April 6: And What Goes Around (10 page)

"I'm seeing some possibilities," Gabriel said after awhile.
"There was a conference of Cardinals at a resort type facility canceled in
Northern Italy. They called off a big processional celebration for some saint
in Sicily. And a religious show in North America that invited a big name TV
preacher to appear had him cancel for 'personal reasons'.

"There was an automobile show in Dearborn, Michigan where they
were supposed to have a new Brazilian delivery truck shown to the public. The
PR guys and Vice President of the company all were sick in their hotel and sent
underlings to carry on. The press said they did a really terrible job on short
notice. But people liked the truck anyway.

"There was a meeting of the board of trustees of a North American
university called off suddenly. A French movie studio doing a production in
Algeria suddenly shut down and announced it was suspending shooting after three
important actors took ill last night and had to be medivaced out by air.

"You find anything?" he asked April.

"There was a thing on Italian TV I saw yesterday before Gunny
dropped this on me. Some pushy fellow suggesting the Pope was sick and a Church
spox denying it. There aren't any schools closed for illness. I found out that
hasn't been all that uncommon in North America. There are periodic closures of
whole systems for flu and measles, Noro virus and even yucky stuff like head
lice. What I do see is a speaker from the Federal government didn't show today
for a big teacher's conference he was supposed to address. And you mentioned
colleges.
Two
college football teams played yesterday without their head
coach being present. I got the sense that was a very big deal. But what would
coaches have in common with these other people we suspect are sick?"

"Got me, but then I have almost zero interest in sports.
Identifying with a team seems like just another odd form of Earth Think to
me," Gabriel said.

"I don't want to keep calling Gunny. Jim who runs the handball
courts follows all these Earth sports. I'm pretty sure he bets on most of them.
I'll give him a call. Watch if you want," April said.

"Hello April, need a reservation?" Jim didn't seem surprised
to see her although it had been months.

"I wish, Jim. I'm just too busy. But would you answer a sports
question for us?" Gabriel was watching over her shoulder where Jim could
see.

"Sure, if you win big a little tip for the help is always
appreciated."

"Not
that
sort of a question," April said quickly. "We
are looking at data about Earth people and we see football coaches showing up
in the same data sets as singers, movie stars, company officials, big wheel
politicians and highly placed churchmen. Why in the world would they fall in
that sort of group?"

Jim looked at her incredulously and burst into laughter. He finally
got it under control, blotting his tears before they beaded up and go airborne
in the zero g.

"You obviously know little about college football," Jim
said. "Exactly how much do you think coaches get paid?"

"That's why I called you, I know almost nothing about it. But
they just teach a sport. Surely that isn't worth as much as professors teaching
serious stuff, like sciences or humanities," April said.

"They don't really
teach
the sport. All their players know
the game long before going to college. It, well it's difficult to
explain," Jim said, frowning. "They win, or if they don't win they
usually end up fired. I'm aware of one coach who was fired at a southern
college last year for winning seven games out of twelve for the season."

"That's crazy," Gabriel said, leaning over April to look
straight in the camera. "Somebody has to lose every game and he won more
than half... What do they want? Do half the coaches get fired every year
because they didn't win?"

"Not half, but a lot of them. The schools don't put up with
losing very long. And some would define losing as – didn't win a championship. Two
or three years. Four years is a long time. They'll give them the boot and try
to find somebody who can perform. Having a winning football team means more to
a lot of people than the academic programs."

April and Gabriel just turned their heads and looked at each other. It
was insane.

"The coach I was thinking about had a five year twenty seven
Million dollar contract but he waived the last two years for his release,"
Jim said. "It's not unusual for a head coach to make two or three times as
much as the president of the university. Now do you see how they fit in your
data set?"

"Yeah, they make a ton of money. Thank you Jim. I'd have never
expected that," April said.

Jim shrugged. "They share the same personality type as some of
the professions you mentioned. Aggressive and obsessively competitive is
normal, just like high powered business executives. I keep hearing how sports
builds character, but if the coaches are any indication it isn't any character
I'd want my kids to acquire. How did you come to group them not knowing they
make a lot?"

"Keep it confidential for a few days, but they seem to be getting
sick," April said.

"Sure," Jim said, indifferent. "That doesn't surprise
me. They stress themselves out something terrible. If you watch them during a
game it's a wonder they don't stroke out every time they are down a
point."

"No, this is a flu epidemic. But it doesn't look typical. I don't
know if it will be bad enough to have real economic consequences or affect us
here," April said.

"There's seasonal flu every year. I lived on the Mud Ball most of
my life and it was always a topic in the news whether the flu season was mild
or bad. In fact the local TV news when I was a kid often had a short report
near the end called: "What's going around". But I think it's pretty
much factored into the economy," Jim said. "And flu tends to kill
older people who are retired or near retiring, so that limits the economic impact."

"That's the usual pattern, yeah," April agreed. "Thanks
for helping us, Jim."

"You're welcome. Come play a game when you have time," he
reminded April.

"I will if I get caught up on stuff," she promised, and
disconnected.

"This is interesting, and since you and your, uh, friends have a
bank now I can see why you worry about the economic side of it, but you look
terribly upset. Why?" Gabriel asked.

"So far the only consistent link I see to this disease is high
income," April said. "Well just about everybody on Home fits into
that classification."

"Ohhh." Gabriel thought about
it a little bit, and smiled suddenly. "Well then, I'm pretty safe!"

* * *

Gunny
looked stressed, which was unusual for him. He sat opposite April and Gabriel
without even getting a cup of coffee. After a big sigh he reached behind his
back and clasped hands together and then leaned right and left turning and
stretching his neck to the side. April could hear his vertebrae crack from
across the table.

