April 8: It's Always Something (27 page)

"The Queen?" her grandpa asked, squinting a little. Did he think this all fanciful? Did he think it funny? Maybe just some sort of role-playing game?

"I've heard her called Queen of the Moon," April admitted, "but she's never styled herself that way. The French and the USNA have sites too you know. She doesn't dictate to them."

Her grandpa did look disbelieving, or at least very dubious.

"So are you a
subject
?" he asked a bit distastefully, "or are you still a citizen of Home?"

"There's no barrier to being both," April assured him. "Heather herself is a citizen of Home and votes in the Assembly. I'm a peer by her word, as is Jeff. She's named about a dozen peers." She wasn't sure at all how being Australian would affect his views on those matters.

"So, you're sworn to her?" he asked. "Monarchies are kind of going out of style."

"No, we didn't have the ceremony," April said. "Though I've seen it."

April had never actually thought about it before, but it made perfect sense.

"We were peers and sworn to each other long before she ever declared her sovereignty. That was something that came up as a bit of an emergency. She'd sold land to people from Armstrong and they were fleeing to Central with USNA forces in pursuit to force them back. The refugees wanted her to intervene, but she was reluctant to engage them without some greater authority than she felt she possessed. Well one of them knelt and offered to swear to her if she'd protect them."

"What does 'engage them' mean?" Her grandpa asked. Skeptically. She was sure of it now.

"She let the refugees go on to Central and waited there. When the USNA rovers came into sight she laid an artillery barrage on them and destroyed them."

Her grandpa looked at her hard and allowed a considerable silence.

"Why haven't I heard anything about this?" he asked.

"You just did," April pointed out. "You told me moments ago how useless the talking heads are on the telly. Would you really expect to hear it from
them
?"

That produced a flicker of doubt, but April was pretty sure it was all too much for him to believe. And he was the reasonable one she'd made sure to speak with instead of her grandma. She excused herself and disconnected, perhaps a little abruptly, but politely. She was afraid she'd say something unkind. If she'd told the same story to her grandmother she was pretty sure the woman would think a psychological evaluation was in order, because she'd think April delusional. They both had a hard time imagining anything outside their personal experience, or what the telly told them, no matter his disclaimer of talking heads. That didn't include revolution and exploding spaceships, not even in fiction.

Her mom and dad had been trying to get them to come to Home for years. This conversation today convinced April that was a lost cause, and they'd never be persuaded to leave their comfortable familiar surroundings. If her parents wanted to keep pushing that they could, but April resolved never to mention it again. It made her a little sad, they would likely never get Life Extension Therapy, but it wasn't anything she could change.

* * *

"My grandpa indicated the Australians may be softening on the basis of one news report," April told Jeff. "I think that's far too thin a datum upon which to draw any conclusions. His advice was to ignore the broad public opinion and concern ourselves with the government stance. He was unusually blunt in saying the one forms the other, not the reverse. He may have a point, but I'd suggest you hire a news clipping service to watch for negative and positive keywords in Australian stories about space. I did
not
have a good conversation with him, so I don't want to keep checking back and asking his opinion again."

"I thought you talked to him because you didn't get along as well with your grandmother?"

"You're right. But it still didn't go...great. He scoffed at the news programs he sees, but obviously didn't believe what I told him any better. He even said he would censor what he said to her to exclude the fact I mentioned
you
. He said she gets an unhappy face when you are mentioned. That upsets
me
. I hate this attitude I'm a delicate little flower and you, or anybody else, may take advantage of me. I'm grown up damn it!"

"I wouldn't assume you're at the center of this problem," Jeff said. He had this sad look April didn't understand. She just looked at him quizzically.

Jeff sighed, heavily. "
You
usually teach
me
social things. But this is an area in which I have more experience. Your grandparents are older and more thoroughly immersed in Earth Think. The Australians are still basically an English culture, not just the language..."

He looked at April but could see she still wasn't making any connection.

"They may have a very hard time accepting you have an Indian boyfriend," he finally said bluntly.

April's mouth was actually hanging open.

"I'm rather dark too," Jeff elaborated, "obviously not black, but not sufficiently
white
either. I doubt anyone would mistake me for Italian, or call me swarthy. Some folks have told me I look like a full blooded Native American to them, but that's silly, I've seen photos and the shape of my face is all wrong, they're just looking at the superficial color."

"You're beautiful!" April objected. "Coppery, like one of the pennies Jon collects! I can't believe that would matter to anyone."

