April 6: And What Goes Around (16 page)

"The only
thing I'm not sure of is if she will be viewed as clearing you on Harold's
death since she brought it up and said they couldn't prove it
yet
. She
seemed to leave the door open for that in her conditional language. I bet it
would be an epic battle of lawyers to hear that argued. Don't count on it ever
happening. The licensing body will
not
want this mess aired in public."

Deloris looked at
Barak oddly and typed. "Why are you holding your hand under your
arm?"

Sheepishly he held
it out for her inspection. She pantomimed holding the other out side by side
and he complied. His right was visibly swollen. She made a gesture to clutch it
into a tight fist and he shook his head no. He couldn't bend his fingers that
far or get them against his palm.

"Broken?"
Deloris asked with the helmet talk, managing to convey her concern in the
facial code. 

"No," he
denied emphatically, giving a prolonged shake of his head.

Alice took the pad
away from Deloris and typed. "Soft tissue damage. If it was broken it
would be swollen less symmetrically and be much puffier and discolored. There
might be a hairline crack in  something but no clean fracture for it to look
that good. I'll get ice and you get an anti-inflammatory in him. We
don't
want it on record your hand is injured.
"
She rolled her eyes at how
bad that would be.

Deloris nodded
agreement, still looking concerned.

Barak was looking
at it, trying to picture if he could get it in a space suit gauntlet. He had
his doubts. No matter what Alice said it didn't look all that "good"
to him.

After making him
take a couple pills, Deloris typed on her pad. "I can't imagine Charlotte
is going to push to resume operations. Chances are you'll have time for the
hand to get better. I doubt she will do much of anything until Jaabir is at
least well enough to direct her. Despite her stupid angry outburst with you, 
she seems the sort to avoid doing anything for which she may be blamed later.
She just isn't as skillful at cover-your-butt as Jaabir.

"Our schedule
is loose enough Jaabir getting hurt is plenty of excuse to delay outside
operations for a few days. She isn't going to want to send one of us outside
with you if we do a test fire and something isn't working. I certainly hope she
isn't stupid enough to send Alice and I with no outside experience to work on
systems we didn't install and don't know. Don't
you
blurt out anything
stupid like she did and this may still work out OK."

Alice came in with
ice in a bag. She wrapped a towel around his hand gently to moderate the
cooling. And another around the outside to keep it in place. The gravity was so
weak there was no advantage to keeping it elevated.

Barak held one
finger up for attention and wiggled it to indicate he was staying silent.
"You are probably right. It took almost ten minutes for Jaabir to start
stirring a bit. When I left he was just feeling his face very carefully. I
don't think Charlotte had given him anything for the pain yet. Now I'll have to
worry what will be said between them and what new trouble they'll cook up for
me."

"You think he
was concussed?" Alice asked, finger spelling the last word.

Barak said yes in
helmet talk but added a maybe.

"There's a
real good chance then that he had the short term memory" – she hesitated,
afraid of saying anything incriminating even in helmet talk – "knocked out
of him. The whole morning might be gone for good. That's not uncommon with
concussion."

Deloris started
typing and they waited for her to show them. "Even if he remembers
everything, she already said she was granting an emergency hearing as acting
Captain and she admitted lack of proof to her charges. It doesn't matter what
he remembers, it's too late to apply the evidence to your case. I see no
advantage to her from his regaining consciousness. In fact anything he says is
likely to show she was culpable in the Bridge watch being neglected. The fact
she said she doesn't have confidence in you is not a conviction of wrong doing.
It affects you now, in this command, but she can't pull your ticket. Frankly, if
she is stupid enough to let all the facts of the matter go public I don't think
it will hurt your prospects of being hired in the future."

Barak nodded his
understanding. Aloud he said, "You know, I'm tired. I'm going to lie down.
Early as it is I wouldn't be surprised if I sleep. We were woke up early."

"One of us
should stay with you," Deloris insisted. She muted the unwatched movie.

