April 4: A Different Perspective (19 page)

"We are off schedule, because it was deemed prudent to send our ship quickly to the moon when a USNA vessel went there suddenly. It should be back in three days, so we have about five days to fit you for a suit and do some training before it turns around. Sound doable?" he asked Mo.

"It does, we need to ask what we should read to acclimate ourselves to Home? I had sort of expected you'd just keep the USNA legal model and slowly modify away from our laws as you saw need. Now we found out there are no drug laws and the regulations from Mitsubishi have more force than the laws we are used to. Is there a handbook or something available?"

"You know, someone did mention to me that Mitsubishi has an orientation document they keep current for the vacuum rats and beam dogs. I'll get a copy and send it to your com. Do you folks have station com registered yet?"

"No, how do we do that?"

"You can do it right on the desk com there. Just pick the communications icon. I removed this desk from my call points so it will ask for an ID. Click on the registration line and it will ask for names the way you want to be listed. There will be a numeric ID after the name, if you want to let somebody contact you without sharing your name, but either will connect you. I suggest you get spex though. Just about everyone finds them indispensible. They will build you a 3D map and guide you point to point."

"I'm not sure I approve of children having such a luxury," Linda scowled.

"Up to you, they are cheap and nobody here thinks of them as a luxury," he added.

"Define cheap," Eric said, remember the suit expense.

"I think the cheapest basic ones are about a hundred-fifty USNA. About like a cheap pair of cloth shoes. Mine are pretty decent," he said, touching them, "they ran about six hundred a year ago. Probably four-fifty or five hundred now," he guessed. "They go obsolete faster than I want to take time to learn new ones. On Home folks tend to buy the high end ones."

"They cost more down home," Eric confirmed. "What happens to the old ones?"

"Now that's an interesting question," Jeff said smiling bigger than he had before. "I think I have three or four old pair in my junk bag. I hate to throw them away if they still work. Would you like me to courier over a couple pairs for the kids? The newer ones still have detachable cameras, but they lack the death rays that shoot out of the temple pieces," he joked, stabbing forward with both index fingers to illustrate.

"That would be nice," Mo agreed before his wife could nix it. He knew she wasn't going to appreciate that death ray joke. "We can keep in contact with them that way. I'm sure they don't need the latest tech. I had a question I neglected to ask in my interview. How exactly are you going to pay me? I mean where will it be deposited? Do you need my account information for my Earthside bank?"

"I could wire the money through the Private Bank of Home, but it seems like the wire fees on both ends would add up too fast. I was going to pay you monthly in advance. That's the custom up here. So I opened an account in the Private Bank and your first month's wages are there already. They can transfer to North American banks as you need instead of automatically. If you want to make other arrangements that's fine – just tell them you don't want to sign the account cards and they'll give you cash instead. I have a transfer account between my own bank and the Private Bank so you could get cash every month if you wanted. But it's handy having a bank card.

"Why don't you pay me through your own bank?" Mo asked, puzzled.

"When I say,
my own bank
,  I don't mean the bank where I'm a customer. I mean the System Trade Bank where I'm a director and have an ownership interest. I was concerned there are too many opportunities for a conflict of interest to pay employees in one venture through another in which I have control. I'd be really nervous to be paid that way. and the System Bank has no access to North American settlement services, so that makes it awkward too."

"Now I understand," Mo said. He kept a straight face but was rattled. This kid looked to be eighteen, nineteen maybe. He'd worried if he actually had the means to pay him.

"Are the taxes taken out of it? I never filled out any forms."

"What taxes?" Jeff asked. "You don't owe Home any taxes unless you volunteer to pay them. So far everybody who did so wanted to become a citizen. You haven't indicated any desire to declare as a permanent resident or citizen and it isn't necessary for your job. Any USNA taxes are between you and them. I'm certainly not going to be an agent for a foreign revenue agency."

"What is keeping me from going around and asking people if they have old spex to sell cheap and reselling them on eBay or The Mad Closet to make some money?" Eric interrupted.

