Starship thrive, p.28
Starship Thrive, page 28
part #4 of Thrive Space Colony Series
His mouth fell open in astonishment. Cope hadn’t expected to actually build that ship. The money necessary to – He leaned forward over the desk to retrieve those spreadsheets.
Abel blanked them. “No, buddy,” he said in a pained tone. “We invest our know-how, our time and lives and genius. We draw salary. And we make profits along the way. We find other investors to put up the capital. We rent or buy a clunker to put into the ring trade. Bottom line, Cope, my partner Sass is buying me out. I need a new partner. Team up with me. We stay on Mahina and raise our kids and build a future here. For them.”
“Yes.”
“You need time to think about it, and talk it over with –”
“No, I don’t.”
Abel’s smile grew into a blaze, then dampened slightly. “Sass is going to offer Ben your job. Chief engineer.”
“She might,” Cope allowed. “He’d be a fool to take it. If he takes third officer again, he’s still a fool. Because we’d make him a captain instead. And I plan to marry him.”
Abel rose and drew him into a manly handshake-and-hug. “Partners. We have a thousand more things to talk about. A million. For years and years!”
“You know it!”
Abel drew back and asked as an after-thought, “Third officer?”
“Clay will be Sass’s first mate. They might find a business manager to replace you. But they don’t need the money. And those two never make a decision trying to make a profit. Unlike us.”
“She has been so frustrating that way,” Abel agreed. “And I was a novice. But I’ve learned a lot. Come up with a salary figure for me, OK? Have you looked at Schuyler real estate now? Prices are skyrocketing. Factor that in.”
“Abel, I don’t know what to say. Like you’ve taken me to the top of the high mountain, and told me the kingdom was mine.”
“You said yes,” Abel reminded him.
Cope laughed. “I meant thank you. And yes!”
“Don’t tell Ben until Sass and I have our chance at him, OK? The money, the offers, they’re his in his own right. Not as your side-kick.”
“Absolutely.”
Rather than stretch Cope’s restraint to the breaking point, Sass and Abel repeated their pitches to Ben Acosta right away.
His interview with Sass lasted longer. She could see how much he longed for Sanctuary, to continue on past the limits of sad Aloha, into infinity. Cope was the Mahina revolutionary, and supplied the can-do. Ben was the starry eyed adventurer.
But as she predicted, he could not say yes.
Abel made him feel much better with his offer of a captaincy. The young man, not quite graduated from college, aped a swoon off the desk at his estimated payout on the profit share. He left happy indeed, and thrilled to invent the Thrive Company with Abel and Cope.
Sass would miss them so much her heart ached.
But not yet. They hadn’t even reached Mahina yet. Preparing for Sanctuary would take months. Though not years – Clay would growl if she dawdled. She needed to visit Hell’s Bells with the 3rd gen drive, and recruit her new crew. She’d have time to watch the birthing of Abel’s new venture and say their good byes at leisure.
She and Clay had plenty of time.
43
Aurora picked at her clothing, draped from neck to wrists and ankles. She took her place among the Denali delegation waiting in the hold for the cargo door to open. The long journey was at an end. Hundreds awaited them outside on the fused grey rock of the spaceport.
As the lead Denali, she selected Schuyler for their reception, and requested Sagamores as well as Mahinans for their welcoming committee.
That ramp would open with no airlock, no breath masks. There were no trees. The spaceport flat-top was immense, and beyond it mushroom-colored buildings on a regolith background, a dead landscape lit by an enormous striped planet in the dark sky. She blew out softly between pursed lips. She missed her bakkra in anxious moments.
Kassidy stepped to her side, flashing that dazzling smile. “This is it – woot! I will have camera drones on you, but so will every other news outlet. Welcome to Mahina!”
“Thank you, Kassidy,” Sass murmured, displacing her. “Ready, Aurora?”
No, Aurora thought. But Quire and Reza and Zan nodded bravely beside her. Not an official delegate, Teke would stick with Copeland and Ben today. She steeled her resolve. “Ready.”
