Gingezel 1: The Limit

By Judi Suni Hall and Donald S. Hall

Gingezel 1: The Limit, Illustrated 2nd Edition with AI Art, by Judi Suni Hall and Donald S. Hall

What happens when pushing the limit turns into pushing your luck? Join Mitra, Dreen, and Joran as they find out what happens at The Limit.

Twelve years in creation, the epic Gingezel series is set at the time when human habitation has expanded beyond the galactic core. Uneasy contact has been reestablished with the Farr Sector populated by migrants from Terra in the first days of hyperspatial travel.

Dr. Mitra Kael, power systems engineer for Dellmaice Power Systems, has spent three years on the Farrese mining planet Drezvir installing the prototype of her hybrid reactor. It should provide all of the power the colonists need to survive on that inhospitable planet. She’s proud of her hybrid and how it has pushed the limits of technology.

She doesn’t care what reservations Ari Dellmaice, her boss, has about it. She just wants to get off Drezvir and never see that planet again. Mitra is headed for Gingezel, the ultimate pleasure planet that has the entire galaxy wondering who the mysterious consortium that owns it is.

Once on Gingezel Mitra meets Dr. Dreen Pendi and his best friend Joran Lantonel. Although she doesn’t realize it, Dreen is CEO of the galaxy wide Nemizcan Computing. He has a different problem from Mitra. It’s been way too long since he’s pushed any technical limits. As for Joran, he is strictly on holiday there to hide his secrets. They are nothing though compared to the secret Dreen is hiding. An idyllic vacation changes to a nightmare as secrets start threatening to slip out.

Science fiction by scientists. Cliffhanger.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gingezel Inc
• Release date: Jan 9, 2024
• ISBN: 9798215182789

Judi Suni Hall

I am sharing this author page with my husband and co-author Donald S. Hall.Co-authors Judi Suni Hall, PhD. and Donald S. Hall, PhD. have shared their lives and careers since marrying as undergrads.They both did PhD’s in theoretical physics, then moved into industry and worked at AECL, Canada’s nuclear research lab.Judi’s PhD. is in theoretical nuclear physics, the kind of modeling used to do stellar interiors. Judi started out designing safety systems for Candu reactors. She shifted to industrial risk analysis, ending up Technical Manager of AECL’s RARE (Risk and Reliability Evaluation) Consultancy. In that capacity she worked with a number of industries, including the Canadian Space Agency at the time when the Canadian involvement in International Space Station was first being defined. That lead to the permanent love of the idea of humanity spreading into space.Don’s PhD. is in theoretical physics modeling liquids. Don started out doing research in the design of self-powered neutron detectors, then moved to tomography, and finally Artificial Intelligence. In that role he had the opportunity to work with some of Canada’s leading experts in Artificial Intelligence.En-route to represent Canada at a NASA conference Judi caught a severe virus that changed both of their lives. She shared the infection and the next 10 years were a write off as they struggled to rebuild their lives.Don now runs Apps & More Software Design. It has recently expanded into psychiatric testing on the iPad and iPhone in collaboration with a Johns Hopkins trained psychiatrist. He also has the caregiver role since Judi spends almost half of her time in bed unable to even read.In addition to writing science fiction, Judi and Don are internationally published haiga poets.

Book preview

Chapter 1

She had to get off of this rock pit of a planet, she simply had to. Breathe in, breathe out. That’s right, lean back and relax. You are safely on the space shuttle. Close your eyes. Breathe in, breathe out.

It didn’t work. Dr. Mitra Kael jerked bolt upright in the shuttle seat, and her tiny bone-thin frame went rigid. Hands clenching the heavily padded arm rests, she stared unseeing at the back of the seat ahead. Her panicky blue green eyes seemed huge in a too pale face devoid of so much as a trace of make up.

Damn. That itches. Mitra removed one hand from throttling the seat arm to scratch her right collarbone where the sweat caked beige coveralls rubbed. The delay - there were always delays on Drezvir - had been endless. If it lasted another five minutes something would go wrong. There would be a message for her and she would have to stay. She couldn’t do it. Another delay, another few days on this miserable rock and she’d crack.

Ari’s smooth reassuring words played in her head. It’s only for eighteen months, Kael. The power station is your design, and if it’s accepted by the Farrese Mining Guild on Drezvir its success is guaranteed. You have to be there in person. It’s just a liaison role. With our technology transfer agreement they’ll do all the work.

