April 6: And What Goes Around (36 page)

"I'm aware of
that and I'm not at all sure how many thousands of square kilometers we'd have
to mine and convert to bucky to build one. If you want to do it in your
lifetime you better get another source of carbon. Unless we find a big surprise
somewhere that means importing it," Mo said.

"I'll keep
that in mind. I'm more interested right now in when you'll have enough carbon
dioxide to fill a tunnel to start increasing our seed stocks," Heather said.

Mo made a show of
looking thoughtful. "I will have two hand-built extraction machines
running in two weeks. Unless there is a major design problem in another week after
that I'll have around ten kilograms of carbon for you, which will make about thirty-four
or thirty-five kilograms of carbon dioxide. You can start plants with just a
couple hundred parts per million carbon dioxide and the optimum is a thousand
to twelve hundred ppm. So you can have a small tunnel filled to start some
seeds in three weeks.

"I'll cycle
the batch process faster the first couple weeks to get a stock even if it
wastes some gas, but then pump down closer to a vacuum to increase yield as we
add machines. We'll hand-build a new extractor a week and get ahead of you. In
a couple months, I'll have an automated machine designed to build small
extractors from what we've learned on the early hand built machines. You can
put the people to other work then, and you'll have to stop building them when
they ring the crater or send them off to mine other areas. Maybe a dark crater
like we said."

"Are you
going to be able to store it OK if we get behind on tunnels?" Heather
asked.

"Oh sure. We
can sinter steel tanks and store it as liquid. If we mine it in a dark crater
we can store it as liquid in much thinner tanks at lower pressures or even as a
solid in permanent shadow," Mo assured her. "When we have a large
amount of biomass from the plants we can set it aside and store it as cellulose,
starch, sugar or even reduce it to pure carbon. In a few months I think we'll
be ahead of how much you can use for food and we'll be selling it."

"Oh! For some
reason I wasn't thinking of selling it. I was stuck mentally on just using
it," Heather said. "That's great. We need exports. Perhaps we can
export it
as
food."

"It might only
be a temporary market if we get lots of carbon from the outer system, but for a
few years we can make a bit of money from it or trade with it," Mo said,
looking pleased.

"I'll talk to Jeff about marketing it, and see if he's going to need
carbon to do prototype work for the beanstalk," Heather promised.

* * *

"Five
passengers opted to return to ISSII rather than go into isolation," Jon
said. "The trouble is now they won't take them back. They are sitting in
the shuttle waiting for us to sort it out. This is ridiculous. They are no more
at risk than the other people they are taking in from Earth and other habs who
are displaying no symptoms."

"Except they do
know these had at least some exposure in the same cabin," Doc Lee said.
"What are you going to do?"

"I'll let
them enter again as long as they don't argue about going in isolation for at
least four days. I don't wish us to be the ones who appear unreasonable or keep
these people uncomfortable and imprisoned on their shuttle. The owner
reasonably wants his shuttle back to use too. We have the room in hotels and
they should be cleared as flu free before we get a new batch," Jon said.

"How did we
get these? That is, how did the infected fellow not get tested?" Lee
asked.

"He works for
the owner of that hull and was getting a courtesy ride so they let him aboard
before official boarding time," Jon said. "Our paid guy showed up
before they opened the hatch to the public, but the sick guy was already in the
shuttle."

"Well you can
hardly blame him for not having a continuous stakeout on the dock. He isn't
getting paid enough for that," Lee concluded.

"No,"
Jon agreed, "Even if we had our own man there he wouldn't have caught this
one. What about the fellow in quarantine? What can you tell me about him?"

"Oh he has
the flu alright," Lee said, "he tested positive right away, but it's
the H3N2 variety."

"It isn't the
new stuff?" Jon asked, surprised.

"Nope. You
know, all the old seasonal varieties are still out there in the wild. We have yet
to see if this one will become a fixture or burn completely out. We still don't
want H3N2 sweeping through the station," Lee assured him. "The flu
shot this year didn't include it. Before this new mouse based flu showed up
everybody was guessing on a variety of H1N1 for the season."

