April 4: A Different Perspective (32 page)

"I'd call that desirable," Mo said. But then after thinking a bit he wondered. "Those sort of rich people are used to having their own way. Do you think they might start challenging Heather's authority?"

"They seem to
like
the idea we have a strong central authority. The one Swiss guy even inquired what the form was to swear fealty. In fact things are going so well, Heather is planning on putting survey markers out, to claim two other areas about the same size as this one."

"The sooner you do that, the less chance somebody will get in ahead of you." Mo advised.

"True, but I don't think any of the other moon bases are in a position to come do it, yet."

"But you have the settlers from Armstrong here, with their own rovers. Sooner or later they are going to get their housekeeping problems all squared away and they will get the idea to take a couple days to drive out and stake out some territory, once they have some spare time. The sooner you have the close stuff claimed, the less chance they will drive really far and claim beyond those too."

"OK, point taken, we can't fool around and take forever."

"You don't run the rovers all three shifts, not most of the time. May I make a proposal?"

"Ah, please do," Jeff said, surprised and very much amused. This wasn't Mo's usual mode.

"Next time I have leave, let me call my wife and inform her I need to stay over an extra cycle this one time. I will take a rover and lay out a circle road with markers, delineating the new areas and a connecting road to Central from each. I don't need any extra cash, but for doing that I'd like another standard lot in one of the new areas. I'll plow that one boundary for my lot and put a moon hut on it. I get a good investment and you safely secure a huge asset."

"I have to talk to Heather, but I think she'll go for it. We need your written agreement that you aren't claiming the whole area, by the act of using our rover to mark it out. and your choice of lot in payment ahead of time."

"That's agreeable. I'll probably take the first lot next to the connecting road. If you can site these two areas so they can be connected independently of Central, it will pay off in the future."

"Worried about traffic already?"

"It's never too early to alleviate problems; that's the engineer side of me speaking."

They ate a bit in silence, until Mo asked, "Are you going to waste those carrots?"

"I've never cared for them much. Finish them off."

"You know, another angle on it, is these
are
rich guys. They are probably pretty well connected and they might know if there is a possibility of trouble on Earth fairly soon," Mo suggested. "At least within their lifetime, even if they plan long term. The moon might look like a fine place to sit it out, if things get rough on Earth. You might factor that in your planning, considering what you need from Earth. Supplies might get disrupted, because they are too busy with other things to send you carrots," he said, holding the last orange disk up on his fork to drive the thought home.

"There are things they need from us too," Jeff pointed out. "A lot of vital parts and pieces of all sorts of systems are things made in zero G now."

"That's good. It gives us some leverage."

Oh, it's
us
now. Jeff noticed.

* * *

"I want to establish an intelligence gathering network," Eddie explained to Chen in the back of 
Eddie's Rascal
. They were at dock and the crew was off loading. The lunch turned out to be a deli-pack from Home cafeteria, instead of going on station. But it was very private.

"It has to have human intelligence assets worldwide and it is not going to be top heavy with desk pilots and analysts. I'm thinking four layers from the street to me, maximum. The lower level agents will not be tasked with any active acts of violence or sabotage, they will be eyes and ears only. There will be a separate team for active measures. The entire organization will be a few dozen, to start and never more than a couple hundred people, so that it is possible for one person to be aware of every individual working under them, not all of who have to know for whom they are working. The tasks are both for awareness of military hazards and for the purpose of maintaining economic advantage and assuring a continued supply of Earth materials and business for Home and the Central lunar colony. You would be in the second executive layer, mostly concerned with Earth. We don't anticipate a presence in other orbital habitats or the moon, at this time."

"Will there be a signals and data gathering agency also?"

"Yes and it will be even smaller. Their product will be fully available to the human intel side, but the human side will only get fed to surveillance anonymously, to tell them where to direct their attention."

"Who knows
everything
?"

"Only the top two layers."

"What are your arrangements for internal security?"

"Anyone in the top three layers can call for the interrogation of anyone up to their layer, or the one
above
, under brain scan. Several peers will sit in on such an interview to moderate, if there are any conflicts about a question being necessary. You may ask my peers to make me take a scan, if you think I have turned, or errored and won't own up to it."

"Well…" That obviously surprised him.

"It requires a genuine commitment and no way to weasel out."

"Shall this agency be interested in, or inquire into, one's activities outside the job?"

"Only in a limited sense. I expect people to protect themselves and their family, including making provisions for the destruction of Home as a political body, or the physical destruction of M3. As head I intend to make few moral judgments. If you have personal vices I really don't care, unless they make you a security risk. If you cheat your partners in business dealings, or cheat on your wife, I'd quietly let you go. It shows you have a base character, that is not to be trusted and you might damage us before a scanning interrogation could uncover how."

"You don't mind if one involves himself in other gainful activities?"

"You'll
have
to. I'm not offering you full time employment yet. You will need other employment to survive and to provide a cover for your activities. I can offer to steer some work your way, but the more you acquire yourself in legitimate ways the better your cover will be. At this time I'm offering you a Solar a quarter to start, for what will be basically keeping your ears and eyes open, while you go about your daily business. I'm aware of the security operatives you are associating with and that you already have done a small job with them. That's good. It should take you where you can collect information for me."

"Would I be authorized to recruit?"

"Yes, but as a rule you don't need to explain for whom the person is really working, other than you. Better to pay for specific information, than put someone on retainer. Too many will milk a regular income, by making up something if they don't have legitimate data. Actually bringing someone inside our organization should only be done on the basis of necessity. We need to do it on the cheap so to speak. We are not a huge government agency, drawing on a bloated national budget. So we can't be extravagant with bribes."

