Loukas Diakos and Peter Dunhill were waiting at the top of the stairs when Justin Moore opened the cockpit door of Hyper-1 on Earthsea.
“Loukas, how are you doing?” Sasha Ivanov greeted Arcadia’s ambassador to Earthsea as he maneuvered through the cockpit door.
“Good, Sasha. Good. You got your travel bags?”
“Yes, we’re all prepared.”
“Well, let me show you to the showers, then.”
“Much better,” Ivanov said when they returned to where Diakos waited after freshening up. “The best thing about switching to the hyperspace liners may be the ability to shower on board.”
Diakos chuckled.
“I hear you there, Sasha. I’m not looking forward to the trip home. Although it may be a bit better. We’re going to try the QE radios en route, and see if they work in hyperspace.”
Ivanov raised an eyebrow.
“Really?” he asked. “I had the impression they wouldn’t.”
“That’s not what some of the experts think. And Chen JieMin in particular thinks they have to work.”
“I think I would take his opinion over anyone else’s.”
“Indeed,” Diakos said. “Well, let’s head on into Bergheim. Director Laurent would like to meet you.”
“I am somewhat fatigued, but a short meeting before a good meal would work for me.”
“Actually, I think a good meal is what she has planned.”
“Ah. Two birds with one stone,” Ivanov said. “That sounds good to me. Lead on, MacDuff.”
Paolo Costa split off from the party to head for home when they arrived at the administrative building in downtown Bergheim. Diakos had offered to drop him at home, but Costa demurred.
“After zooming back and forth between planets, I’m actually looking forward to something as mundane as a bus ride.”
Ivanov laughed heartily. It was a point of view he could understand.
Ivanov and Laurent knew each other from the conspiring they had done to overturn the Sellick chairmanship on Amber. It had been necessary to keep Laurent informed, lest she be concerned Ivanov’s recall as Arcadia’s ambassador to Amber was more than a political maneuver. But they had never met in person.
“Ambassador Ivanov, I’m so pleased to finally meet you,” Laurent said when Diakos led Dunhill and the new arrivals into Laurent’s office.
“The pleasure, Director Laurent, is surely all mine,” Ivanov said.
They shook hands with real enthusiasm, and then Laurent motioned to the door to her private dining room.
“Come, Sasha. I know you are tired and hungry after six weeks in zero gravity, so let’s eat first, and then we can let you go sleep.”
They went into the room and sat around the table, and Ivanov pulled a foil package out of his jacket pocket.
“First, Valerie, I have a gift for you from Jean Dufort. They have truly splendid coffees on Amber, and I encourage you to serve this with dinner.”
“Thank you, Sasha,” Laurent said.
She turned to her head waiter.
“Patrick, can we serve coffee with dinner?”
“Of course, ma’am.”
She handed him the vacuum-sealed foil package, and he disappeared into the kitchen as his staff served the salad course.
“I have two full containers of coffee aboard Hyper-1, Valerie,” Ivanov said. “Gifts from Jean Dufort to you and Rob Milbank.”
“But he didn’t know how things were going to turn out on Amber as of the time you left.”
“No, he had hopes, but gifts nonetheless. He was pretty sure he would prevail.”
“That was some contest,” Laurent said.
“Yes, but all three planets are now on board, four more planets are imminent, and two still to get to. I’m told I leave within days for Arcadia, and then on to Olympia.”
“Which will locate another twelve planets, assuming you can persuade the Olympia people to tell you where they are.”
Ivanov nodded.
“I intend to study what has been found out about Olympia on the way to Arcadia,” he said. “From what I can see so far, they would welcome the export market for their fusion plants and distilled spirits. I will entice them with tea, coffee, and cheese.”
Ivanov waved a piece of the truly splendid cheese that had been served with the salad course.
“I’m not sure that’s going to work, Sasha,” Laurent said. “We have eleven radios headed to Arcadia.”
“Yes, I saw that. However, I only need enough for the decision makers, as Peter here will for those on Aruba. We’ve been talking about it, and I think we can squeeze enough into the remaining container to make an impression.”
The coffee was served. Ivanov and the pilots, of course, had had it before, but it was new to everyone else.
“This is remarkable,” Laurent said after a sip.
“Yes. Enough different in quality to amount to a difference in kind. I am very happy Jean was able to defeat Sellick and sign the treaty.”
“Yet it will be a competitor for Arcadia’s tea, Sasha.”
“With twenty-one planets, there’s plenty of market to go around, Valerie.”
Laurent nodded.
“It’s such an exciting time.”
“Indeed.”
“Stop fussing us, young man,” Chen JuPing said.
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”
Hyper-3 and Hyper-4 sat on adjacent launch pads at the Arcadia City Shuttleport, atop their cargo containers. Eight containers each, loaded with Arcadia tea and spices for transfer to Earthsea, as well as for gifts to Tahiti and Playa. This meant that the shuttle’s cockpit hatch was almost thirty feet off the ground.