"You
stay," Alice said. "I have to go clean up some more in the pantry and
toss the ruined stuff. It has to be removed from the inventory too. When I get
done I'll bring something back for a late lunch."

"And more ice," Deloris said in helmet talk.

* * *

April
was having lunch in the cafeteria, thinking about Heather and missing her
terribly. The last time she'd visited Central Heather had been so busy that she
sat and watched her work more than really visited. Somebody was constantly on
com or waiting to talk to Heather. She wanted to go to the moon again but felt
like she'd be intruding. She'd made sure Jeff called Heather and filled her in
on the situation on Earth. Jeff understood about her missing Heather, but
pointed out he had little private time with her the last time he'd been there
too. They reminisced about what a good time they'd had together on the boat their
last trip to Earth. The boat had been a welcome retreat from constant
intrusions.

Heather
was already planning the boring of access tunnels to use the seeds and such
Jeff and April had sent her. They'd just added to the order the French acquired
through them. Now she wished it had been much more. But all those plans might
all have to wait if they couldn't lift much from Earth. They could make oxygen
and scoop nitrogen from the Earth's atmosphere. But there was almost no organic
feedstock to be had.

Her
own land at Central was sitting unused. It wasn't like she had a
home
there. She'd contracted to have a tunnel dug from one corner sloped down along
her boundary facing a public right of way. It went down a kilometer With a
three meter wide floor. That was wide enough for a three wheel cart but not a full
sized rover. It had a slightly larger stub of five hundred cubic meters off of
it near the end for storage. She'd never have this tunnel enlarged. If she eventually
had a rover size tunnel dug for her it would go down from another point far
away. You always wanted more than one way to get back to the surface. Only the
stub was pressurized, not the tunnel. Even though she had a surface lock
installed already. Not only was that much air an expense but if it leaked while
it was sitting unused it was a silly stupid waste of money too.

You
could setup a pressure alarm but if it started dropping searching a ten
kilometer long tunnel for a leak was time consuming. You'd actually be better
off with a
big
leak easier to find. Searching for the leak had to be
done at walking speed because nobody had built an automated machine to do
tunnel maintenance yet. You had to set a heavy aerosol generator at one end on
a timer, go to the other end and ride toward it slowly so your movement didn't
disrupt the plume. Once the concentration went up abruptly you were past the
leak and could back up and localize it. She could contract for that but labor
on the moon was expensive. A trip to her tunnel by a pair of maintenance
workers and the search and repair would probably cost fifteen thousand USNA
Dollars. Nobody in their right mind would drive out and go down a tunnel out of
radio contact alone.

She'd
sent this and that from her possessions there for safe-keeping. It was a lot
more secure than Home, but there was nothing there she really wanted to go work
on improving yet. It wasn't livable at all except as a bare-bones survival
shelter. She hadn't finished making her cubic here on Home as comfortable as
she wanted and didn't want to divert funds to the moon. Maybe when she upgraded
her furniture and things at Home she'd send the old ones to the moon as
stand-by freight.

"Look
at
this
!" Jeff said, slapping a bundle of EuroMarks on the table.
April had been deep in thought and hadn't seen him walk up. They hadn't made
any arrangement to meet and she was surprised to see him. He must have came
here when she wasn't at home. Her pad was off but he had an emergency
over-ride, if he cared to use it. Maybe he was simply hungry. It wasn't like
him at all to display temper like this. Not unless there was a huge issue.

"Be
right back," Jeff muttered and turned to go get something to eat.

April
picked up the bundle. It was fifty one hundred EuroMark bills in a plastic
band. Too tight to get one back in if she pulled it out. She fanned the end to
look at them and didn't see anything remarkable. They were the usual plastic
bank note with a number of security features. The mark indicated they were of
German origin. She flipped them and looked at the back side, reverse that is,
Jeff would correct her that obverse and reverse were the proper terms real
bankers use if she said front and back. One end had a new holographic
background rectangle with printing in three languages. "Issued 2087 / 11 /
1. Value discounted 1% each 90 day period."

