April 4: A Different Perspective (11 page)

"OK, give me a five percent hazard bonus, or
you
eat the dried crap."

"No problem. I
like
the teriyaki chicken and the shrimp Alfredo."

"Wait a minute. That's ten kilos of
coins
. What were you going to do? Stuff them in your pockets?"

"Oh and a foam board box with plastic coin tubes. They are
really
light," he asserted, caught out.

"A magic box and tubes that don't mass anything?" Ross asked, grinding his teeth. "If it says ten kilos on the manifest,
short
the packaging mass, that is
falsifying
it."

"I'll make sure we're
under
weight if I have to fast," Jeff promised, seeing anything over zero was a lost cause to defend. "I have two days until we load out and leave. I can lose three or four kilograms if I exercise."

* * *

"I had the carpet and walls cleaned. The sofa and love seat don't match," April said, frowning at them, "but they are clean and the cushions don't slump. You have a decent wall screen and some extra Hardoy chairs if you have company. It really needs a low table in front of the sofa doesn't it?"

"You fret too much," Mama-san told April. "When we were newly married we slept the first half year on a camping mat, in a Tokyo apartment half this size. We sat on the floor around a shipping crate for a table. It wasn't at a comfortable half G either."

"If you want me to get my kitchen installed ahead of time so you guys can use it I'd be happy to do that."

"We have the cafeteria and we'll keep a few packs of self heating stuff here, for if we have an off day and don't want to march to the cafeteria. If you have it installed you can bet something will need torn out again when you do the rest. It's only for a couple months."

"All right, you're sure easygoing. It feels weird being a landlord before I ever had a real chance to be a homeowner."

"You have your Hawaiian home," Papa-san pointed out.

"But I never got to spend a night there. It never felt like home. I'm not sure I'll ever get back to use it. Com me if you need anything," she offered at the door, reluctant to leave.

"We shall," Mama-san assured her, waved American style and closed the entry on her, firmly.

Papa-san made a brief call on his hand com and they relaxed on the new-to-them sofa.

In about five minutes Chen and his wife Huian were at the door with luggage. Papa-san set the entry to their hands and welcomed them.

"Are the children not interested in seeing their new place?" Mama-san asked.

"It was near time to report for their full G sleeping period, so they remained in the cafeteria which is near the nursery. They'll see it tomorrow. Our son is trustworthy to get himself and his sister there," Huian said tensely, like that might meet with disapproval.

"No criticism implied," Mama-san assured her. "We didn't coddle our daughter like North Americans. We lived in Hawaii, but we didn't adopt the culture when it didn't suit us."

"How badly do you want to keep our sublease secret from Miss Lewis?" Chen asked.

"I don't expect either of us to skulk around or lie. It's not forbidden. It's just a long standing habit to keep my business to myself. It has avoided so many complications over the years."

"Do you want to run our households on staggered shifts or the same shift? Chen asked.

"Trying to be quiet on staggered sleeping shifts is hard. Main shift seems to be for business. The other two shifts have active maintenance and things like ship repair, but things like personal services and retail are on Main. Why should one of us miss that? Let's do the same shift, but staggered wake-ups, so we are not all wanting the bath at the same time. Say 0600 and 0700?"

"That sounds good. Who first?"

Papa-san took a bright new gold Solar from his pocket and flipped it carefully in the unfamiliar half G. The trajectory was a bit odd. "Call it," he said, snatching it from the air and slapping it on the back of his other hand, covered.  "Scenic face, or assay tail?"

* * *

The gossip news site was tacky, catty, trashy and vulgar. It needlessly presented itself on the screen as garishly flashy too. April used serious rating sites for business reputation or reviewing hardware, but didn't approve of sites like this, that just spread personal rumor and gossip. The sad fact was it had far more readers than serious journals with reputable news. It was sited in England, but had readers in America, Europe, a serious number in Australia and the moneyed parts of Asia. To April's irritation, it apparently had readers even on the habs and the Moon. She received a note that it mentioned her and to check it out with a link provided, but not a hint how the sender found it, amusing or otherwise. It might be something important if ignored, she worried.

