Smuggler's Dilemma (29 page)

The bots were just being unloaded when a very thin girl came running over the rise separating our construction site from Tali's home. The long black hair streaming behind gave her away as Jenny. Next to her ran a giant orange tabby cat named Godzilla. That monstrosity weighed in at twenty kilos and his shoulders came up to my knee. I'm not ashamed to admit that Godzilla made me nervous, but Jack took a couple of steps forward and waved them over.

"Did I mention that Jack and Jenny like to hang out?" Nick asked.

"Seriously?" I asked. "They just barely met."

"You'll see. They clicked," Nick said.

I didn't need a long explanation, it made sense to me. Jenny and Jack had both survived traumatic experiences but still needed contact with someone their own age. My heart nearly stopped as Godzilla launched himself at Jack. Even more surprising was Jack's response, which was to hurl himself at the huge cat. They fell on the ground and wrestled roughly.

"Is he okay?" I looked to Nick for cues on how to respond.

"Yup. Let's get the bots running," Nick said.

The pod-jumper's payload was carried in a seven meter long 'short' container. Nick opened it and delivered programming instructions to the construction bot. He and Jack had already delivered two habitation domes and the pile of supporting machinery.

Nick's plan was to connect four domes in a T shape. A central dome with galley and mess and three attached domes with sleeping quarters.

The construction bot started by leveling a small patch of ground. Having come from asteroid mining, the concept of moving dirt around was foreign to me. Nick and I sat back on the hill and watched with rapt interest as the fine material was scraped and flattened into a perfect surface that could never be achieved on an asteroid.

"Where'd Jack go?" I asked. He and Jenny had disappeared.

"Probably up to the house, although they're safe wherever they go. Tali has surveillance on the entire lot," Nick said.

"I bet she has more than surveillance." If pushed, Tali referred to herself as ex-special forces, a description that undersold her capabilities. I suspected she also had an active component to her security. I wondered what form that might take, but suspected it was probably some sort of turret.

I took advantage of the quiet and finalized the first load that Ada and Mom would take out on the
Adela Chen
. I'd set up three legs that would take them from Mars over to two Indian space-borne factories. I was jealous that they'd pass close enough to Earth to be able to see the blue planet unaided - granted, it would be about the size of the end of my thumb, held out at arm's length.

The route would take ten days. They'd pick up a full load of metal products from a General Astral forge orbiting Mars above the city of Elysium. I discovered the route purely by accident, but felt foolish for not putting it together previously. Mars had better access to the asteroids than Earth corporations, but Earth factories had tremendous manufacturing output. We wouldn't get rich, but we could keep the
Adela Chen
employed for the foreseeable future. I signed the contracts and sent the information out.

Two hours later the construction bot finished and loaded itself back into the container beneath the pod-jumper. Nick programmed the maid-bot and set it loose in the grimy domes. Compared to the construction bot, it was inexpensive to rent and we could afford to leave it onsite. The construction bot, on the other hand, needed to be returned today.

"I talked to Lena. She's happy to have Jack hang out with them, but we're on the hook to bring back pizza," Nick said.

"Where's Marny?" I asked.

"She and Tali have a workout date. I'm just happy she didn't make me go along," he said.

It was 1430 by the time we'd dropped off the construction bot. We walked into Megliano's and found Jake already seated. He was gesturing subtly, obviously working through something on his HUD. As he saw us approach, Jake stood and offered his hand. It swallowed mine; the handshake firm, but not crushing.

"Thanks for meeting with me today," he said as we sat down.

"You definitely know how to pique our curiosity," I said.

"Hopefully, I wasn't overly dramatic, but I felt it would be better for us to discuss my proposal in person. You mind if I dive right in?"

Ironically, a server showed up just then. Nick rattled off what had become our standard order; double crust, pepperoni, cream-cheese pizza with a Guinness for me and a Phantom Citrus Berry Ale for him.

When the server left, Jake jumped back in. "I appreciate the offer to be part of your crew, but I just don't think that's where I want to go - long term," he said. "That said, I've got an idea that I think would benefit all of us and I'd like to get your take on it."