That had been exactly seventeen days eleven hours and twenty-three minutes short of three years ago, and she had never worked so hard in her life. Dr. Ari Dellmaice. Mitra enunciated every syllable of his title and name with distaste under her breath. When she saw him again she intended to tell one Dr. Ari Dellmaice she only used one word anymore. Turnkey.

Those idiot Farrese couldn’t build an outhouse, much less a power station. Not of course that they would know what an outhouse was. That was one of the advantages of having a historian father who was more interested in the day-to-day life of an ancient people than the grand events that shaped history. You learned about all sorts of irrelevant things, like outhouses. They were Terran primitive wooden structures with a pit below, designed to serve as toilets where sanitation systems didn’t exist. And she would swear to it, these Farrese couldn’t build something that primitive.

Mitra looked out the window at the barren landscape, terrifyingly primitive in itself. Drezvir had been opened for settlement a mere two years before she had arrived. Now, five years after being opened up it was still largely untouched and was likely to stay that way since it was just marginally habitable. It was both too young geologically and too far from its star to provide a comfortable environment for any but the most determined life forms. There was an oxygen atmosphere, but it was so thin that you needed a trickle tube under your nose just to walk between any of the sealed habitats not connected by the plastic tubes everyone called snakes.

There was water, but it was largely frozen in the ice caps. From space she had seen one of the polar ice caps. It was fair sized. And she had counted three small seas, but the overall impression had been a reddish ball with purple and grey streaks and dark swirling dust clouds. Not once in her stay had a raindrop hit her window. Those seas were so far away from the mountain range where the mining colony was sited that they might as well have not existed for all the impact they had on the settlement’s climate.

Mitra’s hand moved on to itch the bristles of dark hair above her ear as she lapsed into her favorite fantasy. She imagined herself standing, just standing, in a steamy hot needle strong shower until her back unknotted. Water was so severely rationed she felt like she hadn’t been clean in three years. A bath, a proper up to your chin soaking bath, was unthinkable. What the habitats had was a miserly trickle of tepid water called a shower. All had a timer. There were no exceptions for rank, money, or influence. After getting caught a few times still half soapy she had learned to really move it, and to feel dirty. Well, that was one fantasy she could indulge in as soon as she was somewhere more civilized.

Some of her other fantasies might take a little more doing, like a decent romance. Mitra relaxed a little and smiled a half smile remembering the subcontractor who had been her sexual partner late in her first year here. He was tall, blond, slender, funny and fun. She’d known him off and on since design began on her hybrid power station. The interlude had lasted exactly three days, then he had left Drezvir. Smart man. It had been a good idea once, but only once. On his later visits they had stuck to business.

Still, she knew she couldn’t complain about the celibacy. For once Ari was right. It really had been too small, closed, and puritan a community for all but the most scrupulously professional behavior. Her mind jumped to his rather intimidating president’s office at Dellmaice Power Systems on Pendrae. The large corner office was all glass, brushed metal, and syncrete. Two glass walls looked out over the Dellmaice Power Systems industrial park. The two interior walls were a hologallery of Dellmaice Power Systems installations on various planets. There were no personal, human touches. No rugs, no plants, no artwork, no holograms of family. The only softening touch, if it counted as a softening touch, was dark wine cushions on the metals chairs.

The office suited its occupant. Ari was a hard, aggressive, domineering man. He made sure his company had the best power systems on the market by hiring the brightest, most competent engineers, scientists, and software engineers - then driving them mercilessly. He kept them with two simple hooks. The first was money. No one matched or tried to match his salaries. The second was equipment. You always had the best to work with, and there were never time-wasting arguments over funding when you needed something. Mitra detested the man but would never consider working anywhere else.

The last time she had been in that office was to sign her contract to oversee the installation of her hybrid power station on Drezvir, and to provide the technology transfer that would allow the mining colony to bring additional units on line themselves. She could still see him sitting there, heavy boned and lean. His dark brown hair was almost black, framing a strong featured face. He wore it short and his hairline above the brow was straight across. His eyes were light brown, his skin lightly tanned. For once those eyes had been unreadable. Usually there was interest or anger or curiosity. That time, nothing.

All the same Ari had known exactly how to get her to agree. He always did. First and foremost there had been money. He liked to lead with that persuasive note. In this case it had been a significant isolation bonus for each week she was on Drezvir, plus an equally significant early completion bonus to ensure she wouldn’t dawdle for isolation pay. As if anyone would dawdle here.

