She gathered him into a hug. “Thank you. If I can’t get a decent job, perhaps we should move into one of those places you didn’t like.” She took a deep breath, “But for now, let’s start moving our stuff in here.”
When she turned around, she saw Kaem standing in the doorway with a box of their kitchenware from the truck. He asked, “This stuff goes in the kitchen?”
“Kaem!” Sophia said excitedly, rushing to hug her son.
He gave her an alarmed look. “Let me put this down first. It’s heavy.”
“Yes, yes, the kitchen,” she said, making an about-face and guiding him that way. In the kitchen, she pointed out a countertop where he could put it. As soon as he deposited the box, she gave him a hug. Whoa! she thought as she encountered hard muscle. She leaned back and looked at him, “You’ve been getting in shape!”
He nodded. “Now that I can, yeah.” He grinned, “It’s amazing! I can run. I can climb hills. I’m even in an exercise class! It’s like I don’t get tired at all. I guess I must get as tired as normal people, but in comparison to the way I used to feel, it doesn’t seem like I’ve exerted myself at all!”
“Oh, Kaem,” she said, hugging him again and marveling at how solid he felt. The way Emmanuel felt when he was young and in shape for soccer, she thought. Or, is Kaem even more muscular? she wondered. “That’s so wonderful!” she said. Suddenly, over his shoulder, she noticed a young woman holding another box of kitchenware. The girl had an Asian cast to her features and amazing yellowish-green eyes. “Who’s this?” Sophia asked, pushing Kaem back slightly, “Have you got a girlfriend?!”
“Mom!” he hissed near her ear, sounding like an embarrassed child. He seemed to recover, turning to the young woman and speaking pleasantly, “Lee, this is my mother Sophia.” He turned back to his mother, “Lee works with Dad and me over at Staze. She and I are good friends.”
***
It being his first day at Staze, Mahesh Prakant looked around. He was in the same big metal building he’d been in when he’d first come out here with Marks and April Lee—what seemed like ages ago. There were more of the folding tables and chairs set up around the room than on his first trip. More people working at them too. A big difference from the three people that’d been there on that first visit. The room still wasn’t crowded by any means.
But it will be soon, Prakant thought.
He and a young blonde woman had arrived at the same time, checked in with a receptionist named Ryan, and filled out e-forms together. Ryan had just brought them in to talk to a harried Arya Vaii.
Vaii’d promised to be with them in a few more minutes. Since he had a moment he turned to the blonde and extended his hand. “Seems we’re starting on the same day. I’m Mahesh Prakant, aerospace engineering.”
She shook his hand, “Dez Lanis, civil engineer. Are you the same Mahesh Prakant who used to be CTO at Space-Gen?”
“I am,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “How’d you know?”
She smiled, “I thought about working at Space-Gen once. Seems they don’t hire civil engineers.”
He snorted, “They do, but it’s rare. Like hen’s teeth kind of rare.” He winked, “And, they wouldn’t let a civil engineer near one of their rockets.”
“Well,” she grinned, “I’m hoping to design some space structures here at Staze.”
Prakant frowned, “Do you know for sure they’re planning to do things in space themselves? My understanding was that they’re just stazing parts for existing space companies like Space-Gen and GLI.”
She arched an eyebrow, “If they’re not, I’m gonna have to give Kaem a stern talking to.”
Amused, Prakant said, “Sounds like you know Mr. Seba from before?”
“Since grade school,” she said with a grin. “We were outcasts together, though I was cast out a lot farther than he was.”
As Prakant was wondering whether her childhood relationship with Seba might make his position as her boss difficult, Vaii walked up. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Prakant, Ms. Lanis.” Vaii sat on another of the ubiquitous folding chairs. “I haven’t been able to hire enough admin people to let me run things efficiently yet. I wanted to welcome you aboard, then Tina here,” she indicated the young woman just sitting down next to her, “is going to finish up the details of getting you set up for salaries and benefits. Have you found places to stay?”
Prakant and Lanis both nodded.
“You got the word to rent rather than buy, right?”
Prakant nodded. “May I ask why? Moving here from California, I need to buy a place within a year or I’ll have some large capital gains taxes on the sale of our home there.”
“Sure,” Vaii said. “We’re just not sure where we’re going to be. We expect to outgrow this building soon. We may want to move everyone down closer to what we currently call Staze East, a seventeen-hundred-acre plot down southeast of Richmond. That’s where we’re planning to build our space tower. Of course, if we can’t get approvals from Virginia, we might want to build the tower in another state.” She sighed, “Which would be a move of a different magnitude. Kaem wants to keep our headquarters here because he likes Charlottesville. I want everything in the same place, i.e. Staze East so our people aren’t spending half their time shuttling a hundred miles back and forth.” She rolled her eyes, “There’s still a lot to argue about.”
Lanis said, “What you need is a civil engineer with a plan for drilling Stade tunnels from one place to another. A hyperloop type of tunnel that could get you from here to Staze
