April 5: A Depth of Understanding (8 page)

"When you start with a half million tons that still leaves a lot."

"When you figure what a ton of water costs to lift from Earth, it boggles the brain. I got us seven tenths of a percent share and I'll be happy if they recover half of it in the end," Jeff said.

April stopped and thought about it a minute. "A hundred and seventy five
thousand
kilograms of water?"

"A hundred and seventy five cubic meters," Jeff said smiling. "I'd still be very happy if we ended up with a hundred tons. Would you like a swimming pool in your lunar home?"

"You'd have to get it down to the surface. I'm sure we'll have better use for
this
water. But it isn't too crazy to think you could do that someday, is it?"

"Not at all. Maybe in ten or fifteen years, when there is steady traffic from the outer system. And if I get to build a lunar beanstalk we can take it down to Central cheaply with no loss. I figure the Earth tourists will just
expect
a nice pool in their hotel, don't you think?"

"And a chocolate mint on their pillow," April joked.

"If they can pay for putting it there, fine, and anything else they want. If we have to provide luxuries for tourists it will be that much sooner we can afford them for ourselves. I'd love to see tunnels for growing strawberries and melons and tanks for shrimp and fish. All of which will need quite a bit of water and make-up volume for losses."

"You're ambitious," April said, but it wasn't disapproving.

"You don't know the half of it," Jeff promised her.

* * *

April held out as long as she could before going to lunch. Supper was going to be later than usual and she didn't want to be starved and make a spectacle packing it in. Gunny was off talking with his security business friends, he'd be with her late at the night club. He only owed her so many hours a day. It was late enough it wasn't busy.

"You been catching a few rays," Ruby said, smiling. "Did you enjoy yourself?"

"Uh, I've been what?"

"I guess people don't say that any more, it's probably a generational thing, or an Earth expression. You've been catching some rays – sunshine – 'cause you got a bit of a tan. Some sunshine is good for you, raises your vitamin D levels. It does look fine on you I have to admit."

"Oh," April lifted her arm and looked at it like she'd never seen it before. "I was kind of oblivious. It snuck up on me. Jeff, Gunny, Heather and her little brother Barak all probably look a lot darker, but it happened over a couple weeks so I didn't think about it. Heather had some pills for us that keep you from burning unless you really overdo it."

" You are current on your anticancer vaccines aren't you? Sunlight ups your risk a little bit."

"Oh, sure. I don't neglect my health. You know, I've always liked how gold jewelry looks on black people. It just looks like a million bucks with the higher contrast, but the same base tint. I'm going to the Fox and Hare tonight, so I'll try some of my gold jewelry on and see if it looks better with my tan."

"
Gold
looks good on any color," Ruby insisted, rolling her eyes a bit. "Then we should see you tonight. Easy and I will be at the club and I'm going to play a little bit and he's going to do a little routine to the music."

"When did you start doing that?"

"This will be the second time. We were there one night the singer got sick and had to go home. I asked the manager if he'd like a little keyboard music and he was brave enough to give me a try unheard. Must have liked it too, because he asked us back. He's not cheap either, he offered a decent fee and when we went to leave he comped our bill."

"I'm glad to hear that, because I own a little interest in the place. I wouldn't want it to get a reputation for being tight fisted."

Ruby looked at her sharply, "Did you have anything to do with renaming it?"

"Yeah, It was something one of the security guys said. That pair of lieutenants who came up from North America? The one, Friedman, told me that's what Germans say, instead of the middle of nowhere. Do you like it?"

"Oh, yeah. When I saw the sign in the corridor I had to stop and look up on my pad what,  "Wo sich Fuchs und Hase Gute Nacht sagen," meant. I really like the hare with the big German clay pipe and the Fox in the checked vest and glasses. I'm not surprised it was you."

"Thank you," April said blushing.

"Hah! You're pretty brown now, but you still show a blush."

April thought about it a second. "I guess you're right. As dark as he is, I've seen Easy naked cleaning up from a long work period in a p-suit. And I've seen him super stressed with an idiot waving a gun at him and all upset in the hand ball court chewing me out for doing something stupid,  but I've never seen him show a blush."

