April 4: A Different Perspective (31 page)

When Lindsy carried the chair out and sat in it, Cindy considered the readings. "Do you commonly cross your legs when you are sitting?"

"No, I sit on one leg or cross them at the ankles."

"Do that then. Please."

"Well that's a different profile," Cindy laughed. "If I sat like that, after a bit you'd have to help pry me out of the chair," she joked.

"Mom and I intend to do something about that though," Frank interjected. Lindsy gave him a quizzical look. He didn't say much and then, when he did, he was mysterious.

"Oh, he means we're going to get Life Extension Therapy," Cindy explained. "It should limber us up a bit. I've been dragging my feet, but the idea is starting to look pretty attractive."

"Am I done then?" Lindsy asked.

"Oh, sure. Put the chair back and how do you feel about going over to the cafeteria and getting some lunch with us?" Cindy asked.

"I'm ready for that."

* * *

"Eddie, I want to give you a job," Jeff said.

Eddie didn't know what to say. He looked startled at first, then unbelieving, finally he flashed briefly through irritated and finished on amused. "Oh,
thank  you
Mr. Singh," he said in an awful put-on Southern drawl. "You don't know what this means to me. The Mrs. and little Eddie had given up all hope. We'uns was gonna to be thrown out of the shack in a few days and didn't know where we'd go. Every since they shut down the garlic mines, folks here-'bouts has been doing poorly, so you're a God-send."

"Sarcasm ill becomes you Eddie. It isn't that kind of a job."

"Oh no! It's one of those jobs that doesn't
pay
anything isn't it?" he said in horror.

"Worse, it's one of those - "Somebody needs to do it." – jobs."  

"Dear God, what did I ever do to you?' Eddie asked.

"Now really, if I'd offered you a million dollars a month, would it have impressed you?"

"It would have gotten my attention. I'm doing pretty well, but a million is not yet a nice evening's dinner and entertainment with my friends."

"This is the sort of job that the pay day comes unexpectedly, five or ten years from now, when you call up and cash in your favors. When you remind me I owe you a big one."

"I'd rather you owe me five or six," Eddie quipped.

"I just might before we get through. I already owe you a big one for whatever you did with China. Jon was very plain in admitting that he handed it all off to you. I have
no
idea how you pulled that off. I realize I'm not as socially sophisticated as you are. I'm not even as slick with people as Heather. She has to be my minder at times and nudge me with her toe, or lift an eyebrow to tell me I'm going off in the wrong direction. People who are openly hostile, like the Chinese, I get and can deal with myself. But I'm in way over my head dealing with merely devious people. I'm trying to understand how they think, but it's
hard
. I need your help."

"You're not being sufficiently clear. What do you want me to
do
?"

"I want you to be my spy-master. I want you to create an intelligence agency. I can do the tech. I can get sensors in place and collect data, but I don't know how to interpret it, or what else to do with it. I need you because you understand people."

"In my spare time." Eddie said softly.

"Yes, in your spare time. If you spend ten minutes here and there on it, you'll accomplish more than me, beating my head against a wall all day long. I didn't say you couldn't delegate," he added. "I certainly am learning to do that myself. I'd
love
to be designing this lander Dave is going to make for us, but all I can do is review the design and try to direct the general form it takes. I can't sit and place every bracket and calculate every  moment arm, like I did with the
Happy
," he said in frustration. "It would be a treat if I could."

"I already have a sort of network of ship owners and shuttle pilots, reporting scuttlebutt and dock rumors back to me," Eddie revealed. "I give out a few favors and contracts in payment. I've never really hired someone directly as an agent, or even given explicit bribes for information. You're talking about taking it to a higher level."

"Can you do it? Or am I asking more than you can handle?"

"How far does this reach?" Eddie asked, instead of answering. "Am I working for just you? Or am I working for her Royal Highness, Heather, too? Does April have a finger in this?" he asked suspiciously, "or do you intend to feed this intelligence even as far as Jon and the Home militia?"

"It goes to me, Heather and if you haven't figured it out by now, we won't hold anything like this back from April. They don't know I'm talking to you yet, but they will soon. But Jon? No. At least no, unless we need to tell him something to keep Home from being shot out from underneath us. Does Jon have assets you want to use that are worth trading information with him? We've worked with Jon but never fully, never with all our cards on the table. We have always kept a slightly arm's-length relationship with Jon, especially Jon as Spox for Home, or Jon  with his militia hat on."

"I'll do it," Eddie decided, with shocking abruptness. "It's really just an extension of what I was already doing, but the next rational level. I need more information for business purposes anyway. There's a Chinese fellow who came up recently. I'm going to feel him out to do some of the footwork for us. What you are asking is going to require sending people to Earth and recruiting Earth citizens. It'll be hard to find people to do that. We probably will have to offer asylum to people, if they should become suspected by Earth authorities. There will be bribes and trades to be made."

"Let me know, if it's within my capacity, I'll fund it."

"Don't worry too much," Eddie waved that aspect away. "I'll help prime the pump too, but intelligence operations historically have been self funding, if not actual profit centers. Just don't get all righteous and huffy with me, if I trade equities and commodities based on the data we gather, or actions we take. When you start moving people and surveillance devices about secretly, it's quite easy to do a little smuggling at the same time too," he gave Jeff a smile that disquieted him. But Jeff still nodded his assent to those terms.

"I do have a first tasking for you."

* * *

Lindsy walked back to the shop with Cindy and Frank. They never seemed to hurry. She remembered a book she'd read. They seemed very much like a character in it who liked to
mosey
. She wasn't sure she had that style of locomotion straight until now. Maybe when they got those treatments they'd pick the pace back up again. Maybe not…

The machine said her jacket was optimized within four millimeters everywhere but in the upper sleeve, which Cindy assured her was an amazing fit. When she gave the OK to sew it back up it took the robot only three minutes. The robotic hands and sewing head were a blur. She took the jacket from Cindy and, shrugged it on delighted.