Sass nodded to Abel, who punched the button. The ramp began to lower.
Their first waft of Mahina fresh air hit the Denalis. Whose faces crumpled in revulsion. That air was so dry Aurora could feel it suck the life from her skin. And cold! And dusty, and it reeked of something caustic. Quire bent over gagging. Reza held his nose. Zan stood stoic, but his eyes watered.
“This doesn’t require a breath mask?” Aurora demanded.
“You get used to it,” Sass consoled her. “Don’t forget your sunscreen. You did ask for Schuyler instead of the domes of Mahina Actual.”
The ramp settled. Wilder and Cortez exited first, armed, and fanned out to its bottom front corners to make clear that the ship was off-limits to the crowd. Local security forces squared off against them. Then Kassidy took a running start and somersaulted, then cartwheeled, to land in a deep split curtsy. “I’m back, Mahina! Come on, Dad!” She laughed aloud. “My father, Dr. Michael Yang, pre-eminent medical nanite engineer, recently of Denali!”
Kassidy continued as announcer as they exited the ship. The crowd cheered for the two scientists, then Ben and Copeland and the young stowaway. Copeland swooped up and swung his young child high through the air, to peals of giggles. Ben took a turn hurling the infant as well.
Abel and Jules strode out to take their bows and were swallowed by a family reunion. They hastened off to meet their babies, who awaited in a creche. Too young to expose to the awful air, no doubt.
Sass turned and nodded respect to Aurora. “Time.”
Kassidy called out, “Our beloved Captain Sassafras Collier, and Clay Rocha!” Sass and Clay strode out. They gave a dignified nod, to enthusiastic applause. They parted to either side, each extending an arm to beckon forth the Denalis.
Aurora raised her chin and stepped forth. She forgot her grav generator, and bounced at the threshold. Mahina would take some getting used to. At least she had friends.
“Come in, come in!” Jules met Ben and Cope at the door of a huge house in an upscale neighborhood, only a 10 minute walk from the Schuyler trucking docks. She clapped her hands in excitement and bounced on her toes. “What do you think?”
Copeland laughed out loud. “A bit out of our price range, I think.” They’d been looking all day. They hadn’t accomplished much beyond sore feet. Cope hated to rely on one of Schuyler’s planned radial rails, sure that most nights he’d miss the last train. And those weren’t even running yet, so he’d miss the last hayride.
But they despaired of finding anything better than a flophouse within a reasonable walk of the spaceport. Now they were talking powered bicycles, the kind with balloon tires for the outer regolith gravel roads, with a wagon for Nico and shopping.
Schuyler was growing like crazy. The housing supply couldn’t keep up. Ben quipped that maybe they should drop engineering and build an apartment high-rise.
Cope hoped he was joking. Of all the things the revolutionary aspired to, landlord rated down there with prison guard and urb militia – traitor to his cause. But his partner’s idealism veered in other directions.
“How are you going to fill all this, Jules?” Ben asked. The living room floor seemed bigger than Thrive’s cargo hold. Though perhaps that was simply a lack of furniture.
Jules drew them around the corner to find Abel measuring in the kitchen. He turned with a grin. “How are you finding the housing market?”
“Overpriced,” said Ben. “Almost tempted to switch our plans to Mahina Actual.”
Copeland growled, “Schuyler is my home town!”
Jules snuggled under Abel’s arm, eyebrows raised. Abel pointedly looked around his mansion. “Cheaper with two families.”
“Work together and live together?” Ben asked.
Jules started bouncing again in excitement. “That’s the perfect part! We’ve been living and working together since I was 15!”
She was a sophisticated 17 now, and the mother of two. A brochure for a Basics of Infant Care class lay on the kitchen island. Cope picked it up to glance at the syllabus. He and his wife never had that.
Abel pointed out, “Could share one company shuttle.”
“Come see the back yard for the kids!” Jules tugged Copeland out to a yard of posh proportions, already sporting mature hay grass, spruce, and aspen, all three available species of landscape plant.
