CHAPTER 5
The door dilated and Jason stepped into what could be any bus or shuttle. The only difference was no windows. Instead, there were screens with pictures and videos of Texas. Fields of bluebells. The capitol with the lone star. The Alamo.
As Jason sat down, setting his rifle between his knees, he wondered if that was a good idea. Homesickness for Earth was a thing. But it wasn’t his to judge. Presumably, the ownership had mostly been from Texas or something.
The shuttle was empty and he had thirty minutes to kill. He’d been extremely busy planning for the trip. He’d gone back and forth on what to take. He had plenty of cargo space but he hoped to fill most of the cubic with food. Then there was the matter of expense. He knew he was going to be using a large amount of flexmet. How much was the question. Flexmet wasn’t free. It was government issue, currently, with a fixed price of one credit a kilo. He’d wanted to take two metric tons but that was two thousand credits. Richard had balked at that large of a load given the medium tractor, which he’d insisted was an absolute necessity, was fifteen thousand credits.
In the end, he’d opted for five hundred kilos. More or less an English ton. Less cubic was the upside. More room for cases.
He put it out of his mind and turned back to the issue of Spaceship Four.
“Am I still the majority investor in Four?” Jason asked.
“By a large margin,” Jewel answered. “The next largest has ten credits. All the other large investors, and the largest then was four thousand, bailed when the report circulated.”
She’d noted before that people who had kept their units in the spaceship had contacted him asking for input. He’d put them off saying he was busy on another endeavor.
“Let’s do a video on the subject for the owners who are interested,” Jason said. He thought about what to say then took a breath.
“Hi, my name is Jason Graham and I’m the single largest unit investor in Spaceship Four in which you also have units. As some of you are aware, recently there was a report that circulated that described the ten grands as hangar queens. I read it. It was a well thought out, professional analysis. And I one hundred percent disagree.
“The writer of the report was, I believe, sincere. It was not, in my opinion, designed to drive people out of the market so that someone could swoop in and get a large ownership. I certainly had nothing to do with it and I’m the largest unit owner of any of the ten grands. It was a cogent analysis and the author was clearly a professional in traditional business and finance.
“But that, right there, was the problem. They were experts in traditional business. Traditional business is about finding risks and eliminating them. It was probably prepared for a financial company that was considering whether to back one of the companies that were lobbying to run the ship before the report.
“I’m not an expert in traditional business. To the extent I’m considered an expert in anything, it’s logistics. But what I am, unquestionably, is a science fiction fan and, back on earth, an occasional writer of very bad, self-published, pulp SF. I’ve been reading SF since I was a kid. I understand this environment, I get it, using an SF word, I grok it—which means to understand something in your bones.
“I’m headed to the surface. For those who have been trying to reach me, I’ve been busy planning this trip. While I’m on this trip I’m going to look into some things that I’ve been considering regarding the issues raised in the report. There are going to be solutions. I intend to research and find those solutions.
“For now, let Four be a hangar queen. She’s not bringing any money in, but she’s not costing anything. If you want to trade units, I’m trading. People were offering money as well as units at one point. I won’t take money. With as little money as we’ve all got, it seems unfair. I think, long term, Four is a good investment. But that’s the opinion of a guy who’s had fifteen different careers and whose only field clothes that fit are uniforms from back in the 1980s. Up to you. Out here.”
“Cogent,” Jewel said. “Nice word. Also, a description of your video. Not to mention concise and in places cryptic. What’s the answer?”
“No clue,” Jason said. “But there’s going to be one.”
“Arriving in Texas station,” the shuttle intoned.
“You’re right,” Jason said, standing up. “You don’t feel a thing.”
* * *
“Dad,” Sam said, “farming is for suckers.”
Cade didn’t raise his head, focused on the holes he was poking in the soil.
“Well then, I have two bits of good news for you, son. The first is, you seem unlikely to inherit a farm from me, at this point.”
“I would have sold it, anyway.”
That stung, but Cade shrugged it off.
“The second is, what we’re doing right now is not farming. It is gardening, at most.”
“Your precious John Wayne wasn’t a farmer,” Sam muttered.
“John Wayne was an actor. He wasn’t really a gunslinger or a sheriff or William Tecumseh Sherman. But, fun fact, he actually owned a cotton farm in real life.”
Sam grunted, a hostile sound.
Wherever the station contained patches of grass (which could not be owned by individuals) or planting beds (which could), its light was designed to simulate sunlight and could be used to grow plants. Once Cade had learned that, he had grilled his AI about the possibilities of buying large open areas within the station and converting them to agriculture.
