13 Degrees of Separation (36 page)

“We've got to wait until we've got the funds. We can't go
off half cocked.”

“No, we've got to get our finger out of our ass and do
something. We've lost two people because we've been sitting around talking the
big talk but not putting words to action. Time we do that. Try. Even if we
fail, try. It may not look good but it's something.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Mairi,” he said turning to the girl. The girl blinked,
startled. “Yeah you. I want you to run us some fuel and some asteroids.”

“You know that the station has a charge on all resources.”

“Tax you mean. I can't believe you let that slide.”

“No choice,” the councilor sighed. “I, we were outvoted.”

“Right. Well, we don't have to bring the stuff onto the
station.”

“What?”

“That's right!” Mairi said standing up in excitement. “We
don't do we? We can go and tank up on the startup base!”

“Okay...”

“We've got all that gear taking up space. Space we're
paying for. I say we take it all and have Mairi here move it to the base. We'll
stop having to pay space rent and taxes on it and we can put it to use right
there. Unless of course you figure out some way of charging ourselves for fuel
and metals,” he said, brown eyes looking disgustedly at the councilors.

“That's not fair. They are trying.”

“Trying yes, but not succeeding. You two have the
experience we lack. So put it to use why dont'cha? We need it now more than
ever. You know the pirates will come around sometime. We need to put what Irons
left for us to good use.”

“All right.”

“And Tribecca?”

“We've got them by the short hairs. We've gotten our side
done, and the contract is boiler clad, they can't get out of it even if they
file for bankruptcy. If they try they pretty much turn over their company to
us,” Clio said smiling. Savo whistled, brown eyes wide in appreciation. He
didn't like it that Petunia was out there on her own doing the work but at
least they were doing all they could to make sure it wasn't for nothing.
“Something we learned from Zap and our latest investor scam,” Clio finished,
nodding to Alice. They'd just had to deal with an investor chasing Gwen and
Riff around. The Taurens had been threatened with losing their jobs on the
station if they didn't sell. A sting operation had failed, but it had driven
the schemers back into hiding like the cockroaches they were.

Alice nodded back grimly. “But can we help them make this
work?”

“Why should we?” Savo asked indifferently.

Alice shrugged, looking at him. “I dunno, I just don't like
seeing someone fail if we can help stop it. They never did anything against us,
and a little good will goes a long way right?”

“You're saying that if we tossed them something it might
help them get it on track and maybe grease the wheels with expanding the
project?”

“And it'll help our public image a bit. Do no evil. Can we do
it? What is their problem I mean?”

“It's not financial,” Clio responded. “It's technical. They
haven't gone into details but I believe if I'm reading their build schedule
right they have fallen behind because 1 no one has experience doing this
before, and 2 they are missing some critical parts to make it function. And oh,
3 political foot dragging. Zoning commissions blocking the transmission lines,
lawsuits trying to halt or stall the project, all sorts of crap.”

Taylor tapped his chin, one of his mannerisms when he was
thinking. Finally he grunted. “The first we can't do much about, they'll get
the hang of it eventually. Microwave receivers aren't that complicated, it's
just production that's a problem. Hell! All you really need is a field about
the size of a football stadium with a bunch of metal stalks! The energy from
the microwave transmission will be collected by the wires and metal stalks and
then fed into the grid! Why do they have a problem with that?” he demanded.
Clio just shrugged.

“I'm going to make a call then,” Taylor growled. “I'll see
what I can do there. As far as the zoning... what about Governor Randall? Can
we get him involved? He made that speech about helping out, the whole building
energy infrastructure. This is right along that line.”

“I believe the power lines are a problem in both
manufacturing and location. The shortest distance from their half finished
transceiver and their grid passes over a school. Apparently a lot of parents
aren't happy about having power lines over their kids heads. That area also has
a lot of homes too.”

“Um...” Savo rubbed his brow. He didn't have any idea on
what to do. He freely admitted he was out of his element.

“What about a superconductor line?” Rasha finally asked.
She looked at Taylor. He frowned. Savo looked up and stared at them. “It's
possible, and if they bury it that ends the conflict right?”

“Yes,” Taylor admitted.

“But no one can make the line!” Ralph said in disgust. “No
one can make room temperature superconductors!”

“No one ground side,” Taylor said softly. His wife nodded.
Both turned to the group. “No one but us.”

The others stared at them for a long moment. “We can do
that?” Ralph finally asked, clearly surprised.

“Yes,” Rahsa admitted with a curt nod. “I can do it. The
wire extruder will work nicely as long as we feed it the right materials.”

“Oh.”

“And I have the key codes to allow it to make the wiring
they need,” Rasha finished.

“Oh.”

“Can we contact them? Offer that service?” Clio asked.
Rasha looked at her husband. Taylor stared for a long moment and then shrugged
slightly. Finally Rasha turned and nodded to the AI.

“What about farming the power out?” Alice asked. Clio
frowned, she had planned to bring that point up.

“What do you mean?” Savo asked tiredly.

“The power. Remember the planet is turning. It's a ball,”
she said.

He raised an eyebrow. “So?”

“So the transmission receiver will only receive power for a
brief point of time. One of the things we're supposed to make is a relay
satellite. Several actually,” Clio responded. “But they didn't want them or
couldn't pay for them in the initial outlay so stuck to the direct approach,”
she explained.

“Tribecca?”

“Yes.”

“The power is ours right?”

“Technically yes. Once it's in the receiver they sell it
and give us a cut of the profit.”