The son-of-a-bitch had actually had the nerve to say, Think of it as a well-paid rest after finishing your design.

Hah. Some rest.

Then there was the exciting prospect of actually seeing the unit built so soon, without the delays there sometimes were between design completion and finding the right client. Finally, because he knew such things really did matter to Mitra, he had talked a lot of garbage he didn’t mean about how much of an improvement in life her hybrid unit would bring to the settlement.

Color stained Mitra’s cheeks as she was suddenly back in his office.

***

Mitra knew she hadn’t made this negotiation easy, but they had reached the point where they both knew she would go. She waited, expecting Ari to shove the contract over for her to sign, but he didn’t.

He sat there looking his most impenetrable, his large well-manicured hands carefully holding the compad.

There’s one more thing.

She didn’t like his tone.

Ari didn’t wait for a response before continuing. I don’t want any, I repeat any, romantic - or sexual - involvements with anyone on Drezvir. Do you hear me Kael?

Even for Ari that was out of line. Scarlet cheeked, she said in what she hoped was an even, professional tone, Are you looking for a human rights suit?

Ari ignored that. He always ignored anything that was a possible deflection. It’s a small place, Kael. You get your private and professional lives mixed up and messed up, and I’ll have to pull you. That would cost.

That was a cheap shot. She had only mixed up her private and professional lives once, and it hadn’t been her fault it had gone wrong. After all, lots of couples shared careers. But she and Mark hadn’t been one of them. Eventually Ari had been forced to choose. Her. But Mark had been a damned good engineer too, and Ari was obviously still sore. Mitra maintained a dignified silence apparently staring at the desk but watching Ari through her lashes. The silence extended itself and became strained.

Ari eventually sighed and shrugged. All right. Let’s try this. You behave yourself, and stick it out to the very last day without me having to pull you, and you get double your isolation pay. The completion bonus too - if you pull that one off.

That offer sounded warning bells. Ari paid all right, but you earned every credit twice. Mitra thought about it. The offer obviously meant he expected her to hate every minute and quit after a few months. He was probably right about hating it, she thought with amusement. But not about leaving the job undone. That was too much money to walk away from.

Besides, the idea of going to the Farr sector was intriguing. The Farrese had isolated themselves from the rest of the galaxy, and contact had only been re-established about the time she was born. Her youth had been full of fictional holodramas set in an imagined Farr sector. Some reality had slowly seeped out, but the sector was still largely a mystery. Even her father Chelan didn’t know much about it.

Am I supposed to sign a celibacy clause?

He ignored that too. Let’s say I believe in a carrot and stick approach.

Mitra smiled. Big carrot, what’s the stick?

There was no answering smile on Ari’s face. Looking his stoniest he said, Screw this one up Kael, and you’re out of here.

***

Mitra looked at the ceiling screen. ‘Flight status: waiting permission to launch.’ That was ridiculous. They were the only spaceship at the Drezvir spaceport. It wasn’t exactly like dozens of shuttles, liners, freighters, and yachts were in queue. Drezvir had one shuttle and it went to Sinnia, the larger moon, twice a week. She looked at the time strip on her wrist cuff. Make that seventeen days, eleven hours, and twenty minutes short of three years. Well, Mitra thought, she’d pulled it off and stuck it out to the last day. There was no early completion bonus of course, but just the double isolation pay was substantial, and today it had been credited to her account. That brought a smile as she thought of the fun she would have spending it.

Chapter 2

Ari Dellmaice sat back in his chair and relaxed. He expected it was only a first order approximation to relaxing. It had been so long now that relaxing was a lost art. Even this try felt good though. The transmission had just come in from Drezvir with the last signatures. The hybrid power station was complete.

Kael had actually stuck it out. He had really had his doubts. Even though she had been his best bet, that kind of long tedious haul was not her style. Convince her to do something and, if you could keep her focused, she’d work herself half to death. But she was quixotic. He’d never figured out what made her tick except money, but that was good enough. It had worked.

She ran on pure adrenaline and tended to go from one bright idea to the next at a dead run. Every now and again it meant he had to bring someone in to finish up for her. Ari didn’t mind when Kael was working on the R & D side. Her concepts were always well defined and documented, and he’d just as soon she captured the next idea and let someone else do the tedious finish up work anyway. His only real worry there had been that someday she would really overshoot and try to do something that wasn’t feasible.