The possibilities had turned out to be nonexistent.
But he had managed to acquire several more planting beds in the same park area, all surrounding a playground and all a few minutes’ walk from the family’s compartment.
The planting beds (which were officially designed as “flowerbeds,” but Cade had no interest in planting daisies) had some soil in them already. The Oldham family inventory had shown several bags of potting soil and a collection of seeds, along with small hand tools for gardening—Cade had brought it all out of stasis for this project.
“Son,” he said, “I know you miss her.”
“You know no such thing.”
“I would miss your mom.”
“Would you?” Sam pressed. “Would you even miss her if she weren’t here? You can barely look at her as it is.”
“The problems I am having have to do with being old, and . . . not adjusting fast, I guess. I know your heart is broken.”
“But it would have been broken anyway, right, because she would have dumped me?”
“I didn’t say that.” Cade tried to grin. “I think it’s more likely you would have broken up with her, frankly.”
“So I should go out now and date and find a nice girl and forget about Julie, right, is that the next advice? How am I doing? Have I figured out the Dad Code?”
“I apologize,” Cade said. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s not my place.”
“Damn straight.” Sam stood.
“Get back here!” Cade snapped. He hadn’t meant it, but his voice took on a sudden hard edge. “You’re pissed at me, and I get it. But you don’t walk away from a job half done.”
Sam hesitated, then got down on his knees. He finished the task with his father, dropping in seeds and closing the earth over the top, scrupulously.
But he made no answer, no matter what Cade said to him.
And when they’d finished, he stood up and left.
* * *
“Welcome aboard the Excelsior!”
The pilot was short, baby-faced and looked like he was in his teens. But everybody looked that way currently.
“While I’m fully on board with the Second Amendment thing . . . ” he added, eyeing the Garand.
“Unloaded,” Jason said, showing him the action. “And I’m not setting foot down there without a rifle.”
“Understood,” the pilot said, extending his hand. “I’ll ignore the Magnum. Tom Ferrell.”
“Jason Graham,” Jason said, shaking hands. “Any chance I could hang on the bridge?”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Tom said, waving ahead.
Tom had the flexscreen walls of the ship set to a neutral blue with pictures and videos of notable aircraft and rockets of Earth. Only one picture was of himself, standing by an F-104 with obvious battle damage, holding a helmet under his arm and grinning.
He currently looked about the same age as in the picture.
“She’s a fun little ship,” Tom said, sitting down at the control console and turning on the screens. “But there’s not much flying until you get near the ground. Even then, it’s mostly automated.”
The view was of a large landing compartment. Large as in miles across. As the screens came on a much larger ship flew from right to left then turned into a corridor nearly as cavernous as the compartment. Though the ship was obviously massive, it was swallowed by the corridor. Other, smaller, ships followed it out. Looking up through the “window” above, Jason could see more ships arriving.
“How do you get a pilot’s license?” Jason asked.
“Sim time,” Tom replied. “Lots of sim time. Less if you’ve got experience. Pilot?”
“One thing I’ve never done,” Jason said. “Never been interested.”
“Best job ever,” Tom said.
“Do you have units in it?” Jason asked. “Or is it other owners?”
“Managed to trade for all but two,” Tom said. “So, I get most of the profit. And it’s been profitable so far. Thanks for the credit.”
“No problem,” Jason said. “As long as this trip works out. Safety briefing?”
“There’s spacesuits,” Tom said, gesturing over his shoulder. “You’ll never use them. If something goes incredibly wrong, the entire seat turns into a stasis container and you’re ejected. As long as you’re not in the gravity well of a massive planet or a star, you’re golden. Thus ends the safety brief.”
“Better than having to don a float you’ve never actually worked with,” Jason said, chuckling.
“Strange load,” Tom said. “I’ve dropped a group of scientists doing research. But mostly colony sets. This isn’t a colony set.”
“Don’t need one,” Jason said. “I’m not colonizing, just exploring and exploiting I guess you’d say. There’s a shrimp run coming up in that area. Or so I hope. Should be. Anyway, just leased a small area to harvest in general, survey and mostly planning on doing close-shore commercial fishing.”
“Didn’t see a boat in the inventory,” Tom said as the Excelsior lifted up and headed for the exit. “And away we go.”
All of the landing bays, variously sized for the various sizes of ships, were covered in blinking lights, some green indicating an open bay ready for a ship, others red or yellow. There were more lights around the entrances and exits. Obscure markings that might as well have been in an alien tongue.