"It's a pretty common...opinion actually," Jeff said, matter-of-fact. Refusing to even call it a prejudice, or get emotional about it. "They probably look at me and smell curry. You know the English got upset at Kipling for saying, "’E was white, clear white, inside." Of Gunga Din. Then he made it worse by saying he could be a better man than a Englishman. The attitude still lingers.

"Ask Ruby about how she and Easy have been treated trying to vacation on Earth," Jeff said. "You can make people act a certain way with laws, but you can't change how they
feel
. In honesty, even on Home I occasionally see a certain unguarded look that I recognize. It makes me doubt what feelings certain people harbor on the matter."

"You know, Ruby did tell me a little about that, but it's been years and I haven't thought about it until you made me remember. Of course, they're black, and that was North America."

Jeff just tilted his head, and gave a questioning look, like...
So?

"Yeah, same cultural roots," April acknowledged. "I thought maybe they were sternly disapproving that we haven't married. Not that I'd ask you to satisfy what they think proper. But then I'd feel obligated to ask Heather too and that would probably make their heads explode..."

Jeff was laughing so hard it shut April right up.

When he finally ran down to where he could speak, he wiped away the tears and smiled.

"
You
asking
me
, instead of the other way around, would be entirely sufficient to make their heads explode," Jeff said, illustrating on his own head with his hands. "Marrying below your class is
much
worse than your granddaughter merely having an embarrassing boyfriend. That's just a temporary embarrassment. Add in the complexities of our loving Heather, the weird woman from the moon who thinks herself a sovereign, and I can almost guarantee you'll be able to see the flash of their outrage exploding from orbit."

April felt like she should be indignant, but she found herself snickering at Jeff's word picture.

"Very well. I think we've established there will be no pleasing them, so I'll stop worrying about it. If there's always something hidden and unmentionable, we can't have an honest discussion. They have my com number any time they want to call," April decided.

"Don't hold your breath," Jeff advised her. "It's a talk they'll avoid, because it isn't about facts, it's about how they feel, and it's not terribly defensible if you say it out loud. It isn't really acceptable to express those sort of feeling openly down there either, so they get covered up where they still exist."

"This is about how I feel too," April objected. "Are my feelings any less valid than theirs?"

"I'd say how you feel is much kinder," Jeff said. Which was just the right thing to say.

* * *

"We lucked out," Chen informed Li.

"You leaked Singh's intentions and didn't get caught?"

"Better. He casually spilled the beans on himself to a major investor. The guy chewed him out up one side and down the other for being an irresponsible risk taker. I'm relieved. If I did leak it and he found out five years from now he still wouldn't forgive me. Trying to manage your boss is a dangerous hobby. Better in hindsight, and all the relief I felt, to have had this issue out with him honestly.

"Hmm. Perhaps you are right. Although it seems an excessive obsession with honesty."

"Li, keep that up and you won't have to worry about Singh.
I
won't trust you."

He disconnected to let him think on that a bit.

Chapter 19

"Mr. Singh, I'm Gary Morgan. I'm an executive assistant to the Coordinator of Legislation for the Australian Prosperity Party."

"Good evening Mr. Morgan." Jeff considered his title. The man must be at least four layers down in the structure of a minor party. It didn't seem like this could be too important for them to send him to speak for them. "I don't wish to offend you, but I'm unfamiliar with all the political parties in Australia. So I can't speak intelligently with you on any issues. I'm simply not aware of your party's principles nor membership. With that in mind what can I do for you?"

Morgan waved that away as unimportant. He didn't seem offended. "I understand. There are seventy two political parties in Australia and
I'm
not fully conversant with the ideals of every one. It only takes five hundred registered members to have a party recognized, and some of them, like the Free Beer Party, have obviously been formed simply to tweak the noses of the major ones, the Liberals and Labor."

"Ah...that's interesting. Our own Assembly accepts spokesmen for certain interest groups, but they only need two hundred members. It's mostly to cut down on unnecessarily long Assembly meetings because they agree to consolidate their proposals and have one spokesman instead of all of them speaking individually. The individual members still vote and can introduce other issues. Indeed they are not forbidden from voting against their own representative if they have internal conflict or some other spox persuades them."

"That's...amazing," Morgan said, looking thoughtful. "How many such groups bother to organize and exist if they have no real power?"

"We are nearing four thousand citizens, and last time I looked there were only three," Jeff admitted. "Of course several have existed and then split over some issue and been unable to gain two hundred members again."

"What sort of issues are represented?" Morgan asked.