The lead story, right at the top of the first page, showed her table at the Home Social Club last month. She'd been waiting to visit the club when they had live jazz, after her grandpa informed her she was part owner of it, among other things she'd inherited from her brother Bob. She happened that day to be showing a kindness to a couple who were having a hard time finding their way around the corridors. After showing them their way, she and Gunny had supper with them at the cafeteria and invited them to join them and her gramps at the club later where they had gotten along well with them.

She really didn't think having supper with her grandpa and new friends was newsworthy. The blogger gushed in detail at how everybody was dressed, as if it was amazing they didn't all show up naked with bones in their noses, spacers known to be wanton heathen savages and all. When the writer felt it necessary to report the huge Marine in dress was not a love interest, but her bodyguard April had to laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of it.

The couple James and Elena Alphonse were described as 'royals', which was at most technically true. They were distant relatives of the Spanish king, but certainly not in the secession, to properly be called part of the royal family. They were middle class executives at best. But the article tried to make them sound mysterious and exotic.

Attention was drawn to her grandpa's hair coming in dark. That was just despicable to invade his privacy that way. Yes, it showed he'd been getting Life Extension Therapy, which was nobody's business to advertise his medical information. If that bothered any fanatic Earthies they could all go twirling to hell in the same giant hand basket. They also made a point to display a picture with him leaning back and the grip of his Singh laser showing under his dark blue tux. As if that was any rare thing on Home.

What she didn't really pick up on in her irritation was how the three pix looked to Earthie eyes. It had apparently been shot from a table further along the same wall. She dimly remembered another two tables for four there. They had the jazz musicians for a background, as well as the door to the gambling room that was marked Poker Pit / Tuesday and Thursday, with none of the usual Earthie euphemistic shyness. The ice bucket with a Magnum of Champagne was in the foreground and looked as big as the
Happy Lewis
at dock. Most Earthies only ever saw Champagne in a video and didn't know a Magnum was anything but a big pistol.

Gunny was ripping into a lobster that looked big enough to be the lead alien in a science fiction horror film and the bounty spread on their table was shocking to a culture of self denial and constant propaganda about scarcity. Some skinny whiner would wring her hands and bemoan that they were enjoying themselves, while people starved in Ethiopia or the Sudan, or wherever there was a famine this year.

Nobody could explain how starving themselves would magically transport a single calorie to where it was needed, but it wasn't about facts, it was all about image and feelings.

April had strong feelings that it was all stupid.

The fact was that she missed another core aspect of the pix, which was that she looked like a million bucks. Three or four million easily, in the bespoke dress and jewelry. The bare arms were too risqué for North America too, though the Europeans would snicker at that.

The tone was slightly scandalized that she could drink and be in a place with gambling at her age. and then the author dropped the big bomb that the server was overheard saying it was the owners table. Said owner being the lovely Miss Lewis, treating her friends and family lavishly. She was burned up at that public revelation of her private business more than anything.

April considered the whole thing and decided that dignifying it with any response was a waste of her time. If these people didn't have a life they could grub after whatever small satisfaction they got from following hers. She closed the site and made no reply to the sender.

 Tomorrow April would be condemned in classrooms and pulpits all across the country, a counterproductive act, which simply alerted her fans in the unlikely event some kid didn't get a text and link from his friends, to go view it.

In Honolulu Frank Fabbri and his friend John clasped hands and whirled around, hooting and doing a happy dance. The amateur pix did a surprisingly good job of showing the lovely detail of his dress. That didn't always happen with a black dress, but in the dark club it was not excessively back-lit. The fine detail of stitching and tiny pearls showed plainly. The De Luco jewelry looked
wonderful
. The middle pic was focused in tightly on April and the diamonds looked bright and
big
.

