Hayford Peirce: The Boxie Rebellion

Illustration by Kelly Freas

“What do you know about this proposed issue of tunnel bonds?” demanded my lord and master, J. Davis Alexander.

“Which tunnel bonds?”

“The ones on the Moon, of course, Earth’s Moon.” The managing director of Hartman, Be mis & Choupette scowled at me balefully, the way he generally did just before making the announcement that I was fired.

“Oh, those tunnel bonds.” Without being asked, I let myself sink slowly through Ceres’ 4 percent gravity into a chair in front of J. Davis Alexander’s enormous desk of gleaming green.

malachite. Through the windows of his fine corner office I could see a family of ducklings splashing happily in their pond in Westlake Park, Clarkeville’s choicest piece of prime real estate. I hooked my toes under the footbar to keep from floating away if I pounded the desk too vehemently and shrugged dismissively. “The Kennedygrad ones?”

J. Davis Alexander nodded.

“They’re just like most of the other tunnel bonds the Loonies ’ve issued over the last hundred years or so,” I said, “medium low-grade investment quality, some risk attached, but a long way from being junk bonds. They’re issuing a round billion dollars’ worth, U.S. Earth dollars, and they’ll probably be priced to yield about 8.75 percent.”

“Well, there’s been a change. Now they’re thinking about issuing them to yield Belter buckles instead of dollars. That way they could save a couple of points on the interest rate. Over thirty years there’d be a tremendous savings.”

“Of course.” Belter buckles, backed by all the gold in the Asteroid Belt, were the safest, most stable currency in the Solar System and always commanded a hefty premium. “But are the bonds themselves going to be buckle denominated? So far as I know, none of the tunnel financing has ever been underwritten from the Belt.”

J. Davis Alexander pushed himself back in his red leather chair and looked as deeply satisfied as it’s possible to look if you’re roughly globuloid in shape, almost entirely covered with thick wiry hair, and have the eyes and disposition of a famished wolverine. “Exactly, White. Think what a coup it would be for HB&C to underwrite an entire issue of this size —and to denominate it in Belter buckles. Overnight we’d be major players in the Solar System fincweb, White, major players!”

And wealthy ones, too, I mused, reluctantly admitting that my cunning and far from irreproachably scrupulous boss might for once have found a reasonably ethical means of generating a stupendous amount of money. “The people in Kennedygrad who’re building this tunnel have already agreed to us being the underwriters?”

“Not yet, White, not yet. And that’s where you come in.”

“I?” I was Jonathan Welbrook White, Ethical Broker & Bourseman for more years than I cared to think about in the employ of the Belt’s second largest brokerage house.

“Yes, you. They’re not playing fair, you know, White. They’re also dickering with the Three Blind Mice about handling the issue.”

“Oh.” The Three Blind Mice were Bleine, Blinder & Miesen on Pallas, the Belt’s largest firm and our most hated archrivals.

“The fact that they’re talking with them leads Mr. Choupette to suspect that this underwriting might not be as squeaky clean as we’d like it to be.”

“Or as profitable.”

“Exactly. Which is why you’re leaving on the next Moon-Earth packet, White, to check out this deal in person.”

“But I’m not a bond specialist,” I protested. “In fact I know almost nothing about them except how to calculate their yield. And, as you may recall, I’ve just come back from Earth —you sent me there inside an ore-ball that nearly froze me to death!” I surged to my feet, taking care not to bounce my head off the ceiling. “Thank you, no. It’s your turn to go to Earth. You may fire me now or upon your return.”

J. Davis Alexander’s fleshy lips tightened. “You made, as you might recall, a tidy bonus for going to Earth, as well as some nice capital gains. And there’s another bonus waiting for you here in this job, White. Now sit down and let me tell you what else you’re going to be doing on the Moon.”

“Tell me again what tunnel bonds are,” said Jin Tshei as we lingered over dinner in the first-class dining room of the Vesta Explorer. It was the third day out from Ceres and we were still accelerating at a constant .075 gravities en route to our rendezvous with the Moon in another twenty-four days. “I’m afraid I wasn’t paying attention before.”

I sipped at the glass of genuine Terran cognac that had popped out of the wall dispenser at my elbow. “Well, bonds are—”

“I know what bonds are,” snapped Jin Tshei. “After hanging around you for eight years, I’d have to be an idiot not to. But what’s a tunnel bond?”

“Oh. Well, I’m not much of a Moon specialist except for tracking those mining companies that compete with ours, but their preferred method of transportation between Lunar cities is by high-velocity tunnel trains. They’re electromagnetically accelerated and reach nearly a thousand klicks an hour. The Loonies’ve been gradually expanding the network between their cities and settlements and mining sites and whatnot for two centuries now—and constantly rebuilding the old ones. So they’re always raising money, generally through bond issues, in order to finance the next tunnel from Hither to Yon.”

“I see.” Jin Tshei batted her long eyelashes at me over her glass of Kahlua and cream and I felt a momentary weakness in my knees. Except for the former Miss Grain Harvest of 2273, J. Davis Alexander’s improbable trophy wife, Jin Tshei was almost certainly the loveliest girl in the entire Belt. She had skin the color of golden honey, glossy black hair that fell nearly to her waist, and enormous almond eyes in the most delicate heart-shaped face imaginable. From time to time I was stabbed by a terrible pang of jealousy that this ethereally beautiful creature was the legal wife of my girlfriend, Isabel, instead of my own.

Eight or nine years earlier, when Isabel and I decided to marry, we received a rude shock in the form of an absolute refusal from Psych Service to issue a license. The psychological and genetic profile of Isabel, they said in their dogmatic way after the mandatory testing, revealed a latent attraction to other women that made our chances of having a successful twenty-three-year marriage something less than 48 percent. That assessment had come as a vast surprise to Isabel, who had always considered herself as straight as a mathematician’s line, but who could argue with Psych Service? Which was why I was now traveling to the Moon in the company of the gorgeous Jin Tshei.

It was all very simple—if you’re a Cerean.

If you want to have children, you have to be able to guarantee a stable family environment until the child reaches his or her 22nd birthday.

Psych Service defines a successful marriage as being 75 percent likely to go the term. Our proposed union was in the 48-percent bracket. So, unless we wanted to migrate to another of the semi-autonomous Belt worlds with a less restrictive parenting code, there could be no wedding bells for Isabel and Jonathan.

So Isabel married the breathtakingly beautiful Jin Tshei, who was taller than Isabel and not quite as well rounded in those places that I myself find particularly interesting, and after a suitable honeymoon interval I was invited to contribute the necessary genetic material for the creation of a darling baby girl.