Ari had honestly thought she had done that with the hybrid. The speed of her load following response had him very nervous, and he’d been in the power systems business long enough to not get nervous easily. He had insisted they put the name plate rating officially giving the peak power output of the reactor at 6% below the performance she claimed, just in case they had to back off the design. He had also had Elin Kubo do the safety system responses. Kubo was their most experienced safety system designer and he had to admit she’d backed Kael all the way. Still, he’d been relieved when he’d been on Drezvir four months earlier for the first approach to half power, and every last parameter tested out. And now it was finished, up and operating above plate rating.

There certainly had been a fair bit of kicking and screaming along the way. Kael hadn’t liked a single one of the materials or equipment downgrades Rostin had insisted on once the project was too far along for any of them to back out. Ari smiled, softening the stress lines that had become a permanent part of his strong featured face these last two disastrous years. Kael always wanted platinum all the way. But none of the downgrades had been bad engineering, and the cost advantage to the Farrese Mining Guild over their total number of units would be more than triple the cost of the delays. He intended to adopt a few of them himself, not that Kael would be pleased. Well, that was her problem.

Yes, it looked like his luck was finally turning around. The hybrid unit was generating even more interest than he had expected, and Ari had expected a good market. The total power output was small enough that they had targeted the market to largely be new or isolated settlements or industrial complexes on planets where the cost of buying peak power off the grid was outrageous. But he was getting a lot of inquiries from the utilities providing planetary base loads too. Many of them liked the idea of having something like the hybrid to come online fast to handle random spikes in demand - freak storms, unanticipated maintenance on larger units, and such. All they needed to see was a quarter year of reliable operation of this prototype and they would firm up those inquiries.

Swiveling slightly, Ari looked at the row of holograms of the units they’d built on Plenata as Dellmaice Power Systems’ first big off-planet installation and his smile broadened. The way things always seemed to go - all bad or all good - that bastard Windegren and his crowd of professional troublemakers were finally getting off Plenata for a terraforming job somewhere. He didn’t care where, as long as it took a long time and kept them away from their home base. Another four months of delays on the new Plenata stations, another complete set of environmental hearings, and he and his on-planet partner would have had to pull out. Ari didn’t even want to think about it, or he’d be on that damned ulcer medication again. That project had been on and off for years now. It wasn’t that he was anti-environmental. Hell, he worked with Windegren’s mother just fine. But the kid was a pain in the ass, and good riddance to wherever he was going.

Ari wondered what it felt like to have your kid turn out an embarrassment like that. He thought of his own boys, wondering how they would turn out, not that you could tell yet. All you could really tell was that Erlin looked more like him, while Sander looked more like their mother. Erlin had his dark brown, almost black hair, the straight hairline at the brow, light brown eyes, and in adolescence would probably end up with his strong features - even the nose. Too bad about the nose. Erlin would end up in for reconstruction too. Sander had Naura’s light brown hair and softer features.

But as for how they would turn out, who knew? Sander, the younger, was a bloody minded kid still at the push-wheeled-tanks-around-the-floor-and-run-killer-robots stage. Erlin, the older, was quiet and liked to have help building space stations with his construction sets and to throw a ball around the yard. Not that there had been much time for either in the past eighteen months. Maybe now they’d correct that. The kids were interesting now, exploring what they wanted to be, and that changed daily. If they’d been watching sports, it was an Octagla player or a Genie pilot. Last week when the neighbor’s dog had cut itself, they spent quite a few days wanting to be vets.

Enough. Things were better, not fine. The megacity unit project was still a mess. He picked up his compad and called up the next file. Maybe tonight he’d be home by 9:00. Naura would like that. It was usually 11:00.

Chapter 3

While the space shuttle was waiting to launch, it had slowly turned to dusk outside. This was the time Mitra liked best on Drezvir. The endless folds of reddish stone and the bits of grit they called soil here, softened by just the odd streak of gray or green rock, or reddish lichen in low spots, was harsh and unsettling in daylight. With dusk the colors muted into lovely purplish shades. She twisted in her seat to get a better look, firmly telling herself to not get nostalgic just because she was leaving. As she watched, the lights went on in the habitat area, so many tiny pricks of brilliance against a distant hill. Mitra felt a surge of pride. Those were her lights.

Until her hybrid system was up and running they had only had small-scale solar power severely limited by dust problems, imported batteries, imported fuel cells, and a small generator run on ridiculously expensive imported fuel. Power and light had been doled out in as miserly a fashion as the water, most going to the mines that would make the planet prosper, assuming it would ever prosper. Mitra doubted it would.