"Nothing of which I am aware," Jeff said, thoughtfully. "Those are Earth corporations so you are too young to contract with them, but I assume you'll think of a dozen ways to work around that. The Private Bank will open accounts for you regardless of age. They would undoubtedly act as a proxy for you and open an auction account. and shipping is cheap on the down leg. But do you have the capital to buy the glasses?"

"You mean the money?" Eric asked.

"Yes, or anything to trade or something liquid that could be hypothecated to the bank to raise cash money. An Earth account, or valuables."

"No, I brought some stuff from home, but it's kid stuff. I doubt anybody would give me anything for it. They said we had eighty kilos of personal lift and my clothes took most of that and my mom let me bring some seashells and a few books, but most of our stuff got packed away and put in storage."

"What books?"

Eric looked at his mom right away. "You can tell him," she allowed.

"I have "The Mote in God's Eye", "Have Space Suit - Will Travel" and "Treasure Island."

"The 1911 edition?"

"Just an acid free reproduction of the 1911 edition," Eric corrected. "None of them are allowed in our school back home. If I took one to school they'd confiscate it. Having it at home is just antisocial, but they wouldn't come take it," he said, with no certainty at all.

"This does not surprise me," Jeff said grimly. "How about the seashells? Where are they from and how did you buy them?"

"I didn't buy 'em. We'd go down the coast and I picked them up on the beach and took them home. They're really pretty and I packed them very carefully so they wouldn't get smashed. I had them all laid out in a row on my window sills back home. But it doesn't look like there is any place to display stuff like that here."

Jeff smiled. "Spacers tend not to put out little nick-nacks. They have a mentality that they can become missiles under unexpected acceleration. I admit that is unlikely in something the size of Home, but it's human nature that those sort of habits get ingrained."

"Do you ever move it at all?" Linda asked, surprised.

"Yes, the last time they moved it you could see your coffee slosh over to one side of your cup. Otherwise it was pretty tough to tell it was moving. Eric, if you took some of your shells, maybe a few that are not your favorites and put each of them in a frame with a map showing where you picked it up and a short letter describing the circumstances and establishing the provenance, that is the provable history of its origins and chain of ownership, I believe you'd be surprised what some of the station dwellers would pay for a little reminder of ordinary Earth things like walking on a beach."

"I have pics of me on the beach too, but when I was younger."

"That would go in the frame nicely too. Didn't you save any money when you got a little?" Jeff asked, eyebrows all screwed up like it was hard to understand such a thing.

"I get an allowance, but I have to save it for college."

"I see," Jeff said, like he didn't. He refrained from asking, "
All of it?
"

"Trouble is, I really like my shells and I don't know if I'll ever get to go back to the beach and get more," Eric worried. "I don't want to sell them off. I think I'd regret it."

"Then you probably shouldn't. I'm afraid you'll have to think of some other service to offer people and build up to your spex trading idea. I'll leave that to you to figure something out."

"My dad told me his grandfather used to go cut lawns and shovel snow from people's sidewalks as a kid. But they don't let kids work like that now and you have to have a business license and a tax number and be insured and everything now, before you can work."

"I'm sure that is true back home on Earth, but on Home there are no licensing laws or age limits. If you can figure out something people will pay to have done, you can do it, as long as it is OK with your folks," he added, seeing a very unfriendly look from Linda.

"So, do you folks have any sweatshops yet, with little kids working twelve hour days assembling something?" Linda asked. Mo looked alarmed at the hostile tone she was taking with his new boss.

"There are so few children on Home I doubt they could fill a shift. Most parents want to see their children devoting the majority of their time to learning. But many of them see doing as the best way of learning. My father used to take me into Lucent with him and let me see how he designed nanoelectronic systems. I could go over and play at a lab bench and work with my hands making simple circuits and take things like the junk spex, of which we were speaking and modify them. It was very educational. It was in no way a sweatshop." He finally seemed a bit put out with her tone, which made him reconsider.

