April 4: A Different Perspective (36 page)

They sat in companionable silence, watching the shadows chase the light away, until Jeff had to tell the interior lights to come up 5 percent. That gave him enough light to flip the bread and bring the stew up front without burning himself. A full mug of coffee was waiting for him.

"I need to go right back with you, to work on the shuttle finish."

"I can stay a few days if you need to wrap anything up here," April offered.

"You did say you could handle roughing it, if you had a shower."

"The stew is really pretty good," she argued. "It's got plenty of chunks of identifiable vegetables and a decent amount of beef. This isn't roughing it."

"We buy the stuff rich people take backpacking. It costs about three times what the supermarket stuff does and it heats up hotter too."

"Our bread is going to burn if you don't catch it," Heather warned.

Jeff hurried to the back and returned with everything on a tray. "The tray's clean. We don't seem to have any plates, but you can work on a napkin if you want."

April loaded a slice up with peanut butter and jam, thoroughly content.

"I wonder if anyone makes tinned cream cheese?" Heather thought out loud.

"I shall make diligent inquiry," Jeff promised. "Your wish is my command."

"I thought my wish was your command," April teased.

"That too."

"Such confidence," Heather marveled. "I'm worried he may be getting a little full of himself. Don't you think?"

"It's a definite danger," April agreed. She leaned over and kissed him with strawberry lips. Heather nibbled on his ear waiting a turn. When April withdrew Jeff started to protest and had it smothered by Heather's kiss before he could get a whole word out.

"We can take turns eating his dessert, while the other keeps him occupied," April suggested.

Jeff sort of whimpered.

"Oh my, his little heart is going pitty patter," Heather told April.

"It certainly is," she agreed laying a hand flat on his chest to feel.

"Males are the weaker sex," Heather reminded April. "They die young."

"They die stupid!" Jeff insisted, indignant. "I'm not going to do that lethal heroic stuff."

"Are you not the Jefferson Moses Singh who flew a spaceship and had never bothered to read the first page of the manual, or take a lesson and came home with a hole blown through it big enough to jump through?" Heather inquired.

"Well yeah, but Happy made me to do it!"

"You're right, he'll jump in with both feet and die spectacularly. We can only hope somebody captures it on video and enjoy the brief time we have him," April agreed.

"Are
you
not the girl I remember in that news video, with laser beams and bullets holes laced all around you, calmly blasting away at men in space armor?" Jeff protested "Or do you have an evil twin?"

"No, twin. Heather will have to do. I have minions now, to deal with that rough stuff."

"Please ladies, might I finish my dessert?" he asked, piteously.

"We are rejected for mere food," Heather groused.

"Weakling," April complained, leaning back.

"I am wronged from both sides."

"Get used to it," Heather suggested, then looked thoughtful. "Are people going to give us a hard time, seeing us together?"

"I have news for you. We are already a public threesome so often, people have been making little remarks to me for some time."

"Remarks?" Heather asked.

"Just, uh, the guys. There seems to be an element of, well, jealousy, that you two get along. The women don't
say
much, but I get some venomous looks, from the older ladies at least."

"I must admit, Adzusa asked some very pointed questions, clear back when I went down to Earth and she accompanied me. "I simply told her it wasn't anybody's business and certainly not a matter of public interest. I didn't
deny
either of you. I'd never do that."

"I think that's exactly the tack to take," Heather agreed. "We've had a public business relationship for a long time. Nothing beyond that is anyone's concern."

"Whatever you two say," Jeff agreed, wisely.

* * *

"Eddie has asked me, upon the advice of Miss Lewis, to inquire if your sailing ship, in which you and she spent time together, would be available to transport aquatic or aerial drones to release points, outside the maritime boundaries of various nations, or meet a water landing shuttle in international waters."

"Oh my, an ocean landing shuttle? That just opens up all sorts of possibilities, doesn't it? You may inform her I gave the
Tobiuo
as a severance payment to Lin, who she knows very well. I can of course lay her offer before him, but he is her master now and will decide what jobs he wishes to accept. She was operating under the name
The Sly Spy
when we transferred her and he may have reverted or picked a new name for her."