Drezvir had been the perfect application for her new hybrid system. The magma layer was relatively near the surface under these hills, and it had been possible to have the mines extended down to a level where a good geothermal base load could be extracted. On top of that power base was her new reactor designed especially for load following on a very fast response time. That was exactly what they needed for their mining operations. Mitra thought of her father again. Chelan had told her the term reactor was traditional back to the archaic Terran days of the more primitive forms of fissionable fuels, and later fusion fuels. Anyway, the term had stuck.

Ouch! A stab of pain down her right calf brought Mitra’s mind back to the here and now from its academic digression and she straightened in her seat. The seat was a standard ergonomic design, and if you were average size, or a quartile to either side, it was heaven. If you were in the 90th percentile on the small side, it was hell. In a reasonably short time your lower legs were numb from pressure at the knee, the adjustable lumbar support could not be moved to anywhere near the right spot, and at the lowest setting the cushioning for the neck hit the back of your head and pushed it forward.

Mitra totally released the strapping. They obviously weren’t going anywhere. She shifted to glare down the aisle at the blond bulk of Haran Barloth, the Dellmaice Power Systems lawyer. He was looking so obviously an Outsider in his city suit. Haran had fussed about the final signing off of the power station and had cost them the shuttle four days ago to hitch a ride on a pharmaceutical space liner, to say nothing of ruining their leaving on a Dellmaice Power Systems ship two weeks ago with the rest of the attached staff. Now they were going to be stuck on a Mining Guild freighter to the first space station. Haran hadn’t listened to her about what that would be like. He’d learn. Fast.

To ease her leg Mitra perched forward on the edge of her seat, accidentally bumping the burly miner beside her.

Sorry.

No problem. He returned his attention to the back of the seat in front of him.

Mitra did not try to extend the conversation. He wouldn’t reply. With the exception of a few friends she had made through the mine crew who had installed the geothermal unit, they still all treated her as an Outsider. Direct questions were answered in as few syllables as possible and eye contact was avoided at all costs. Mitra stole a sideways glance at the middle aged man wearing coveralls to match hers. He would probably sit staring at that seat cover for the entire trip.

Nervously Mitra ran her fingers through the centimeter and a half long bristles from her haircut three days ago, then swore under her breath. That little souvenir of Drezvir would take a long time to undo. Mitra had always worn her dark brown hair shoulder length or a little longer. The first so-called shower had made it terribly clear that wasn’t going to work here, she simply couldn’t shampoo and shower in the same time interval. So for a while she had alternated. Shower one day, shampoo the next. But after a while, sweating as hard as she was at this ‘desk’ job, she was starting to stink on that regime.

Washing her hair in a basin of water hadn’t been an option. The only source of a whole basin full of water was the same metered system as the shower. Dry shampoo, every last one available on Drezvir, caused allergies. So did the depilatories. Maybe there had been enough genetic drift in the Farr section that hypoallergenic for them wasn’t the same as the rest of the galaxy. She didn’t know. That distracted Mitra. Could that much genetic drift happen in less than tens of thousands of years? She’d have to look that up when she got to somewhere with decent hyperweb access.

That was an interesting thing about the Farr sector. They never got the idea of a hyperweb. Now of course they used the galactic hyperweb, but very unwillingly - essentially only for business and news.

Finally in desperation she had shaved her hair completely off, a solution fairly common on Drezvir with both sexes. It was great but she resented the time it took to shave daily. So Mitra had ended up with her current solution. Have the hair dresser crop it off to about a centimeter and a half, and let it grow until it was trouble in the shower then crop it again. It wasn’t bad as long as she never looked in a mirror, and it worked, so Mitra just hadn’t thought about it.

But today she had made the mistake of taking a good look at her appearance and imagined arriving at some sophisticated space station. Oh how she longed to have hair down at her shoulders, to be able to toss it, to look in the mirror and see it frame her face, earrings peaking in and out of view. A face with makeup. Well, what wasn’t going to happen wasn’t going to happen. The crew on the mine freighter would never notice the difference, and maybe there would be time to buy a scarf at the space station.

