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“They need to,” Iris nodded. “Did
you refer him to Ronnie Sheetz? She told me you put the sensor improvement on
her top priority.”

“She said that?” Park asked. “I
just asked her to look at the situation.”

“She takes your suggestions as
orders,” Iris remarked.

“I’ll be careful what I suggest
then,” Park decided. “I did send him her way, though. He’ll have to wait until
she has a solution, but I suppose the port is a convenient place to try out new
sensors. John wasn’t the only one who should have known what to do without
consulting me, though.

“Karen Mizumi called to ask where
she should send the Exploration Corp teams next,” Park went on.

“You used to plan expeditions
with her before you got stuck on Owatino,” Iris reminded him. “You’re still her
boss.”

“I’m still her boss, but I always
gave her as much slack as she wanted,” Park replied. “She came to me with
exploration plans and I’d pretty much rubber stamp them. This time it seemed
like she hadn’t the foggiest notion of what to do.”

“That does seem odd,” Iris
admitted. “She’s been making all the calls for the last two years with only an
occasional conference with me. Like you, I let her run the show. I just
collected the reports from her, the Spaceport and the fleet and put them in the
digest form you saw while on Owatino. Everyone was doing their jobs, so I took
a hands-off approach.”

“Just as I do when I can,” Park
nodded, “that reminds me, though, Tina was chosen by the other captains to ask
me to supervise their exercises this week. That’s probably a good idea,
especially since we’ve been ignoring military chain of command and letting the
fleet be run by a council of captains. I’m their commodore…”

“Admiral,” Iris corrected him.
“You were promoted.”

“It’s the same job,” Park
shrugged, “but maybe that’s a good idea. I’ve had trouble getting some Alliance
military people taking me seriously as just a captain when they were calling
themselves admirals and fleetlords and whatnot. Anyway, while I’m in charge, I
haven’t been around for two years. The fleet definitely needs a chain of
command. I’ll oversee the exercises and then see about promoting two or three
captains to flag rank. The fleet has enough ships now that we should divide it
up into battle groups and put a commodore or a rear admiral in charge of each
one. I’ll promote the senior captains, of course.

“Oh, and Arn apparently has a
list of chores he’d like me to handle for him,” Park continued, “which is odd
because he did not seem to have such a list yesterday. Fortunately, I can tell
him I’m already over-booked. Besides, his problems are not mine and he knows
it. I don’t mind handling something for him when I’m going that way anyway, but…
Oh well, I managed to slide past his requests. The only one not asking me to do
anything is Ronnie, but I’ve been piling work on her. Doesn’t seem fair does
it?”

“Not at all, no,” Iris smiled.
“What did Arn want anyway?”

“The usual,” Park laughed. “He wants
me as everything fromVice President under this new charter the amateur
politicians scribbled up to building inspector.”

“You’re very popular with the
people of the city, Park,” Iris pointed out. “If you were his running mate the
two of you would be a shoe-in.”

“I wouldn’t take the job for
anything,” Park replied. “I would have hated being answerable to this new
Council of theirs too, fortunately the bright boys and girls forgot to grab up
the Exploration Corp when they were forming the new government.”

“They didn’t forget,” Iris shook
her head. “They tried to grab the Corps almost first thing. I told them it wasn’t
going to happen and that if they tried anyway, we’d move the Corps’ central
office to Sanatis or one of the other Mer cities and that we’d take the fleet
and the everyone who knows anything about spaceport management with us.”

“Smart!” Park nodded. “I doubt
they would have trouble restaffing the spaceport, but if the Corps and all our
departments moved out of Van Winkle, this place would not be as important to
the rest of the world.”

“It would be a ghost town in five
years, Park,” Iris told him smugly. “We would take the Atackack and over half
the Mer with us wherever we went and that means the University would probably
close their campus here as well. There would be few spaceships landing here and
of course Ronnie’s Fun Factory would have to move as well.”

“She wouldn’t like that,” Park
commented. “She might just refuse to move, in fact.”

