lingering kiss, and promptly passed out.
Kelly picked her up once the shuttle arrived at the Q and carried her to her quarters. He loosened her clothes, took off her shoes, put her under the covers, and retired to his own quarters.
Charles Delphant, Chairman and CEO of the Indigo Consortium was alone, working late in his office on the top floor of the Consortium’s main administrative building on Secundus, in the Fomalhaut System. The office’s furnishings reflected the wealth and prestige of its owner. Real oak panels covered the walls. Plush wool carpet covered the floor. The desk was solid walnut, imported to Secundus directly from Earth at no small expense. Earth wood and wool were an almost unheard of luxury in the outer worlds. He had let his secretary go an hour earlier, telling her he had only some minor matters to resolve before calling it a day. He finished those matters, then touched a hidden button under his desk.
That button activated a number of special security measures. The door double locked. The windows went opaque. Infrasonic wave generators activated in the walls, doors, and on the windows, foiling any possible listening devices. He logged his terminal off the company network and reconnected to a special network not associated in any way with the Consortium.
He checked messages on a special public account. Ten messages hit his queue. All were innocuous. Two were advertisements. Three dealt with trading cooking recipes. The remainders were short humorous video files. Anyone intercepting them would have been bored mightily.
Delphant attached a small storage device to his terminal and loaded the messages onto it. Shortly, a green light activated on the side of the device. He opened the storage device’s volume and clicked on a small program icon. A small holographic image of the solicitous K’Rang merchant, T’Polla, appeared on his desktop.
“Mr. Delphant, we are very pleased with the business and financial information you have provided thus far. Your monetary system is, pardon the expression, alien to us. We hope the small tokens of our esteem have pleased you. These are but one type of merchandise that we will be able to make available once we have established trade relations with the Galactic Republic. Of course, when that happy day occurs, your company will be our agent for distribution of K’Rang goods throughout human space.”
“We in the merchant class have been working closely with the political class here on the K’Rang home world to gain dominance over the warrior class and improve relations with the Galactic Republic. We have made great strides, thus far. This constant warfare is useless and accomplishes nothing but keeping our boastful and ineffective military in fancy uniforms. Their xenophobic reaction to all other civilizations is most taxing and must be stopped. We long for peace and the eventual benefit and profit that can accrue to both our civilizations.”
“A four K’Andor shipment of the B’Rella, excuse me, flame stones will be transferred over at our next rendezvous. I have included a list of the information on frontier planetary systems that will be needed for us to plan our trade routes and distribution centers. In addition, I don’t know if you will be interested in trading in K’Rang surplus military equipment once peace arrives and our trade relations are cemented, but if you could provide information on these systems’ military capabilities, it would help us to know what armaments might interest them. Even if we won’t be at war anymore, there are always brigands and pirates to deal with.”
“Please give my regards to Mr. Gundersen. I found him to be a most agreeable human at our last meeting. We look forward to our next meeting with great anticipation.”
The K’Rang bowed and the hologram dissolved. A list of ten star systems and associated planets scrolled across his screen.
Charles Delphant thought about the video. The information the K’Rang requested would be easy to acquire. Most of it was easily available over the open network. His contracted research firm could get him the rest. The military information was a new twist.
He had assumed that such a request would be forthcoming. He knew the K’Rang would eventually want something of real value for their flame stones. He would have to make sure that the information on the frontier system’s military defenses was of a low enough granularity that it would do the K’Rang military little good. He could always beg off that such information was classified and unavailable. Maybe he could squeeze a few more cases of flame stones out of the K’Rang before he was done.
He had little hope for the eventual establishment of peaceful trade relations between humans and the K’Rang, but he couldn’t turn down the opportunity to acquire a steady stream of flame stones. He pulled a large one out of a special carved box in his desk and looked at it. Even for someone that had been in the jewelry business for as long as he had, it was breathtaking. The orange-crimson luminescence made it shine like it was on fire, but it was cold to the touch. He loved to watch the colors shift. It also pleased him that this stone the size of a child’s large marble could match his not inconsiderable salary for ten years.
He had almost 30 liters of them, some even larger, at his mine on the Consortium’s Asteroid 4533 in the Rigel System. It would not be long before flame stones would be “discovered” there and he could bring them onto the market in small enough quantities to supply them to a most discerning and wealthy clientele, but not enough to dissipate the demand. He forecasted a 300 percent overall increase in company profits from this “discovery” next year alone. If the K’Rang only knew the true value of these “shiny rocks,” as they referred to them.
Putting the stone away in its box, he concentrated on formulating two messages: one, heavily encrypted, to T’Polla agreeing to his request and another to Gundersen, informing him of his next trip to inspect the Consortium offices on New Alexandria in the 6664 System.
On Sunday morning a sheepish-looking Tammy showed up at Kelly’s door. He was ready to go. She said, “I hope I didn’t make a fool of myself last night.”
“Not a bit. You were a perfect lady up to and including after you passed out,” Kelly chuckled.
“I don’t normally drink that much. Those gators sure do know how to party. Let’s go.”
They caught a shuttle over to the morale services marina, rented a skimmer, loaded their stuff on board, and headed out. Kelly let Tammy steer and watched her at the wheel. She was wearing a pair of white shorts and a white crop top that accentuated all her good features, and she had a lot of them.
A few minutes out, she turned to him and said, “Kelly, would you get my sunscreen from my bag below and put some on my back.”
Kelly went below, found her bag, fished out the sunscreen, and came back up through the hatch. Kelly came to a screeching halt as he got to the cockpit. Tammy was no longer wearing her shorts and top, or anything for that matter. The girl was gorgeous. While the last century of space exploration and settlement had all but killed the Puritan ethic, a pretty woman was still a pretty woman, and Tammy was a vision. Her blonde hair was blowing in the wind and her skin was a golden bronze. She was concentrating on steering and didn’t notice Kelly’s reaction. Kelly moved around behind her and put a liberal amount of sunscreen in his hands and spread it across her back, her bottom, and thighs.
She said, “Hand me the lotion. I’ll do my front.”
Kelly squeezed some lotion in her hands and she rubbed it into her breasts, stomach, and thighs. Kelly was a little disappointed, but tried not to let it show. Kelly took off his clothes and threw them below.
“Come take the wheel,” she said, “and I’ll get your back.”
Kelly switched places with her and enjoyed her hands smoothing the lotion on him. He took the bottle from her and covered his front, paying special attention to the spots that don’t see that much sun on a regular basis. It wouldn’t do to get sunburned there.
Kelly handed the wheel back to Tammy. He didn’t know where they were going. She turned west in mid-lake and headed for a group of three islands. The southern island had a skimmer run up on shore. The northern island had two. A fire was burning on the beach and tents were set up. Tammy piloted around the center island to a small cove on the western side. She sent Kelly astern to fish a small anchor out of a locker. When they got closer to the shore, Kelly dropped the anchor off the stern and paid out line as they moved forward. Tammy nosed the skimmer up on the beach and told Kelly to make the line fast on the cleat.
“Sometimes the reservoir upstream releases overflow water into this reservoir and the stern anchor keeps your skimmer from getting too far away from shore. More than a few people have found their skimmers gone after a day lying on the beach. Help me get the other anchor and we’ll put it up on shore. I like redundancies to my redundancies.”