A businesslike voice without a hint of apology in it apologized over the voice system for the continuing delays. Mitra felt her stomach tighten. She was trapped here forever. That’s ridiculous she told herself. Distract yourself. Just think, you’ll be home in a few days. How long had it been since she’d been home? Five years? No, that wasn’t right. Her mother, Roween, had come to see her en route to a biophysics conference where she was chairing a session five years ago. It was the year before that she’d used holidays to visit Chelan on his sixtieth birthday. The sudden pang of guilt this reckoning brought on drove the panic about staying right out of her mind, but it was no improvement. Still, what else could she have done? She had been so busy with the final design of the hybrid system, then there had been this stupid, stupid, technology transfer.

Idiot, Mitra told herself. You’re supposed to be distracting yourself. The voice system said something she didn’t quite catch, but it gave her an idea. She was reasonably fluent in three or four of the galactic standard languages and could scrape by in a handful more. It was not necessary of course, because the microprocessor ear canal inserts would provide almost instantaneous translation of all recognized languages, and even did reasonably well at keeping up with slang. But it was nicer to have the lips matching what you were hearing, and you felt more sophisticated being multilingual. She would program her auditory unit for Plenataese, the language of her childhood planet and get her ear back. Mitra had used StanGalLan, the standard galactic language, for general conversation, and StanGalSci, the standard scientific language, while working on Drezvir just to be sure they understood her. While her translator handled Farrese, she’d picked it up over her stay here to the stage where she understood speech, but she was sure her accent was still off.

The reprogramming took all of three minutes and it had only taken that long because her nervous fingers had tapped in the wrong sequence on her wrist cuff twice. It probably would have been easier to haul her compad out of her shoulder bag, but she liked to use her wrist cuff when travelling. It was a graduation present from Roween when she got her doctorate. She’d upgraded the software she didn’t know how many times, the processor three times, and the screen once, but she still loved the cuff itself. It felt and looked like a piece of designer jewelry. The heavy ornate band was patterned in a wide enough range of metals to guarantee it brought the security guards scrambling at every metal detector she went through. This invariably happened because she always forgot she was wearing it and didn’t hand it to security staff. Mitra resettled the cuff further up her arm.

Chapter 4

So much for that distraction. What was it she had been thinking? Those idiot Farrese couldn’t build an outhouse? That was it. Now, that had promise as a distracting idea. A slight, almost wicked smile touched Mitra’s lips, making her look remarkably like her brother Niki. She settled back in her seat as well as she could, tucking her legs up underneath her like a child. What would happen first?

With the money grubbing Planet Manager, Olan Rostin, even if she was proposing an already completed design with no options, there would be days of debate. Each feature would take quite a bit of explaining even if it was something completely obvious like a door, since their chief engineer Durstin Fallor was unbelievably slow, and he wasn’t even Farrese. He was an Outsider like her. Then, when they finally understood the purpose of the features, the contract would be written. At least that would give her three or more weeks vacation while lawyers did their thing. Then, a real downer, it would be on planet work time.

The first hurdle to actually do some work would be to obtain a construction permit. To initiate the process there would be at least 12 dozen forms to fill out. Of course there would have been no work done in advance on environmental licensing even though the site was already chosen and purchased. The grin retouched her lips. With an outhouse, that could be quite interesting on Drezvir, with its rather peculiar social structure that didn’t seem to have decided yet exactly what level of government had what jurisdiction. While everyone would acknowledge the necessity of the outhouse, no one would want to be responsible for it and its associated hazardous wastes. It would be made clear, although it was not part of the contract, that providing the environmental license was her problem.

That would be scramble time, since Dellmaice Power Systems did not handle environmental licensing. It varied too much from world to world, and within the local jurisdictions on worlds. They always worked with their local partner on the issue. But eventually someone who would work in the Farr sector would be found. The original site although perfectly adequate would be rejected. About eight more sites would be assessed. Finally, just about the time when it looked like it was turning into a serious political issue, to say nothing of the lack of an outhouse being a problem, the least desirable site would be deemed acceptable.

Materials would be the next problem. Nothing specified in the contract would be available, and none of the substitutions suggested by the Farrese, like a variety of woods for the seat sure to splinter and cause slivers, would be anything she could professionally approve. Which raised an interesting question now that she thought about it. Chelan had sworn outhouses were made of wood, but that was ridiculous. Wood was a luxury item. On Terra trees with construction quality wood had been an endangered species for centuries, and a lot of the planets including Plenata did not have any suitable trees. Roween had done at least 4 contracts Mitra remembered trying to modify hardwood trees to various planets. Mitra was reasonably sure Chelan had been talking about Terra, not Rujjipet. But if all trees there except a few weed trees had been endangered species for centuries, surely they must have been scarce even at the time Chelan told her about. Mitra meditated on the likelihood her father’s research was wrong until she got bored.

