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For a moment, Gordon seemed happy to simply admire the view, glass in hand, legs crossed casually. He sighed lightly, a sign of contentment, and took a slow draught of the cold water. Then he looked at Julian, who was regarding him silently. At length, he said, “Do you realize what’s going on down there, right now?”

“We’ve all seen the news feeds,” Julian said simply.

“Of course,” Gordon shrugged. “But the newsfeeds don’t communicate the desperation down there… the panic. The sense that everything you knew, everything you had, is now over. And some that aren’t sure if they’re going to survive the night.” Julian wisely refrained from commenting, and instead took a draught from his water glass, and waited. After a moment, Gordon continued. “And that’s just in North America, right now. The ash cloud is reaching Europe now, and Africa, and they’re just starting to feel how we’ve felt for the past week.”

“It’s tragic,” Julian finally said. “And there was no way to predict it.”

“No, there wasn’t.” Gordon shook his head sadly. “It means we’re all going to have to change how we do things. In fact, to change what we do.”

“Up here,” Julian pointed out, “we’re already doing that.”

Gordon fixed him with a look. “Are you? Well, I have to say that things don’t look too chaotic from here. Actually, they look… quite calm. Like Verdant isn’t even slightly inconvenienced by the goings-on back on Earth.”

“Looks are deceiving,” Julian stated. “It ‘looks calm’ because people are cutting back on extraneous activities… conserving their resources. Resources we need to get from Earth, in order to survive. We’ve had restriction periods before. Residents here are very experienced in cutting back, using less, and avoiding unnecessary waste.”
Lessons that would have served Earth well a few times in the past
, he thought, but had the presence of mind not to say aloud. “That’s how we survive the lean times.”

“We were really hoping the ash cloud would not turn out to be this hard to penetrate,” Gordon said, effectively taking the conversation in another direction. “But after what my jet went through, and the
El Capitan
… it’s obviously worse than we thought. Much worse. Our preliminary reports on the ballistic crash came through before I left.”

He paused for effect, prompting Julian to say, “Yes?”

“Flying through the ash is causing a lot of static electricity buildup,” Gordon explained. “The ballistic was hit by at least one lightning bolt. Some of our boys think as many as three direct strikes. Between that, and the blinding caused by the sensor bombardment, the thing went runaway before it reached five thousand meters. We’re lucky it didn’t kill somebody.”

He took another draught. “Julian, that means we’re going to have to harden the nav and control cores against lightning surges, as well as adding shielding to the sensors. That’s going to take time. And money.”

“You’ll be raising your rates,” Julian said, not phrasing it as a question.

“To an extent… we’ll have no choice,” Gordon replied with a shrug. “We’ll try to absorb some of it in other areas, but we have to cover our costs. That’s one of the reasons we need to improve our logistics operations at this end, you see.” (
And he finally gets to the object of his pretense
, Julian thought wryly.) “We’ve identified problems at our offices here, but without direct examination, I can’t possibly take effective action. I’m going to get into their systems, and straighten things out… however I need to do it.”

“Very conscientious,” Julian commented. “I’ll give you two weeks to get done.”

“I can’t guarantee I’ll have the problem straightened out in two weeks,” Gordon said plainly. “I don’t know how extensive they are, yet. Depending on the circumstances, I may have to do some personnel manipulation to get everything running properly. And we’ll probably have to hold deliveries until we get all of that straightened out.”

“Well, then, two weeks better be enough time to retrain your existing personnel to run your office, or hire new people from Verdant’s workforce, because I’m not authorizing any new citizenships in the meantime.”

“Julian, come on, even if I set up an I-V drip in the office and worked 24-7 to get it functioning—”

“No new citizenships includes you, by the way,” Julian interrupted him.

“Now, look!” Gordon blustered. “I’m trying to help you here! If I can’t get these problems fixed, we can’t resume deliveries!”

“Well, since Verdant manufactures a lot of the goods that Earth needs, I’ll make sure they are all well aware what company is preventing me from getting those goods to them.”

