Archaea 3: Red (3 page)

“We are looking for a sensor model that has the most range with the highest resolution available.” I reiterated, though I knew already this guy didn't yet understand the words coming out of my face.

“Are you speaking in terms of tonnage, for the size of your vessel?
Or…” he trailed off, looking at me with his brightest, most helpful face.

“No,
” I paused. “I am speaking in terms of the very best gear you have available.” I said, as slowly and carefully as I could, in an attempt to avoid any further confusion.

He sat back in his chair and fixed me with an ingratiating smile that made me glad I
had Yak here to punch it for me, on the off chance that it might be needed. It was looking more and more inevitable.

“Sir, I am afraid you may not understand. The best gear we have is usually commissioned by vessels of the Survey Service, or conglomerate representatives. I am afraid it might be cost-prohibitive for your vessel. Now we have a very nice line of civilian or private sector models you may find more suitable for your vessel.”

I took a deep breath, and tried again. “Son, you are correct, we aren't communicating very well.” I took a longer moment to make sure I was looking directly into his eyes, and I had his full attention. “We are interested in purchasing, from you, today, the finest, most cost prohibitive sensor package you currently offer.” I paused again to let that sink in, and right as he started to open his mouth, continued, “actually, if you have an advanced prototype model in late testing that is nicer than what you currently offer, we would pay your asking price.”

I smiled
, and added a brief affirmative nod, just in case he still wasn’t clear.

He was the worst poker player I have ever seen. His eyes lit up triple-sevens, jackpot,
and death by commission. He cleared his throat and took a sip of water from the glasses on the table.

“I believe
I understand, sir. Please wait here a moment while I discuss some options with our owner.”

He stood up and left us waiting.

Shorty clicked her tongue and smiled at Yak and I. Yak poured some more water, and we all enjoyed watching the water slowly spiral down into the tall glass, where it sloshed oddly up against the sides.

“Hello Mr. Mitchell”, a new man said, walking in ahead of our sales rep,
followed by a smaller, older fellow with a shocking head of wild hair and a dark scowl – almost certainly an engineer.

“My name is Owen Richards, and I am the CEO of Tranquilimetrics. This is our Director of Research, Tim Ropp.
”

“How do you do, Mr. Richards
?” I asked, as we shook hands all around.

“Well, we’re doing just fine here, though we’re all a little unclear as to how we can help you.
Preston tells us that you want the very best sensor package we offer?”

“Yes sir, that's correct. Even better, if you are able.”

“Well, that's part of why I am stopping by. We don't normally make a habit of selling prototypes, as you can imagine. However, Preston was insistent that we consider it.” He looked at his junior sales rep with a smile, as if to apologize for all this crazy foolishness.

Before I could answer, Mr. Ropp blurted out brusquely through what he assumed was an epic scowl,
“What do you need that sort of accuracy for, Mr. Mitchell?”

Owen fixed him with a look
that CEOs throughout the galaxy are trained to use in MBA School, or wherever their kind is spawned. “Please excuse Tim here. He isn't too keen on letting his pet projects walk out the door.”

I thought about firing up my own scowl, to let him know I was no pushover, but smiled instead. Today was a good day, a happy day.

“Fair enough, I understand completely.” I paused for a sip of water. “We are an independent survey vessel, and need to make hyper-accurate maps of areas we are contracted to cover. Naturally, the more accurate we can be the better. Our contracts are extremely lucrative, and as this is our livelihood, we want to invest in the very best we can get.”

“The sensors are just half of it Mr. Mitchell”,
Mr. Ropp said gruffly. “You need to have a processing core that can handle the data, and an interface that can make use of it. We haven't finished our in-house testing interface yet. It is definitely not ready for the open market.” he looked at his boss, as if daring him to say otherwise. I took the opportunity instead.

“Mr. Ropp, we have a technologist on our crew that can probably
build interfaces in his sleep. We are not interested in the software, just the hardware. Our core processor is up to the task.”

I left out the fact that we have two nexus core processors aboard the Archaea, both liberated from million-ton service destroyers
, and were looking at placing an order for ten more in about 45 minutes. We will soon have far more processing power than we could ever use. 

“That's impossible. We have teams of developers...working in shifts... this is not something you can just cook up! This is next-gen hardware.”

We all laughed, thinking of how fast Janis could write the code for an interface. She probably had it written already. Clearly he didn’t understand the joke, and his face started turning purple.

“Please let me explain…
here's the bottom line. We are confident that we can make it work, we are the best in the business, and our technologist is the brightest kid you've ever seen. The risk is all on our shoulders, and we're prepared to put money on the table, today… right now in fact.”

“Well, that is the issue at hand, really”, said Owen. “We are in the business of making money, and if you are prepared to compensate us for the loss of the revenue this prototype would bring... well, we can always build another one, right Tim?”

The smaller man grumbled, but shrugged. Clearly, he was not in it for the money, but for the pure joy of research at the leading edge of the technology. He clearly was bothered more with the thought of us wasting his work, than using it.

“Well that's great. So let's talk about money. What are we looking at
?” I asked with a serious face.

Owen leaned back and looked at the recessed lighting in the ceiling for a moment. “Mr. Mitchell, I don't think we could let it go for anything less than...
twenty million.” He looked solemn, and yet at the same time appeared to shrink inperceptibly into himself, as he realized there was no way we were going to pay that much for gear than normally runs a twentieth of that.

“Mr. Richards, Mr. Ropp, this prototype...are you confident this is the absolute best gear available?”

