April (41 page)

"Yes," he agreed. "It sounds like a fine opportunity. The Drs. Singh you say?"

"Yes, they agreed to your idea and wed yesterday."

"While I have everybody here," Eddie said tentatively, "my boss wanted me to talk to the Head of Security on II and see what he knows and feels, about the situation with the Rock. If we get our ride tomorrow I'm running out of time to see him. Do any of you know the man? Would it be a problem with any of you, if I went by and asked to speak with him?"

John looked uncomfortable. "We don't exactly work on the same side of the street.

Because he is new we're getting to know the man ourselves, mostly by observing what he does, but just as your uncle suggested earlier today, there are people on opposite sides that are still honorable. Perhaps you will help us take the measure of the man, if you do approach him. He's a professional spy also you know."

"That's what my boss said."

Justine toyed with his coffee cup and got so visibly upset the rest of them knew there was some problem. He started to say something and faltered. They just waited on him to get back his composure and speak.

"The USNA is going to take the Rock," Justine declared flatly. "They have plans to lock down M3 and have it under control a couple weeks before the Rock gets here. Then they were going to basically nationalize the Rock. I was going to tell Eddie to pack up and not be on M3 when it happens. But I owe you," he nodded at the Agapitos and John, "a debt of hospitality and I couldn't not say anything and let you go over there into trouble."

"How do you know this?" Eddie asked. "How reliable is it?"

"This is the word all the way from the top. The fix is in with the World Court and they already know they need to come to a decision which comports with reality. Which is that the US will have actual physical control of the Rock before they issue their ruling. No way do they want to look foolish and make a ruling the USNA will just laugh at, because they aren't going to give it back."

"The families might not always have the influence they want with the governments, but we always have individuals at the highest levels, who at least let us know what is going to happen. You might not think it would concern us, but we need stability as much as any other institution."

John was nodding his agreement. "We fill a niche someone is going to fill. If it were run by a few thousand small entrepreneurs, there would be so much more fighting for territory and market,the public chaos would be much worse than anything we allow to happen. You see it sometimes when there are new groups who try to break into the drug market. You get all kinds of undesirable publicity in the media over it. We can't exactly hire PR to spin our side of it you know."

Eddie had never thought of it that way. The lesser of evils. It still didn't make him want to take a share in the family business.

"Should I go talk to the man then? Or do you think there's no point?"

"This is your home turf," Justine offered, looking at the Filipinos. "You have any objection if he goes and has a nice talk-talk with the Security Chief?"

"Not as long as he leaves our name out of it," John specified. "I take it you have a lot of experience in being discrete," he said. Looking between Justine and Eddie.

"You have no idea," Eddie said. "I go home for Christmas and the dinner table looks like the wanted page on the FBI site. Then next morning I get up bright and early, put my shield in my pocket and go back to work."

"OK then we'll call right now and get you an appointment," John offered. "And we'll walk you there, in case our Chinese friends have figured out you are connected with the doctors. Maybe you folks would like to come along and make sure we take good care of your boy?" He asked Justine. "Probably confuse the hell out of the Chinese to see us strolling along all friendly like. With a bit of luck they might go home to figure it all out."

* * *

April was thrilled with her new space suit. She had never owned one custom made before. The few times she had been out, she had rented a sized suit and twice done the drill to put on an emergency suit. Those were way too big for her even with all the adjusting straps pulled up tight. This suit was still stock parts, she didn't need anything custom machined, being within the size limits for which they made standard limb and torso sub-units, but each was matched to her measurements and assembled. An uncustomized size six suit, had always been a bit long in the arm and short in the leg for her. This was perfect. It was a combo suit. A hard shell from the shoulders down to about the end of the ribs and a hard girdle around the hips with a seat built inside for the buttocks. So when she sat in the seat of the scooter it would clamp on the girdle and the padding would be inside not outside. Also there was a backup harness, but the main restraint was the seat latching directly onto the suit.