“Oh, so, you’re threatening me now?” Gordon tried to take on an indignant tone, which, from him, didn’t work at all. “You don’t think Earth will sympathize with me for having trouble flying through that ash?”

“They might not, when I tell them what’s really holding up their deliveries. Or do you expect them to react favorably to your obvious efforts to blackmail me?”

Gordon’s indignant look quickly shifted then, to be replaced with a knowing and calculated regard. “Hey, that’s just business. It’s called ‘scratching your back’. And you know what they say about my scratching your back…”

Gordon left the sentence hanging there, and took a drink. Julian nodded, and after a moment, stood up and walked over to the balcony.

“Yes, Walter, I know what you want,” Julian said slowly. “In short, you want what billions of other human beings want right now: To be up here, instead of down there. Where you seem to think it’s safe.”

“Julian—”

“And why shouldn’t you think it’s safe?” Julian continued over him. “I mean, look at it!” He swept his hand outward at the interior of the satellite. “It’s so clean, and fresh, and green, and healthy… it’s
perfect
. It’s a new world, hovering out here, an everlasting haven from the rigors of Earth. At least… it sure looks that way.

“But people have limited vision. They think that what they see in front of them is everything there is that’s important. And so they act according to what’s happening right in front of them, whether or not that makes sense against the big picture. It’s that thinking that’s created an overpopulated, over-polluted and undernourished planet below us… and even after those problems became obvious, if those things weren’t happening right in front of someone’s nose, they had no trouble ignoring those problems, or even denying that the problems were there.

“People also have short memories. They don’t learn from past events, from disasters. When an earthquake happens, everybody wails to the skies at how horrible the loss of life and property is. Once it stops, the very next thing people do… is rebuild the same earthquake-prone homes over the same fault-lines. Then they act surprised when the earthquake comes back, and again no one is prepared for the latest loss of life and property.

“Verdant looks like a stable, healthy environment,” Julian continued. “But that’s only because we work hard to make it look that way. In fact, we are incredibly unstable… we are literally constructed to be dependent on the planet Earth for the bulk of our supplies… the chemicals and raw materials we need to create and sustain life here. None of the satellites are independent! If we stop getting our supplies from Earth, we’ll eventually choke to death… assuming we don’t starve first… or freeze. And those supplies have to be carefully balanced against the number of people contained in the satellite. The more people you have, the shorter period your supplies last. The sooner we choke, or starve, or freeze.”

Julian pointed a finger at Gordon. “But you don’t see that. The grass is always greener in the other guys’ lawn, and all you see outside is grass. And you, and seven billion others, feel you have a personal right to that grass, no matter what the consequences, because after all, everything looks great, and how bad could things possibly get up here?”

Throughout Julian’s comments, Gordon sat still and quiet. He watched Julian carefully, taking notice that at no point did Julian raise his voice, gesture animatedly, or pace about like an enraged animal. He was trying to be cool and rational as he explained the situation on Verdant… which, in fact, he just wasn’t buying. Verdant was huge… there was plenty of fresh air… cold water from a chilled tap… they didn’t need for anything. Lenz was cooking up all of this “we are unstable” crap just to scare him. And he was about to say so, when Julian suddenly turned and approached him, leaning forward and putting his face right up into his own. Gordon could feel Julian’s hot breath on his face. He looked mad enough to literally bite Gordon’s nose off, and Gordon pushed back on the sofa cushions as far as he could, to put some space between him and Julian’s fierce visage.

“If I thought for one minute,” Julian growled menacingly, “that your selfish shenanigans designed to con me into giving you space here was going to result in the loss of
just one life
already on this satellite… I’d throw you off this balcony with my own two hands, right now.”

Julian continued to glare at Gordon for another few seconds, before finally straightening up and slowly walking back towards the balcony. Gordon sat there, genuinely rattled for the first time since he’d gotten off the
Aztlan
. His mouth worked, but he could not think of anything to say to counter Julian’s unexpected attack.

