April 5: A Depth of Understanding (4 page)

"I am. I already considered that. Some of my friends and I have been down to relax and enjoy the open spaces and the sun. We spent some days on an unpopulated atoll and swam and dove. We're from Home."

"Ah, your country has a special relationship with Tonga. I understand most of the freight lifting from here goes to Home. That's why we have so many Japanese lately, though I have to say we seem to get along with them better than the Chinese. We kicked most of
them
out in my grandfather's time."

"The Japanese built our habitat," April told him. "My father manages the physical structure for them. But I am also a resident of Central on the moon and if we can only get it sorted out to your King's satisfaction, we'll have Tongan residents there too."

"Are you a subject of the new Queen that we hear about on the moon? I was shocked to hear of a new monarchy. Earth seems to be discarding their royalty, which we Tongans are not ready to do. They may not be perfect, but we see them as stable, unlike the mob rule some places."

"She hasn't used the word queen in my hearing, but the young lady in the teal shirt is the sovereign of whom you're speaking. The young man with her and I and are close friends, business associates and by her word, her peers." She laid it on thick, hoping it helped the price if he was fond of royalty. She didn't mention she was upset Heather didn't drop the sovereignty after she felt it had served its purpose and still had a hard time accepting she was Dame Lewis. She still found occasion to give Heather a hard time about the concept of royalty and titles..

"That's good. Most of the mats of this quality are owned by the royal family. I am happier knowing it would be preserved and not allowed to deteriorate like it could in a common house."

"I had in mind to put it on  my wall, with other fine art."

"You might seek help from a museum archivist, to hang it so it doesn't get bent and distorted over time."

That was good that he was talking like she already owned it.

"My home is in half gravity, it will only weigh half as much as usual here, so that helps to preserve it too."

He got the oddest amused look. "Don't you fairly bounce off the ground if you weigh so little? I'm trying to imagine it, but it seems odd."

"You do step differently and dancing has a much wider range, but you learn to shuffle along quickly and sleeping is much easier when it feels like you are floating on your back."

"That must be a marvel. I doubt I'll ever get up to experience it. If you think the tapa suitable for your home, I'd offer it to you at thirty thousand dollars USNA, or twenty eight thousand EuroMarks and an introduction to your sovereign."

"Sure I'd be happy to do that, I'm April Lewis, what is your name?"

"I'm Papahi Fetu Helu."

"Heather?" April waved her over and she came with Jeff following along. "Heather Anderson, this is Papahi Feta Helu. He is aware of Central and your declaring sovereignty, he asked to be introduced. We may do some business together. This is Jeff Singh also."

"Mr. Helu, a pleasure," Heather declared and offered her hand.

He hesitated and looked surprised, if not shocked. "That is permitted? We may not touch the King in Tonga."

"We are of a different custom," Heather assured him. "It is not offensive at all."

"Thank you," he took her hand like he might break it and gave it a single gentle pump. "I am honored and glad to see your family too," he added, including April and Jeff in his glance.

"We were close long before she founded Central," Jeff added smoothly. It was unusually social for Jeff.

"I could see that from your faces. You never look away long before you check to see where each other are," he said, with obvious approval.

Well, I never knew I did that, the old boy is perceptive.
April thought.

"I'd be happy to have the tapa in my home," April assured him. "Dollars or EM it doesn't matter. Which would you like?" she asked pulling her pad out. She liked it too much to dicker.

"Ah, well Tongans don't use credit much," he said regretfully, "Just the big resorts and airlines and such. We have pretty much a cash economy. I'd send you to a bank, but you might have trouble getting that much cash without arranging it well ahead of time."

"Perhaps you'd accept this?" Jeff asked and handed him a gold Solar coin.

Papahi frowned, unsure what this strange object was and then jerked like it burned his hand.

"Ah, I'd like to, but you must not be aware gold bullion and coins are forbidden to us on Tonga. We can own gold jewelry, but it is tightly regulated and hard to find anything for less than double the cost of the metal, three times for small items like rings and earrings. I suggest you keep that in your pocket so some excessively law abiding person doesn't report it," he said, handing it back.