“Okay, so...” Alice leaned back and cracked her knuckles.
“This is just thinking out loud you understand, but what about other companies?
I mean not necessarily in direct competition to Tribecca but say, in other
grids? Other continents? If the power flow is consistent can't we, I dunno,
beam it to different locations on the planet?” She made a fist with her right
hand and had her left hand palm out. “Say my left hand is the solar farm, my
right is the planet. Now, as the planet turns, the transmission could go to
anywhere on the planet.”

“My wife the engineer,” Ralph said, smiling proudly.

“Shut it,” Alice growled. “I read the brief and history
files. So what?”

“So the rest of us overlooked it,” Taylor responded. “Even
us old hands,” he said sheepishly. “Good catch.”

“I want it noted I was going to bring this up,” Clio said.
Savo snorted.

“Okay, so can you farm it out to others? Or can we make the
relay satellite on our own dime and charge them for its use?”

Taylor rubbed his chin again and then turned to Clio. She
nodded. “I'm already looking into it,” she said. Taylor nodded.

“Good for me then,” Savo said. “What's next?” he asked.

Chapter
8

Additional rock material was brought in, Mairi managed to
bring in 2-3 tons of material every shift. She usually worked a double and then
took a shift off to recuperate. Fuel wasn't an issue, they owned the rights to
the gas giant refinery the admiral had built. Most of the time they sold the
deuterium, helium 3, hydrogen, and other gases to the station since the station
provided the automated tugs to haul the gas from the refinery. But they had the
right to it... even if they had to pay the damn station for 'storage fees'.

Since the Tribecca project was on hold they turned their
attention to the yard and their own supply chain. The yard could go like that,
it was a long term project so they could drop and pick the project up at
anytime. After a week of mining and refining they finished their first Major
project.

A robotic tug had been created, a no frills version of the
bitch but without a spherical hab module for an organic pilot. It was designed
to be partnered with the Bitch, echoing her every move or remote controlled
from the bitch. Mairi called it Romeo. She used the two tugs to push their
first asteroid to where they wanted the yard to be constructed. Then she
relocated some of their equipment to the surface of the rock along with Petunia
and her apprentices. She taxied them to and from the rock daily until the
equipment was up and processing the rock.

With a hands on supply of material the molecular furnaces
swung into action. For the first several days the rocks needed to be broken up
by hand, but after a couple tons of material they had a grizzly box and sets of
grinders to do that chore. Soon all they had to do was keep the grizzly box
fed. The material was ground up by the grinding cylinders and then passed up a
chute to the molecular furnaces. The furnaces broke them down and separated the
component molecules and then shunted them into a series of bags.

After the first week of getting the teething problems
sorted out, they started on the next phase.

...*...*...*...*...

Governor Randall's office was already aware of the
situation, or so the staffer informed Taylor when he finally managed to talk to
someone. The time lag involved was a bit maddening for someone built into a
computer network but he managed to hold onto his temper. The staffer thanked
him for his concern and then hung up. Angry he shot the Governor an e-mail
detailing the conversation. He tagged it with his name and Id... and then
stopped it from going out when he noted it had his station council address.
That was a big no no, mixing his council job with the Yard Dogs. He logged into
the Dog server and then copied and pasted the contents of the e-mail to a write
file and then opened a new e-mail using his Yard Dog account. He sent it off
and then sighed.

...*...*...*...*...

Another dozen people were hired, two were veteran spacers
with their own suits but the rest were all greenhorns. None had certification,
and of course none had a suit. They weren't even sure they could 'hack the
black' another problem. Ralph proposed they start additional screening instead
of 'taking in every tom dick and harry who wants a job.' Savo and the others
reluctantly agreed.

Clio informed them they needed workers compensation
insurance, as well as a pension and medical and life insurance. “You all know
how dangerous space can be. We have to be prepared for it.”

Petunia laughed bitterly. All eyes turned to her. “I'm the
expert on that remember? Yes, I know how dangerous it is. Ralph is right, we
need better screening. We at least need testing, and training for any
greenhorns we want to keep. I'd say put them in a dark room and see if they
freak.”

Savo looked thoughtful. “Not a bad idea. I think John did
something similar a few times. Or so he said.”

“We'd have to have them sign a release before hand,” Clio
warned. “If they suffered any trauma they would have grounds to sue.”

“So? Do it. Write up a form or download one or whatever.
They have to sign one before going out right? It's only smart to have one on
hand for training too. No matter how much we try to make it safe something
could happen.”

“Yeah someone could stub their toe in the dark,” Ralph
muttered darkly.

“No, I'm more worried about someone going nuts. Or saying
they went nuts and suing us. That'd suck,” Savo said.

Ralph nodded slowly, jaw set in a grim line. “Yeah, good
point.” He turned to the AI. “Let's do it.” Slowly the others nodded in
agreement.

...*...*...*...*...

Kennet stared at the report, angry that things had slipped
so far out of his control. Why? How? That girl, that was the answer of course.
But why wasn't Yan helping him?

His thoughts turned inward as he tried to wrestle with his
self doubt. He was eager to prove himself to Yan, prove that he was up for
bigger and more important things but right now he knew he needed his mentor.
Yan however was oblivious to his entrees he just... it mortified him to see the
grand old man like this. They'd triumphed after all! They'd driven the
barbarian from their midst, driven him from the system! Together they could
control this system's economy... perhaps the sector's! And yet... and yet for
some reason Yan seemed to
regret
that. He'd said one thing, something
along the lines of even in victory one can taste the ashes of utter defeat
before he'd dismissed Kennet from his presence.