"I would like to present it to Mr. Persico as if I have recruited you," Chen suggested.

"Well you have!" Papa-san insisted. "In every way that pertains to their organization. I'm entirely happy with working up-line through you. Would you also remind Miss Lewis that she offered a power source for the
Tobiuo,
to greatly increase its cruise capabilities and to give them extravagant auxiliary power? If they are to work for her she should make good on that deal. It also wouldn't hurt to remind her that it affords spacers an opportunity for vacations, away from the political and social problems they might otherwise suffer on an Earth visit. Perhaps some arrangement might be made to trade services, to everyone's benefit."

* * *

"Good morning, Cindy, Frank. May I have tea with you and show you some things?" Frank had just made coffee and was putting the beans back in the store safe.

"Of course my dear, you know where everything is, help yourself, please." Lindsy left an actual  paper notebook on the table, but Cindy resisted the urge to peek, although that must be what Lindsy was going to show her.

"I've been doing some sketches of ideas I have for clothing," Lindsy revealed when she had her tea. "I'm just no good drawing on a computer, so I use paper and pencil." She opened to the middle and slid it to Cindy. "This is  an outfit with high boots and jeans. The pockets are horizontal and zippered, just below the belt and no rear pockets so it's sleek. The belt is extra wide and special just for it. The loops have to be big to hold it."

What surprised Cindy was not the design of the clothing, but the drawing. The figure was not drawn floating on the page, it was in a detailed setting, an old fashioned hotel lobby with an elevator on the far wall, leather furniture, carpets and ferns in planters, There were other figures, simplified, but not that much, inhabiting the setting. The model was leaning on the registration desk , impatient, pouting, one leg extended lithe as a leopard.

"This is a beautiful drawing and the pants are, indeed, very sleek. I've not seen that pocket treatment in a very long time and it does avoid gapping when you bend or sit."

"So it is possible to really sew it up that way?"

"Certainly. It is harder to reach in such a pocket, but you usually make them shallow to avoid needing to stick your whole hand inside them. They are easier to make really than a conventional pocket. This is remarkable, the extra detail, the way you set a total scene instead of just the figure."

"It looks stupid all alone. I saw this scene in an old movie and used it, but moved things around a little bit to make it work."

"Where did you learn to draw like this?" Cindy wondered.

"I doodle all the time. I had an art class a couple years ago, but if you don't get good marks in it they won't let you sign up for the advanced classes. My teacher hated the way I draw, like the ferns there, I draw the part hanging toward the middle of the drawing in detail, but as I get out toward the edge I just do the outline with less and less detail until near the edge of the paper it's just a few swoopy lines to suggest where the ferns extend and you have to kind of fill in the details in your head."

"And your teacher hated this?"

"Yeah, he'd ask me why I didn't finish it. He wanted the whole thing to look like a photograph edge to edge. Life is too short, I'm not going to sit and do all that. That's not the important part anyway, I want you looking
here
," she said, tapping the figure with a finger.

"Lindsy dear, I'm going to cut straight to the point. Your teacher was a fool. This is lovely work. Your clothing design is fine and you certainly should pursue that too, but your drawing is wonderful and you should never have been discouraged from it."

"You're sweet," Lindsy said patting Cindy's hand. "I wish I had some more to show you. I have a couple boxes of loose drawings down on Earth, in storage, but this notebook is all I brought up."

"Have you ever worked with color?"

"No, my mom always made us put all our allowance in savings. If I wanted anything I had to beg for it, but paper and pencil was pretty easy to get her to buy. We didn't go anywhere they have that sort of fancy stuff anyway. I wouldn't even know what to ask for."

"Do you have some more ideas in there? I'd love to see," Cindy asked.

"Oh sure. Now these are some other ideas for clothes I had, but I drew them on some of my friends. This is my friend Kathy, I thought she'd be darling in button up navy jeans and a sweater. This is sitting on her couch at her place, looking at her by the window. But I drew a nice scene out the window behind her. In their apartment it really just looked out on another building with other windows and balconies, so I drew this instead." It was a New England village.