"Why did this
fellow run?" Jon wondered. "Didn't he get tested on ISSII and know it
was the plain old seasonal variety?"

"No. He saw
lots of people getting sick on ISSII and decided to bug out. He didn't
feel
sick when he left. In fact he wasn't aware he had it yet when Margaret stunned
him. He said zero G always makes him feel out of sorts and stuffed up so he
didn't think anything of it. The good thing about that for him is we got him on
anti-virals early in his infection when they work best," Lee said.

"You do know
we're being blamed for starting this flu in a lot of the news outlets?"
Jon asked.

"I do. It's
insane on the face of it," Lee said. "We have the most to lose. But
people believe what they want to believe in the face of all logic or evidence.
That's a component of what people are calling Earth Think. I hope we don't lose
the ability to see that or replace it with our own Home Think now that
immigration is less restricted than in the past."

Lee's face lit up
with a sudden thought. "If you find the source of those rumors I suspect
you will know who really released this virus on the world."

Jon said nothing but looked thoughtful.

"The
situation in the big cities has gotten really bad," Jeff said. "The
EMS, police, and fire departments have run out of fuel to respond. Some places
the crazy people destroyed the vehicles when they did go out. The hospitals are
out of supplies and room. There are fires in a few big cities that nobody is
putting out. The military have withdrawn to their bases and sealed up mostly.
People stopped reporting for work when they knew there was little they could do
and they are taking care of their own families.

"Banks have
one by one stopped updating accounts and crediting people with their pay when
their IT people stayed home and systems failed. If they aren't getting paid and
their cards stop working people have  little reason to go to work. The cash
dispensers ran out of money and few of them have been refilled. A lot of shops
are closed or won't take cash anyway. A lot of shops stopped taking cash and
post it right on the door so robbers know there isn't any money to steal. The
government encouraged that for more tax receipts since it's much harder to hide
receipts.

"No few
stores have been looted and burned in the worst areas, but people want food and
medicine, not big screen displays and com pads. The police stayed on the job
and kept the lid on long enough that the places with food and drugs were empty
by the time people got desperate enough to loot them.

 "It's a mess
and traffic out on the highways between cities is way down. The only bright
spot I can see is they
didn't
have a mass exodus from the cities into
the countryside. That would have stalled when everybody ran out of fuel and
most cars don't have the range they did even ten years ago. North America and
Europe are in winter and thousands would have frozen to death when they
couldn't reach safety or find enough fuel to make it back home. By the time
most wanted to leave they heard from friends and online that it was just as bad
everywhere else. The official news sources kept saying everything was fine. The
lying is blatant to the point that convinced most people everything was exactly
the opposite."

"That's
pretty much what my people tell me. Some places are losing electric or water if
the local staff happens to be hard hit. Thankfully a lot of the machinery is
robust enough to keep working for a time without maintenance. But there are
still places with power line up on poles where a storm can damage them. The
fusion power stations last best. The situation is a little easier in the
tropics or in the Southern Hemisphere where it is summer," Jeff told Jon.

"I wish we
had more assets on the ground. I can trust nothing that is said on the news
services."

"I, we, still
have some agents in contact and we have been supporting them," Jeff
revealed.

"How? Why
should they still work for you in that chaos?" Jon asked. "They
aren't getting paid."

"You know the
mission we sent to Tonga," Jeff reminded him. "It seemed a failure
but we still got the flu data. Well, the agents ingratiated themselves to a
taxi driver on their way to the hotel. They gave him a gold ring and he used it
very wisely to prepare for the pandemic hitting the island.

"When they
got in their hotel room they hid a cache of gold rings and other things in a
lighting fixture, not wanting to carry it all around. We contacted the driver
and asked him to continue working for us. He was quite agreeable. I suspect
there isn't much work of any kind right now but survival scavenging. We told
him what room to rent at the hotel and he recovered the rings. He's our eyes
and ears there now, and he managed to contact one of Mitsubishi's people and
manage him for us."

"How did you
get in contact with him with no agents there?" Jon demanded.

"Why, we just
called him on his cell phone. Many areas with solar backup power on the towers
still have cell service," Jeff said.