"They would have been happy to have robotic hands this sensitive ten years ago for
surgery
," Cindy assured her. "Besides which these are customized for handling fabrics. They are hard to see working, they are like your hand with a second thumb, but then there are two rows of smaller fingers behind the front ones. It can hold tension on the cloth with one row while another set of fingers takes a new grip and it never has a chance to bunch up, or feed too fast."

"Would you like it to sew up that other design for you? I'm going to give you the design files for the original and the variation, but if you'd like the velvet jacket we'll make it free, if you just pay for the cloth," she offered.

Lindsy felt her face flush deep red and she looked down ashamed. "I'd love to, but I have no money of my own at all," she admitted. "My brother started a little business already, since we moved up here, but I just haven't figured out anything to do yet. Could we hold off on that and when I get something going I'll be back and have you run it?"

"Of course dear, you just got here," she said to soften it. She didn't ask why she was broke when she arrived. Didn't the girl get
any
allowance? That was the Earth custom when they'd lived down below. At least in North America.

Frank cleared his throat. "Seems to me this is the perfect opportunity to do what you mentioned last Saturday, when we were swamped and you couldn't clean up or offer refreshments between customers and get some help."

Cindy looked at him like he was daft, she remembered no such thing, but recovered nicely and smiled. "Now that's an idea, if you have no job yet. Do you go to school Saturday, Lindsy?"

"No, just Tuesday and Thursday so far."

"Well then how would you like to come in Saturdays and give us a hand, until something better presents itself?" she offered. "You can clean up the floor when trimmings and thread start to make a mess and we like to offer our customers coffee or tea, but when we have others waiting, we can hardly stop and take time to do that. There might be the occasional errand or even taking a seam apart like you did with your jacket. For all its speed the robot does that very poorly. Would you like that dear?"

"I'd like that just fine," Lindsy said and didn't even ask what it paid. "I'll  have to go ask my mom and dad though."

"Her parents are going to ask her how much she will be earning," Frank predicted.

"You'll have to show me
everything
," Lindsy admitted. "I don't expect a lot."

"Let's say forty dollars an hour at first," Cindy suggested. Frank silently nodded agreement.

"That's fine. I should be paying you. Ms. Lewis sent me here to learn, not work. I'll explain that to my mom. I learned a lot just today."

"Of course dear, if she has any other questions just have her give us a call. I predict she'll be happy for you," she said, with all the confidence she could muster.

Chapter 28

"Mr. Chen?" The young man stood close enough he could speak softly and not broadcast to the entire cafeteria, but far enough away he didn't feel threatening. Chen didn't acknowledge that it was his name yet, but looked up at being addressed and gave him his attention.

"I'd like to speak privately with you about a business proposal. I have my vessel,
Eddie's Rascal,
delivering some rush freight to Mitsubishi 2 tomorrow. If you'd like to ride along we'd have privacy to talk and I'll provide lunch. We are leaving at 0700 from dock four on the north end. Figure it will be about six hours total, including an hour lay-over for delivery. Are you interested?"

"I'm free tomorrow, yes, I'd be interested."

"If you come, I suggest you stop by Dave's Advanced Spacecraft Services an hour or so early and tell him I said to loan you a light flight suit. The Rascal is a very low volume ship. If you lose pressure it tends to drop very fast. Most of us will only fly in a pressure suit."

"And your name is?"

Eddie blinked hard, then grinned. "Eddie, Eddie Persico. Dave will know me."

Oh, Eddie and
Eddie's Rascal
, he meant
his
ship literally and the man expects people to
know
who he is, Chen realized with a jolt. He'd initially thought the man rude not to introduce himself, but instead found he was remiss in not knowing a major player in his new home. This is Eddie the Lip, who Mackay was talking about on their recent job.

"I'd be happy to take a few hours and discuss whatever you want Mr. Persico."

"Mr. Persico is my dad. Just call me Eddie, my family name invokes too many complicated connections. See you tomorrow then," and he ambled off, unhurried.

Complicated connections?
Chen thought.
Is that what you call being from a crime family?
He had to call, no, go talk to Santos, face to face and see what else he knew about this Eddie. He absolutely didn't want to go into this interview tomorrow dead cold.

* * *

"Why are you frowning, you almost never frown, is it something that should worry me?" It didn't worry Mo enough to slow his assault on his roast beef and gravy.

"I don't think so, Mo. It's just that something doesn't make sense. I don't
know
if I should be worried about it. Once we got a grid laid out and a perimeter road, Heather decided we have enough infrastructure in place to look serious, so she upped the price of lots. She also made clear in the sales material on our site, that she intends to raise them again soon, once we have our command center buried deeply and make some significant progress on the tunneling projects."

"Oh, did raising the prices kill sales?"

"No! We're getting a lot
more
sales and even more inquiries. She'd only sold about six percent of the planed site, so this is going to mean a great deal of difference in the total projected take for the project. I just can't figure out
why
."

"Maybe it's just the sudden realization that they won't always be cheap, so people decided to stop thinking about it and buy, before the prices go up again."

"That could be a factor. The buyers are a bit different though. They are trending to have a lot more money. We've sold a few to people from other moon colonies again, two to the French and one to a Japanese fellow. But the rest are Earthies and we have two Swiss and an Australian who really got my attention. These three are the sort of people, who if you do a Earth-Web search, it turn up pages of cites for their business activities. and they paid cash without blinking."