Chapter 3

It was time to get down to business. I'd been walking the streets, I'd been thinking, philosophizing, and worrying. And then I expended a fair amount of energy over getting a simple cup of coffee --- and over that little misadventure with Lana, a woman whose smug and surly disposition, sadly, did not match the warm and tantalizing invitations of her good looks.

With my delicious government-sponsored coffee toasting my hand, I took a seat along the side of the cafe, just vacated by a bohemian local with his retro handheld computer and a fabric, multi-colored coat that would have done Joseph the Egyptian proud. I swept the gypsy's annoying crumbs off my table, set my coffee down, and leaned back to relax. With my legs stretched out in front of me, and my head leaning back in meditative repose, I once again popped open my HUD, closing my eyes so that I could concentrate fully on my desktop.

These HUDS are pretty cool things. Short for Heads-Up Display, they are part of the nano-computer network implanted into every Earth human at birth. Babies seem to know instinctively how to trigger the impulses in their brain to activate it. You don't have to teach them, they just sort of discover it on their own. They start out with age-appropriate software, you know, mobiles and cute little characters moving around the screen, and it becomes an essential and invaluable educational resource as the child grows. If you've never seen a little kid laying on the floor, laughing and talking and staring vacantly into space, you might think he's got some sort of neurological disease or mental handicap. Not so. He's just playing with his HUD (a phrase that has spawned an endless number of crude jokes which I won't stoop to indulge you with now.)

The HUD itself is a series of electrical impulses that are sent to the part of the brain associated with vision, so you "see" this lightly transparent desktop spread across your field of vision, a soft overlay of what you're already seeing with your real eyes. The HUD is a feature of the nanites in your body, an internal network that is wirelessly connected at all times to the SuperNet. So whatever tools, games, and connections are available in the SuperNet are available right from your HUD desktop.

I know a lot of people don't have them, and it freaks out a fair amount of them (most of them Gaians, that technologically backwards offshoot of society that lives on the only other human-inhabited planet in the known Universe, and as well they should.) These people feel that having nanites circulating in your bloodstream, and binding you completely and endlessly to the SuperNet, is some kind of assault on the essential nature of humanity. These are also the people, mind you, that oppose all the other useful artificial instruments and implements that have replaced or been added to the human body. They think that machines and humans are fundamentally different and should not be joined, lest our very humanity be lost and our species be replaced by armies of cold, unfeeling machines.

I can sort of understand the sentiment. I had to admit to myself that I had sought the day's coffee from a human, rather than a machine, because I thought I might encounter some sympathy that would work to my favor (it turned out I had my legislators to thank, but that's neither here nor there). But it is just so damn inefficient to keep man and machine separate, when they can be integrated and, when combined, so much more can be accomplished, with considerably less effort. Besides, this is just evolution. If man evolves himself into a full biomechanical hybrid, then that is the natural evolution of the species. Why would that be bad? Perhaps one day the biology will be left behind for good, and man will be replaced by machines (though I think it unlikely, since life is fundamentally sustained and defined by biology). But even so, what's the harm in that? That's what man chose for himself, that's how he chose to grow. And it just makes sense in this interconnected multiverse we live in.

I sighed, and pushed away these intriguing but ultimately unimportant thoughts. With my HUD display open, I settled down and focused my attention on a thorough brainstorming and research session. My plan of attack was simple. Review all the information I had on Geelan, everything he had told me and given me, research any threads I could pick up on the SuperNet, and try to get some idea of where this rat might be, how to find him, how to get my credits back, and how to make his inevitable fatal accident, which the court would show to occur shortly after my re-appearance in his life, as frightening and unendingly painful as possible.

It seemed to make sense to start from the beginning, the moment I first met Geelan. I would review that encounter in full stereography, conveniently stored in my body's nanite network, and note any details and information that would prove helpful. Second, I would review all the materials, mineral maps, legal contracts, and SuperNet sites he had given me when we were supposedly going into business together. I feared most of them would be fake and would only lead me in nonsensical circles, but I had to try.

