didn't have access to cheap commercial nanofabricating machinery and commercial nano electronic feed stock it would still be just an idea, almost impossible to make," Jeff explained. "It's very much like Thomas Edison's time. If he had not had all the manufacturing technology base and cheap materials new to his era, his inventions would have been one of a kind toys for the rich and his friend Ford would have made maybe few dozen automobiles a year, which would have been as exclusive as fancy racing yachts."

"But I was sure enough I'd eventually have real commercial applications for my stuff, that I had my dad help me set up a corporation a couple years ago. Before I even started on this project. Just from the hobby sort of things, Heather and I did."

"It's the same with the Loony's device. They told me it was based on a paper published before I was born. But new materials made it practical."

"You know, if we can build these generators cheap enough, on automated machines we can size the accelerators to fuse up larger nuclei, to whatever we need and get enough energy from the fusion to at least power the process. In time we can make any element we want and not be tied to the idea of the natural abundance of elements dictating with what we build, because of the economics of scarcity."

"Even the elements heavier than iron, if we will pay the energy to do it. Samarium and indium and gold are too wonderful for building things, to be forced to be stingy with them. We eventually just have to do it," he said with passion.

April just looked at him in wonder. He was talking about turning the whole economy and everything people were used to in their everyday lives upside down, like it might be an amusing thing to do. Now she understood what Heather meant when she said he was off scale.

"If you turn in the cross corridor here we will go in the back way," Neil's voice told them from behind. There was a double wide steel door, not a lock, which was marked DELIVERIES with the Holiday Inn logo. It had a hand pad and a keypad with a camera looking out above it. The scuffs and scratches around the door frame and the lower part of the walls, spoke of a lot of traffic with hand carts and deliver dollies.

Neil stepped forward and laid his hand on the pad and let it taste him. As they walked into the hall, an open doorway showed a supply room, with towels and toiletries stacked on wire racks. There was a room with a cleaning cart, which needed a human cleaner, not robotic at all. One rooms, as they passed the open door, just radiated heat and the damp smell of soap and chemicals. It must be the laundry. They heard a voice from one room, but walked the length of the hall and never saw another person.

At the very end of the hall there was another steel door, with another pad and camera. Neil laid his hand again on pad again and opened the door for them. This room had better carpeting and once the door on the hall was shut the noise level went down. It was a huge room for M3. About six by fourteen meters, with the door they used to enter in the middle of the long wall. There was another door exactly opposite through which they could see Mr. Harris from behind, standing at the lobby desk.

Neil turned to the right side of the room, where there was a conference table. Looking around, it was the most luxurious room April had ever seen on M3. There was a privacy screen of folding panels on the other side of the doors, which could be pulled across the room cutting off what she assumed was the manager's desk and large built in vault door behind it there, on the other end of the room. A large wall screen was cycling through a series of short videos, showing other Holiday Inns on Earth. After seeing a few in daylight she saw several at night and she realized it was a live cam tour of hotels. There was one for perhaps a minute she wished they had made pause. It showed an atrium hundreds of feet high, with tropical plants and colorful birds flying among them.

When she tired of watching it she examined the conference table closely, looking at the way the pieces of different colors fitted together. She could not feel a line with her nail where the purple color came to a point and blended into the creamy mottled wood around the outside edge. Very expensive certainly, even before being lifted to orbit.

Mr. Harris came in from the lobby and closed the door behind him. The wall screen now showed a near life size view of the lobby desk, so he would know if anyone came in needing help. She expected Neil would introduce them, but Harris just jumped in and started speaking.

"It's beautiful work isn't it? he asked, seeing her tracing the lines in the conference table.

"Yes, I have never seen wood fitted so perfectly and I've never seen wood dyed such a wild color like this. What sort of wood is it?"

"Actually the color is natural. The name of the wood is Purple Heart and the wood with all the little beads and swirls is called Birds Eye Maple. Those black little diamond shapes for accent are Ebony and again, that is its natural color. Can I offer you some refreshment?

"I'm really getting tired," April admitted. "I could use a good jolt from a mocha, made with strong coffee."

"Just a black coffee for me, please," Jeff requested.

Mr. Harris laid his pad on the table and relayed their order to housekeeping. He knew what Neil drank and ordered mocha for himself. "It's one of my favorites also," he told April with a smile. "I understand you have some items to leave in our hands. Is it what you brought there?" he inquired, nodding at the small box.

"Yes," Jeff agreed. "Also I am going to stay in our room for at least the next several days, until there are some repairs done on our apartment."

"Excellent," Mr. Harris expressed, "it precludes the parent company later complaining that I am taking in your items to safe keep as a separate service, unrelated to the room. They wouldn't approve of me doing so. Since Mr. Davis was frank in revealing there are some security issues involved, I would like to record this meeting on my pad and store it with the items. I have a program on the pad I have found very accurate, which gauges the veracity of a person's statements. I hope it won't offend you if I run it too?"

"Not at all. It seems like a very reasonable precaution. I'll do the same so there will be a separate record . My machine runs a similar program. She laid the box on the table.

"Scan, record audio until stopped and run full voice stress and analysis. Do a running test to watch for surveillance bugs, also and put alerts on the screen, report any traffic key words Lewis, April, Singh, Jeff, Heather anderson, Holiday Inn or combinations. End instructions."