"You just
called him in the
clear
?" Jon was horrified.

"Yes, it
beats not calling him at all, and we spoke in generalities and did all real
communication with video. In all that chaos how long do you think it will take
for them to analyze all the back logged video if there were no key words in the
conversation to trigger them to look at it? In fact how long do you think they
will
keep
that old data with nobody going in to man the data centers?
Perhaps somebody will recover it for historical interest in a couple decades,"
Jeff predicted.

"It still
seems risky to me," Jon said. "You have caches of payment in other
places?"

"No, I
wish
we had prepositioned some," Jeff said, obviously unhappy he hadn't thought
ahead to do that, "but we've delivered help to a few key agents."

"Are we on
the same side or not?" Jon asked. "What possible reason do you have
to keep secrets from me? Am I going to act against your interests?"

"This, is a
conversation April reported having with Gunny," Jeff admitted. "it's
hard to break habits of need to know and organizational boundaries. She made
the case that it's Earth Think and they shoot themselves in the foot as often
as not denying information to their own people."

"And you
reject that idea?"

"No, not
entirely. It's just difficult to apply the general concept to a specific
instance," Jeff said, taking a deep breath. "I will, however, force
myself to do so now. We can't exactly do bank transfers. If we could it would
endanger our people down there to associate them with us. In several key areas
like Italy we dropped reentry vehicles and sent some supplies to our agents. Dave
took about twelve hours to crank out a couple prototype vehicles when we
decided to do it. They got a supply of small gold coins, some compact nine
millimeter pistols and some laser com gear to contact us directly. We
counterfeited the coins like Earth issue, so they would be recognizable to
people."

"Nobody
thought these were missiles and shot them down?" Jon asked.

"They were
compact. About like a six liter bucket," Jeff demonstrated with his hands.
"We stealthed them as much as possible and put them on a trajectory that
didn't leave an ionization trail low enough to alarm anyone. They looked more
like a natural atmosphere grazing meteor than a bomb. They also came down in
daylight and were aimed at remote areas of farmland or park. If something with
almost no radar signature comes down out in the boonies and there is no sonic boom
it's easy to ignore. Especially with reduced manpower on duty to run radar. They
aren't going to intercept some odd return that doesn't profile as an attack. We
dropped them within a couple tens of meters so they grabbed them and left the
area quickly. If we had to we could have hit the bed of a truck driving down
the road so they didn't even have to stop."

"Why not some
emergency ration bars? You can't eat gold. Is anybody taking it?" Jon asked.

"We can spare
gold at this point easier than sending back food we paid to lift. I'm sure if
you offered the gold to professional economists they'd agree it isn't money and
worthless. However go up in the hills to the tiny villages and the people who hoarded
food and farmers will feed you for a week for a little gold coin. We have more
platinum but it just doesn't have the recognition or favor gold still has to
Earthies. The landscape can be a picture of total devastation and gold will
still bring out goods you thought unavailable. Call it peasant logic but it is
still the reality except among the intelligentsia."

"Thank you
for trusting me with that. I have a mission for some of your agents if you
would include it with whatever tasks you need," Jon requested. "I'd
like to have them talk to some of the news people while there is still enough
order for them to be found, and see what they can find out about the source of
some of the flu stories we have seen."

"Oh really? Jeff seemed interested. "Tell me more. "Does
this benefit us all?"

* * *

"I worry
about Li and the people on his boat," April said. "The last time we
were with them on vacation they said Italy was so rough they avoided docking
there. That was before the flu. How much worse must it be now? I'm afraid now
we'll never have another Earth vacation. It'll just be too dangerous if this
flu is established in the population."

Jeff and April
were both in one of the big
Hardoy
chairs. He was near as
slightly built as her and in the low gravity it was plenty big for both of them.
They naturally found the same center in the fabric sling. That was fine with
him. Her arms were tucked up between them and Jeff was holding her loosely. It
was very comfortable in the light gravity. She seemed disposed to be melancholy
tonight and Jeff didn't want that. His reply was calculated to be upbeat.