Third, I would check with a variety of databases and organizations for any information they might have on this Sirian named Geelan. I would check criminal databases, law enforcement records, and "good business" certifiers and watchdog agencies. If Geelan had conned me, he had probably conned other people. (What's that old saying? "Suckers: Bet you can't eat just one!"). If so, those incidents may have been reported and would provide me with additional information. And if I could contact those victims, perhaps they would even be able to pull some credits together, if they had any, to finance my mission to pursue Geelan's justice, on their behalf, and perhaps even recover some of their lost money. It was a long shot, I knew, but I wrote it down, topping off the satisfying thought with a long, deep, reviving pull on that warm concoction that Lana – that beautiful and frustratingly etiquette-challenged woman – had made for me.

Come to think of it, I wonder if Geelan had conned people I knew, colleagues of mine in the business who would have been similarly lured into a supposedly rare and profitable mining opportunity. It was possible, but I didn't want to talk to my colleagues anytime soon. My name had been sullied from my untimely and involuntary separation from Atlas, and they would be reluctant to talk to me, much less help me. Not to mention the fact that I had no idea how I would bring myself to admit to them that I'd been taken to the cleaners like a young, wide-eyed choirboy. They would never stop laughing over that, and even if I was never going to see any of them again, I didn't like the thought of it.

With this methodical plan of action laid out, I recalled up my first encounter with Geelan, and prepared to replay it.

(For those of you too scared of becoming a cyborg to have one of these handy resources at your command, let me explain how it works. The nanite network inside your body is constantly monitoring (and recording) your physiological rhythms. It records all the electrical and neurological data perceived by the senses every moment of the day. And you can recall it. You can replay this log and literally see, feel, hear, taste, and smell any experience you've ever had. Now, if that little parlor trick doesn't change your tune about losing your humanity, you're not only hopeless, you're just plain stupid. All these Luddites running around can't remember three-quarters of their life, and they tell me I've given up my humanity for the sake of a machine. All I can do is sigh, but then I've been doing a lot of that lately, so I'll graciously refrain this once.)

It is a perfect evening. The lights are low, the soft music of a Mozart sonata – one of my favorites – is playing in the background. The soft aroma of my port wine drifts to my nose, and I respond to its siren call by gently picking up the glass, swirling it a bit as I contemplate what a great vintage it is and how much I enjoy it, and then I slowly, lovingly take a sip. The dull-colored liquid coats my tongue and palate, and I let it coast down my throat, and deep in my belly I feel a gentle splash of warmth. I set the glass down, and return my attention to the task before me.

I'm sitting in my comfortable leather chair, at my desk, as my hands reach for two small pieces of wood. I delicately glue them together into a cross-beam, and set them aside to dry. Then I pick up a 2-inch cross-hatch, blow gently on it to make sure it's as clean as possible, and I reach for the paintbrush. The forecastle on a circa 1700 warship was generally a dull, spotted brown, its color and texture worn and sullied over time by the relentless wind and unforgiving sea water. Getting an authentic mixture of color and tone, changing as it does across the length of the deck, will be challenging. But I've been building model warships and riggers for quite a few years, and I'm getting to be pretty good at it. Anyway, I wouldn't want to do anything else.

It's been three months since Atlas canned me. I'm renting a simple flat in San Francisco, and I've only been back on Earth for a few months. I have plenty of credits, but don't know what to do with them exactly. I would like to buy a nice place to retire in, but I can't imagine where. Having spent the last decade in deep space, it feels uncomfortable being planetbound and setting down roots here, or anywhere else for that matter. I've thought about buying into a residential station in orbit, but it feels like an old people's home. Being out in space, but with nothing to do there, feels pointless and depressing to me. I'd look out at the stars and they would mock me. "We're out here in the depths of space, working hard and serving our purpose, and you're sitting there with nothing to do."

The truth is, I want to be out mining again. But I've just been retired from that business, whether I like it or not. I'm going to have to look somewhere else, and although I like building model warships, I don't know that I want to devote the next 40 years of my life to it.

As I paint the cross-hatch, I hear a soft buzz and a blinking red light appears in my peripheral vision. That's odd. I never bothered to turn on my Do-Not-Disturb signal, because I can't think of who in the world would want to speak with me. Who could this be? I prompt my HUD for caller information.

