Teleport This (13 page)

“Ellie, is that you?” asked Jon.

“Hi, Jon!”

“Well, that explains a lot,” said Jon. “This little girl can open the gates of the universe for you.”

“Exactly,” said Simon, “so we went to the Dahana space station to look for you.”

“Not a bad guess,” said Jon. “I do sabbatical there at times.”

“We thought this might be one of those times,” said Lyn. “What with the police and mobsters chasing after you and all. Anyway, you weren’t there, but we were able to pick up some news about your sister.”

“Ellie?” said Jon. “What did you hear about Ellie?”

“I think we should call her Ellie number two to avoid confusion,” said Ellie.

“Sorry,” said Jon, “but you’re Ellie number two. She did arrive in this universe first, after all. Now tell me what you heard.”

“Pirates tried to raid her ship looking for something she had picked up at her last stop,” said Simon. “She hit them with some type of weapon that disabled their ship before they could get to her and got the hell out of there. The pirates are regrouping and going after her. Did you send Gil to your sister’s ship?”

“I did,” said Jon. “I thought a nice routine freight run would be just the ticket for him. Give him something to do, see a few places, ride around in a spaceship. It’s actually pretty exciting stuff until you do it for a year or so and then it becomes kind of humdrum. You know, it becomes less of an adventure and more of a job. I bet the pirates jazzed it up a bit for everyone.”

“I placed a tracker on their ship,” said Ellie2.

“Good girl,” said Jon. “Where are they?”

“Still at the space station,” said Ellie2. “We just left them a couple hours ago.”

“Right, right, right,” said Jon. “Okay, we need a plan.”

“I’ve got a plan,” said Lyn. “I’m taking Simon into that bedroom, paying off a bet and then falling asleep for about ten hours. You know, I was talking to that guy in the bar and he told me that some people have near death experiences when they’re held in a teleport system. There’s a whole religion behind it. Come on, handsome, time to show me that good thing you got.”

“Really?” said Simon.

“You want me to stop and think about it?” said Lyn.

“Not on your life,” said Simon jumping up so fast you would think that his only goal in life was to distract Lyn from thinking about it, which it was. “You’re not going to run off on us, are you?” Simon asked Jon.

“No, I’m done running out on friends,” said Jon. “I’ll put myself to good use and continue looking for Alicia.”

“You know, I think you’re just the kind of guy I’ve been looking for,” Lyn said to Simon, “super-intelligent and dumb at the same time. We just got to work that geekiness out of your system.”

“I’ve been trying,” said Simon, “but it might be more than a one man job.”

“It usually is,” replied Lyn and then to Jon as she walked by, “See what I mean about being dumb? He can build a teleport, but he doesn’t know that it takes a woman to make a man.”

16
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“So you know a guy?” asked Ellie.

“I know a guy that knows a guy,” said Talia

“Yeah?” said Ellie.

“Yeah,” said Talia. “And that’s the guy that can find the right guy.”

“Wait a minute,” said Ellie. “That might be too many guys. Who knows the rule about guys knowing guys?”

“Could you phrase that in such a way that it makes sense?” asked Franco.

“There’s an unwritten rule about how many guys there should be when you set up a deal,” said Ellie. “You put too many guys in the middle and then the guys at one end don’t care so much about how the guys at the other end are doing. Gil, help me out here.”

Gilbert tapped on a control panel and an interactive screen appeared. Gilbert began writing as he spoke, “Maybe it’s something like this, (you + n) = ((100% success ÷ n) * t) where n is the number of guys and t is the level of trust you have in them with values between 0.1 to 0.99. You and one other guy you fully trust put you at a 99% success rate. Two guys would put you under the 50% success rate, three guys under 30%.

“I got you,” said Franco. “We want to keep this tight. We don’t want a lot of variables.”

“Right,” agreed Talia and Holt who were lost the minute Gilbert began speaking. They had hated algebra, which explains their career choices.

“Talk with your guy and let’s see what he knows,” said Ellie. “Don’t mention Nurridium, though. Just tell them we need someone to negotiate a deal with the Feds. They can use their imagination to fill in the rest.”

“Okay, boss,” said Talia. “I’ll get right on it.”

“Holt,” said Ellie, “I want you to put the Nurridium back in its rock and seal it up again, but keep it in the containment room, separate from the rest of the cargo. Franco, attach some type of remote activated signaling beacon to it so we can find it later, just in case we have to dump it in a hurry.”

“Right, boss,” said Franco.

“And send a communication to Verigon 3, tell them we had an engine malfunction and had to put in for repairs so the ore delivery will be a few days late.”

It was a few hours later that Talia went to see Ellie in her cabin. “Well, I heard back from my guy. Ever hear of Monti Alibra? He says this is the guy we want working with us. He says that this guy has cut all sorts of deals with the Feds for all sorts of people and has a lot of contacts. He’s close by, too. We could be face to face in less than eight hours. That’s if he’s available.”

“Alright,” said Ellie, “let’s give it a shot.”

Monti Alibra had done very well for himself as a semi-lawyer, brokering deals for all types of clients. Sometimes it included the authorities and sometimes it was just between private parties. It really didn’t matter to him since he got his cut either way. It did give him the opportunity to make many associates on both sides of the road. He had gotten to where he is by taking a personal interest in all opportunities that came his way. Even the odd call from a freighter captain could pay well. To him, it was like playing a poor hand in poker when the bet is low, a very small investment and one never knows what cards you might draw or how big the pot might get.

An alert for an incoming transmission came in. Right on time, he noted. Monti valued punctuality and always felt it was a plus when others did as well. This call was set up by a mutual acquaintance and he wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. A quick check to make sure the line was secure and using the proper encryption, then he received the call saying, “This is Monti. How can I be of service?”