“You can’t carry us up the stairs, so we’re best off managing them ourselves.”
“Yes, ma’am. Of course, ma’am.”
Paul Chen-Jasic and Chen JuPing puttered up the stairs at their own pace. They walked regularly around their property in the foothills of the Blue Mountains, and were mobile for their age, but the stairs were a bit of a challenge, and they took their time.
Chen ChaoLi waited at the top, to say her goodbyes to the woman under whom she had taken her first job more than twenty-five years before. She had become Chen Zumu’s tea girl when she turned thirteen.
“Ah, there you are, ChaoLi,” JuPing said.
“Chen Zumu,” ChaoLi said, with a little bow.
“No, my dear. It’s just JuPing now.”
“Yes, Che– JuPing.”
JuPing nodded.
“All these years, and you have made it come true after all, ChaoLi. We go to the stars.”
“Have a good trip, JuPing.”
“Thank you, ChaoLi. You take care. We’ll be talking to you soon.”
JuPing hugged her, then held her at arm’s length and nodded. She patted ChaoLi on the shoulder, and touched her cheek, then turned to the cabin door. JuPing and Paul climbed into the cockpit and sat in the rear jump seats. JuPing looked around with approval.
“They said it would be cramped. This is quite roomy.”
“I imagine we’ll get tired of it in six weeks, JuPing,” Paul said.
“Of course, Paul. But six weeks is not a long time, after all.”
JuPing made a little wave to ChaoLi, and ChaoLi waved back, ignoring the tears in her eyes.
Their caregiver, Stuart Reynolds, was next, climbing into the co-pilot’s seat. He would probably spend most of the trip with the seat rotated around, away from the controls and facing his charges.
As Igor Belsky was ready to enter the cockpit, ChaoLi caught his arm. They had never met, but Belsky certainly knew who she was. ChaoLi for her part had checked his flight records and recordings, and picked him for this trip over Jeong Minho, who was a bit more of a hotdog.
“Gently, Mr. Belsky,” ChaoLi said.
“Oh, I understand, ma’am.”
ChaoLi nodded and released his arm, and Belsky climbed into the cabin of Hyper-3.
ChaoLi went down the stairs and over to Hyper-4 to say goodbye to Chen JongJu, her successor as JuPing’s tea girl when ChaoLi moved to the reception desk where she had met Chen JieMin. JongJu had also come up within the family’s business office, often as ChaoLi’s trusted lieutenant.
“Have a good trip, JongJu.”
“Thanks, ChaoLi. We’ll talk to you soon.”
They hugged, and then JongJu went up the stairs to the cabin hatch of Hyper-4 together with her husband, Bill Thompson, the new ambassador to Earthsea, Gregory Prentiss, and the pilot, Jeong Minho.
ChaoLi withdrew to the headquarters building and watched through the observation window as the stairs were withdrawn and final flight checks were made. The air traffic control channel was playing on speakers in the observation room.
When all flight checks had been performed, and takeoff clearances granted, Hyper-3 and Hyper-4 launched, one after the other, gained altitude, and set off for the hyperspace limit and Earthsea.
A similar scene played itself out on Earthsea with Hyper-1. Loukas Diakos was wishing bon voyage to Sasha Ivanov and Diakos’s aide for the past several months, Peter Dunhill.
Ivanov had managed to get several thousand pounds of cheese and coffee aboard the one container that held their water tank for the shuttle cabin as well as their personal cubic.
The shuttle cockpit hatch was almost forty feet off the ground with a four-wide, three-high stack of containers below it. The other eleven containers were all QE radios, including one standalone unit they would try using while in hyperspace.
“Congratulations on being named ambassador to Aruba, Peter. Good luck with your new assignment.”
“Thanks, Loukas. Thanks for everything.”
Dunhill had hitched his wagon to Diakos’s rising star years before, and they both knew it. And now, with a diplomatic personnel shortage, it had paid off.
“And you, Sasha. Have a good trip. Say hi to home for me on your way through,” Diakos said.
“Yes, well, I won’t be on Arcadia long. I’m off to check out the cognac on Olympia almost immediately.”
Diakos laughed.
“Don’t forget to get the locations of the other twelve colonies while you’re there,” he said.
“Oh, yes. There is that other little matter, isn’t there?” Ivanov asked with a twinkle in his eye.
Then Ivanov, Dunhill, Moore, and McKay made their way up the tall stairs they needed to get to the shuttle on that pile of containers. Diakos withdrew to the observation lounge of the hangar where Hyper-1 had been serviced to watch the takeoff.
With the full load it had, Hyper-1 was slow off the pad. They had to focus the thrust of the engines more than normal to get liftoff, and then the shuttle and its heavy load were gone, heading to the hyperspace limit and Arcadia.
