changed.
Now, it was either succeed, or…
Or what? Death? Dishonor? Incarceration? He was not even certain of the laws they would be violating.
Well, if they did not proceed, he was certain that there would be hard, serious men and women from around the world and across the solar system who would be more than happy to inform him. At painful length.
The thing, then, was not to fail.
9
October 25, 2085
The former Kendra Tuinukuafe, now Kendra Griffin, opened her eyes. She nestled naked in the midst of a wide, wide hammock, peering up through her wavering water shield to the half-Earth visible above. The walls were more than four meters high, decorated from floor to ceiling with little ledges and picture frames. Her home looked a bit like a hobbit house, crammed with books and mementos, some shipped up from Earth, others fabricated or acquired in the intervening years. It was, of course, a hole in the ground. Radiation was a problem on the Moon.
Her alarm trilled again, pulling her to full wakefulness just as the wake-up lights began to rise.
“Right on time.” She yawned heartily and rolled out of the hammock, landing lightly. Now the hammock cleared her head by nearly a meter. Her broad shoulders and upper back, webbed with flyer’s muscle, flared almost like wings, narrowing her waist.
She tocked her tongue, and spoke.
“Audio live,” she said.
Her assistant’s hologram appeared. Chris Foxworthy was tall, prematurely balding, muscularly self-assured, and carried himself with an air most interpreted as “distant.” He was staring right through her, understandable since she hadn’t engaged the live feed. People were always a little stiff when speaking to avatars.
“Boss,” Chris said.
“Chris. I have time for coffee?” Gram for gram, her Colombian was Luna’s most expensive legal luxury.
“Always,” Chris said.
Kendra yawned wider as she approached the coffeemaker. Judging by the control lights and fragrant cloud of steam, it was already preparing a cup.
She sniffed deeply; even the smell of the coffee cleared cobwebs from her mind. “Mmmm. Yummy.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you have a cruel streak?”
“On the hour.” Steaming dark fluid poured sluggishly into the cup. Even at lowest pressure, some still slopped up over the edge. She waited for it to stop, then lifted the cup and sipped. Heaven. “So… how are the polls runnning?”
“You’re up ten points on McCauley, but that still makes me nervous with a month ’til the election.”
“Me, too. What’s on the dock today?”
“Tons. We’ve got a load of oranges and finger bananas in from Clavius.”
“We’re trading…?”
“Spare gigawatts from the Bullwinkle array and the Tsiolkovsky power plant. Fifty gigs over the next month. Falling Angels is dropping a load of foamed steel to complete the dorms,” Chris said.
Kendra frowned. “Isn’t that cutting it a little close?”
Chris shook his head. “Temporary shelters-steel skeleton, spray-foam skin, webbed furniture… We’ll make our dates. Might be a little spare, but short-timers only log sleep and shower time in their rooms. Too busy seeing the sights.” Chris waited patiently for his boss as she threw some clothes on, prepping as she went. She bounced through each step.
Kendra looked in the mirror. “Suitable,” she said, then tocked her tongue again and raised her voice. “Video live.”
“Ah, there you are,” Chris said. “Nice slacks.”
Tck. “Call the car,” she said, summoning a shuttle. “Stack my calls, Chris. I’ll have to fit them in around my duties.”
“No problem.”
The living room’s front door opened into a sealed tunnel. Neither Kendra nor anyone else at Heinlein owned a private vehicle. She wasn’t certain such a thing really existed on all of Luna.
The tunnel was actually the connecting node for the base shuttle system. As she watched, one of the golden tube-cars flashed to the rail outside her house, then decelerated toward the branch line. Her outer door slid open, the car entered, the door shut. The pressure coupling sealed itself to the pod, and her inner door opened.
Kendra seated herself, strapped in, and waited for the door to seal. Once all three safety lights went green, she murmured “Landing pad,” and the pod rolled out of her garage. Accelerated by magnetic pulses, it circled her home twice. After reaching full speed, it joined the traffic flow on the main line.
Her thoughts ranged to plant management, and political connections to other colonies. She looked up at the Earth’s misty blue disk. There was one very particular Earthling heading her way. Soon. And what will that do to your life, Kendra?
Why didn’t you change your name? Because nobody can pronounce Tuinukuafe?
“So… what’s on the docket today?”
“Talos asteroid. We’re bartering hybrid seeds for ore. Then we have a bottleneck at Fabrication.”
That was Toby McCauley’s work. On the surface, it was just a disagreement about apportionment of the floating labor pool. In reality, it was an attempt to make Kendra look bad. And it could work.
“I want you to look into their energy usage. Someone’s been getting a load of overtime there. We should be able to make the point that just because McCauley has trade rights with anyone willing to negotiate, that hardly guarantees priority access to manpower.”
If McCauley could make her the bad guy, make it look as if she was stifling free trade and entrepreneurship, even if he never raised the subject in open debate, conversation in the blue-collar lounges would be ugly, and affect voting. On the other hand, if she allowed him to dominate the labor pool, it would seem she was siding with him against Heinlein’s major investors, who wanted a tighter rein on all financial activity.
A nice bind. Well done, Toby.
“Look,” Kendra said. “There’s nothing we can do about that. Everyone’s fighting over the same resources. Nothing special here…”
Her phone began to beep. “I have to take this,” she said.
The view bubble above her flickered into a screen. Scenery whizzed past at a kilometer per second. Any faster and the little pods would rise into orbit.
“Mom! Dad!” she said.
Millicent was a tall black woman just past sixty. Smiling hollowed her cheekbones. Despite the separation, Kendra still called her “Mom.”
“Sweetie. Glad we could get you. Alex, is Scotty online?”
The image divided. One at a time, the faces of her former family: Millicent, Alex and Scotty. Kendra had little blood family. It was one of the reasons living on the Moon didn’t sting. Meeting Scotty, and marrying into his clan, had been wonderful. Even after the divorce his folks had made it clear they still loved her. That was part of the reason the next month was going to be stressful.
No matter what anyone said, they had to be hoping.
Was she?
“Have him right here,” Alex Griffin said. His hair was gray, his face long, edging toward jowls.
“Hey, Kendra.” Scotty seemed a little stressed. None of their conversations since the split had been easy, but this was something different.
“So,” Kendra said. “How’s the training going?” She raised her voice. “ Tck. Audio out.”