Back to the Farrese building an outhouse. Ari had proven to be as money grubbing as Rostin. That had been a surprise to Mitra. Back at Dellmaice working R&D she had got the impression that money had never mattered. But apparently construction was different to him. He would make her take every suggestion seriously. There would be endless delays while alternatives she suggested were argued about and largely rejected. Any accepted would mean even more paper work. There would be endless screaming by Rostin in the cases where she had to put her foot down and insist on the original materials, as these would inevitably have to be imported at an above-average cost.

Mitra spent a few minutes in reverie wondering exactly how you did construct an outhouse, then the small smile played across Mitra’s lips again. She was starting to enjoy the mind game. Her head relaxed into the cushions as well as it could and her eyes closed. Finally there would be construction. First, there would be hassles about the location and orientation on the site. At least three of the Farrese staff would insist that it should be placed so that the gale force winds that perpetually swept across the barren landscape would rip the door out of your hands.

Once she finally talked sense into them, and it was time to actually do some hands on work, all of the first-class experienced tradespeople guaranteed to be supplied by the Farrese would either be totally incompetent - she paused looking for a stronger word than idiots - or scared kids. The carpenters would have no idea of how to even do something as simple as a mitered joint. Ari had tried to tell her she was just seeing cultural differences, that there had been time for the Farrese to develop their own approach to technology. Well, all she would say was she sincerely hoped they mined better than they built power stations, and she was glad he had finally let her bring in Outsiders for a lot of the work.

Even after her three years here, Mitra had no accurate idea of how good they were at mining. Except for the totally unavoidable trips down to install the geothermal unit, she had tactfully but firmly avoided finding out by pleading a non existent claustrophobia. She had been terrified of finding some engineering slip up that just cried out to be corrected and ending up spending another - who knew how many - years fixing it. They had believed the claustrophobia story too. The geothermal unit had been the first engineering they had tried together, and she hadn’t been used to the Farrese style yet. She’d been in a constant state of nerves, alternating between literally biting her tongue and snapping everyone’s head off. By the time they got above ground and on to the reactor part of the power installation, she was resigned to their way of doing things and she was much calmer. Everyone had noticed the difference and decided she had terrible claustrophobia.

This was too unpleasant a return to reality, and her mind shied back to the outhouse. Construction would end up ridiculously behind schedule and accelerated work shifts, and to be honest sometimes short cuts, would be necessary. This would require even more paper work, and result in even slower delivery dates than they would have had if it had been done correctly to start with. It would be completed at last though, and then would come the commissioning tests. She could think of a few people she would like involved in those, like Durstin Fallor and Olan Rostin.

Chapter 5

Dr. Durstin Fallor looked across the desk at Olan Rostin. He saw a mid-height man with gray, thinning hair, and a nondescript face that would have been plump in a less rigorous life than had been Rostin’s lot with the Mining Guild. He tried to judge Rostin’s mood, but that was never easy. Aware that he was being scrutinized in turn, Durstin let his gaze roam around the crowded and slightly shabby office. With the prefab habitats on Drezvir there was no way to denote rank by size or luxury. But everyone knew that this was where Drezvir was run from, and Olan Rostin was the man who ran it.

Rostin said genially, So you have your very own power station now Durstin. The project was finished at last. Dr. Kael and Haran Barloth were the last from the Dellmaice Power Systems staff to leave, and the shuttle would be departing at any time.

Durstin nodded and said sincerely, It’s one truly beautiful piece of engineering. It will do everything we want.

I hope you know how to run it, Rostin said in a light bantering tone, but just the slightest hint of worry crept in.

Durstin could have taken offense but he was amused. Has my little act started to convince you too?

His round face settled into the sullen expression Mitra knew so well. His eyes seemed to lose their luster, and he let a slight frown crease his brow. He pushed his tousle of light brown hair off his forehead and said in a tone that was slightly aggrieved, slightly petty, and noticeably stupider, I really don’t see why you said that. I’m trying to understand your point of view, but you’re really going to have to explain.

Durstin suppressed a smile at the expression on Rostin’s face and reverted to his normal voice, his intelligent eyes alive with amusement.