Two days after Hyper-3 and Hyper-4 departed for Earthsea, Rob Milbank received a video call from Sasha Ivanov.
“Sasha, I thought you had left Earthsea by now.”
“We left two days ago, Rob, and are now in hyperspace.”
“Really? Excellent!”
“Yes, the QE radios work just fine in hyperspace, as Chen JieMin had concluded they must.”
“Never doubt that young man on something about which he is sure.”
“Indeed. So let ChaoLi and JieMin know, if you would.”
“Absolutely, Sasha. I’ll do that. And you’re on your way back now?”
“Yes, and, despite carrying eleven containers of QE radios, I managed to sneak some thousand pounds of cheese and coffee aboard in the personal cubic container.”
“You did? That’s stupendous. Now we’ll have gifts for the high and mighty on Aruba and Olympia. Well done.”
“Thanks, Rob. So I’ll see you in six weeks or so. Probably hang around for a week or two before heading on. Sitting in this cockpit for weeks at a time, journey after journey, is getting tedious.”
“No problem at all, Sasha. And at least now you’ll have access to the network while you travel.”
They were sitting in the living room after dinner. The boys were in their rooms doing homework.
“You were right, JieMin,” ChaoLi said.
“Apparently so. You know, I looked at it, and I just couldn’t see how the physics would work out if QE radios didn’t function in hyperspace. I could have been wrong, but it would have meant doing some serious rethinking on some parts of the mathematics.”
“No need now. They work.”
“Yes. There are some interesting ramifications,” JieMin said.
“Oh, yeah. People can now be in touch while they’re traveling.”
“Yes, of course. But think beyond that for a moment. If we can be in touch with the deployment vehicles in hyperspace, there’s no weeks- or months-long trip back to Arcadia to report their data. We can send them out, have them take some measurements, report their findings and move on. We can steer them while they are in hyperspace.”
“I don’t see the importance of that,” ChaoLi said. “We can have them report from wherever they are now, if they take radios along.”
“Let me give you a for instance. We know roughly where a lot of the other colonies have to be now, right?”
“Generally, yes. But not their actual locations.”
“Right,” JieMin said. “But we could send the deployment vehicles out now, get them heading in the right direction, and when Ambassador Ivanov gets their actual locations from Olympia, they will be mostly there already.”
“Oh. Oh, my.”
ChaoLi’s eyes got wide, then narrowed.
“But we don’t have enough shipboard QE radios. All the radios coming back with Hyper-1 are committed.”
“Yes, but many of the colonies lie in the Sagittarius Arm, past Earthsea. We could have the deployment vehicles stop at Earthsea and pick up radios, then head out in more or less the right direction. Short-circuit the wait. By the time Ambassador Ivanov arrives on Olympia in fourteen weeks or so, they would be in the right neighborhood.”
“And we can send the deployment vehicles instructions on where to go over QE radio. The delay would be maybe a week or two after Ivanov gets the locations, instead of twelve weeks or more from here.”
“Correct. And then the prime minister could contact their governments over QE radio. We don’t need to wait for manned missions to set out from here and travel two or three or four six-week hops from here.”
“Oh, JieMin, that’s brilliant. Not least because we have the probes now. Six of them, anyway. And they aren’t otherwise committed at the moment.”
“All right, you guys,” John Gannet told his next staff meeting. “In the middle of everything else going on, we have new orders.”
Expressive as always, the operations group responded with groans.
“No, this one’s not so bad. We need to send out the deployment vehicles we have – all six of them – and send them to Earthsea. They’ll mount these shipboard QE radios on them, and then we’ll talk to them from here and get them started out to where we expect new colonies to be. By the time we actually do get the locations of other colonies, they should be pretty close already.”
“Do we send them with RDF satellites, John?” a staffer asked.
“One each, I think. First thing they do is a standard flyby. We pick up all the data, but now they can just send it here right away. Everybody here studies that data for a week or so, and learns what they can about them. Then we send it back into the system from where we parked it for a week, and the prime minister can call them up and say Hi.”
“That’s pretty slick,” another staffer said. “Who came up with that idea? Not some government type.”
“No. I hear it was Chen JieMin.”
“OK, well that makes sense.”
“It will sure speed things up, that’s for sure,” Gannet said.
The six deployment vehicles whose RDF satellites had found the six new colonies were sitting out at the hyperspace limit in a long slow orbit of Arcadia. They were a bit down on fuel for their maneuvering thrusters from the close-in maneuvering required to pick up the RDF satellites for the return to Arcadia, but it was decided, since the pickups would occur on another trip, that refueling them could wait.
They each detached three of their RDF satellites where they were. They then shoved off from them with a minimum push from their maneuvering thrusters to open up the distance a bit.
That done, they spun up their hyperspace fields and disappeared, destination Earthsea.