"Well,
that has to be cheaper than a masseuse," Gabriel quipped.

"And
I don't have to call for an appointment," Gunny said.

"Was
your meeting productive?" April asked. "Most people I talk to dread
organizational meeting and claim they are rarely productive, but they keep
having them anyway."

"My
partners are good about meetings. We have very few and they stay on topic until
it is solved or shelved. Then they tend to have a social hour at the end that
you can join in or leave. We simply couldn't solve the problem we're facing
today," Gunny said with a frown.

"Any
chance I can help?" April offered.

Gunny
looked over his shoulders to gauge their privacy. And then looked appraisingly
at Gabriel.

"My,
you're being paranoid. Gabriel works for Chen and ultimately for me. Well, me
and Jeff and Heather. So he couldn't tell Chen anything he doesn't already
know."

"He
works for Ruby too," Gunny said.

"This
is true," Gabriel acknowledged. "But I compartmentalize everything I
know and I don't blab Ruby's business to Chen or Chen's business to Ruby. I
know you just had business on the moon, but I haven't mentioned that I know
that to either. Although I've found it's usually safest to assume Chen already knows
everything
I do, and Ruby isn't far behind."

"Oh,
and Papa-san. If he works for Chen assume he works for Papa-san," April
said.

"Assume
anything you want," Gabriel said, cheerfully.

Gunny
looked dismayed briefly. "But you just revealed my security associates and
I have business on the moon to April. That's not very compartmented."

Gabriel
shrugged. "She knew already."

Gunny
looked at April and lifted an inquiring eyebrow.

April
had the grace to look embarrassed. "Yeah, I knew. I figured you'd probably
tell me eventually if it affected me. But I don't know how he knew that I
knew."

"Maybe
Chen feeds back information to him so he can direct his research better,"
Gunny guessed.

Gabriel
ignored his suppositions and sat with a poker face.

"None
of us are enemies," April said. "What does it matter?"

"So
many connections. What if it gets to the wrong ear?" Gunny asked.
"There are
reasons
for operational security and need to know."

"I'm
not sure there are," April said. "I'm starting to think most of it is
Earth Think. Earth is full of intrigue and double dealing and conflicting
interests. In fact anybody who actually is hostile to us is going to have an
Earth connection. Would any of the three of us do something harmful to the
other two? I don't think so. Ultimately we all live in Home and need to see it
secure. So the chances of having a really serious conflict of interests is very
small. You know your friends and enemies – or not."

Neither
of them immediately replied, sitting and thinking that over.

April
plunged back in. "So many of the horrible mistakes the Earthies make,
starting wars even, result from one hand not knowing what the other hand is
doing. Even within their own governments and organizations."

"You
really knew we were doing some sort of deal on the moon?" Gunny asked her.

"Your
fellows Eric and Isaac got a lunch pack for five. It was stuff you wouldn't eat
in zero g and high end stuff. They paid extra to impress somebody. They hired a
pilot and took a full fuel load in a landing capable shuttle so they weren't
going to another habitat where they could buy lunch. You don't hire a landing
capable shuttle for three times the price if you are going orbit to orbit, and
they returned in the time frame of a lunar landing plus about two hours. When
they returned they took a full fuel load as if they might need to do it again soon
and not want to wait to fuel up." April gave him a look that was a
challenge to deny it. "I'd say they sat and had a meeting in the shuttle
with some Loonies. Probably French."

"Why
French?" Gunny asked.

"Because
Heather has infiltrated cameras and electronic surveillance on Armstrong so she
doesn't get surprised by them again and she told me the shuttle didn't go there
when I asked. And the French are going to declare independence and kick their
Earth appointed administrators out soon," April said.

"Oh
crap
, that really
is
seriously secret," Gunny said, looking
around again.

"Do
you think you are the only people they need to hire to pull this off?' April
said.

"Apparently
not... " Gunny said.

"They
are licensing tech to us and we are helping them acquire things they will need after
they declare independence," April revealed.

"Same
here. I hope they don't have multiple parties chasing the same items and if one
of us gets it the other has gone to a lot of trouble for nothing. What are you
getting them?" Gunny asked.

"I'll
tell you," April agreed, "but only as a trade. What are you shopping
for them?"

"They
want a cannon like Heather owns. It impressed a lot of people with how
economical and effective it is. Or something similar, but an identical 57mm
Bofors would do fine. We are running up against all sorts of obstruction on the
Earth side to buying one," Gunny said.

"They
have Jeff buying seeds and cuttings and breeding stock so they can be
independent for food. Which I think is an excellent idea so I'm having him buy
smaller amounts for Central," April said.

"Good,
I'm glad they aren't jerking us around," Gunny said.

"I
have to call Heather, but would you be interested in buying a cannon from
Central?" April asked.

"They
have
extra
?" Gunny asked, genuinely shocked.

"Heather's
people could reverse engineer what they have. They've are been making some real
advances on fabricating steel objects from the iron particles in regolith,
alloying the steel right in the laser sintering process. They are moving tons
of regolith every day to back-fill the crater with which the Chinese gifted
them. It's going to take years. Now that they have a use for the iron they are
talking about mining the backfill since they have to handle it anyway.

"They
should get quite the stockpile of metal by the time it is filled. I know
they've made gears and gun barrels. and objects as large as a vacuum hatch. It's
just a little improvement on conventional fabricating, but it works better in a
vacuum. I don't see why there would be any size limitation on the length of the
object. I'll ask her directly if they could fab a cannon tube," April
promised.