Mr. Owen smiled. “Sir, we are the top dog in our industry. Our top of the line gear is ten times more sensitive than our nearest competitor, and I am not just reciting marketing copy, I am stating fact, lab-tested and verified. Our latest prototype is easily, what… a thousand percent more accurate, maybe more.”

“More, probably,” added Mr. Ropp, “but l
ike I said, we haven't finished the interface. Certainly from what we have seen, it's far beyond anything available on the market today.”

Shorty met my eye and nodded. We were both remembering a discussion Janis and Pauli
had with the captain. We already had every last bit of their test data for this prototype, and Janis has already analyzed it to a degree these folks were never going to be able to reach. We already knew we wanted it, and were under direct orders from the captain to get it.

“Mr. Richards, our research has indicated that a technical prototype of this sort is worth between
eight to ten million. I am prepared to pay fifteen million for this hardware.” I fixed him with my poker face, set to win. My ace in the hole was that we already knew their investment in the entire program was about a fifth of that amount.

He took a breath and looked at his research director for a moment
.

“
Well, that’s a mighty nice offer… I think that would definitely help cover the cost of another prototype, don’t you Tim?”

The scowl left his face, though
that was the extent of his response. Mr. Owen continued, “Well, that’s it then. I will have Preston work up a delivery schedule and payment arrangement. How would you like to take delivery?”

“We would like it delivered to bl
ast pan 62, today if possible. As to payment, if you give me your transfer code, I will queue the credits for deposit, subject to final approval by our captain on delivery, of course.”

He blinked while Tim scoffed.

“That's definitely an ambitious timeframe... what do you think, Tim?”

The little engineer still looked
frustrated, but it was apparent that he had turned a corner. “Yeah, we can do that. It’ll just be a matter of cutting it loose and crating it up.”

“Well
, if you can do it, let's make it happen”, he said with a shaky laugh, while Tim took his leave. “Preston, would you mind stepping out and getting these fine folks a receipt?”

“I sure can!
” Preston said, his voice slightly quavering.

As he stood up, we all stood up as well. “If you don't mind, we'll just follow Preston out so we can sign and be on our way. We have more errands to run while we're here.” I added.

“Certainly – I am going to head to the floor to supervise the crating--” Owen's reply was interrupted by Shorty, “If you don't mind, Yak and I would like to come with you while Gene signs papers.” she smiled up at him sweetly. Who could say no to that?

Not Owen. He blushed and nodded. I gave Shorty a brief look and she smiled, so I figured there was no cause for alarm. With Yak in tow, she'd be fine.

Preston
led me back towards his office and I sat quietly while he worked on his screen, preparing the receipt. Not that Dak wants it. He just wants the gear.

“
Preston, if you don't mind, I am going to report back to Captain Smith...” He nodded, as I stepped out into the hall.

“Sir, we have purchased gravimetric sensors.” I said on comms.

He replied right away, “That’s great news Gene. Janis just showed me the document he’s working on – it looks good to me, mister. Well done!”

“Thanks Dak. Shorty and Yak are watching the
crating; I am going to head down to meet them after we're done here.”

“Yes, that was Janis' request, Gene. She twigged on a double cross, they were going to shift us one of their older prototypes.”

“Ah, well that makes sense. Good call sir. Are you sure they won't do it anyway, even with Shorty and Yak standing by?”

“Nah, never happen. Janis knows what she wants. She's in direct contact with Yak and Shorty.”

“Sounds good, Dak - out.” I said, clicking off comms and stepping back into the office.

“Okay Mr. Mitchell, I have the document finished, it's pretty basic.” He gestured towards his desk. I took out my handset and set it down so it could negotiate the file transfer. Of course this was supposed to be a secure form of transfer, but Janis was on both ends of this transmission, and
probably resident in just about every network in the hab by now.

“
This looks good to me, son.”

“Thanks a lot Mr. Mitchell – this is by far the biggest commission I will probably ever see. You’ve really made my day, sir. My wife and I might be able to book passage out-system on this!”

“Son, to tell you the truth, when you’re out in the inky black, this gear means everything. We are definitely in your debt to some degree.” I reached out for a firm handshake, and added, “Can you show me the way down to where it’s being crated?”

“Absolutely, right this way.” he said, as he bounded into the hall. We went past the conference room,
and through a large hatch set in the rock near the end of the hall. Once we stepped through onto their factory floor, I was completely caught off guard.

“Pretty big, right?”
Preston said, smiling. Despite my best attempt to not be a gaper, my mouth hung open wide enough to catch a fly. The room was enormous, and clearly served as their testing area, as well as manufacturing and storage. Lights on racks across the ceiling of the enormous tunnel resulted in a brilliantly well-lit area, and they had sectioned the lower areas of the tunnel with plasteel catwalks and platforms.

“It's a lot to take in!” I remarked, and it was.

“The testing area is right this way”, he said and led me along a catwalk to the right side of the tunnel towards a platform. Shorty and Yak were there with a few technicians and a hauler, and it looked like they were pretty close to done. Shorty and Yak left the techs and met me halfway. Preston smiled and shook our hands again, and left.

“Hey Shorty, Yak – how's it coming?”

“We're doing good Gene, just about done. What do you have left on your list?” she said.

I brought up my wrist holo and checked. “Well, we need to go pick up the sensor package, and I wanted to buy us some new drives... think Captain Smith will mind?”

She laughed, “No, I doubt it. I got the distinct impression he wants us to get rid of that gold. That should definitely help! I want to get the latest and greatest in just about everything for the nova cannon, new focal rings, stepper pumps, and charge plates – pretty much every subsystem. I would also like to drop in some new ammo ovens.”