Or no – Eli’s scrubber trees made it out into the wild. Copeland investigated and picked a sticky fig in wonder, from a very young tree. He bit into it. Yes, every bit as awful as Sass’s olives and grapefruit. He spit it out and laughed.
“OK, Abel’s going to buy this house no matter what,” Cope joked. “Financial ruin be damned.”
Jules agreed. “You know how much we love the scrubber trees! Especially in the city.” She made a show of sniffing the figs. “And I thought you might want to build a play scape for Nico by the greenhouse.”
Abel and Ben paused in the fancy French doors. No bugs or pseudo-pterodactyls pestered a Mahina household. Half the living room simply opened onto the back yard. They could even have pets.
“How many bedrooms?” Cope asked, drifting slowly inside through another pair of doors.
“Seven,” Abel replied, leading the way. “Four in the wing I thought of for you. The double garage in back belongs to the house, for tools and vehicles. A big enough driveway to park a flyer or two.”
Cope followed him through the proposed four rooms, one enormous and three small, each with its own bath. “Your Dad’s room,” he pointed out to Ben. “Teke. And the nursery. Unless you want the nursery in your wing, Jules?”
“You don’t want Nico to have his own room?” Jules replied in surprise.
Cope shook his head slowly. “Staying with us overnight is a holiday. The kids should bunk together for now. Family.”
“Family,” Abel agreed, with a grin. “Extra rooms are for guests. Lots of guests.”
Copeland shared a long glance with Ben, who replied, “We can split up later if we want. But if we’re having such trouble finding a place –”
“Yeah, what about our employees?” Cope asked Abel.
Jules answered. “Oh, I bought an apartment building,. A block of townhouses with a lovely courtyard in the middle. I’ll make a mint off rent, I bet!”
Abel beamed at his young wife proudly.
Copeland consoled himself that at least it wasn’t him becoming a landlord. “Alright. We’d love to. Let’s talk numbers.”
Eli wandered into his lab first thing when he reached Mahina Actual again. He hadn’t kept an apartment in the city, just a storage locker somewhere. He should find that sometime, he supposed, but his lab had a couch to sleep on.
This low-prestige lab was a good 20 minute walk from the MA front doors, banished to the outer reaches of official indifference. As the doors sighed closed behind him, Eli noted again just how claustrophobic and sterile the windowless place was, for a group dedicated to landscape plants.
A grad student, lounging at a terminal, rocketed to her feet in horror. “Sir! Dr. Rasmussen sir!” A few others lurked in side labs, but it was the weekend.
Eli frowned at the unfamiliar young woman. “You are –?”
“Ah, I’m on rotation –”
“Good.” Eli didn’t stop to chat. He continued to his office, its door hanging open for the convenience of the cleaning robots that scuttled through. He leaned on the jamb, utterly repulsed by his chair and work displays. His most coveted equipment had long since gone walkabout. Actually, come to think of it, his best stuff he’d stolen to take with him on Thrive.
“Uh, Ms…” he hailed the grad student.
“Trudy Gallagher,” she supplied hopefully, and scurried to join him.
“Trudy. How many trees do we have in the warehouse?”
“Only saplings are left, sir. Everything over age two years is transplanted out to settler communities.”
Eli nodded thoughtfully. “Why are we here, Ms. Gallagher?”
Trudy was sadly accustomed to philosophical pop quizzes from professors. “Our lab mission is to fill Mahina’s primary productivity niche to support a richer ecosystem.” Safe answer – the framed mission statement was by the door. “I’m very excited to –”
“Do you see any reason that mission should be located at the ass end of the MA science wing?”
Perhaps Trudy sensed this was a trick question. “We participate fully in the scientific mission and rich educational facilities of Mahina University. Um, I’m a grad student.”
“I’ve never met you before in my life, have I, Trudy?”
“No, sir. But I’m eager to –”
“Skip it, Trudy. I hate suck-ups. Not my point.” At last propelled by an intriguing question, Eli slipped into his chair – well, someone else’s broken chair swapped in, anyway. Two years, after all. If his name plate was still on the door, then no one else wanted the space.