“The councilors don’t know that,”
Iris laughed. “In any case, they found the safest thing to do was to leave the
Exploration Corps alone and let us go on as we had been.”

“That probably wouldn’t have
stopped professional politicians,” Park noted. “Maybe it is good these guys are
new to the game. I really wouldn’t have wanted to move to the coast.”

“Neither would I,” Iris agreed. I
like our home here. Besides where
 
would
we have really moved?”

“Atackack territory, maybe?” Park
suggested, “No, then our scholars wouldn’t be completely safe from the natives.
You were right, it would have to be a Mer city unless we built a new one of our
own. I wouldn’t want to do that either. Good thing the bluff worked.”

“It wouldn’t have been a bluff if
you meant to carry through with your threat,” Marisea told them both as she hop-stepped
into the room.

“I didn’t realize you were home
tonight,” Iris commented. “Didn’t you have some sort of gathering at the
University campus?”

“That was three hours ago,”
Marisea replied, sitting down next to Park as she so often did, “then I went out
to dinner with several faculty members. I just got back and heard you talking
about the new government here. It sounds silly to me.” Cousin poked her head
through the door way and then walked straight to Iris and crawled up into her
lap.

“That’s because you grew up with
the Mer system,” Park told her. “I think most foreign
 
systems look silly at least at first. Hmm,
this official autonomy for the Corps may cause us some problems. I may not
understand Mer economics and the lack of money…”

“We have money,” Marisea
interrupted, “but it’s really only used to balance accounts between cities and
it’s all digital. No coins or those funny paper markers like you showed me. I’m
glad you showed me the coins, though. I’d have been lost on Owatino trying to
buy food from a street vender otherwise.”

“Just the first time,” Park
smiled. “regardless of how it works, I can’t deny it works, but from what I can
see the new council is trying to adopt the monetary system of the Alliance.”

“I don’t see why they should,”
Marisea told him. “You’ve been getting along just fine for years without
money.”

“It’s been a sort of socialistic
system, I guess,” Park shrugged. “Everyone just did their jobs and got what
they needed when they wanted it, but we came from a society with a currency-based
economy. It’s what we are used to. The question is, if we go back to a
capitalist system, where’s the money going to come from to fund the Corp if we
are autonomous from the new government?”

“All parties will need to
contribute,” Marisea suggested.

“Actually, nearly all the
Alliance money on Earth belongs to the Corps,” Iris pointed out. “I don’t know
if they realize that yet.”

“Probably not,” Park replied.
“It’s going to come as a shock to them, I’m sure, and we may end up having to
fund the new government if they insist on capitalism in what is essentially a
non-capitalist world. It’s funny, as I never bought into the whole socialist or
communist ideas either, but here it seems to work.”

“Any economic system will work so
long as the people believe it works,” Iris pointed out. “We got by for years
without realizing none of us had any personal money, but this is not a commune,
nor are the Mer cities socialist states.”

“Has the new council invented
their own monetary system yet?” Park asked.

“Not yet,” Iris replied, “They
really are adopting the Alliance system which is not too far from what we are
all used to. The thing is, the Alliance system is closer to that of the Mer
than it is to old Earth’s international set of currencies. The money flows between
worlds, but each world has its own way of figuring out how much an individual
owns. So it’s going to be interesting to see how this all settles out, but
you’re right, the Exploration Corps will probably have to fund the new
government.”

“You’ll loan them the money they
need to operate?” Marisea chuckled.

“Pretty much,” Park admitted
seriously. “The nice thing is that members of the council are personally
responsible for their own expenses. That’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard
about and I imagine a lot of them are going to take loans and then declare
bankruptcy when they get out of office. Hmm, there’s a world bank among the Mer
cities, isn’t there?”

“I know what you mean,” Marisea
told him, “but there isn’t. Not the way you mean it. When money must be transferred,
the Primes of the involved cities negotiate the amounts and terms. If they
cannot do so quickly enough to suit them, another Prime is called in to arbitrate.
That would usually be the Prime of Primes, Terius these days, but not
necessarily, but in most cases it doesn’t go that far.”

