That runway construction was a major victory for the pro-spacers like Ginny Kroger. Jackson Aerospace, moreover, was finally breaking ground for its new cargo-launch facility on Crescent Island, to the south of Mospheira.
And that, Ginny opined, meant it was really going to happen. Businesses were moving onto Crescent—not only aerospace suppliers, but companies like SunDrink and Peterson’s, intending to feed and clothe the workers. Jackson Aerospace was starting up in place of defunct Mospheiran Air… still buying its necessary aircraft from atevi Patinandi Aerospace and concentrating its own manufacturing in narrow but profitable niches—
“But over all,” Ginny said, “good news. Ifthe aiji in Shejidan gives them formal permission.”
Permission to expand out of their enclave and Crescent Island, that they had. There were other proposals for humans moving onto air-reached islands no atevi interest was ready to claim. For political reasons going back to the War of the Landing, that was a major, major concession that hadn’t happened yet.
“I favor it,” Bren said earnestly. “I think it will pass. I don’t, honestly, know whether it’s going to pass this year—” More difficult, if the legislative session in the offing now blew up. Or faster, if it didn’t. “It’s still on the table. It could move soon, if things go as well as possible.”
Better news from Ginny, the Heritage Party was still fragmenting, its idealists taking off to space and its hidebound bigots still scheming and planning a human takeover, but now a national joke, with less and less real power in their hands. In recent memory, the Heritage Party had won the Mospheiran Presidency. Now they struggled to maintain membership.
“Nand’ paidhi.” The steward brought sandwiches—a human notion long popular on the mainland—and melon, an atevi institution. “Nandi.” The latter to Ginny Kroger, with the same offering.
“Thank you,” she said, without Bren’s having to interpose a special courtesy to cover for her. She’d learned—so much. “Very fine, very fine and much appreciated.”
“Indeed,” Bren said on his own behalf. “I do favor these. Well-chosen.”
The steward was pleased.
So there was harmony in the heavens. Talk with Ginny drifted off to their former partner Tom Lund, who had been downworld and office-bound for the last two months on the Jackson heavy-lift project.
“Tom has a real gift for persuading the corporations out of their funds,” Ginny said. “He’s frustrated, but they’re moving.”
“They’re making money.”
“Everyone’s making money,” Ginny said—then added the ultimate islander objection to travel anywhere: “You can make money on the island, too, and still be home for supper.”
“You can make far moremoney running Crescent operations.” The otherMospheiran passion: finance, and the beacon of a new colonial effort.
“Try getting low-level personnel who want to live out there. That’s the thing. They’ve poured foundations. Getting the houses, getting the facilities—it’s all chasing its own tail. Mospheirans won’t go until there’s advanced plumbing and phone service.”
“Atevi would do it. Willbuild it, if Mospheirans want to sit in front of their televisions and watch it all pass.”
“Mospheira knows that. The legislature knows it. But it’s the old story: the heads of corporations don’t trust the very ones that are willing to go out there and take charge. The psychological profile of any administrator who’ll leave Mospheira worries the corporations immensely.”
“Micromanaging from remote-control,” he said. “Bad enough from one end of the island to the other. On Crescent, it’ll be a disaster, mark my words.”
“I think Crescent operations can get possibly toilet paper right now without a corporate requisition, but maybe not.”
“SunDrink’s smarter than Jackson Aerospace. They just move.”
“Oh, but now Harbor Foods wants to buy SunDrink.”
“ Good God.”
“Exactly.”
A SunDrink concession on the station had become a wildly popular and successful venture, patronized by Mospheirans and atevi who had a thirst for their traditional fruit drinks—wildly popular, too, among ship-folk who had never tasted non-synthetic food in their lives.
But Harbor wouldn’t trust the zealots who’d sell their souls for a ticket to work on-station… oh, no, no one who wanted to be up there could be trusted. More pointedly, they wouldn’t trust workers to make a decision, a guaranteed collision course for labor and upper-tier management.
Well, Shawn would know it was in the offing. Shawn would see the collision of interests coming. Strikes were a sacred institution on Mospheira. So was corporate pigheadedness.
Ah, well, it wasn’t the paidhi’s job any more. The paidhi-aiji, who’d used to mediate trade between the island and the mainland, rescuing fishing boats caught in border disputes, couldn’t prevent Mospheiran companies making bad decisions these days.
“Anyone mediating?”
“Oh, Tom’s on it. Bet he is.”
Tom Lund, however, who’d ridden out the stationside fracas that attended the Tamun coup… Tom knew. Tom was a Commerce man, and had the power, moreover, to seize Harbor executives by the lapels and get their attention.
“I’ll say one thing: there’s not going to be a station strike in SunDrink. I’ll support an atevi industry up there in competition if Harbor starts playing tough games with Sun on the station. There’ll be no strikes. No strikes anywhere humans are in cooperative agreements with atevi. It’s this lovely agreement we have: atevi workers don’t hire the Assassins’ Guild to settle with management and human workers don’t strike.”
“Watch Tom declare Sun a Critical Industry…”
“Where they are, damn right it’s critical, if atevi are in the interface. When did this piece of silliness with Harbor blow up?”
“Hit the rumor mill this week.”
“Oh, good. I’m out of touch for a few days and the next War of the Landing is in the works.” He didn’t want another emergency. “I’ve got to call Tom.”
“I’m sure Tom’s ahead of it.” Ginny’s eyes held a curious smugness at the moment. “So am I.”
“How’s that?”
Definite cat-and-canary expression. “Didn’t I say? We’re shipping, with special inspection to be sure there’s no quality issue.”
Labor fuss, another strike, this most recent one stopping work on the quality checks—but it seemed Ginny’s handful of robots had finally, after a dozen delays, gotten through.
“Who bent?”
Ginny grinned. The spare, seamed face transformed from long-faced researcher to elf when she did that. “Management. They give labor what they want, wesign a contract for sixteen more units andget our independent inspector on their line, and it’s all settled. The robots are here.”
“In cargo? Right now? Under our feet?”
“Damned right. Not only that—the deal-maker—they’ve taken an open-ended contract, with minor options. We’ve gotour robots, Mr. Cameron.”
It was suddenly a very good flight. The path ahead stretched broad and straight—robots to be delivered, fuel and materials to be mined, and the effort—delayed by politics with the senior captain, by politics with island conservatives and unions, by politics with the mainland traditionalists and the ever-to-be-damned ‘counters—stayed on schedule.