Jeff also removed his identical unit and placed it on the table, but she had no idea what it was set to do, as he gave it no verbal commands.

There was a tapping at the door. Neil got up and looked at a video screen, before opening the door and accepting a cart with their drinks. She was surprised to see him lean over briefly and look under the bottom shelf and the underside of the top shelf, with a small hand mirror he returned to his pocket. She could see she was going to learn a lot from him, if she just watched closely.

When he returned, Neil sat at the other side next to Jeff.

"There are just a few questions then I need to ask," Mr. Harris told them. "What is the nature of the items you are leaving?"

Jeff reached in and pulled the tube out, uncapping and laying it on the table, along with a memory module. "This is a prototype electronic component, of my design and manufacture and manufacturing data about it."

"And they are your own simple property?" He asked.

"I am the inventor and maker, but both Heather Anderson and April Lewis are co-owners with an interest in these samples and the processes behind them."

 That was a lie, he hadn't had time to change his corporate documents to reflect their pledge, but he would as soon as his dad was home. Until then, it was his firm intent. "They are corporate property, but we are the stock holders and it's not a public company. The memory module is as important as the actual piece, because the design is not patented or copyrighted and it is at risk if it were stolen."

April looked at him hard when she heard co-owner. He smiled and silently mouthed "our fortunes" at her.

"Then you wish for all of you to have equal access, tenants in common?" Mr. Harris asked.

"Yes and we wish Mr. Davis, who has a keycard to the room, to have access on behalf of M3 Security." Jeff added.

Mr. Harris was noting all this on a heavy card stock tag, which had a perforated receipt on the end. "And what would you place as a valuation on the items? he asked.

Jeff looked at April and found no help there, so he thought about it moment. He looked at Neil and found a poker mask.

"I don't think I can reasonably ask you to insure them," he finally said. "If you just do the best you can, I think it's as much as we can expect."

Mr. Harris looked a little tight-lipped. "We self-insure and it is a matter of some pride we will cover a guests valuables. I have never heard of anyone actually having a loss at any of our Inns, but we on one occasion, had a violin in this safe which was valued at twenty million dollars USNA. Of course, the parent company insists I assign a value to an item when accepting it. I am sure if the adjusters need to make some revision later they can, but just give me a ballpark figure."

"Well," Jeff said slowly and unwilling, "We may keep them a trade secret, but even if  these items are patented and sell the numbers we project over the life of a patent, they should net at least several hundred billion dollars. Half a trillion dollars is an entirely reasonable estimate. I'm not sure if your parent company has the capitalization to cover the loss," he explained.

April noticed Mr. Harris' hands were shaking slightly. "You believe your statement," he confirmed, looking at the program running in his pad.

"And as you can tell from your program, I believe it also," April said. "But I need to tell you, it is beneficial to the Hotel to assist us. Does your program show that is a truthful statement?"

"Unequivocally," he agreed. "A ninety-eight percent positive assessment by the program. Of course you could be wrong," he seemed to remind himself, "but you believe it."

He took a deep breath and appeared to come to a difficult decision. "I shall put a value on the receipt, of three hundred billion dollars USNA and if there is a loss, well, I won't be any deader than if it was three hundred million and it does make a grand story to be able to tell some day," he reasoned.

Jeff had loaded the box back up and Harris taped the card on the side and ripped the tag off for Jeff.  He went over and entered a sequence in the keypad and pulled the vault door open. April was surprised how roomy it was. When it was open April noticed the door was generously thick. It must have cost a fortune to lift it to orbit. Jeff handed the tag off to April and said, "Hang onto this for us. I don't want to keep it at the Hotel, too close to the box."

April looked at the sepia tinted cardstock ticket, rough along the long edge where the perforation was torn and a serial number along the short edge. It was surprisingly old fashioned and suddenly seemed silly. The value was written in numbers on the space provided and took up the entire length. What would they do if it was lost? A payout seemed unlikely. But the manager seemed fiercely proud about the companies honor in the matter. April decided she should go back when she wasn't so tired and see the fine nuances of what the voice analysis on her scanner showed about Mr. Harris.

"Could you show us where our room is if we're finished?" April asked. "I'd like to see it before I go and I'm sure Jeff is as tired as I am"

"Yeah, I have to admit, it has been a hard day," Jeff said getting up.

"I'll show them where it is," Neil offered. He led them out the back again and then took a left turn, which intersected a hallway running from the lobby parallel to the service corridor they had walked in through. "If you want to leave the way we came in nobody will stop you. The delivery door does not usually open to guest keycards, but I will set it to accept yours, in case you don't want to be seen coming in and out of the lobby."

 At their door Neil used his master card to open it. He pointed out the manual controls, older people like him seemed to use out of habit. Jeff and April's generation was much more comfortable just talking to their home.

"I'll be in the next room to your right as you go out the door," Neil reminded them. "If you should have any need you can call me on the com, or come down and buzz my door. I'll tell you something else I just decided. If for any reason you don't feel safe to come to this room just go next door to my room. I'll set the lock to take your key also. If anyone were looking for you here they would never think you'd be right next door, in the closest room. They would think you'd go off home or somewhere far away."