"Trust me Mr. Rostin. Since you called me in to consult on your energy requirements for biohazard containment I haven’t been wrong once. You thought that to get the power you needed to fuse those rock faces you’d have to wait. You weren’t in the financial position to build enough traditional power units to cover the needs from base load. That route would have taken you another six years, maybe more.

"We both know you don’t break even yet on ores. And the type of waste you want to put into non-fused containment in the worked-out mines has been worth a lot less since the shift to the new type of on-planet incineration they developed on Pendrae. Believe me, the value will drop further.

Dangerous biohazards are where your money will come from. Durstin was serious now. That little load following beauty will let you do it. Why, it’s already running more than 6% above the plate rating! And when I told you to go to Dellmaice and ask to be the trial site, it was still just barely more than a dream in Mitra’s head.

Rostin nodded, wanting to trust this Outsider, but not sure he did even after years of collaboration.

And who, Durstin continued, "told you just exactly what kind of deal you could renegotiate when Dellmaice got himself into trouble over those delayed projects? You knew he was in a tight spot, but you didn’t know the power industry enough to know what it was worth. You were prepared to sell your position way short.

So trust me now. That reactor will do exactly what you want, and I know how to get just what you need out of it. Durstin’s smile was satisfied. My little act worked Mr. Rostin. Mitra can’t stand to think of anyone not understanding what she’s talking about. If she thinks you don’t, she keeps coming at it in different ways. So we have the technology transfer we paid for, and I know how to run your hybrid unit and oversee construction of additional units. But more importantly I know the reason for every design decision she made. Oh, you’ll get your additional units all right. All your additional units. He allowed his smile to broaden to a grin All the same, I bet that’s one lady who’s glad to see the last of me.

Rostin nodded. He hoped Durstin was not overestimating himself. Durstin was a young man, full of confidence. If this project didn’t work he’d shrug and move on to another, but that wasn’t the case for him. This was his third position as administrator of a mining planet. The first had been as an assistant General Manager on an established planet when he was as young and ambitious as Durstin. The second had been on his own, on a new planet. It had been much more hospitable than Drezvir and the ore base more diverse. Even so, it had been a long haul to establish the mines. Still, he had done it and done it well.

That had led to the offer to take on Drezvir. It was, had been, and would continue to be, a rough job. But a few of the ores they eked out in minute quantities were almost priceless in the current high-tech industries and the geological assessments showed the potential for large deposits. Olan knew though that Drezvir would be his last planet. He would be eligible for retirement before the mining colony was totally prosperous and stable, and he intended to take the retirement. He would get the colony as far along as he could before then, but someone else could finish the job. Rostin also intended to add every increment he could to the bottom line for Drezvir because he intended to retire comfortably. That was the way the Mining Guild worked at his level. There were base salaries but they were minimal. The rest was a percentage of net. It kept you on your toes.

He asked Durstin, Do you know yet when we will shift to our on-planet fuel? That was the next big step.

Roughly seven weeks.

Olan nodded. The other thing we’ll have to start working on is picking up some Outsider engineers for the additional units. He had planned to use Farrese personnel exclusively, but these Outsiders were strange engineers. It took one of them to understand their systems, so they had ended up leaning heavily on Dellmaice Power Systems for building this prototype. But you spent a fortune to bring an Outsider engineer out to a place like this so why hire someone a day before you had to? No one on the Farrese staff was a bad engineer, but they weren’t Outsiders.

There’s always Dellmaice Power Systems.

They laughed.

Chapter 6

The steward paused in the aisle and looked at Mitra half dozing in her seat. He knew who she was of course without consulting his passenger list. Dr. Kael was the closest they had to a celebrity on Drezvir. Closest to one they were likely to have, for that matter. He hesitated a moment, taking a good look. He knew what she looked like of course. You couldn’t watch the local Drezvir news up on the space station and not. But somehow the best holograms weren’t the same as live. For one thing, he had no idea she was so tiny. She had always seemed so full of energy that he had assumed she had a size to match. But curled up there like his eight year old daughter she looked little, and rather vulnerable.

He apologized to the sturdy miner sitting beside her, reached past him and shook her shoulder.

Mitra’s eyes flew open at once, and she froze, heart racing. This was it. The man said something totally unintelligible to her brain that hadn’t shifted to Plenataese yet. She stared, then managed to stammer, Pardon?

Would you please strap yourself in Dr. Kael? We’ll be taking off momentarily. She had obviously been more out cold than he thought.

Mitra managed to process the words at