"I saw a jewelry store back a ways," Jeff remembered. "Might the jeweler buy this so we could trade?"

"Yes, but it will get reported. And it may make my sale come to the attention of the authorities. Most of our business is cash for a reason," he said.

"Oh, OK I understand," Jeff said. Cluing up that there were tax issues. "I think I might have a solution. Barak, there is a fellow back a few stalls selling tools. Would you please go back and buy a center punch or a screw set, an awl or an ice pick and a hammer?" He went over to Tara and had a few words and Tara took off back the way they'd come.

They stood chatting comfortably with the merchant about life on the island and life on Home, finding plenty to talk about. Barak got back first.

Jeff put the coin on top of a post marking the stall corner and picked a point in the plain area of sky on the front face art work. A smart strike of the center punch left a conical indention with a raised rim. He switched to the awl and drove it in further and he wiggled it loose and struck it a few more times. When he had a bump on the reverse side he used the punch there and switched back and forth until he had a hole through the coin, with a bevel leading into the hole on both faces. The gold was just displaced, not removed, so it retained its weight.

Tara got back while Jeff was finishing up and handed Jeff a small package when he was done. Jeff removed a very thin gold necklace, about a half meter long. The ends had a lobster clasp and a thin jump ring on the other end to engage it.

The ring wouldn't fit through the hole, so Jeff put the ring over the point of the awl. He pulled a small case of dental tape from his pocket and looped a double thickness through the same ring. Pushing the awl in the post to anchor it he pulled on the floss until the ring was bent oval shaped. It fit through the hole now.

Jeff, fished the chain through the hole, forced the awl in the jump ring further to force it round again, fastened the chain closed and offered it to the tapa merchant. "Would you take this gold chain and decorative pendant in trade Papahi? If you can trade it for double the spot price or more, it's twenty-five grams, worth considerably more than you asked."

"I believe you'd say, that's a deal," Papahi said, taking the 'jewelry' and hanging it out of sight under his shirt. "I just need to get a shipping address for Pilinsesi April, then I'll package this up securely and send it along to you."

Walking back to the hotel April asked Lin. "What did Mr. Helu call me back there? "

"Pilinsesi? It means Princess. I'm not sure their titles of nobility translate across well, but he said it very seriously. I'm sure he meant it as an expression of respect."

Heather held it in as well as she could. But every once in awhile April could hear a giggle escape back there. She ignored it.

Chapter 3

They had to get up early to pack, have breakfast and still make their shuttle. None of them were concerned about skipping eating for a shuttle ride. Most of them would take the pill for insurance and not worry. April and Heather could have skipped it, but taking it was easier than telling the boarding agents they hadn't. They never believed anybody who said they didn't get sick.

The hotel room service was expensive and limited, so they stopped at another local restaurant. It served more natives than travelers, was reasonable and the corned beef hash was wonderful. Their waitress however was ditzy, slow and made them rush to make their flight.

Their  shuttle was a Mitsubishi and April was surprised to see it looked
old
. She was accustomed to most things around her looking new, until she expected it without a second thought. Something like a landing shuttle tended to become obsolete before it wore out. It would be cut up and scrapped and the stuff like electronics sent to be hand disassembled for gold and copper, the subassemblies would be shredded to an almost confetti fine consistency for recovery.

Their war with North America was a couple years back, but it was probably still forcing extended service from older shuttles. They had destroyed most every small shop in North America that made the critical components like special tires and Bucky foam shapes. You could throw up an assembly building pretty fast, but getting all the pieces made again wasn't near as easy. Europe, Russia and Japan had picked up what they could, but half the shuttles in service had been American. She'd helped remove a couple from service herself, rather abruptly.

There were two staggered seats to a side, three rows deep, separated by a very narrow aisle. The head was on the left, straight in from the lock and extra space between the right hand seats and the front bulkhead was the entry from the lock. It made the front right seats the most luxurious, uncrowded with extra foot room, something Gunny appreciated.