Cindy just shook her head in amazement at the drawings. Even in a grey-tone pencil drawing she was certain Kathy was a redhead, with amazing freckles. She wondered if Faye knew her student 'doodled'?

* * *

"We have home addresses and quite a lot of data about where all the agents with agency cars shop, what gym they go to, a few of their favorite restaurants," Jeff's man Louis said, "but we only have three faces matched to the addresses and two more by public records. I'm trying to reprogram them to expose themselves more, to attempt to get images, but it's complicated. Try for example getting one to crawl behind the front grill of a car and peek out. It's hard. Dave ran me through the beginners guide when he handed them over, but I don't think he was into them deep enough to do this. The stupid things only have two Terabyte of memory."

"I think you are doing marvelously for learning as you go. The bird was just a bit of bad luck. When I told the manufacturer rep about it he was surprised. He was even honest enough to say he doesn't know
what
he's going to do about that."

"I could run the Frisbee in closer - try to get it within telephoto range. There is just no decent cover between the cars and the entry. I have it under dense cover right now and it seems pretty safe," Louis offered, conflicted about what to do.

"Park one of the bugs ones where it will see the faces going in the door in the morning. Put another on a tree or something not too close, but where it can see which cars park in the morning. You can match the time of cars arriving to faces. Have them fly back to the Frisbee in the night instead of transmit. Just park the third and hold it in reserve," Jeff ordered.

"OK, that will take me until they deploy tonight to write. If we get two or three cars arrive close to each other, the drivers may not come to the door in the order they parked."

"If you do it for three or four days it will sort out."

"I'm sorry they found that bug in the light, but I have to say, it was entertaining hearing them go nuts when they found it."

"Expensive entertainment, but I admit I archived a copy of that," Jeff said, smiling. "I need a copy of the faces you have. I may be able narrow the search, as I'm looking for a pair working as partners. Hard wire transfer only on all this, Louis. That's why I'm running it from a dedicated machine with no net access, no wireless and a shielded guarded cable straight to the antenna dish. Put it on a drive for me."

"You think somebody will crack us?"

"Not if we do it my way. They would have to capture a Frisbee and break its encryption. I have some pretty good precautions against that."

* * *

"Good morning. We have quite a few fittings today, don't we?" Lindsy remembered. She got her mug and started making a cup of tea. "Do I have enough money now to pay for the material and have my jacket made?" she asked.

"Did you save both your pays?" Frank asked her.

"No, I bought a pair of spex from my brother for eighty dollars."

"Well that certainly seems like a bargain."

"He buys and sells old spex and hand comps for a little business," Lindsy revealed.

"The material will run about three-eighty, so you've got it easily," Frank confirmed.

"Can I come in mid-week and have you run it?" Lindsy, asked excited.

"We don't have a roll of that fabric. It will probably be Wednesday at least before we can get it up from Earth, so yes, Thursday maybe."

"Thank you, I've never bought anything to wear that my mom wasn't with me and had veto power over what I picked. This will be fun."

"Are you sure you don't want to do one of your own designs, dear?" Cindy asked.

"Not yet. I enjoyed watching you design. I want to be able to do that."

"It's not quite as easy as she makes it look," Frank warned her.

"I sort of figured that out."

Cindy got a flat package from the shipping desk and slid it in front of Lindsy. "This is a little present from us," she said simply.

Lindsy looked shocked and then started crying.

"Hey, it's not that big a deal," Frank objected, embarrassed.

"It
is
," Lindsy insisted, not even knowing what it was yet.

"Why don't you take a look at it dear?" Cindy suggested.

Lindsy blew her nose first and reached inside the open FedEx pack. There was a wooden case with a hundred-fifty-six colored pencils, a small selection of pastels and a few markers. A notebook of blank pages was a little bigger than the letter size paper Lindsy was used to and there was a large hardbound book on colored pencil technique.