"It
is
lot worse. But we've helped them. I've dropped stuff to them in the open sea
and they have work to do for us. Papa-san is still interested in their welfare
even if it isn't his boat any more. I suspect they do things for him too, but I
don't pry. Among other things they are getting some of the mushroom spores your
friend Jelly requested. They are collecting a lot of little things that we
can't get shipped to Tonga and routing it to what few shuttles are still
lifting from Australia.

"
Dionysus'
Chariot
is scheduled to drop to meet them in international waters and take
the other stuff they've collected onboard. They said they are sending us about
a half ton of frozen fish too. They volunteered that and named some things they
would like in trade. I was assured they have as much fish as they wish to eat
and more. So we aren't running them short of food for themselves. They are
loitering in a very safe area."

"Where are
they now?" April asked. "Someplace safer I hope?"

Jeff lifted an
eyebrow and considered. "I guess there isn't any reason not to say.
They've gone around Africa, went around the Cape and are over south of
Australia now. Australia isn't hit as badly as North America and Europe. So
they were able to get some things for us there. They're going to stay in that
part of the world for now. There are lots of areas they won't go. Nowhere near
the Horn of Africa or Southeast Asia. Li said entire villages have gone out in
boats and won't go back to shore, avoiding the flu. They fish and land in uninhabited
places, but they live by piracy too."

"I remember
the storm we went through in Papa-san's boat," April said. "I
wouldn't want to be stuck out there in small boats in a real storm."

"Perhaps that
will thin them out over a few years. The atoll we dropped to for vacation is so
far from any big population center I think it would be safe from pirates or
anything else. I can see us visiting somewhere that remote again. Besides we
could have an overwatch for anything approaching. We could probably do it again
if we have time and can justify the expense. But we'd have to have
Dionysus'
Chariot
drop a second time to lift us again, instead of going to Tonga or
someplace else to lift. But you are right that visiting Earth where there are
lots of
people
may be effectively closed to us for a long time."

"Li may ask
to be lifted off Earth if it stays bad. They might not be able to buy repairs
or parts and get to where their boat is unserviceable," April predicted.

"We owe them.
If that happens we'll pick them up," Jeff promised. "Even if they
can't get a final load for us to pick up too."

"Thank
you," April said. "I still feel like I owe them."

"Gunny assures
me you have a rescue complex," Jeff told her, grinning.

"And if I do,
the people I've rescued have turned out to be assets, haven't they?"

"You know, I
can't argue with that. To be fair, I'll mention that side of it to Gunny at the
right moment," Jeff promised.

"Good. Sometimes
I still worry he thinks I'm silly," April said.

"Sometimes
you think too much," Jeff insisted. "You can get stuck in a
loop."

"You are
undoubtedly correct, but how do I break it?" April asked.

"You have to
reboot," Jeff said. "Think on something different, something sufficiently
distracting  to demand your full attention and banish those other thoughts."

"But isn't
that just trading over to another loop?" She objected.

"I certainly hope so," Jeff said, and demonstrated what he meant
by distracting.

* * *

The trays were
spaced on shelves stacked fifty millimeters apart. The bottom of the shelf
above had a glow panel printed on its bottom.  By the time the plants needed
more headroom the next tunnel would be done and they could move half of the
shelves to racks with double spacing. The tiny green sprouts were almost identical.
Two leaves on red stems in a Y, reaching up at an angle like spread arms, a
hand's breadth apart. A bud just starting from between them. There would be no
thinning of this crop. They didn't have the seed yet to waste planting three or
four together knowing they would thin them out. There were just a few spots
missing a spot of green color. The seed had germinated very successfully.

These were sugar
beets and the isolation suit the young woman tending them wore was to protect
the precious plants, not her. She would get a rinse down and step in a sanitizing
solution before going in the next tunnel that had racks of cabbages.

There were three long lines of racks and one narrow access aisle. The
center row could be rolled over to move the open aisle to the other side.
Eventually it would be motorized and even more compact and efficient. After the
beets bolted and the seeds were collected there would be yeast tanks awaiting
them as feed stock. It would be awhile before they could sacrifice a tender
young beet for greens or direct consumption in salads or pickle.