April 2: Down to Earth (37 page)

The door opened and a cart was pushed in with coffee. Lois had not spoken to anyone to get it, unless it was coming anyway, so April suddenly realized there must be others, perhaps Kyrah too, listening to their conversation. Besides making her comfortable Lois might also want to draw her out and help prep the producer to her mood. Maybe even ask some leading questions before they started.

April realized she could just as easily prep Kyrah by what she said if she was listening. Behind the cart and waiter, was a woman in a maroon smock, who wheeled another cart over that was sitting in the corner of the room. She introduced herself as the makeup technician and got a damp astringent wipe with which to gently wipe April's face. After wiping from hairline down to a cloth she tucked in April's collar she got out a instrument of some sort and took a reading on her skin. Then she choose a plastic case from a number of them and dabbed powder on with a large round brush that was incredibly soft.

"There now you won't have any shiny spots under the lights. Do you want anything more on your lips or eyebrows, or do you usually go au natural?"

"What they see is what they get," April told her. She started packing her tools back up without any argument. The coffee was pretty good.

Lois took a cup too but April noticed she didn't seem to really drink it, after taking a single sip. She was a master at making you feel comfortable.

"You seem pretty relaxed," she allowed. "You've been interviewed before, right?"

"Kyrah interviewed me at lunch one day, at the Beach View Breakfast Club. And I just bought a vacation home and Adzusa Satos interviewed me there quite recently. I like a scheduled interview better than having someone mob me at the airport gate, or like happened yesterday, a car paced me along the beach when I was running and took video. But I understand. I've sold video myself. About a year ago I had my brother sell some video to the BBC, for myself and my ship mates."

"Is your brother a media person then?" Lois asked.

"He was something of an entrepreneur, trying all sorts of different businesses," April said. "But he got involved in something just a few days ago and we'll probably never know exactly what happened, but we believe he died in Lunar orbit, with the destruction of the ship
Home Boy
."

"I'm sorry I didn't know," Lois said. They sat in silence for a moment.

"I saw that footage you are talking about of you running on the beach. The fellow that was running with you seemed strained to keep up. Is he a boy friend, or just an acquaintance?"

"He's a nice fellow, but he's actually just security on loan. A bodyguard my host here sent with me, to go along on a shopping trip. The stop to run after lunch was spur of the moment."

"Your host not only has staff, but enough he can loan them out? Sounds like an impressive household."

"They are nice. And down to Earth even if they do seem well to do," April smiled at the irony of that expression she had picked up. It was not an idiom she heard used on Home and wouldn't have a favorable connotation, if it was used there she was sure.

"So you aren't moving to Hawaii? You just got a vacation home to visit occasionally?"

"Yes. I'm going to the mainland and possibly Europe this trip, but I like it here. I've been here before, when down to visit my grandparents in Australia and knew I liked it. I suppose I'll loan it to friends who want to come down also."

"So you didn't get a time share? You have full ownership?"

"I'm not even familiar with how time shares work, though I've heard of them. I got a little place on the windward side up on a ridge. It has a nice view, although I have to redo a great deal for security.

Lois, who was thinking in terms of high rise beach condos and efficiency apartments, suddenly realized she was in a different league here. She shared a seventy square meter efficiency with another young woman and her roomie worked two jobs to make ends meet. She wanted to draw April out, because Kyrah was listening and this sounded interesting. "So you're not down by the beach, like most people want to be. Tell me what your place is like."

"It's on the lee slope. It's pretty steep so it's terraced. There's a garage just below the ridge road and a sort of artists workshop below that and then the main house. The House has one really big room. The Realtor called it a great room, which makes sense. The other rooms aren't that big supposedly, but they seem enormous to a satellite dweller and the house kind of hangs over the pool. There are trees and a few palms each side of the pool and bunches of bushes and flowers. I'm trying to decide if I should turn the artist's workshop into a caretaker's place, or make a separate entry for him at the rear of the house. I'd like an landing pad somewhere for an aircar too. Here, let me show you a couple pics of it off my pad," she pulled a couple views up she had taken last time she was there and shared them.