A small box pops up…a picture of a sickly white, mildly bubble-skinned Sirian appears, with only the name Geelan beneath it. Source of transmission: San Francisco. No related contacts found in my nanite network. This is a stranger calling me, and I'm sure he doesn't have the wrong number. But who is he, and what does he want? A media type? Wanting to interview the reclusive pariah from Atlas Asteroid Mining Company? Doubtful. I can't imagine that Sirians are the least bit interested in my sorry lot. Earthlings don't truck with Sirians too much; it's odd that he's even on Earth, much less in my town.

The hail buzzes softly again, the red light continues to blink. He's waiting. I have no idea who he is, but with a sigh, I know I'll find out soon enough. I straighten myself up and acknowledge the hail. Instantly, the image of this mysterious Geelan projects onto my full field of vision…

“Greetings,” the alien says. All Sirians speak English with a lisp. They have trouble with the letter s for some reason. “My name is Geelan. You are Mr. Sean Brennan?”

“I am.”

A look of relief seems to cross his face, though I wouldn’t trust my ability to read the facial expressions of a Sirian any farther than I could throw myself, and wouldn’t that be a trick if I could do that? If he is even a “he”. But that isn’t a question I am about to ask.

“I am very fortunate to have found you,” he says. “I hope I am not intruding?”

“Not exactly. What…can I do for you?”

Geelan stares unmovingly at me, like a ghost staring accusingly at his murderer. I feel a chill down my spine, and I suddenly want to cut the transmission. “You are a great man,” he says.

“Excuse me?”

“You have done amazing things with your company. The techniques, the innovations. Your leadership. I cannot believe they threw you out.”

I feel the chill in my body moving from my spine to my chest. Stunned is the best word I can use to express my feelings at the moment. “How do you…What makes you say that?”

“A man of your knowledge and abilities, a man with your long and distinguished record of success and contribution, could not be guilty of the things they say. They mistreated you. It is a tragic shame.”

My lips start to twitch reflexively. Who the hell is this guy? And what does he want? And he’s staring at me again, with that Stephen King, pet semetary stare. “Why are you calling me? What do you need?”

“It is a tragic shame for the Atlas Asteroid Mining Company. It is a great blessing to me.”

I gaze it him, my facial expression trying to eke some sense out of this freak, with a simple contortion of my frown lines that amounts to an utter but silent plea.

His face erupts into surprise. “My name is Geelan.”

My mouth drops open slightly. He speaks English, but….

“My name is Geelan!” he repeats. The small ridges above his eyes are raised, and his thin mouth puckers into a little ‘o’, a face that looks to me like shock.

“Yes, you mentioned that,” is all I can muster. “What…do you want me to do about it?”

“You have not heard of me?”

“Ummm….no. Should I have?”

“My name is Geelan.”

You know, It’s not even funny anymore. I feel a swelling urge to rip his head off and shout down the hole. I take a breath. “Yes, I heard you the first time. What is your point?”

“I am Geelan, the metals dealer. I used to be in metallurgy.” His face relaxes back to a dead stare. “Are you familiar with nano-rimonium?”

“Sure. Nanotech-based synthetic. Fancy stuff.”

“Fancy, yes. Expensive. And high-demand.”

“Yes, I know. Atlas makes it.” I was aware of the latest metallurgical rage, Atlas’ newest high-revenue product. As a matter of fact, I had been pushing it for years as the product of the future, but no one in the company ever listened to me. They were only doing it now because other people, people with business degrees, had conducted laborious tests and staffed research and marketing and cost-study committees and determined after much cost and hassle what I already knew. “They get the rimonium from the Gaia planet. Then they ship it to Titan for processing the nanotech component. From there it goes to market, mostly Earth.”

“Atlas makes it, yes,” the stranger replies, “and is also the only provider. But Gaia is not the only source. There is another. I know of it, and I have secured the mining rights, very cheaply. The other party does not know the value of their own land. As a former Atlas director and mining expert, I am seeking your expertise.” His face falls back that shock and awe expression. “How much money do you think a cheap source of rimonium would reap for a small company that properly exploited it?”