“Hello, Monti. This is Freighter Captain Ellis. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.”

“Not a problem at all, my dear Captain.”

“I’m told you’re in the business of helping people work things out with the authorities. I’ve got an issue that I need to work through with the Feds. It should pay well.”

“I have many contacts inside the Federal organization and I’ve helped many people resolve their issues with them, but I’m not always 100% successful. I guarantee nothing and never provide a refund. I also have set fees with a minimum paid in advance. Is that something you’re prepared to agree with?”

“I can accept it as a framework for further discussions, very mutually beneficial discussions. I’m entering your sector and would like to meet with you in person to continue our conversation and hopefully reach a business agreement.”

“You’re in luck. I happen to be in-between projects at the moment and can spare the time. I know we don’t want to get into details now, but on a scale of 1 to 10?”

“Probably 3 to 5 in complexity and we’re hoping you can at least double the payoff. That’s your main role, negotiating the payoff.”

This was just the type of job Monti liked, a few calls through trusted and established channels, quick agreement on price and his cut is in the bank. He might not even have to leave his house.

“I’ll send you my coordinates,” said Monti. “It’s evening here, so let’s say 15 hours?”

“That should work for us,” said Ellie.

“Until then,” Monti ended the transmission. He sat and thought for a bit. It is true that he has worked with people from many different professions, but the majority of his clients have been from the criminal class pursuing established careers. They use his services like a trucking company would use a tow truck; every once in a while something breaks down and you need someone to come in and move things along. Spaceship captains are a similar animal, just not to the same extent. They all do some amount of smuggling and usually know how to handle most of it. They only come to him when they’ve got too much of something and need help moving it or they have something unusual that they don’t know how to handle. Their wanting to deal with the Feds points more towards the unusual. Time to take a closer look at Captain Ellis, Monti thought.

“I think that went well. What did you think?” asked Ellie. The rest of the crew had been off camera, but they could see and hear Monti from a second display.

“You were laying it on kind of thick with the ‘very mutually beneficial discussions’ crap, but he agreed to see us so we can’t complain,” said Talia.

“How long will it take us to get there?” Ellie asked.

“About seven hours to get into orbit, another hour in the shuttle to get to his location,” said Talia.

“Alright then, Talia and I will go down to the planet. You guys stay on the ship. Is the rock ready to go?”

“All set,” said Franco. “And I got a nice spot picked out to drop it in. A nice big asteroid belt with lots of other rocks just like it. Figure another hour to stop, release the rock, test the transmitter and be on our way. We’ll be coming up on that location in about two hours.”

“That gives us 12 hours after we drop the rock. Let’s eat now and sleep later.”

“I don’t want to be the only paranoid one in the bunch, but remember all the talk about the guys, the equation, all that stuff?” asked Gilbert. “I think we need to be very careful here.”

“He’s right,” said Talia. “If we walk into that meeting and announce we have a chuck of Nurridium worth as much as a planet, the odds of our getting out of there with our brains intact are slim. We have to devise a way where we all need to be alive, together and not under any duress or the rock remains hidden.”

“Gilbert,” said Ellie, “you’re good at logic. Figure out something that will keep us all alive in case things go south, then Franco can figure out how to implement it. Holt, you prep the rock.”

The group reconvened in just over two hours. Gilbert and Franco began explaining their plan to hide the rock and safeguard its location.

“I had the ship's computer select a random spot in this asteroid field where our rock should be safe,” explained Franco. “The ship's computer will also select a random data signal that will turn on the rock’s beacon and allow us to locate it. All this information is being divided up and stored in our memory implants in such a way that none of us has a complete piece of the puzzle. Gil has written a bit of code that continuously evaluates our systems and if any type of physical or mental or electronic abuse is detected, the information becomes irretrievable until the action stops. If the abuse reaches a certain level or duration the data is erased. All of our implant systems have bio-monitoring and hacker security to support this except Gil’s and I’ve upgraded his.”

“Seems a bit complicated,” said Talia.

“It has to be, otherwise we could be tortured, then made comfortable and asked to give up our information or we’d be tortured again. This would avoid that situation.”

“I guess that makes sense, just as long as a good work out won’t trigger the deletion,” said Talia.

“No worries,” said Gilbert, “this thing measures all the right stuff; endorphins, hormones, adrenalin, pain receptors, brain activity, tons of stuff.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Ellie. “Let’s dump the rock and upload our implants.”

So with their rock floating in some random location in space, captain and crew continued on to meet Monti. The world where Monti lived was nice enough. It was one of those worlds that could support human life, but never had any of its own until a spaceship landed a few hundred years ago. It was a mostly cold world and the best it could produce was a small tepid zone around its equator. It had an almost bizarre lack of natural resources which made it very undesirable to most industries. It was a somewhat dry planet so it wasn’t even suitable as a getaway for winter sports enthusiasts.

It did have the correct mass that most people feel at home with and it was centrally located so it was understandably hard for its founders to give it up. They struggled to find their niche settlers, but this was during the time when human kind was first reaching out to other planets and there seemed to be so many that fit so well that nobody wanted to settle on such a limited planet. That is until they were approached by a businessman whose only concern was how closely the planetary government would be watching the inhabitants. The founders shrewdly responded with ‘how close would you like’ which then developed into a central government based on the ‘pay us enough money and we’ll leave you alone’ principle. Unlike other planets that had strict laws about shuttle and teleport access, this world had a more open door policy knowing that the only people that come here are people that have business here. That business might not always be pleasant so there’s a planetary security force that stops things from spilling over into other areas of the populace. Other than that, you’re on your own.