"Oh that," Ruby said, dismissively waving her hand. "That's not 'cause he's so dark, that's 'cause he's shameless."

* * *

Back in the corridor there was a sweet pleasant smell in the air and the corridor seemed crowded. Home was closer to three thousand people than two, April realized. The rate of building wasn't keeping up with the population. Heather said Central would have fifty people before the end of the year too. April tried to imagine as many people stuffing Central as Home. It seemed unlikely still, but it was easier to expand on the moon. When April was passing Cindy and Frank's tailor shop there was a poster in the window that caught her eye.

There were two young people drawn, meeting at the south dock bearing. The girl had obviously just come up from Earth. She still had on little green tennis shoes almost like the ones April had bought to wear on the boat. Keds Classics they were called, though hers were bright red. Her top was a floral blouse with buttons and her pants traditional jeans with a wide belt and a big brass buckle in front. Her purse trailed loosely in zero G hanging on a shoulder strap instead of being fastened at her waist. It all shouted Earth style.

He was wearing footies with separate toes, but two tone, which she had never seen. The bottoms a dark gray like a slipper and the upper part a bright rusty brown with a crème strip separating them. His pants were baggy with a double pleat down each side and closed at the cuff like a long sleeved shirt. They were an odd nappy fabric with dark lines in a random orientation on mocha brown. The waist was self belted in a wider version of the ankle closure.

He had on spex and short spacer hair, but a little chin beard that was short and triangular shaped, with the apexes rounded. His t-shirt surprised her, it had a big image, maybe two hundred millimeters across, of one of Jeff's Solar coins. The view on the front was the image of Home with the Rock drawn closer than reality in the background and the Earth filling most of the sky behind both, but enough space showing for the moon to be in what was left over. April didn't know if such a shirt really existed, but if it did the other face of the coin should be printed on the back. Of course Home wasn't in Earth orbit anymore so the coins were dated already.

The young man was waiting, one foot in a take hold, the other braced behind to absorb the shock, because the young woman was flying through the air, both arms extended, ready to grab him around the neck. They looked very happy to see each other.

Behind them a woman was headed in station, an improbable number of packages and children in tow. A heavy Earthie in a business suit following looked distressed, his tie floating up over his face and his loose pant legs climbing half way to his knees. His key ring and security swipe card chain had come loose from his open pocket and were following his trajectory.

It was great art, done in colored pencil and a little ink pen. The poster size was a print, but the original was modest, about three hundred fifty millimeters on the long edge. When the address was given to bid on it April didn't hesitate, she pulled it up on her com and whistled. It had only been up three days and had four to run. The high bid was already a bit over five thousand EuroMarks.

What was the point of having money if you couldn't treat yourself? April didn't clutter her space with a lot of junk, but this would be out of the way, flat on a wall. She'd save it for when her renter Papa-san, more formally known as Tetsuo Santos, and his wife would be out of her cubic and into their own space in the new ring. She'd need much more than a picture to hang on the wall. They'd rented her space before she had a chance to move in, so it hadn't had any remodeling at all. But they seemed happy with that for a few months. She already had the remodeling all laid out and materials bought, ready to do when the Santos vacated soon.

She'd worried they'd feel cramped after living in a spacious home in Hawaii, but they'd immediately made arrangements to share it with a business associate and his family they'd met on the shuttle coming up. Papa-san had never mentioned it. She wondered if he really thought she didn't know who lived in her cubic? She'd been a snoop since she was about five.

It was a Vickrey auction, high bidder wins, but best bids are hidden and the second price is public and paid. Since bid was over five thousand EM so she'd bid fifteen thousand and asked the site to call her if that was breeched. She'd have to see what else this artist drew. She really wanted it.

When she continued down the corridor the odor was emanating from the Home Chandlery, Zach was waving at her from behind the counter, a mug in hand.

"Want a chocolate chip cookie?"

"Sure, I can find room for one."