The arms and legs were soft except for elbow and knee pads and it had two pairs of both gloves and boots. Heavy ones for outside work and contact with cold metal and finer gloves with more dexterity were worn for piloting and fine repair work. A control in the helmet collar changed exterior color and reflectivity. She had it set for a glossy bright blue today. There was also an armor over-helmet for outside work, which had shades and headlamps. There were a couple very weak fine vernier jets, for orienting one's self but for much movement a jet pack had to be clamped on the hip girdle.

"It smells really strong," she told her grandpa. "I hope after it isn't so new and the plastic and rubber has a chance to outgas, it smells better."

"Sorry to tell you Honey, but as the suit ages it loses this smell, but
you
outgas and rub off on it and it kinda develops a eau de locker room. It helps a lot if you stuff a bag of activated charcoal in each leg when you're not wearing it. Also I suggest you don't eat garlic for a few days before wearing it and never, never, wear perfume in a suit unless you are sure you are gonna love it forever. Some like to put a little cinnamon or clove oil in, to scent it between uses."

"You want to get a tin of Bag Balm and rub a generous handful in the fold at the top of your thigh and your rear end and elbows when you know you will be hours in your suit. Some smear it in their arm pits and between their toes too. If it gets too stinky to stand, ask somebody going out pressure to leave it outside for a shift with the helmet off."

They were watching the last consumables being loaded and walking up to the cabin hatch. She and Easy were going to ride it up on the shop elevator. It lifted the craft in spin slowly, giving the station balance damping system a chance to compensate for the movement of a big mass on the outside of spin. If they just dropped out a lock from the outside deck, the sudden change in angular momentum would cause a wobble and put heavy stresses on the station and spin bearings. They'd ease out the end of the station, right next to the loading dock, close to the axis of spin where the tension holding their mass to the hub was only a few hundred kilo instead of thousands.

April realized she had lost her grandpa and turned. He had stopped at the cockpit view ports and was looking at the hand pinstriped flourish surrounding the calligraphy, which proclaimed the vessel the
Happy Lewis.

She couldn't remember ever seeing her grandfather cry before. But his cheeks were both wet and he was unashamedly bawling.

"You named her after me." He sniffed and wiped his nose. He turned and hugged her and didn't seem disposed to make it a quick one. After a bit he stopped and patted his pockets and not finding what he wanted he walked over to a rollalong toolbox and got a blue shop rag to wipe his eyes and blew his nose. "It's quite the honor to have to live up to, having a ship named after you."

"Silly goose. You do the living first and then they name the ship for you. Not the other way around. If you want though, you can start racking credit up for your next one. Maybe something a little bigger."

"No, No. This is just fine. Thank you.

Jon was coming up and Easy was sitting in the hatch opening waiting for them. Jon looked over her shoulder at the handle of her lesser sword sticking up.

"I just felt naked with my laser strapped to the boom," April explained.

Jon looked even more suspiciously at the desert camo case, hanging on Easy's shoulder. It looked like it could hold a couple hard salami or a pair of Thermos' and had Cyrillic lettering stenciled on the coarse cloth, with a couple universal hazard symbols. "Snacks and travel games to keep the kids busy," Easy lied transparently.

"I don't even want to know," Jon assured him.

April looked around, but Bob apparently was not interested enough to see his scooter launched on its maiden voyage. It was just operating equipment to him.

They helped April over the hatch edge and stepped back. They had already said their goodbyes to everyone else. April's grandpa stepped back and took a pic with a hand camera, of them both standing in the rectangular hatch with their helmets off. They had their hands on the overhead, leaning forward a bit and looking down at the camera so serious. The same pic would eventually be on the story board at the Space Museum on Luna.