Strange, when he started talking mining, his English suddenly got a lot better. I blow the air out of my cheeks. “It depends on a lot of things. How big the vein is, how close to the surface, the transport costs – a high-g planet is more expensive, after all –, the proximity of the nanotech facility to the extraction site, the efficiency of the nanotech processing…And if you said you’re small, the startup costs will be very high and will set you back years as far as your break-even point goes.” I was getting tired of the list already. “Your profit stream could be a lot or it could be nothing.” I shake my head. “You’d have to do a full production and market survey to know the answer to that question.”

“Let me ask another way. Atlas is mining 400 tons of rimonium each month, which yields 250 tons of finished nano-rimonium for production sale. They sell this finished product for five thousand credits per ton, or 1.25 million credits per month, which grosses them 15 million credits in a year’s time. They have a 38% entropic loss in their nanotech processing, and they are spending millions of dollars in legal fees to protect and retain the mining rights they negotiated with Gaia that the planet is now trying to retract on environmental grounds. If Atlas can net 7.5 million credits a year manufacturing a product troubled by poor processing efficiency in a hostile host environment, how many credits could a different company collect by mining it from a cheap and supportive environment, and processing it – on-site – with only a 15% entropic loss? Or disregard the processing and simply sell the rimonium to Atlas for their own processing? They can pay us a premium for the raw material and eat the entropy of their own processing as well.”

Wow. This guy’s English was better than mine. Maybe he just wasn’t good at small-talk. I know a lot of people like that, myself included. I was known to stumble a bit in front of a pretty face; his awkwardness in that regard seems quite understandable. “You could probably make a lot of money,” I agree. “Still, you’d have to do a full survey to know whether it makes business sense.”

“A lot of money indeed. My projections show that two partners, sharing the profits equally between them, will net at least –“ there goes the raised eye-ridges and that pucker again “– seventeen point five million credits each, per year.”

I am impressed. I don’t know who this guy is, or how he got his projections, but it sounds possible. Maybe a bit of a stretch, when taken all together, but possible. Potentially incredible.

“Do you understand now why you are a blessing to me?” he asks.

“Aside from my good looks?” His face doesn’t move, and I remind myself that Sirian humor is different than homo sapiens humor. “No, not really, unless you mean that I told what you wanted to hear.”

“You are a blessing because you are a great man.” That was true, but it didn’t answer his question or mine. “Atlas does not know what a great man they expelled. But I do. It is why I have sought you. I need a skilled and experienced partner, a mining director to put together and run the operation. I will share with you fifty-fifty the profits. An equal split is not an offer I will extend to anyone else, for I do not trust others like I trust you.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“I know your reputation, your experience. I know enough. This is a great opportunity for you, sir. And for me. Let us make history together!” He brings up his fists in a ridiculous gesture of unearned triumph, and the flanges in his neck flare.

I lean back. Now is the time to take a big breath. To slow things down. This kind of stuff can get you hurt. The promise of easy riches hidden just for you, the appeal to the ego, the perfect timing of it all. I look at Geelan, trying to read his integrity from what I can see on the vid. But that’s ridiculous. He’s not even human. “I’m gonna need to think about this. There’s a lot of…there’s a lot to a proposition like this. I would need to see your surveys, your asset statements, financial projections, host studies…”

“Let us meet. I wish to share this sensitive material only in person.”

I nod. That makes sense. “Alright. When?”

“Is now a good time?”

My eyes drift needlessly around the room. The place is tidy, simple. I look at my model ship. The mast’s primary cross-beam is dry now and is ready to be painted. It’s the last piece I need to complete the construction of the main mast. My model isn’t going anywhere. But a golden opportunity just may be driving by my window at this very moment.

I return my attention to Geelan. It won’t hurt to at least look at his charts. “Ok, now’s fine. How about the Salvador, that little bar by the Hilton?”

“Very good. I will meet you there shortly.”

“See you there.”

He gazes at me, shakes his head most violently, then switches off. Is that the Sirian way of saying goodbye? I realize that I really need to read up on my Sirian culture guides. But right now, I’m heading to Salvador. If I do any head-shaking tonight, it will be my disgust at letting some crank talk me into leaving a half-painted forecastle and walking away from a fine (and I do mean fine) glass of port.