“Then I guess the Exploration
Corps had better establish a bank,” Park sighed. “There weren’t any economists
in Project van Winkle that I recall, though.”

“Hire a Mer,” Iris told him.

“I doubt you could find a Mer that
will understand your system sufficiently,” Marisea told them. “I only have a
vague grasp of it, but while I was trying to understand I did talk to bankers
and economists from other Alliance worlds on Owatino. Maybe you should hire one
of them?”

“We may have to,” Park nodded. “I
know nothing about running a bank, but I really do want an Earthling in charge.
I’ll look through the
 
files tomorrow and
maybe I can spot someone who had a minor in a related field, or maybe your Dad,
Marisea.”

“My father isn’t a banker, Park,”
Marisea pointed out.

“But I’ll bet he knows bankers,”
Park shot back. “The main thing is to make sure anyone borrowing from us, and
that’s probably only going to be the new government at least at first, is going
to
 
have to pay us back in full with
interest. I’m not really looking to make a profit, of course, but I see no
reason to waste the money we earned with the sweat and literally blood of our
fellow Earthlings. Good people were killed in the battles that established us
as members of the Alliance with the right to travel freely.”

“I know, Park,” Marisea nodded.
“I was there too. Well, I’ll ask Dad to give you a call in the morning. He does
know everyone who is anyone on Earth, or it always seemed that way to me. But,
you know, hiring an expert from one of the other Alliance worlds might not be a
bad idea. I could be wrong, but having someone who understands the
world-to-world finances is going to be essential eventually.”

“Keep that up and I’ll send you
back to school to learn the job,” Park laughed.

“Not me!” Marisea shook her head.
“I want to head up the Explorers.”

“Be careful what you wish for,
kiddo!” Park laughed. “We do need to establish a bank though. If not for use on
Earth then outside it. We’ve been kind of running on credit with the Alliance
worlds. Between back rent on Luna and some other in-system Alliance bases and
damages from the years we were all quarantined, that credit seems endless now,
but we’ve been buying ships to make up for the losses against the Dark Ship
People and, to be honest, a lot of the endless credit is by good will. The Diet
could vote to put a definite cap on it at any moment.
 
especially if the Dark Ships are really back.
We need a bank to handle our own assets.”

“We can earn our own way even
now, Park,” Iris pointed out. “The shipyards at Questo are back in full
production. Currently, they’re working on Ronnie’s new fighters and are tooling
up for the new carrier, but because we bought ships we almost have more ships
than we do qualified captains. If we don’t start selling them off-world we’ll
have to cut back on production.”

“I had several buyers sniffing
around about buying our ships,” Park admitted. “Sure, let’s go into the ship
business too. Seems to me that we’re going to need all the money we can get
once this new Council realizes they cannot fund their government out of
pocket.”

Iris started laughing
uncontrollably and was soon followed by Marisea. Cousin looked up to see what
the noise was about and Park just looked puzzled. “Oh, Park!” Iris gasped
finally. “That was hilarious. On the one hand you want total autonomy from the
new government, but on the other you’re finding ways to keep it going.”

“Ironic, if not really funny,”
Park admitted sheepishly, “but if it fails the Exploration Corps will be paying
the bills anyway. And governments never make money, they only tax and spend
it.”

“And when they default on the
loans as you obviously expect?” Iris prompted.

“I guess we’ll have them by the
bills,” Park chuckled. “No, I won’t really stick it to them. I have to live
here too, you know, but at least we’ll have established the Explorers as a
distinct entity.”

Park was sitting in his office
two days later when his torc started chiming. In all the years since waking up
in the middle of Pangaea Proxima, Park had kept his office inside the old
Project Van Winkle base about halfway down from the top of the hill to Veronica
Sheetz’s laboratory. Naturally, it had no windows, but as he never spent more
than an hour or two inside the actual office at a time and rarely visited more
than two or three times a week, that had never bothered him. As he reached to
open the connection, however, he did wonder why he had never noticed the
calendar on the wall was two hundred and fifty million years out of date.