When
he came back Jeff had a corned beef sandwich, pickle and a bowl of soup. That
was a pretty decent lunch for him. April decided not to say anything. Praising
him for it eating well today was almost the same as nagging about neglecting
himself other days. He must be hungry. He had a mug of coffee and even though
he was upset he'd noticed her mug was almost empty. He had a take-away cup and
poured half of it in her mug, saving himself a round trip to the coffee urns.
That was sweet, but also typical Jeff to be efficient with his time and
motions.

"Did
you see the discount schedule?" Jeff asked. He took a bite of sandwich and
set it aside, moving the soup in front of him.

"Yes,
I've read rumors they would consider that," April said, "but I'm
still surprised to see them actually
do
it. I thought they learned it
didn't help a couple generations back. Although back then they at least hid the
fact they were devaluing the currency better than
this
," she said,
holding the notes up.

He
chewed a bit and swallowed while April was silence. Finally he asked. "Well,
what do you
think
of it?"

"This,"
April said, wagging the bundle, "is not cash money. At best it is a loan
of credit. And a loan on pretty bad terms unless there are other provisions of
which I am not aware. I have questions. For example, if you deposit it to your
account for tax payments does it retain the face value at which you put it in?
Or do they note the date and continue devaluing it until it is entirely debited
from your account? Now I know all money today is debt, but usually interest is
paid by the recipient of a
loan
. If you aren't buying something like a
house that can be collateral, say if you borrow money to go on vacation. Well,
they can't repossess a vacation."

"They
seem to have realized if the loan defaults 'their' money is still out there and
they no longer have a bag holder," she said disgusted. "Heaven forbid
they
should assume any risk for the loan just because
they
decided the borrower was credit worthy. This looks to me like a way to insure
nobody can default, because the interest is tied to the money itself."

"If
you are European it makes it pretty hard not to participate in this scheme
too," Jeff noted. "It seems like 'Heads I win – tails you lose.' You
can figure they will still charge the interest on creating it and loaning it,
and get the interest from its scheduled devaluation. Not to mention the value
they steal all along by creating inflation. I don't expect them to stop doing
that. How can they lose?" Jeff asked, throwing his hands up in mock
amazement.

April
nodded agreement. "I suppose I should be happy they don't amortize it so
that the interest is paid heavier up front and the loss slows down as it ages.
That would encourage people to spend it even faster and just squeeze a little
more out of them on the back end if they balk at spending it. Do they have no
shame? How do
you
come to have these before the issue date?"

"I
don't know," Jeff admitted. "Somebody's error but I don't know who. I
called the
Deutsche Bundesbank desk where I order currency and
asked them why we were getting these bills? There was no letter or notice in
the courier bag. She said I should have an internal communication on it. I had
to explain The System Trade Bank isn't part of the European banking system to
get an internal notice. She assumed at first I was in her system, if I had
these.

"Our name doesn't have anything to suggest either German or North
American ties. It's rather neutral and we're just another number with a two
letter prefix. I think it may have just been a clerk who thought they
recognized the name and didn't look at it as closely as they should have at the
prefix. I mean... It's not an especially big order of currency for them to
fill. People used to seeing a couple hundred orders a day like this go across
their desk can't maintain a high level of vigilance without burning out. You
catch them before lunch on a Monday and who knows what they will send you?

"I explained it must be an error and asked if we should use them,
hold them for release until the issue date or return them? The lady did agree
that it was an error that they were sent to a non-member bank early but
returning them would serve no purpose because these couldn't reach her before
the activation date now anyway. She suggested I hold them until the issue date
because that is what all the European Banks are required to do. She also
pointed out that they won't actually be legal currency until the issue date so
my customer could technically charge me with fraud if I issue them and he can't
spend them yet. I mean, that's just three days from now, but Dave's ordered the
cash and he expected it today."