"Shoot," Nick said.

"If I understand correctly, Loose Nuts Corporation has an unlimited license to the General Astral CA-12 cutter's intellectual property for replicating parts for as long as you own the ship,
Sterra's Gift
." Jake paused and looked to Nick for confirmation. Nick nodded and Jake shifted in his chair as if it were uncomfortable. Our server showed up at that moment to deliver our drinks and seeing a lag in the conversation, asked how we were all doing. I knew he was just being friendly, but could see a flash of impatience on Jake's face.

"What I'd like to do," Jake said, once the server had moved on, "is create a sub-corporation to Loose Nuts dedicated to buying and selling CA-12s. I'd find junkers, manufacture necessary parts and restore them."

"How do you see ownership working out?" Nick asked.

"Loose Nuts retains ten percent, I keep ninety," he said.

I was curious. "Do you think you can find enough CA-12s?"

"I've done some research. I've found ten around Mars I think I could work with," he said.

"Do you have enough capital to make that work?" Nick asked.

"Well. That's the other part of it. I've got sixty thousand credits, which isn't enough. I need at least an additional hundred and fifty thousand credits." He sat back in his chair. This was what he deemed to be the biggest stumbling block.

"I'll bet you already have a ship lined up. What's your timeline on return of that capital and at what rate?" Nick asked.

Jake sat forward again. We hadn't balked. "Ten weeks and I'd pay back at ten percent."

"I don't think that works for us," Nick laid out a different arrangement.

I was having a hard time keeping up with Nick. The best I could determine, he'd countered a ten percent ownership with a seventy percent ownership and allowed Jake to buy us down to twenty-five percent. The two negotiated for a few minutes while I tried to stay engaged.

"I think we have an agreement," Jake finally said.

"You good with all this?" Nick asked me.

If I were honest, I'd have told Nick I was barely holding on. But, bottom line, I trusted him.

"Works for me," I said.

DROPPING IN ON A FRIEND

It was 1900 by the time I made it back to Tabby's room. She was sitting up in bed with a blanket pulled to her waist and she was wearing a vac-suit liner. For a moment, I didn't even notice that she must be wearing her prosthetic arm, as it looked much like her original. It was only her stiff movement of it that brought me back to reality.

"What do you think?" she asked hopefully.

I grinned and glanced down at my foot. "You know you yelled at me in a similar circumstance, right?"

She raised her eyebrows and pinched her cheeks together pushing her lips forward. The phrase 'disapproving school-marm' popped into my mind.

"What I meant, was, I didn't even notice it when I came through the door," I said.

"That's better. Seriously, it looks okay?" It was weird to have her show any insecurity.

"Yup, better than okay. It's really hard to tell the difference - maybe a little, when you move around, but I bet that's more about you getting used to it. So was it really horrible with troll breath?" I asked. I still hadn't forgotten how we'd been treated by the physical therapist this morning.

Tabby giggled at my name for the woman. "She's not that bad. Well, she is, but she's really dedicated, just not good with people. She only left about twenty minutes ago,"

"How much therapy will you have?"

"Two weeks. It'd be longer but…" she looked down at her missing legs and tears formed in her eyes.

I sat on the bed next to her, careful to choose the side with her good arm.

"We'll get through it, Tabby."

"Change the subject."

"Right. Oh, I got you an earwig today," I pulled the new device from my pocket and handed it to her.

"It's beautiful," she said. "Did it cost too much?"

"Not hardly! I need to be able to talk to you. I've had enough of passing messages through the hospital," I said.

"I love it. What else did you do today?" She placed the earwig into her ear and it expanded, leaving the opening intact and attaching itself to the ear canal's outer wall. It then extended along her cheek bone.

I told her about Jack and Jenny and setting up the habitation domes. She was interested in the route we'd created for Mom and Ada, so I showed her all of that too.

Once we got through all of my news, I finally broached the next difficult thing. "Nick said that Tali wanted to know if she could visit."

"Why?" Tabby creased her forehead. She wasn't ready for this.