"Well, you know how people are...every Assembly has fresh issues raised. It's always something. The one theme that seems persistent is from the Freedom Party. Most of us refer to it as the Moocher Party. They wish any resident to have automatic citizenship and a vote in the Assembly without paying utility and maintenance fees. They come from places where it was acceptable to live on the government dole and air really was free, not to mention a few see water and power as human rights. They mistakenly think Mitsubishi should
be
the government and supply cubic and utilities free. Except for a hard core of maybe a half dozen people most members withdraw in the first year after they see how things really work. The party recruits very aggressively with new arrivals. If immigration ever slows down they will drop under two hundred and go away."

"Well of course, we all have to pay taxes," Morgan said, shocked.

"Not taxes," Jeff corrected. "Taxes are cheap and voluntary. Mitsubishi is a private company that owns the physical structure of the habitat. A lot of people rent directly from the corporation, and everybody pays a quarterly fee for air, water, power and keeping the public airlocks, dockage and balance systems working. Taxes only pay for internal security, a coordinator and gear for the militia. That's much cheaper. We have a cost sharing arrangement for health care with Mitsubishi. They provide cubic for the clinic and a base level of support, because their construction crew has been a big user. There's a line item every year to support clinic upgrades and maintenance. They keep a couple extra people working above what Mitsubishi would support too.

"People don't usually take long to recognize that if they vote Moocher Party it's basically seizing the infrastructure and privatizing it. Of course hearing people call it the Moocher Party might help them clue up too. First of all, such folks appear to assume we'll just
steal
the hab from Mitsubishi, and then they don't seem clear on the idea that
somebody
is going to have to pay for it to be run, and Mitsubishi has done a fine job running it efficiently so far."

"Taxes are voluntary?" Morgan asked.

"Yes. If you want to vote on what gets funded and other matters you agree to pay taxes. If you don't you simply have no say," Jeff explained.

"But they have a
right
to be represented," Morgan objected, sputtering, "just for...existing and breathing!"

"Nope. They owe Mitsubishi for breathing. Believe me they will collect too. The Assembly will support them on that and eject anybody not paying their bills. That came up the second Assembly already. Security will put them on a shuttle with connections to The Sl...uh, Earth. They can exist for free, as long as they can hold their breath," Jeff joked. Morgan didn't think it was funny.

"I
was
going to speak to you about your desire to have landing rights for Australia. We have one seat and usually vote with the Liberal Party. The committee that controls such things has a Labor majority, and we thought we might add our voice to help shift the opinion on granting rights, but we could never align with people who would deny the basic necessities of life to people."

"Sorry you feel that way," Jeff said. "Just to clarify. I'd never deny the necessities to anyone, but they do have to
pay
for them. There are occasional folks who don't have family or didn't act prudently to buy insurance or save, and need a little charity, but charity is voluntary. I won't vote to rob my fellow citizens to create a permanent class of people entitled to live at the expense of others."

"You sir, and I say this for myself not the party, are a monster."

"Well, I doubt that leaves us much to discuss then, so good day to you," Jeff said pleasantly, just to irritate the twit, and disconnected. He wasn't sure upon reviewing the call that he wanted landing rights bad enough to deal with people like Mr. Morgan. He'd never revealed what the Prosperity Party
wanted
in exchange for their support, before he'd been outraged and offended. Somehow Jeff suspected they weren't going to offer to help simply because the people of Home existed and breathed, so they had a
right
to land on Australia.

* * *

April wasn't expecting a physical delivery. She got a call on com that Eric Pennington was at her door with a package for her. He was silly about it, insisting on handling their packages personally. She knew for a fact he had several kids working for him to courier packages, and he didn't need to show up personally to maintain a relationship with them. When she objected he just got all formal and said – "It is my pleasure."

She answered the door and found him standing there with a medium sized flat box.

"You could have used the door buzzer," April reminded him, hooking a thumb at the small flat screen beside the hatch.

"I never think of that," Eric said with a shrug. "I buy com service anyway so it all costs the same. This way I can call you from half way back to the elevator, so it saves everybody time."

April couldn't argue with that. She wondered if anybody would bother to have door buzzers in a few years. Except the folks who made them an art form, that played elaborate interactive video, like Heather and Barak's mom, Sylvia.

"You need my hanko?" April asked, eyeing the plain box. It wasn't FedEx or Larkin colors.

"It's from my sister, so you don't need to sign at all, I'm just delivering it as a favor. It isn't even a paid job."

"My, how you've come up in the world, doing philanthropy now," April teased him. "Would it bother you to take a cup of coffee for your trouble? I just started a fresh pot, and you can watch me open it and see what I got."

"I saw it already, because I saw her working on it, but I'd very much like to see you open it. Lindsey would enjoy having that told to her I'm sure," Eric said.

