Aruba was also five-thousand light-years from Arcadia. Peter Dunhill’s trip was directly across the Orion Arm, however, whereas Sasha Ivanov’s trip to Olympia was diagonally into and along the Orion Arm from Arcadia’s position between the Orion Arm and the Sagittarius Arm.
Five thousand light-years made for a long trip either way, but the much younger Dunhill was not so debilitated by ten weeks in zero-g as Sasha Ivanov was. Pilot Gavin McKay and Jixing Trading representative Jerry Perez also fared pretty well on the trip.
“Hyperspace shuttle Hyper-2 to Aruba Air Traffic Control.”
“Go ahead, Hyper-2.”
“We are inbound from colony planet Arcadia. We estimate arrival in twenty-two hours. Requesting instructions. Over.”
“Roger, Hyper-2. Maintain profile. Call in when two hours out from Barcelona Shuttleport. Over.”
“Roger, Aruba Control. Call when two hours out. Hyper-2 out.”
“Did you just give landing clearance to some guy from another planet?”
“No. I told him to call me for clearance when he’s two hours out.”
“Now what do we do?”
“When in doubt, notify higher authority. Not my problem.”
“What do you mean, not your problem?”
“It’s not. Our job is to have people land and takeoff safely. Who it is and why they’re here is above our pay grade. Once they’re on the ground, we’re done.”
There was a knock on Aruba Prime Minister Mildred Plakson’s office door and her chief of staff walked in.
“Madam Prime Minister,” Sanjay Patel said, “something has come up.”
“Lovely. Now what?”
“Aruba just received a request for clearance for a shuttle from Arcadia, ma’am. That’s another colony planet.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yes, ma’am. They identified themselves as hyperspace shuttle Hyper-2, inbound from Arcadia. They’ll arrive tomorrow.”
Plakson sat back in her chair. Now that was interesting. Hyperspace, eh? There’d been speculation among the science types for centuries about such a thing, and now here it was. Someone had figured it out and was using it to get around.
Plakson pulled up a colony planet map in her heads-up display. Aruba was the eighteenth drop-off, and Arcadia was third. Interestingly, they were both colonies in the ‘gaps’ – the less dense volume of stars between arms of the galaxy.
Plakson had long noted Aruba’s strategic location. They were a natural bridge from the Orion Arm, where the Earth was, to the Perseus Arm. Arcadia was similarly situated between the Orion Arm and the Sagittarius Arm. They were natural centers for shipping between colony planets.
If, of course, anyone ever figured out how to get around at interstellar distances.
But now, apparently, someone had.
It came at an interesting time. Parliamentary elections were coming up, and Plakson’s party was in the middle of a nasty dogfight with the minority. They were pushing hard on the notion that there wasn’t anything the government couldn’t do, no service it couldn’t provide, if only the government had more enlightened leadership.
And of course it would all be free.
It was hard to argue with free, and most Arubans knew better, but the minority was making inroads.
How could Plakson spin this in the run-up to the elections?
She needed more information.
“See if you can get more information, Sanjay. Anything they have on who they are, how they got here, and what they’re up to.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Request for more information just came in,” McKay said.
“Send them the video, Gavin,” Dunhill said. “And the attachments.”
“OK, Peter. Transmitting.”
“Did you watch the video, Sanjay?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m working my way through the attachments now.”
“So they have six planets signed up to this trade agreement of theirs. All six of those they’ve managed to contact so far. That’s pretty impressive.”
“Yes, ma’am. We haven’t seen the trade agreement yet, however.”
“No. They say it’s a free-trade agreement, without any set-asides or exceptions.”
“I’m not sure how true that is, ma’am. It doesn’t seem likely. Surely every planet would have some reservations about such an arrangement.”
Plakson nodded. Patel was one of the most savvy political operators she had ever met. He was too hard-edged to be a popular politician, but she had grabbed him for her staff early in her career, and he was a big part of why she was where she was.
“What do the attachments look like, Sanjay? I haven’t gotten very far there yet.”
“There is a map of all the colony planets through the twenty-first drop-off, Olympia. It rather puts point to what you once told me of Aruba’s strategic position, ma’am.”
Plakson nodded, and Patel went on.
“There is a list of what they call the technical concentration of each colony. Apparently, colony headquarters concentrated colonists of certain specialties on specific planets.”
“What’s our specialty?”
“We didn’t have one, ma’am. Neither did Arcadia or Numenor.”
“The bridge planets. The ones in the gaps.”
“Yes, ma’am. There is also a recorded message from each of the planetary leaders. In addition to the main video by Arcadia Prime Minister Rob Milbank, there are also videos from Earthsea Director Valerie Laurent, Amber President Jean Dufort, Tahiti President Henry Wang, Playa Planetary Chairman Oliver Nieman, and Olympia Councilor Lars Swenson.”
“Councilor? That’s a new one on me.”
“Olympia has a three-member executive council, ma’am. As the councilor most recently elected or re-elected, Lars Swenson is apparently considered slightly senior among equals.”
“Closest to the electorate.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What else is in there, Sanjay?”
“There’s also the video of an interview with Chen ChaoLi, the head of Jixing Trading on Arcadia. She says they intend to provide competitive shipping services among the colony planets. She expects there to be competition for the shipping business on the medium term.”
“Not a monopoly, then.”
“Apparently not, ma’am.”
Plakson nodded.
“What else?”
“Well, in addition to the technical specialties, they have apparently been discovering that each colony planet has some other item or items at which they excel. These were apparently brought along by the colonists themselves, ma’am. For Arcadia, for instance, it’s tea and spices. For Earthsea, cheese. For Amber coffee. That sort of thing.”