I pressed forward quickly. "She's been through a similar experience, not as extensive, but she lost most of her right side and had it replaced, including part of her spine."

Tabby's eyes grew wide. "That's a lot."

"I don't think Marny would mind me telling you, but she also had extensive reconstructive surgery on her jaw. A good portion of her face is synthetic skin," I said.

"I never knew," Tabby still had that crease in her forehead, but she was softening.

"That's kind of my point. Whatever it takes, we'll figure it out," I said.

The next morning I left before the troll arrived, having no desire to mix it up with her. I suspected that was her goal.

Mom and Ada were leaving this morning and I wanted to be there to see them off. We'd agreed to meet in a restaurant that overlooked traffic sailing in and out of Puskar's space side terminal. I arrived early, ordered coffee and sat at the bar. It was enjoyable to watch the ships arriving and departing and I didn't notice when Marny, Ada, Mom, Dad and Nick showed up as a group.

Ada caught my attention and when I turned, I saw Mom and Dad holding hands, something I don't think I'd ever seen before.

***

"So what are we going to do while Ada and Silver are gone?" Dad asked.

"We need to sort through the crates. I promised a load to an auctioneer. Would love to have your help," Nick said.

"I was thinking we should make Dad show us how to operate those mech suits," I said.

Marny swiveled her head toward me and smiled. "That something you'd be willing to do, Pete?"

"Why not?" He shrugged his shoulders. "We can start in the warehouse and use them to load the crates."

"I thought it took months to train on a suit," Nick's voice was a little higher than normal.

"Every maggot starts somewhere. We'll set me up as squad commander, that way I can dial 'em back so you're not wrecking things," Pete said with a grin.

We piled into the pod-jumper and sailed to the warehouse. The front of each bay was designed to accept a standard container and provided a locking mechanism. Dad and I had ridden over in the container, since there was only room for two and a half in the cab of the pod-jumper. The back of the container finally opened and we piled out into our bay in the warehouse.

"It's a good thing we didn't wear our armored suits," Dad said, "The mechanized infantry suits have a lot of adjustment in them, but they can't accommodate the heavier, less flexible armor. Most of the time you'd only wear a suit-liner inside one of these things. Since the container isn't pressurized, we'll have to keep the vac-suits on. I've already configured one, so I'll start with it and get a command channel set up. Unpack the other two and figure out who's going first," he said.

"Don't worry about me," Nick said. "I'm not getting in one of those."

"Are you kidding?" I asked.

"No. The whole idea makes me feel claustrophobic," he said.

"It's just a big vac-suit," I said.

"Yeah, whatever," he said, brushing me off. "I can't get past the idea that I'm climbing into the solar system's smallest spaceship and I'll be trapped in one spot."

I shrugged, recognizing that he was probably serious. I didn't want to make a big deal about it, so I pulled off my ABGs and stashed them in the cab of the pod-jumper. I'd want them back, but they'd just get in the way inside the mechanized infantry suit.

"The suits aren't currently keyed. All you need to do is place the palm of your hand into the back of the helm," Dad instructed.

I ran my hand along the thigh of the suit, just to get a feel for it. The metal was smooth to the touch and had no give. Even our armored vac-suits had some give, if you touched them lightly. Since the suits had never been worn and weren't keyed to anyone else, they opened easily. I found a security plate about the size of a human hand just where Dad said it would be and pressed my hand into it. The suit split vertically along the entire length of the chest. I sat back into the cavity and slid my feet into the legs of the suit.

"That's right. Sit there until Marny catches up. Don't put your arms into the sleeves yet," Dad said.

We'd turned the gravity in our bay of the warehouse up to .6g, standard for most space operations. Nick sat on the pile of crates, waiting patiently, wearing a bemused grin. I smiled back at him, excited.

"Give me a thumbs up if you're feeling comfortable," Dad said. Marny and I returned the thumbs up. "Lay back and slip your arms into the sleeves. Try to keep your hands and arms relaxed and don't clench your fists; that will cause the suits to close. If that starts to happen, it's not the end of the world, just relax and the suit will stop." I wondered how many people he'd trained to operate a mechanized infantry suit in his life.