"I tell you what Eric. I like how you think. I can see you have been in a system that stifled any real opportunity to accumulate capital. Here," he said, flipping him a coin. "If you go into the Private Bank with your dad, when he sees about his pay, they will open you an account against this. It's issued by my bank. Consider it a personal loan with no collateral. If you succeed in your business ideas I'd be happy to get it back and any profit you care to share. If not, well we both guessed wrong. I'll take the risk," he decided.

"And I'll see you start of first shift day after tomorrow," he told Mo. "We'll do a suit fitting and start getting you squared away. Does that work for you?"

"That works. Where though?"

"Put my name in station com and it will show you my business offices. and unless it is messed up, it shouldn't show this cubic." He nodded and headed out the door suit under his arm.

"I'm surprised you didn't object to him giving Eric a loan," he said after the door was sealed.

"Yeah a single coin," Linda said unimpressed. "It looked to be about the size of a quarter. Big deal. How much can their local funny money be worth?"

Mo put out his hand and Eric reluctantly gave him the coin. Twenty-five grams Platinum it claimed on one face. Heavy little thing for its size. The last time he remembered seeing it on the news, platinum was running about twenty-thousand dollars USNA a Troy ounce. An ounce was a little bigger, but not all that much. He handed it back with a warning look not to say anything. Eric knew exactly what that look meant. Linda was off on something else with Lindsy already.

* * *

"Welcome to the Scientific Research and Industrial Production Orbital Station of the French Nation," the young lady welcomed them. "We have some consultations scheduled for tomorrow with the immigration authorities. We have some strictly perfunctory forms to fill out and necessary interviews to carry out, but they are simply formalities, your asylum has been approved on the highest levels. We will have translators available and take you to a hotel right now, so you can rest and refresh yourselves before dealing with those tedious details."

"That's very kind of you," Silverson thanked her switching to French. "My associates have started studying French, but I'm afraid it has only been a few days and they only have a handful of simple phrases. I was fortunate that I was in a diplomatic family and until I was sixteen went to a French private school and used French every day with our household help and out and about the city with my mother. If I can be of help with my people let me know."

"But of course. You do speak exceptionally well. and you have the cutest accent," she allowed, perhaps flirting with him a little. "Where was your family posted?" she asked, curious. "The Ivory Coast? Or perhaps St. Martin?" she guessed.

"Actually it was Paris."

"How lucky for you!" she said still smiling, but it had turned brittle and forced.

Silverman smiled back, too late to say oops, too late to say sorry. He just hoped she didn't have the authority to make their lives miserable. He hadn't meant to cast any aspersions on
her
accent at all. Damn.

* * *

"I may build it, but I sure as hell won't ride in it," Dave informed Jeff gruffly, looking at the plans. "At least not down into the atmosphere," he qualified his objection.

"We've done computer modeling and it should vaporize the throat plug and blow it out against atmospheric pressure. The exhaust should keep the air out of the chamber right down to sea level. With a good margin actually. It's a lot like the old style diffusion pumps on steroids."

"At a steady state," Dave protested. "What about the back pressure and reflected wave from the initial pulse?" he asked, skeptically.

"That's a little harder to model," Jeff admitted. "It should be well within the pressure levels known to standard engineering practice."

"In
what
?" Dave asked directly. Dave was pretty hard to slip past with smooth phrases.

"Firearms. We'll build a hefty safety factor in the first drive, about like a howitzer breech in fact and think about reducing it after some real world experience."

"It isn't very pretty," Dave said, looking at the drawing.

"Ugly as sin and it will fly like a brick going sideways, but it will shed most of the heat of hypersonic passage in the displaced plasma instead of accumulating it in an ablative heat shield. Otherwise it would need refurbishing every third or fourth flight."

"Which means it will shed a shock wave that will bust windows on a corridor fifty kilometers wide if you take it below about twenty-five kilometers," Dave warned.