"Last question, who else is in the top executive layer with you?"

"I will run it. Jeff Singh, Heather anderson and April Lewis and myself will all consume our product. But they are not inside, actively functioning, members of the organization. If they contribute it will be by coincidence."

"Not Home, or the Home militia, or Mitsubishi?" Chen asked skeptically.

"The Assembly will not be asked to provide a plastic deciyuan and they will get exactly that for which they've paid. I imagine Mitsubishi has their own organization, as does their nation. The only way we will feed information to some third party, is if it is essential to serve our own interests."

 "I am disposed to accept your offer. The immediate benefit is not that great, but the long term prospects are quite good, I think. The fact I will be in the information stream is very, very enticing. Do you wish to conduct an initial brain scan interrogation, before finalizing my acceptance?"

"No, I'll hire you right now. You know you are subject to it any time. That's enough at the moment."

"And if you find out in a month I still work for Chinese intelligence?"

"I don't remember asking for an exclusive," Eddie said surprised. "If you can work for three or four other agencies and get paid by all of them, that should keep my costs down," he said, reasonably. "However if you betrayed us, I'd have to kill you," he said, like it was obvious.

"Yes, I believe I can work for you," Chen agreed, with an amused smile.

"First quarter in advance," Eddie said and handed him a platinum Solar.

"Do you have anything with which you wish to task me, or just keep my ears open for now? I actually have some classified information about North America in my possession. I happen to have hard data on their last corn crop and projections for next year," Chen offered up.

"You should sell that while it's fresh, if you have a market for it. You might try asking Jan over on ISSII. What we'd really like right now is a complete list of all the USNA intelligence operatives starting with the CIA and concentrating upon those in the Seattle – Vancouver area. As soon as possible, I will have photos of everyone frequently accessing their offices there and some other locations. That may help."

Well, this is going to be fun, Chen decided. He never did work up the nerve to ask straight out, if Eddie was really Mafia.

* * *

"Do you think she is going to show up?" Frank wondered.

"Oh sure. I don't think she'd ever consider needing to confirm she's coming. She's never had a job and likely has no idea how to relate to us. Certainly she never got taught anything useful like that in Earth schools. I do think she would let us know, or come by and tell us, if she
wasn't
going to be able to work."

"I shouldn't expect too much," Frank decided. "Or get upset if she does something outrageous, like get herself a cup of tea and take a break with the customers waiting."

"I can see her doing that easily, dear. It actually doesn't conflict all that much with the way we have run the shop ourselves. I've seen you get a coffee and kibitz with the customers when you don't have a task. Is she a high end employee, who would do something like that, or a cog who should make a show of being busy with make work, so we think we're getting something for our money?"

"Well, no. You know I've always hated that kind of class foolishness."

"Ah, then she
is
a high end employee. I'm glad we established that before she arrives."

Lindsy showed up at the door just then. Dressed a little casually, but acceptable for her age, Cindy decided. It was even a few minutes before 1000, which was remarkable. It was obvious from her face she wasn't there to tell them she couldn't work. Cindy was relieved.

"Good morning dear. I'm glad to see it went well with your parents. We
thought
it must have, when they didn't call and ask us any questions about the job, but we weren't really sure until you showed up."

"Oh, I'd have stopped in to tell you if they wouldn't let me," Lindsy said surprised. "Mom had a fit that I was going to work on Saturday for some reason, but when my dad called he asked her exactly what she had planned, that I needed to be home, she couldn't come up with anything.  I still don't know why she was upset."

"Sometimes people are upset and even
they
don't know why," Frank advised. "Best to not argue most of the time, because they are just upset twice. I'm glad your dad helped you."

"Do you have anything you want me to do yet?"

Frank looked surprised, but Cindy jumped in ahead of him. "Not yet dear. Why don't you get a cup of tea and talk with us a bit? We'll tell you things to do as the day progresses and most of them you'll be able to see, like if the cloth trimmings pile up in the bin and need emptied. There are always little scraps and threads that get on the floor, so when you start to see them looking messy you can grab them or use the vacuum and tidy up. You can use your own judgment and do those sort of things without waiting for us to tell you, after you are aware of them."

"OK. Thank you for the tea. Do your customers like to chat while they are waiting, or is it better to offer them some coffee and leave them alone?"

"Now that is a very perceptive and difficult question," Cindy allowed. "Some of the older folks grew up on Earth back when chatty store clerks were viewed as irritating and as rising above their station. Others live alone and look forward to going out to shop, because they are lonely. Those welcome a chance to talk to anybody. You just need to learn to read people. That's a big part of retail. If you say a few words and get a irritated look and a one word reply, you know they want to be left alone. If they smile and start telling you stories, you know you have a talker."

"And if you really
need
to go do something, you can always politely tell them you need to work," Frank pointed out. "They can get a cup of coffee and a kind word from us and are welcome to it, but they are principally here to have some clothing made," he pointed out.

"I know just what you are talking about. We'd go visit my grandma when she was alive and my mom hardly had to say anything. Grandma had a week's worth of talking all stored up and it all just popped out as soon as we sat down. It's funny, if I called her on com it wasn't the same."

"Yes, talking face to face has a different quality," Cindy agreed. "Ah, we got a live one." A customer wondered in, looking at the displays. Cindy went to greet her.

* * *

"I keep seeing that Oriental fellow, the one who is in line," April told Gunny. "He doesn't look Korean to me. I can't tell a lot of them apart. I worry about Chinese now, since the last assassination attempt, at least
new
Chinese I don't know. Could you find out who he is?"