He put a mug of coffee in front of her without asking, along with two cookies.

"You're adding on-site baked goods?"

"Nah, these are just to get people in the door and talking. I've been doing it two weeks and business is up, but I've gained three kilo too. You been down to Earth," he said, laying his pale arm beside her's on the counter.

"Ruby just mentioned that to me. It kind of snuck up on me and I didn't even notice it."

"There are still people on Earth who use an UV lamp to get a tan. They used to have little shops where you could duck in and get irradiated to get a tan when my dad was a kid. They pretty much legislated them out of existence before the cancer vaccines came out. Now it isn't as popular as it used to be."

"These are good. Do you make them up from scratch?"

"Yeah, Scratch brand, frozen in a bag. Pop them in the counter top oven and they are done in twelve minutes. It's being hot from the oven that makes them so good. By tomorrow they'd be just average, like grocery store bag cookies, if they lasted that long."

"Thanks for the cookies, but I'm not buying anything today."

"That's OK, the new guy with all the ink on his arms came in at the last minute yesterday and bought my best spex, he mentioned you'd recommended me, by name."

"That's all he bought?"

"Customer privacy, April," Zach said, looking uncomfortable.

"That's what I figured. They're armed now."

Headed back home April thought she might check in on her Japanese class. Or given the cookies on top of lunch she might just nap…

Chapter 7

The Fox and Hare was on the half G level. It was semi-industrial, without the nice carpet and indirect lighting of the pricey full G level. The business was still the Home Social Club and it was a private buy-in club, but last year April presented the other owners with the idea of naming the actual store like a pub. She'd commissioned a sign to hang in the corridor and got it approved after some modifications for safety. It was hung high and spring loaded so that if someone bumped into it, or a tall freight cart load smacked it, there was no resistance, it just swung out of the way.

The shape was nearly a shield, the name an arch at the top. The scene was just after sunset in a snowy glen, with the bare trees of winter behind. The colored sunset played off the snow and a Fox and Hare regarded each other, their tracks in the snow. But they were semi-cartoon animals, the Hare with a German style clay pipe and the Fox a checkered vest and wire framed glasses. On the bottom across the snow it said, "Wo sich Fuchs und Hase Gute Nacht sagen," or "Where the hare and the fox say goodnight," an expression she found much cuter than her equivalent English usage of the middle of nowhere.

Gunny and she were a little early. She'd reserved six seats at two tables and told the manager there would be guests. But they didn't want to come in to find their guests seated waiting on them. Gunny was dressed nicer than usual, an unstructured jacket with lace cuffs showing from under the sleeves. She'd never seen that except in period movies. He had on an Ascot under an open collar, but she'd never seen one and didn't know what to call it. He could still surprise her.

April had decided not to get very dressy tonight. She wore all black with the full kit of Lunar armored vest and gadgets and weapons filling her belt, with the smaller of two real Japanese swords her maternal grandfather from Australia had given her. The longer one was too much trouble to bother with most of the time. She usually wore it over the shoulder and it would be in the way in the crowded club. She hadn't worn the black outfit in a couple months.

The only dressy things she wore were a massive gold anchor chain her brother willed her, enameled gold cufflinks that were a gift from a French gentleman and a set of gold and canary diamond earrings that usually went with a different matching necklace. But she thought they worked with the rest of it just fine.

Gunny and she asked for the tables to be moved together. She took a seat to the center so her guest could be beside her. Gunny joined her for now, but indicated he's let her grandfather sit between them when he came. There wasn't much of a crowd yet and the lights were still up a bit as the music hadn't started.

She got an orange juice with ginger ale and twist of lime. If she drank any alcohol at all it would be mild. She wasn't fully comfortable yet with Amos or his bodyguards and she only drank enough to feel it if she was with well trusted friends.

They got the smaller appetizer tray while they waited, an antipasto with pickled veggies and hard boiled eggs. It had a few hot peppers and the eggs were deep purple. Gunny ordered some dark French beer she'd never heard of. It came in an interesting bottle with a little ceramic cap on a wire closure and a castle on the label.