They left the hatch open for the ride up and climbed in their seats. Easy brought the other three Singh generators up, in addition to the one running for auxiliary power. Whatever extra power was made went in the accumulators. One by one he silently worked down through the check list on his main flat screen and turned all the orange lines into green. Just like my dad, April realized. He's not as comfortable as younger people talking to the computer. But finally he asked, "
Happy
confirm all checklist items green and verbally advise if any degrade." A pleasant male voice agreed, "All items green - will observe and advise." A female voice was usual, but Easy had vetoed the idea instantly. It sounded funny to address the ship as feminine, with her grandfather's name, she had to admit. The elevator had been stopped for awhile before they got done with their checks and their weight had dropped to near nothing as they climbed.

Dave was obviously watching, because he spoke as soon as they were done. "Do you want to button up now? We'll start pumping you down and open your port."

"April. Will you dog the hatch now and return to your seat?"

April was surprised he would specify returning to her seat. She was about to discover Easy was a different person at the controls of a vessel. He said exactly and completely, what he wanted done. And Easy was not something which had been laid upon him as a description of a laid-back command style. She had heard other people say it before, but was surprised what his tone of voice drew out of her. "Aye, aye, sir," and she hopped to it.

"The rule in my command," Happy informed her when she returned, "is anytime we are under pressure and subject to movement, one of us should have a helmet on, ready to respond to pressure loss. If you want to have a cup of coffee, or wash your face off with a wet nap, fine, just let me know so I can put my pot on. Anytime you want to have yours on too it's at your own discretion. I personally won't sleep in a vessel this small without a helmet on, so I can seal up just by slapping the face plate home."

"A cabin this size can lose pressure in seconds from a very modest hole. Some of the things you see me do, you may think - What are the odds of needing it? But if the one in ten million chance happens and you have a failure, you will live. Now tell me the truth. I know you have been cramming for your test.  If I had a heart attack ten minutes from now, could you bring this ship back into safe dockage and not bust it or hit the station?"

"I think I could, but if at all possible I'd chose not to."

"An interesting answer. Want to elaborate?"

"Unless I saw I was on a vector to crunch something. I'd let my motion take me well clear of any traffic or the station and only stop my motion relative to the station a klick or two out and call for someone with a lot more experience to be taxied out and bring this ship back in to dockage." April explained.

"What about me?" Easy demanded.

"What about you? You're dead. I'm supposed to kill myself and crash this sucker in some poor person's cubic, so they can do an autopsy on you faster? The guy they taxi out can hurry to bring you in. You'd still probably get help faster the way I said, than the cautious way I'd feel I had to ease this thing back in."

"Ruby told me you were a smart girl," he said, satisfied. "Are we ready to break a seal and get out of here?" Easy demanded.

"Just waiting for you to get done with the cabin chatter and tell us goodbye," Dave responded on com.

April was a little put out to think everyone with access to the cabin feed could hear her casual examination.

"You have a signal on the navigation channel, which will beep your radial vector to clear nearby traffic and construction. If you burn clear on your forward X, you will have a Y negative of 2.80 meters/sec. And a right hand rotation of 172 seconds. Opening the hatch now. Launch at your pleasure.

"Number two. Program an X positive burn and a coast and flip to a standstill. Kill our rotation and radial velocity. You have the conn. Acknowledge."

"I have the conn. Will you advise me please?"

"Sure what is it April?"

"If I set the attitude jets to just equal the radial acceleration we have this far off the axis,  will I get enough back pressure off the wall to push me away and maybe scrape the other side going out?"

"Good question. No. this is a big enough tube and we're a small enough ship it'll squirt out straight as an arrow using the bare numbers with no correction factor. We have a good two meters clearance to the wall. You're not going to build up any pressure in such a big gap."

April punched instructions in the computer and then checked it by having it display a graphic representation of what the maneuver would look like on the screen.

"Would you do me the favor of double checking my instructions Sir?"

"We don't have to be so formal. I'm still just Easy. Hmm. What is this here for?" he asked pointing to a few lines with his finger.