Gunny picked the first row aisle seat and planted himself in it, isolating April against the port, but leaving her first access to the lock, not that it meant very much with no pressure suits. Jeff and Heather sat behind, Jeff giving Heather the port seat when asked. Barak took the front port seat on the other side of the aisle. He was looking around with a dubious expression that said he felt the vessel belonged in a museum with stage coaches and steam locomotives.

After she fastened her carry on by her seat she came back up and looked for a manufacturer's tag near the lock. It wasn't in the entry, but beside the hatch to the flight deck. Instead of a peel and stick plastic card it was an aluminum plate, riveted to the bulkhead, with the model / date / build all stamped in the blanks. The numbers were placed carefully, but still crooked enough you could tell they'd been done with a hand held stamp and hammer, not a machine engraver.

The vessel was two years older than April. In space ships that was ancient. There was a clean spot on the bulkhead where an older intercom to the flight crew had been removed. The greenish phosphate covering was worn away next to it, where a thousand times a hand had braced there to press the call bar and the holes were filled in by putting new rivets in them. Above that patch was a new intercom with a twenty five centimeter screen and no switches or visible speaker grill, just the tiny circle of a camera lens and an audio jack. It displayed a virtual call button in one corner. The crew left it defaulted to off, not sharing a view of the flight stations.

There were shiny spots where the anodizing was worn off around the hatch collar, because a hand or a foot always went to one spot coming through the hatch. Recessed in the hatch ribbing was a small stick on white board, with dates and initials for the last time the seal was replaced, or the hinges lubricated and checked for free play.

About a year ago C.J. had written: Last service – retiring and then after initialing it drew not a smiley face, but a little devil with horns. The three entries after that in a different hand were attributed to D.M. and the center one had a few Japanese characters. April assumed there were more permanent records somewhere, but it was interesting.

The acceleration couch she returned to had seen better days too. The cushion edge where you slid on and off was slumped and didn't spring back to its full shape. The plastic caps to the arm rests had the texture worn off until it was shiny. Nothing was unserviceable and nothing was dirty, but at a glance you knew it wasn't new, like looking in the door of a ten year old ground car. It also lacked any trace of the distinctive smell of a new ground car or spaceship.

A group of three men were at the lock, so April sat back in her seat to clear the narrow aisle. It felt weird now, to not have the frame of a Singh acceleration compensator close overhead when on the couch. That made her wonder if Jeff had a timeline to sell them for commercial shuttles. She'd have to ask him.

The first fellow in the lock was young with close cut hair and dark spex. He was dressed in belted Khaki pants and a golf shirt. He wore Earthie style cross-trainer shoes, rather than the lighter more flexible versions station dwellers would favor. You couldn't see his eye movements, but from how he held his head he was scanning the passenger compartment to the back corners. The fellow behind him was older and not typical. He was skinny with long hair formed in a loose braid with loose bits sticking out all messy. He had bare arms, heavily frowned upon in North America now as well as Tonga and they were covered in bright tattoos, which made them a double social error. The man behind him was a clone of the first.

"Excuse me, would you please clear this front row? He said to April and Gunny. "I'd like to put my man right by the lock and sit beside him for security purposes."

"That's why she's in that seat," Gunny informed him. "I'm
her
security."

The fellow's mouth scowled, but made a silent sign to the rearmost and they turned and went back outside.

"Wow, does that mean they aren’t going to fly if he can't sit here?" April asked.

"Nah, they are going to go ask the carrier to assign seats and force us in the back corner. I'm pretty sure 'first come first served' is a hard set company policy. They will offer to sell them tickets for a later lift if they want to line up early and have the first choice of seats."

Sure enough, ten minutes later they came back in, carefully didn't look at Gunny and went to the rear of the side opposite, putting their charge in the rear port seat. One sat beside him and one in front. The young guys seemed unhappy, but the tattooed man was unruffled.