April stood back and waved him in. Eric looked around approvingly and commented. "I see you've gone to a full airlock entry. Sweeeet." he said, drawing it out heartfelt.

"Yeah, there was a newbie who bought cubic on the same corridor and begrudged the room it took. He's from Kuwait and made of money. It was advertised in
What's Happening
really cheap. I suspect he just told his contractor to get rid of it. So I grabbed it. We didn't even have to disassemble it completely to get it down the corridor so installing it was cheap too. I bet after he's here a year or two and finds out a curtain lock requires annuals and a stranger snooping around your cubic he'll be wanting one again. Then he'll find out what a genuine Mitsubishi lock costs to lift piece by piece. I wouldn't be surprised if he offers to buy it back."

Eric seated himself when she led him to the kitchen table, and he put the package down and slid it over to her side. She got a nice mug, one of the insulated ones and poured him a coffee. He took one of the cream packets she included and stirred it in. April poured her own but sat it well to the side where it couldn't spill while she was opening her package.

"I haven't commissioned Lindsey to do anything in awhile," April remarked as she opened the thin box carefully. "I don't have any place left to hang a
big
one." Eric said nothing. She was just making small talk, not pumping him.

April expected a drawing. That was after all what Lindsey
did
. The subject matter was what surprised her. She was sitting with Jeff at the little table in the Fox and Hare. They were
very
detailed at the center of the drawing in the style Lindsey had made her own. Jeff was looking at her, and Lindsey had caught the mischievous look he got perfectly. She was looking at him, and it made April blush. Was she really that transparent? But Lindsey got the intensity of her feeling right, so she must be. At least to somebody as observant as she.

The singer was in the background and as was her style less detailed, but the colors were still fairly strong. To each side were other tables, although the outside edges faded away to muted colors and a sort of line drawing beyond then. The couple April had seen get angry with each other and leave were still there and Lindsey had that all figured out too. Not that that was so hard. With those sort of people it was always something. The woman wasn't looking at her date, she was looking over at them, and the man looked sullen.

"My goodness, was she
there
?" April asked of Lindsey.

"No, she had a picture off a gossip site and a video off another. The video wasn't very good, but the still pic of you two on which she based the detail was decent."

"I have no idea what to send her," April said. "We've always worked to a negotiated commission. I've seen her stuff for sale and a piece this size must go for a tenth Solar by now."

"Twice that easily," Eric confirmed, "but please, don't send her anything! It's a gift and she'd be upset to be sent pay. She'd be upset with
me
for not making that clear."

April looked at it again and marveled. There were even little sparkles in the jacket, how did she
do
that? She pushed it to the side and cried in her hands.

Eric looked stricken. "Is there anything I can do?" he asked.

"I'm not unhappy," April had to explain. "I'm just too happy to contain it. I'm overwhelmed. This is so nice, and it must have taken hours and hours to do it for me."

"Nah, it's really scary to see, because I can't do it, no matter how many times I see her make it look easy. She'll make a little pencil sketch to the side in about ten minutes and then go straight to the final drawing. She blasted through that in about two hours. If I did it I'd have to label you and Jeff so you'd know which was which."

April wasn't through crying but she was laughing at the same time.

Eric seemed reassured but still a bit dubious. He tossed back the last of his coffee and stood up to go, uncomfortable. "Then I'll tell her you were pleased," he said. Still with a little question in his voice. "She made it just because you're friends," he repeated. "Thank you for the coffee."

"We're friends too," April insisted, feeling he was excluding himself. She came around the table and gave him a hug. He was just short of head high to her shoulder and she had to lean over. He surprised her by putting his arms up around her neck and hugging her back, hard.

"Thank you," he said again and headed for the door. He looked like
he
might cry, which surprised April. Hadn't he known he was her friend too? Did she have to
tell
him? Apparently so.

* * *

"There he is," Li called out, and pointed.

Captain Havilland squinted and tried to discern the shuttle in the bright sky. This was the first time he's seen one come in, so Li was at an advantage, besides having the eye sight of a younger man. He moved his head a little side to side, because there were some faint reflection on the inside of the glass house that was their bridge. There was an overhead, and an overhang shading the glass, but almost no obstruction of the view on three sides.

There was a wheel, but more like an automotive steering wheel than the huge wooden affair with spokes that the public still pictures as a ship's wheel. The helm included an instrument panel to rival an aircraft for complexity. There were flat screens and control levers for the throttles. The console extended to each side and had a grab bar on each side of the helm at the back edge. The helm had a seat that could be brought forward to reach the wheel or run back so the helmsman could stand. There were two other seats on each side, set back slightly, and all three had sturdy belts.