"That's a big lot for Hawaii," Lois informed her.

"Really? It's only a couple hundred meters deep," April pointed out. "I'm getting a lot on Luna soon, near the equator and it will be fifty kilometers on a side. Of course it won't have anything on it. I'll have to build whatever goes on it eventually, from scratch."

"Fifty kilometers on a side? That's like the size of Maui. The whole thing," Lois exaggerated. "Well, almost."

"Yes but it's a lot less interesting. It is just rock and regolith and lots of sunshine. No water, no air, but you will have a spectacular view when you have Earthrise."

"Now was a good time to buy," Lois said, fishing a little. "They keep saying in the local paper, that prices of properties are down."

"Probably. This one was offered before, for about three and a half more than what I got it for," she admitted.

"Three and a half?"

"Yeah. Dollars not Euros. I keep my accounts in Euros mostly and it's a pain to convert them to buy something."

Lois was pretty sure she meant millions. What else could it be? Three and a half what? But she was determined not to ask right out. Looking at the pics, she had no idea what a house like that went for now. She'd leave that to Kyrah.

"Let me duck in and use the restroom before we have to go in," she requested. When she got in there she pulled up a satellite schedule and made satellite reservations to keep a view of her area and this specific building loading to her spex. She plugged in the GPS reading at the entry and got a current feed, of overlaid infrared and visible and laid a ten meter grid over it from her reference point.

This guy Harrison was sort of scary she had to admit and his guards didn't make her any more comfortable at all. She decided to keep an open screen of the building view and the rear view cameras on her spex and she went ahead and entered her militia ID and password and demanded control of the approaching sats until she logged off. That would save time if she needed it later.

All the other active users would see that activation, so she posted a notice on the board that she was alone and meeting a member of Homeland Security on his home ground and felt very vulnerable and afraid, so she wanted some back up. She didn't want interrupted to chat with anyone about it, so she offered and left her spex open to anyone that wanted to follow. The central real view, the rear view, the aerial view and the weapons menu all at once, was as much as her brain could handle for sure, without friends jabbering in her ear. She set a single hot key to take them all down and back up on demand, to clear her peripheral vision if she needed to. She went out and Lois was looking a little concerned over the delay. She felt calmer and more confident with all those resources primed, if a worst case scenario came up.

"Did you get a few last minute jitters?" she asked April gently.

"A few," she admitted. "But I'm good to go." April assured her. She stood to lead April back out in the hall to the studio. If I designed this place, April thought, I'd have the dressing room open right on the studio. She looked in her menu and saw there were fourteen militia members logged on watching thru her spex. Their unseen support helped buoy her.

The area they had set off for them in the studio was tucked in a back corner. It had a sort of false wall behind a grouping of furniture. Kyrah sat in a low backed upholstered chair in the middle, instead of to one side. It swiveled so she could actually turn to either guest. April and Preston Harrison each had a love seat in a V with Kyrah's chair at the point, with a small table separating each from Kyrah's chair. Harrison was seated already at Kyrah's right hand and had a glass of water on his table that appeared untouched. He sat very straight on the little sofa. Not turned at all towards Kyrah, with knees and feet together, in a dark conservative suit that shouted middle class and brown oxfords. It was business wear and he had no stylish touches, no jewelry, not even a pocket hanky. Just a de-rigor flag pin on his lapel and a small gold plus sign.

Kyrah had a cup of coffee and another cup was waiting for April on the table, beside the empty love seat. April was trying to figure out if Kyrah using the same table as she did, subtly associated her with April. She tried to remember if Kyrah was right or left handed and couldn't. She irritated with herself for being so unobservant. The love seat left the guest rather exposed to the camera, if you sat on the side closest to the Hostess. You could turn sideways or slouch.