She was lifting a delicate deep flute of faintly pink tinted Champagne, laughing charmingly, but luckily her arm didn't get in the way of the necklace. Whatever sort of camera the snoop used to shoot the pix, it was good enough you could even see the tiny bubbles in the Champagne. Frank was aesthetic. He'd drop a bragging note to the site right now, that the dress was his handiwork, while the article was fresh. Big bucks spent freely could not
buy
advertising as effective as this.

By the day after tomorrow there would be knock-off copies of her outfit in big cities. Frank would make a pro-forma objection to being copied, but file no formal legal case. It was really more free advertising.
His
customers didn't shop in knock off dives, so he lost no business. Very little irritated parents and authorities today more than emulating a spacer in look and style, especially with the bare arms bucking the trend of public prudery.

The club scene did remind April of something though. The young man Gabriel had turned her down to do some graphics. Ben Patsitsas the author did his own book covers, so she knew he was an artist and could do what she wanted. She called him on com and was lucky to catch him answering.

"Ben, I've seen your book covers. I'd like to commission you to do some art for me, not a book cover, but a sign for a club in which I have an interest. Yes, to hang in the corridor," she confirmed. "It should be round or oval and at the top I want 'The Fox and Hare' like you see on English pubs. Then across the bottom, 'Wo sich Fuchs und Hase Gute Nacht sagen'. In the middle I'd like a fox on the right and a hare on the left facing each other. They should be clothed, however, like fairytale characters. I can see the fox in a cute little vest, maybe with eyeglasses and the hare in a jacket or sweater, with a German style pipe. They are standing on snow and in front of a woods that has lost its leaves. The sky behind the trees is in dusk, but cloudless, with a pink to violet shading. The snow reflects and picks up these colors. Do you think you could do that? Tapping glasses together? I suppose that fits the business. Can you do one with and one without? The one without, have them doing a very short bow or head nod to each other. Whenever you get it done  is fine. It's not like it's for an opening or anything. Thanks Ben."

* * *

Some people would have rented private cubic for a private business meeting. Sweeping a new and unfamiliar place for listening and recording devices could be difficult. Those used to more of an agency environment rather than corporate customs might have arranged a meeting in a park, or a small restaurant picked at random. Eric didn't have the money to spare.

The seven men gathered around a table in the Home cafeteria. They picked one off to the side, away from where everyone gathered by the coffee pot. That and simply how all of them looked, large and dangerous, gave them all the privacy they needed. They each brought their own breakfast to the table and waited on Eric to say why he asked them to come.

"I'm Eric Brockman. I'm a former protective detail officer for the President of the United States of North America. I'm a native of the American west by culture and no longer associated with North America. This is my partner Isaac Friedman. He has a similar background, although he is a New Englander."

"We were fortunate enough to retain our freedom by coming to Home, but we are in need of employment and security in various forms is what we know. I'm interested in forming some sort of security company, or failing that a mercenary company. Two people are not enough to conduct much of a business, except perhaps a private investigating company. We've had one small job already providing dock security. There is also the challenge of securing financing, because we fled with little in the way of assets." No need to say things had improved a little.

"I'll let each of you introduce yourselves, saying what you feel is important. Isaac do you want to add anything?"

Isaac itched to stand, but didn't want to call attention to their group. He leaned forward. "Eric is too modest to tell you, he was recently combat handgun national champion. He is an accomplished shooter. I'm not in his class, but he just spent the entire winter season training me. I'm as good as he can get me, so consider me at least a competent shooter." He leaned back done, but looked to his right to invite the next speaker.

"I'm Christian Mackay. I also have a partner," he gestured to the younger man, "Dan Holt. We are also unable to live in North American jurisdictions. We both have experience working security for New Las Vegas. So we are up on zero-G dexterity, casino liaison and non-lethal weapons.  We arrested a couple Homeland Security officers, loaners from the Postal Inspectors and Naval Intelligence. Dan here broke his fellow's nose and I, well, I probably got carried away. I dislocated my fellow's shoulder and broke the opposite collarbone and stunned them both, my guy in the face. He was starting to irritate me," he admitted. That got smiles all around. "No way they can ever forgive that from a couple local cops."