Julian reached the balcony and turned back to face Gordon, just in time to see him give up on attempting a retort and close his mouth. “Walter, I allowed you to come here for one reason, and
one reason only
: To straighten out your freight deliveries. But I’m going to tell you this, and I’ll tell you only once… if you can’t straighten out this problem… that’s it.
RPI is cut off.
Verdant doesn’t need you… there are plenty of other freight companies we can do business with. And we both know exactly how lucrative that business is.

“Now,” Julian continued, “if you want to keep this
very lucrative
business relationship going, you will work out your problems up here
forthwith
. And if you can manage it particularly well, I might even see my way clear to…
scratch your back
, as well. But I am guaranteeing you
nothing
, Walter! And if I think for one minute that you’re trying to pull a fast one on me, I’ll put you back on that jet, and pitch it back at Earth, whether it’s flight-worthy or not!”

Julian drained his glass, and put it down on a side table. Then he started for the door. “You have some unpacking… and some thinking… to do. I’d suggest you not waste any time doing either.” Without a backward glance, Julian walked out the door, leaving it open to the hallway.

Julian was awakened about an hour earlier than usual, by the com on his bedstand. It took a moment for him to register the significance of the strange buzzing noise that was keeping him from sleeping, then to find the switch to the com. “Yes?”

“It’s Reya. You’re needed in CnC, sir.”

Anytime Reya Luis used the title “sir” when addressing him, he knew, it meant something serious was indeed going on. “Be there as soon as I can.”

~

There was a lot of background noise in CnC when Julian arrived. However, little of it came from the people manning the workstations. Julian could tell that most of it was coming from audio feeds, from multiple sources, all around the room.

Reya looked up from the workstation she was standing by, when he arrived. With a look, she signaled him to join her. Julian came around to the workstation and stood on the opposite side of the technician seated there. On his board was a video feed that showed a violent clash of forces, large crowds against armed police. A few glances at the background shots confirmed that the feed was coming from inside one of the satellites. “Where is this?”

“On board Fertile,” Reya replied. “About an hour and a half ago, a ballistic rocket that was supposed to be full of supplies arrived there. Instead, it was stuffed to the gills with people. They overwhelmed the workers in Fertile’s bays and spilled out into the satellite.”

“They were
boarded
?” Julian said incredulously. It sounded like something out of an old pirate movie. “Do they know how many?”

“We’ve heard estimates of anywhere between five hundred and a few thousand,” Reya told him. “Nothing certain. Ceo Khaldun has ordered the boarders to be rounded up, to be sent back to Earth. Police engaged the boarders about an hour ago. I called you when they started firing on them.”

“Jesus Christ,” Julian muttered.

“That’s not the worst of it,” Reya said. “Another ballistic approached Qing soon afterward. But someone knew it was full of refugees, Beijing was alerted, and Chang was ordered to repel them. The ballistic was attacked by Qing’s fighters before it docked, and it was forced to de-orbit.”

Julian saw the rest on Reya’s face. “Oh, no…”

Reya nodded. “They’d suffered damage from the attack, and they didn’t have enough fuel for a controlled re-entry. It’s just reported by the media to have crash-landed. No chance of survivors.”

“Holy Mother of God.” Julian took a step back from the workstation, with his eyes still on the rioting on the screen. Then he stepped to another workstation, which showed a media team at the site of the crashed ballistic. It had apparently impacted in a forest, and columns of black smoke rose into the sky, to mix with the reddish ash at the top of the screen. Julian could see emergency crews intent on putting out the fires, but no evidence of life-saving crews. There was obviously no point.

Abruptly, he said, “What about Tranquil?”

As he headed for the workstations that monitored activity at the Tranquil satellite, Reya followed. “Nothing yet. They are at systems normal, level three conservation, just like us. Ah,” she added when they reached the workstation. “This is new.”

They both examined the data coming through the workstation: Ceo Volov on Tranquil had ordered a full lockdown on all scheduled incoming flights, including ballistics. A short statement that accompanied the data indicated that it was a precautionary measure.

When Julian saw it, he nodded. “Lock us down too, Reya. No incoming ballistics until further notice, effective immediately. No flights at all, including outgoing.”