April wanted to tuck a leg under her, but knew when she did she often ended up with it numb and she didn't want to get up later and limp. She wedged herself in the corner of the couch with her legs angled to the camera. She had on her fancy lunar vest as part of an all black outfit and had the refrigeration cranked up, but not the long undergarments in this climate – they would look strange. The refrigeration, even just in a vest, was an advantage, because Harrison looked sweaty already. The air felt cold, but the lights pumped out heat.

When she sat she looked at the big monitor set under the cameras, where Kyrah could look at it and marveled how on camera, the set looked like an intimate setting in a small room. But all around them was a cavernous hanger like room, full of strange pieces of massive equipment to support cameras and operators and sound gathering equipment and lights from every conceivable angle. Behind Harrison out of camera range, was a fellow that was simply standing. He was taking no part in any of the technical activities, so he was another security man. He wore a jacket also, unlike the technicians.

The fellow at the far back door in the corner, she thought was one of those guards she had seen outside the dressing room. After she sat, another security fellow appeared in the background behind her. He probably didn't think she'd know he was back there. She zoomed in on him and cranked the gain up. He appeared to be another new one. So somewhere out there was the other man she had seen in the hall. At least four of them and likely at least two more just guarding his vehicle, April imagined.

"Hello I'm Kyrah Armstrong for CNN and we have two guests today to answer some of the mysteries and explore some of the possible future events, between the new nation of Home and the United States of North America."

"On my right," she indicated with an open palm, "Preston Harrison, third executive in the Department of Homeland Security and early announced Presidential candidate for the Patriot Party. On my left, April Lewis, an unusual young woman, who is here by her own statement on a vacation, when no other citizen of Home has visited North American territory since the conflict was resolved. She has also reportedly bought a vacation home in the islands and plans to visit the mainland and possibly Europe before going home."

Aha!
April thought,
she was snooping in when I talked to Lois.

"What do you think of the Islands so far April?"

"Well obviously I like them, or I wouldn't have bought a home here, to come back on occasion and enjoy them. It's nice to have a place with the spacious feeling you can't get on Home. It's simply too expensive to live there like you do here. I know your viewers are familiar with how the Japanese are accustomed to living in much more cramped quarters than Americans. We are very similar in our circumstances. But I also like the people and the attitude of the Islands. In that I find the people more like what I'm used to in Home. They are laid back and easy going with people who are different than them. I've been here just briefly before when I lifted from Hawaii, after visiting my grandparents in Australia."

"You are guesting with a family. You described them as 'down to Earth'. Is this a relationship you had from another visit, or someone you know from your home?"

"I don't intend to discuss them. They might pay a price for their hospitality and that's all it is, they have no political connection to me. They
are
hospitable and firmly practical and honest the way that phrase is taken down here."

"How would the phrase be taken on home?"

"You simply don't hear it. If you did it might be mistaken as sarcasm, or imply being cast into the nether regions. Earth is called the mudball or the slumball. It is viewed as dirty, fractured into meaningless classes, unnecessarily impoverished and full of petty officiousness. I'm 'down to Earth' at the moment in one of the few pleasant places to do so. I will still be happy to go home." Kyrah looked shocked at that indictment. She didn't need any more encouragement to switch gears away from that question.

"Mr. Harrison. Has Miss Lewis's visit been any problem for Homeland Security, or has her visit been smooth so far for your agency?"

"I know you are characterizing her visit as a carefree vacation, but frankly we are viewing it as a propaganda mission. She has flaunted her gene modifications, contrary to common decency and left behind a series of assaults and damage, typical of her violent society, that were clearly attempts to provoke us into responding. So far we have refrained, but Miss Lewis is either an illegal alien, or an unlawful combatant, depending on how you interpret the law, perhaps both.

Where is your foreign nationals ID card that should be hanging around your neck Miss Lewis? The one USNA requires of its temporary guests," he asked her directly.