Timothy Zahn - Spinneret

Allerton grimaced. "You think the Ctencri would give the UN armed ships?"

"Before the Spinneret came along they apparently wouldn't even give us advanced star drives; Saleh's now got two. I think the Ctencri see a chance to get in good with the official owners of Astra and are grabbing it. Who knows how far they're prepared to go to protect their investment?"

"Yeah." Allerton sighed. "Well, then, I suppose we'd better take Saleh up on his offer of a lift out to Astra. Try to straighten things out as quickly as possible."

"You want me to go?"

"No … no, I think I might just go myself." He smiled lopsidedly at Purvis's expression. "Come on, Josh—space travel's supposed to be as easy as crossing the Delaware these days. And a lot safer."

"Unless Saleh decides he'd like you put on indefinite hold," the other said bluntly.

"In which case you could hardly give him a better opportunity."

Allerton waved the objection aside. "Saleh's neither strong enough nor desperate enough to kidnap a head of state. Not yet, anyway."

"Maybe," Purvis said. "Maybe not."

"It's so nice to be invited here, for a change," Perez commented as he sank into the chair across from Meredith. "Usually I have to bully your secretary to let me in."

Meredith's expression remained studiously neutral, and Perez mentally crossed off the possibility that the colonel had a social chat in mind. "I understand," Meredith said, "that you're thinking about the possibilities of making some spending money off the Spinneret cable."

"That's right," Perez nodded. "And I understand you're actually going to do so."

The colonel's eyebrows rose fractionally. "Miss Olivero told you?"

"She confirmed what I'd already guessed. Was it supposed to be a secret?"

Meredith smiled sardonically. "Don't you wish. Secret deals by the corrupt military dictator—it would have been made to order for you."

"That's a little unfair. Colonel," Perez said, feeling his face warming."I don't deliberately distort the truth—I just try and keep others from doing so."

"Of course." Meredith tapped computer keys and swiveled the screen toward his visitor. "Well, here's a little bit of truth for you—see what you think."

Perez leaned forward. Preliminary Analysis of Alien Cable, he read … and suddenly he knew what this was. "It's the Rooshrike test results, isn't it? Is this why you're keeping the trade deal quiet?"

"We've been keeping the negotiations quiet; no deals have been made yet. After all, we needed to know more about the cable in order to fix a fair price for it."

"You're going to use the Rooshrike's own numbers for that purpose?"

Meredith shrugged. "I know what you're thinking, but there's no real way around it. The Rooshrike have both better testing equipment and a better feel for what the cable would bring on the open market."

"Mm." Perez thought for a moment. "Perhaps if we offered them a small percentage of what we get from sales to other races … that might deter them from suggesting too low a price."

"As a matter of fact, Miss Olivero had already put that idea to the Rooshrike representatives. They seem agreeable to it."

"I see." A woman of many talents, Perez thought with mild surprise. He'd done a little trade negotiation himself some years back; just enough to know that he didn't care for it. Of course, Carmen had the distinct advantage of a seller's market to work with here. "What price range are you talking about?"

"Our current thought is to charge about forty million dollars per kilometer plus the two and a quarter tons of metal that go into a cable that long."

Perez whistled softly. "That seems rather expensive."

"It's less than twice the current price of gold," Meredith pointed out. "And a lot more valuable."

"For study, perhaps. But aside from building long suspension bridges I would think its uses limited."

"You would, would you?" Meredith leaned back in his chair and started ticking off fingers. "One: loop it back and forth—it's flexible enough—so that each segment lies next to the one before. The glue sticks the whole thing into what is essentially a flat plate; coat it on all sides to take up the rest of the glue and you have sixty square meters of impenetrable material. Put another cable on each corner and get yourself a strong crane and you've got a sling you could carry small mountains around with. Two: wind the cable into a helix and you have a superconducting solenoid—a million applications right there. Three: link some of the cables end to end and make a giant circle out in deep space. Attach a few of these in parallel and you've got the backbone for a wheel-shaped space station.

Four wrap it around a thin metal shell—hell; make it cardboard or sausage skin, for that matter—and you've got a spaceship hull. Do I need to go on?"

"No, I get the idea," Perez said, impressed in spite of himself. Clearly, the colonel had done a lot of thinking about this—much more than Perez himself had. "I capitulate; buyers will soon be breaking the door down. So why did you ask me here today, since you've apparently got all the details worked out? To rubberstamp your decision?"

Meredith snorted. "Hardly. You keep forgetting that I don't need your permission to govern Astra as I see fit." He paused, and almost grudgingly went on, "What I called you here to talk about is what we're going to do when we start making money from all this."

Perez shifted in his seat. "Carmen was talking about that some time back. She seemed to think we'd become a world of parasites."

"You disagree?"

Perez locked eyes with him. "It's been my experience mat, given a choice, people prefer to work for their living. No one on any form of welfare is truly happy to be there."

"Granted. All right, then, let's assume we want all the people who emigrate from Earth to have meaningful jobs here. What will they be doing?"

"What do you mean?" Perez asked, puzzled. "They'll be doing the same sort of things people do on Earth."

"Wrong," Meredith said quietly. "Or haven't you noticed the lack of minerals and useful farmland?"

Perez stared at him for a moment … and then it all clicked. "Manufacturing and agriculture will be gone. Is that it?"

Meredith nodded. "There'll be some of each, but nothing like the percentages in any economy on Earth. It just doesn't make any sense to ship in raw materials to work when we can just as easily bring in finished products."

"But surely there are similar setups on Earth," Perez objected, searching his memory for a useful example. "How about—well, how about Monaco? It runs well enough with no minerals to speak of."

"Is that what you want for your huddled masses?" Meredith snorted. "To be servants and waitresses for tourists? Assuming we could even get tourists to come here, of course."

"No, of course not—"

"Put them all in government? Storekeeping? Selling insurance to each other?

You're the one who wants to make this a paradise for the poor—tell me what they're going to do here."

"All right, the point is made." Perez got to his feet. "I agree the problem needs thought, but I'm sure we can come up with an answer. If you'll excuse me, then—"

"I'm not done yet," Meredith interrupted.

Perez considered leaving anyway, thought better of it, and sat down again. "I suppose you want my word that the Council won't press for new colonists until we've sorted all this out?"

"Not really—I credit you with better sense than that. No, this is about a different matter entirely." Meredith pursed his lips. "We need to work out some kind of security arrangement with all those warships out there. Miss Olivero thought you might have some suggestions on how we might do that without creating either paranoia or animosity among whoever we send home."