He brought up a display which tracked progress at turning Mahina green, and zoomed into the area around Schuyler. He found another schematic of the landscape water lines, the main pipes that towns and farms tapped into. Schuyler itself was too expensive for what he had in mind, but – Yes. Halfway between the city and some ville named Castaway was a water pumping station, with no settlement.
“How do you feel about relocating to WPS-816, Trudy?” he asked.
She peered into the satellite image. “There’s nothing there but regolith, Dr. Rasmussen.”
He smiled. “I’m sure your rotation will be over before we get everything on site.”
“But I hope to join your lab, sir. It’s my dream to –”
“No suck-ups, Trudy,” he reminded her. “My name is Eli, not sir. Your new assignment is to help determine the minimum necessary luggage at this new location to be effective. More effective than here. That shouldn’t take much.”
“You mean, live out on the regolith?”
“That is what we’re terraforming, after all. Not this damned corridor.”
“But there aren’t any bathrooms!”
“Excellent insight. Please use the whiteboard. Instead of screeching in my ear.” Eli tamped a grin as the kid got her analytical brain into gear and started jotting a high-level task list.
Not bad, he judged. Trudy might be a keeper.
44
Sass followed Clay through the throng clogging the downtown plaza of Mahina Actual, well air-conditioned in the heat of Dusk afternoon, a few hours before sunset. Atlas Pratt offered to sign them into the city. This freed a couple tickets for Josiah and Hunter Burke to attend.
Mahina University had never invited settlers to their graduation ceremony before. Yet another in a long litany of firsts which Sass trusted would be commonplace within the decade.
She spotted her crew and joined them, bending down to shake a very somber Nico’s hand. He’d turn three soon. She got Copeland home in time for that birthday.
And for this. Ben Acosta would accept his bachelor’s degree today. The seniors began to file in solemnly, wearing their cheap robes and mortarboards. Dr. Acosta, his dad, plucked Nico up in excitement. “See? There’s daddy Ben!”
Nico scowled. Sass didn’t blame him. Spotting anyone in this crowd was tough.
“Where’s your other daddy, Nico?” Sass looked to the dentist for an answer.
He shrugged, looking supremely unimpressed with his son-in-law-to-be. Missing Ben’s graduation was inexcusable. The entire graduating class postponed the ceremony for two months so that their most famous classmate could participate.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Cope murmured, edging through the crowd. “Surprise!”
Abel and Jules grinned at his outfit, in on the secret. Copeland wore cap and gown as well, though of the same dark green as the faculty, instead of the Mahina mushroom drab of the undergrads.
“See, Nico, I’ve got a tassel, too!” The engineer dangled his gold cord for the toddler’s amusement. “I’d take him from you, Nathan. But I’m not sure when I get called up. Wave to Ben, Nico!”
Ben spotted them, then ran into the settler girl just ahead of him in line. He straightened that out, with laughing apologies. Then Ben turned back to mime throttling his partner. Cope grinned.
“Master’s degree?” Sass asked. “Really? And Ben didn’t know?”
“Certified professional engineer,” Copeland shared shyly. “It’s a faculty role. Part of the deal.”
“Practically a PhD,” Eli clarified, and claimed his hand to shake. “Wow! Impressed as hell.”
“When you took over Thrive the other day,” Clay guessed, “that was this?”
The practical engineering faculty lived the word ‘practical.’ For an open book exam, they tested Copeland in situ in his familiar workplace. Since his own wasn’t up and running yet, he spent 4 hours working problems from his seat at Thrive’s engineering console. After lunch, the group reconvened in the galley for a grueling oral examination, which he passed with flying colors.
Sass and Clay hosted the delighted faculty judges. Sass had her fingers crossed that Darren Markley, Cope’s advisor, might take the bait. While Cope sweat his book exam, Markley toured all the new challenging bits of Thrive his protege had shared with him by video over the past 18 months. Markley looked green with envy, and hinted that his wife, a nurse practitioner, would love a tour as well. He also confided that they were both eager for new challenges, their kids grown and established in their careers. Sass invited them both for dinner on Glow.