Plakson nodded.
“We may not have a technical specialty, Sanjay, but in addition to our strategic location, we have one other expertise.”
Patel nodded as Plakson’s eyes lit up.
“Chocolate,” she said.
“Premium chocolate has historically been a good export item, ma’am. High value density.”
“Start thinking about how this plays for the election, Sanjay. It would be great if we could trap the minority on the wrong side of this issue.
“Yes, ma’am. Which side is the wrong side?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“OK, we have communications established with the transponder for shuttlepad twelve,” McKay said. “Gonna be an easy one.”
“Easy is good,” Perez said. “I like easy.”
As the shuttle descended, the combination of braking and lift starting adding gravity back to the cabin. After ten weeks in zero gravity, being subjected to two and three gravities on their descent was brutal.
But their velocity gradually came down, and the gravity with it. They descended through wispy late afternoon clouds to make a precise landing on shuttlepad twelve of the Barcelona Shuttleport.
“Oh, that was rough,” Dunhill said once they were down.
“I thought it was pretty smooth,” McKay said.
“It was. The gravities were rough.”
“Ah.”
McKay looked out the shuttle window.
“Well, it looks like our greeting party is here.”
The mobile stairs drove up to the shuttle. Two somber men waited, then one of them mounted the stairs. McKay opened the shuttle cockpit hatch.
“Hi. I’m Gavin McKay.”
“I’m Trevor West. I’m on Prime Minister Plakson’s security detail. If you would all come with me, please.”
“Of course. Just let us get our things together here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are we being arrested?” Perez asked.
“Escorted, I would think,” Dunhill said. “If that’s Mildred Plakson’s security detail, she must have come out here to the shuttleport.”
“That makes sense,” Perez said.
They gathered their small travel bags and maneuvered themselves with some difficulty out onto the platform.
“Are you all right, sir?” West asked.
“We’ve been ten weeks in zero gravity, Mr. West,” Dunhill said. “We’re a little wobbly.”
“Let me arrange a cart, sir.”
“That would be most appreciated, Mr. West.”
It was only a couple minutes until an electric cart pulled up to the bottom of the ramp. McKay and Dunhill made their way down the stairs while standing, but the older Perez first sat on the top stair and then went down the stairs one step at a time, like a toddler.
“Better than falling,” he said.
They all got into the back seats of the cart, with the security detail in the front. The driver pulled the cart away from the stairs and drove it into the terminal annex that stretched off down the lines of shuttlepads.
They were let off the cart in an inside corridor and ushered into a meeting room. Mildred Plakson and Sanjay Patel waited inside.
Plakson didn’t know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t this. Three scruffy, dirty, smelly men, with several months’ growth of beard and wearing fleece loungers and booties, hobbled with difficulty to the meeting table. Without further ado, they sat down, nearly collapsing into the chairs.
The youngest one, perhaps in his mid- to late-thirties, spoke first.
“Pardon us, Madam Prime Minister, but we’ve spent ten weeks with no showers, no shaves, and no gravity to come to see you. I’m afraid we’re a little the worse for wear, and being back in a planet’s gravity is really affecting us right now.
“My name, by the way, is Peter Dunhill. I am the duly appointed Arcadian ambassador to Aruba.”
“I see, Mr. Ambassador. Ten weeks, to go what? Five thousand light-years?”
“Yes, Madam Prime Minister.”
“That is truly remarkable, Mr. Ambassador.”
Plakson looked them up and down.
“Perhaps what we should do is put you gentlemen up in a hotel for tonight and take this conversation up over lunch tomorrow.”
“That would be most appreciated, Madam Prime Minister.”
“Sanjay, can we take them downtown to their hotel? And perhaps we should use a meeting room at the hotel for lunch tomorrow, to limit their need to travel.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I will see you tomorrow, Mr. Ambassador.”
With that, Plakson and Patel left with her security detail. The driver of the cart remained.
“If you would come with me, please, gentlemen.”
They were driven out to a waiting car, which took them to a hotel in downtown Barcelona.
Dunhill woke in the middle of the night after eight hours of sleep. He found himself laying on the top of the big hotel bed, still unshaven and unshowered, still in his smelly fleece loungers. He had simply collapsed there the night before.
Dunhill got up and went to the bathroom, stripped down, and climbed into the tub. He lay back as it filled with very warm water and sighed. The water itself was a relief, as it buoyed him and mitigated, to some extent, the gravity.
After half an hour in the tub and a shave, Dunhill felt much better. He checked, and the hotel had round-the-clock room service, so he ordered a small snack.
He ate the snack when it came, then checked the time, shrugged, and got into bed. Under the covers this time.
Dunhill woke at something like a normal hour, and found he had a mail account on the local system. There was an invitation to lunch with the prime minister in a private banquet room in the hotel.
Dunhill sent a mail to Perez and McKay, inviting them to breakfast with him in his room.
“So what’s the plan?” Perez asked Dunhill as they waited for room service to bring their breakfast.
“I will do the normal things like giving them gifts, trying to get the radios installed, giving them the text of the trade agreement. All of that. Then I will try to get you together with their engineers to discuss the construction of the interstellar freight station.”
“Do you need anything from me?” McKay asked.
“If I mention you, a sentence or two about the difficulties of loading containers piecemeal in space with shuttles compared to using a freight station would be in order.”
“Gotcha. Loading one of those big freighters without would take weeks.”
“Exactly. Which should impress upon them how important having the freight station will be to their status as a natural freight transfer hub.”
Their food showed up, and they ate heartily. Ten weeks of low-residue food with water had left them with an appreciation for even a mundane breakfast, and the high-end hotel’s room service did much better than that.