“Not driving?” Jason asked.
The ship lifted up into the main bay then followed a larger ship into the short exit corridor. Jason could see the exit to the station: It was surrounded by lights that were green in their direction. But beyond that was simply black. He knew that that was due to the surrounding protective shell. It was still slightly intimidating. There wasn’t even light from the ports on the shell.
“Port controls entrance and exit,” Tom said. “Federal Space Traffic Control takes over as you leave the station then maintains control till you’re beyond the shell. Even then, you just program the course and sit back and enjoy the view till you’re below ten thousand feet.”
“That doesn’t seem to require much piloting,” Jason pointed out.
They’d cleared the exit by then and Jason took a look around at the gap between the defensive shell and the station. There were screens in every direction so he could get a good look. Mostly, it was views of other ships coming and going. But once clear of the station the massive “ports” in the defensive shell were finally clear and he could, sort of, see portions of the planet.
“The pilot training and tests are mostly about what might go wrong,” Tom said. “Which describes most professional flying. Sorry to repeat but: No boat?”
“I’m planning on using my wits,” Jason said.
“Hope you’ve got good wits,” Tom said. “I bumped two colonists on condition of two cases of fresh food. Anything edible will do.”
“Do I need to grab it while you wait?” Jason asked.
“I’m not going to wait,” Tom said. “For good or ill, there’s no maximum flight time, yet. They’re talking about it. But as fast as I put you down, I’m off on another sortie. You can owe me when you get back.”
“You like shrimp?”
“Love it,” Tom said, grinning. “But honestly, anything will do. We had a bunch of food just sitting around the house when we Transferred. But there was a reason most of it was just sitting around.”
Americans, at least, had tended to have stored food built up in pantries. Homeland Security estimated that the average US household had upwards of three months of food on hand in the event of a crashing emergency. That was a large part of the trade that was going on in places like Market Square. But it was also what people were eating to avoid print food.
The issue with print food was vitamins. The robots, lacking tastebuds, had included enough vitamins in the print-food base that no matter what someone ate or how much, they would get a full daily dose of vitamins.
The problem was that most vitamins tasted like hell. So even if you asked for a slice of bread, it tasted like chewing a multivitamin tablet. Not to mention it only vaguely resembled bread.
Many of the Third Worlders on the station thought the US contingent complained too much. It was food. It was nearly free. That was enough to ask.
The US, and to a lesser extent the European, contingent wanted real food and right now!
While preparing, Jason had been vaguely watching the one channel currently available. A debate on the subject between Senator Vega from Texas and Senator Pranay from Hindia had illuminated the difference.
“I don’t wish to call Americans spoiled,” Senator Pranay had said tactfully. “But for most people who are from countries such as India, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, which comprises many of my constituents, we are simply glad that we have food. That is not something guaranteed in many countries. That it is not the best taste is something that we can ignore for the time being. It will take time to get agriculture started on the planet. Until then, we thank God or your gods for what we have.”
“And that, right there, is why the United States became one of the leaders of the world on Old Earth,” Vega responded. “We thank God for what we have. But we don’t just accept what we’re given. We find ways to get what we want, without taking from others. We create. We envision. We build. We do what it takes to change things for the better. And there’s no such thing as ‘good enough,’ no such thing as ‘too much’ no such thing as ‘too comfortable,’ to a red-blooded American. It’s sort of a joke about Texans that we like three things: big trucks, big guns and big-titted women. I’ll add beer to that list and the fact that that is in short supply cannot be allowed!
“Call it greedy, call it spoiled, call it too addicted to comfort and ease, call it whatever you’d like. The US contingent sees nothing but opportunities and we’re going to take them. And everyone else is going to benefit from that.
“Eventually, most are going to agree with our take. In two or three generations this will be the most productive system of all the systems. The system that generates the most IP. The system that generates the most food, without destroying the planet. The system that is the most comfortable, the most at ease and, if I get my way, the best defended. Because if we can contact the other systems, other systems are going to look at us and want what we’ve built.
“That’s the real issue of the future.”
* * *
“You ever taken a ride around to the breach?” Jason asked as they approached the shell.
“Had to,” Tom replied, touching a control. “I think every pilot’s taken the time and the expense. It’s mind-boggling.”
The ten-kilometer port that had looked like a dot on exit appeared to be expanding as they approached. Bellerophon was clearly visible: they were currently viewing its dark side. The massive Pallas Ocean was in view and Jason suddenly tasted salt water and smelt salt spray. He was finally on his way to a new world.