“A fishing village?”
“I’m assuming the fishermen won’t want to have to sail all the way upriver every day. And we need the fish if we’re going to be able to feed everyone.”
“If we’re going to have a fishing village, then why the canal?”
“Move the fish up here, and cargo down there.”
“Okay, so when they finish up the four side streets, we’ll start digging the canal.”
“Right, we need to keep all of our equipment running as much as possible; they’re going to be the limiting factor on our growth. Every day they sit idle means that eventually we’ll lose that day.”
“We’ve finished the second set of barracks,” McCovey said. “So we can bring down the final group of colonists. We’ve had to expand the cafeteria to accommodate everyone. We’ll still have to set shifts for when people eat, so we don’t have lines.”
“Hi, Nattie,” Marc greeted Natalia as she joined the meeting.
“Hey. Busy?”
“Always. How’s the treatment plant doing?”
“It’s up and running. We’re set up to handle half a million liters of wastewater per day. That means you can bring down the rest of your colonists, and you can move one of the portable systems we brought with us to your mining town,” Natalia said.
“Perfect timing. We were just talking about starting that up. And we can put the second system down by the coast for the fishing village,” Marc said.
“Does that mean I get a beachside cottage so I can go down and make sure it’s running okay?”
“Sure you don’t want one up by the mining town?”
“A cabin in the mountains would be nice too.”
“I assume you won’t mind sharing with the other engineers we have to send around to inspect things?”
“If I have to.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Marc,” Commander Desjardins commed.
“Yes?”
“Your ice asteroids will start arriving tomorrow. You need to decide what you want to do with them.”
“How many?”
“Those boys have been busy; we’re going to be getting three or four a day.”
“Great, we’ve identified a depression here by the city that is suitable for a lake. Just start setting them down in it. If they come in faster than you can move them down here, then drop the extras in the ocean. Don’t make too big a splash.”
“Got it, do you have a line on the lake to tell us when it’s full?”
“There’s a small hill in the center of the depression, we want it to be an island,” Marc said. “We’ll have the lake overflow into the canal once we finish digging it.”
“Okay, we’ll stop filling it up when we get the island down to a few hundred square meters. Are you putting fish in the lake?”
“We might, do you have a preference?”
“Lake trout are my favorite.”
“I’m pretty sure we brought a of bunch lake trout eggs, so I’ll have Dr. Teltar figure out when to release them.”
“You’re a good friend.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“You’re going to love Nice,” Yvette said as she and Catie finished packing for the fall break.
“I’d better,” Catie said. “You owe me big time for getting me in trouble with Professor Gossmann.”
“You didn’t get in trouble. And his lectures have gotten a lot better since he started coming to your tutoring sessions.”
“Yeah, like that’s not going to come back and bite me.”
“Well, at least he stopped coming after three weeks.”
“Yeah, but is that because of midterms, or is he really going to stay away?”
“I think he figured out what he wanted. Like I said, his lectures are much easier to understand.”
“Okay, we’ll see.”
“Hey, you said you were going to try and get us on a hop to Nice, or at least somewhere close. Right now, we have to fly to Paris, then wait three hours to catch a flight.”
“Oh, I forgot, I’ve got us a ride,” Catie said. “You can cancel your flight to Paris.”
“What about coming back?”
“I’ve got us a ride for that one, too.”
“And how did you manage that?”
“I know someone,” Catie said. “You’ll meet her tomorrow at the airport. She’s flying us.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Yvette, this is my friend, Liz. She’s the pilot I told you about.”
“Bonjour,” Yvette said. “I can’t tell you how much it means to me to get home so fast.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. I have to ferry some stuff out to Admiral Michaels. He’s the chairman of the Delphi Alliance, and he’s living in Nice.”
“In Nice? Doesn’t the Delphi Alliance meet in Brussels?”
“They do, but his wife likes Nice better, so he commutes.”
“He must really love his wife.”
“It’s a fifteen-minute commute,” Liz said. “He probably gets to work faster than the rest of the council.”
“Must be nice to be so important.”
“Rank has its privileges,” Liz said. “You’ll learn that soon enough. They really wanted him to take the job, so dedicating a Lynx to him wasn’t that big a deal.”
“Is he the same Admiral Michaels that taught the first two weeks of Military Space Strategy?” Yvette asked.
“The one and the same.”
“He seemed like a nice guy.”
“He is as long as you don’t get him mad,” Liz said. “Now, get on board, and we’ll head out.”
“Are we the only passengers?”
“Yes,” Liz said. “We’re ferrying cargo, and nobody else needs to go that way.” The truth was they didn’t want anyone else to spend three hours in a Lynx with Catie and risk blowing her cover.
◆ ◆ ◆
“What are you girls going to do while here in Nice?” Liz asked as they deplaned.
“I’m going to make Alex go with me to the Musée Matisse and the Musée Chagall to give her some culture,” Yevette said. “Then, we’re going to shop and just hang out.”
“And we’re going to go to Monaco,” Catie said.
“Monaco?” Liz said, giving Catie a hard stare.
“Yeah, I want to learn how to play a few card games. I’m over eighteen now, so I can gamble.”
Liz just shook her head. Catie didn’t gamble as all her friends knew. With her eidetic memory, she could memorize all the cards. It was as if they were marked. Variations in shape, bent corners, all gave her
