Despite my concerns, my hackles rose. “Damn it, Leeanne! I’m doing the best I know how! You—” I caught myself before I could spit out an accusation. “You have any ideas for what I can do better, I’m all ears.”
Leeanne’s tone calmed, but she didn’t fall back into her depression. “What you can do, Sam, is stop driving yourself so hard. You’re looking worse than me, and I’m the one who lost my husband! You’re going to kill yourself, and kill Wilson’s dream with you. What you have to do is what Willy would do: prioritize and delegate.”
I sighed. “I know, I’m trying.”
Again she said, “Bullshit!” And again she gestured at the station. “I’ve been all over Gray City, Sam. Everywhere I see the same thing: people are holding onto hope because you and Kim charged them up; but they’re slowly losing it because your decisions take so long that the situation changes before they hear from you. Everyone’s going through the motions, but there’s no plan in effect. And the more you look like a zombie, the more they lose faith.”
I breathed out slowly. “You’re right, Leeanne. I’ve tried to hold things together for you. Now if you’re ready, boss, I’m happy to take your orders—as soon as I get some sleep.”
“Uh-uh!” Leeanne shook her head, bobbing against her handhold. “I never wanted to be the boss. Wilson knew that: I’m a counselor, not an executive. You haven’t had time to check Willy’s final orders yet, but they name you as his second in command, subject to approval of the Board. And with his shares plus mine, I have controlling interest on the Board, so you’re approved.”
“But Leeanne, I’m doing a miserable job! You said so yourself!”
“That’s because you’re trying to solve all of the problems instead of just the big ones. You think you’re delegating, but your people tell me you’re not. You’re delegating tasks, not decisions. That’s why you have no time to sleep! Any time you’ve got a problem where your department heads can decide, let them! Let Mari deal with the suppliers on Earth. She always did for Wilson.”
“Mari and I …” I swallowed. “We’re not getting along.”
“That’s a luxury you can’t afford right now. Treat her like a trusted professional, not an ex-girlfriend. Mari’ll do her job if you let her.”
“Well …”
“Samuel Pike, if you let your wounded pride put an end to Gray City, I’ll launch you straight into Jupiter! Mari’s a grown up, now you be one!
“And speaking of launching … Hank is waiting for you to get off your ass and order him to salvage the mass driver. He has a plan, but it’ll take a lot of fuel. He can’t authorize that without orders from you. Every minute you wait, the driver gets closer to Ganymede, and the salvage costs grow higher.”
“We have over two months …”
“And if you’d acted immediately, we would’ve had three months. By now the fuel costs have more than doubled. You give that order now Sam, or so help me I’ll steal a tug and start hauling the driver back myself.”
At that I smiled. She would, too. I pulled open a channel to Hank. “Hank? Yeah, it’s Sam … Hey, sorry I’ve gotten buried here … No, you’re right and I’m wrong, so I’m doing the apologies here. You’re authorized for fuel charges and overtime budgets to go get that driver … Yeah, the plan you submitted—Damn, was that four days ago already? Okay, revise the plan as needed, and I’ll approve it … No, don’t wait for final approval, I trust you … Thanks, Hank! I look forward to your reports.”
I disconnected and looked at Leeanne. “How’d I do, boss?”
“Enough of that ‘boss’ business. You did okay. Now you make a call like that to all your department heads, and maybe we’ll get things under control here. Start with Mari.” I frowned at that. “Mari. Now.”
I spread my hands up, pleading. “But Leeanne … That fight …” I couldn’t find words. They brought back the pain.
Leeanne’s expression softened. Suddenly I saw my friend, Wilson’s wife. My pain grew as she asked, “What about it, Sam? You two have fought before. You’re a hard-nosed engineer, she’s a fiery Cuban, that’s no surprise. You’ve always gotten past it before.”
I tried to speak, but I had a catch in my throat. I coughed and said, “But this fight … This is why we weren’t at the station. This is why—”
“Hush!” Leeanne shouted as she pushed herself across the office to me, stopping herself by wrapping her arms around me and pulling my head down to her shoulder. She buried her face in my own shoulder and said, “Stop it, Sam! Don’t say that. Do not say that. I never want to hear that again.”
I tried to hold back, but I found myself sobbing. “If I had been here—”
“No, Sam. You wouldn’t have been here. You would’ve been with the prospecting fleet. Or negotiating with the other Settlements. Or on any of a hundred other errands for Wilson, just like every other day of this project.”
“But—”
“No buts! So this is what it’s all about? Sam, someday I’ll find who killed Willy, and I’ll make them pay. But it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t me! We’re survivors, we’re not to blame.”
Then I really cut loose with the tears, and Leeanne joined in. More than I had needed sleep, I had needed tears, and someone to share them with.
Eventually, though, I remembered that I had work to do. “Okay, boss—Leeanne,” I corrected. I pulled away and wiped my eyes. “Do I look ready for more calls?”
Leeanne smiled at me. It was weak, but it was a smile. She had needed the tears, too. “Stop worrying about looking strong.” She pushed back to the hatch, out of the comm pickup. “Call Mari.”
I nodded, my body bobbing in response, and I called Mari. As soon as her face appeared on my comm, she started in on me. “Sam Pike, do you like making my job impossible?” I shook my head, but she continued before I could answer. “I just answered a call from Bader Farms. I had them, Sam. I had them! I had them convinced that we were stabilizing our situation, and you had a plan to meet our contracts. Then you called them, and you ruined the whole thing! They said you didn’t strike them as confident, so why should they be? They’re ready to cancel our future pipeline loads, maybe even sell some of the in-transit loads to Walkerville.”
She paused to breathe, and I finally snuck in a response. “I’m sorry, Mari.”
Mari continued. “And furthermore—” Then she shook her head. Red-brown curls became a shimmering cloud. “What did you say?”
“I’m sorry. I screwed up, and I was wrong. If I stay out of the middle, can you fix this?”
Mari’s jaw dropped open, and it took a few seconds before she answered. “Maybe. But I’ll have to offer points.”
I nodded. “Take them out of my account. It’s my mistake, so Gray City shouldn’t pay for it.”
Mari cocked an eyebrow. “And you’ll stay out of it?”
I nodded again. “It’s your department. Wilson trusted you, and Leeanne and I trust you. I’m sorry if I gave you any reason to doubt that. If you need me, tell me. Otherwise, it’s hands-off.”
Mari almost smiled then. “Okay, I need to work on repairing this. And … Thanks, Sam.”
I disconnected the call and started placing more. As I did, department heads pulled tasks from my task list, and some tasks immediately switched from Backlog to In Progress. A couple even switched to Complete. When I finished, I looked at the full list. Those forty-some calls had done more to clear the list than I had accomplished in three weeks.
I held up my hands in surrender. “Okay, Leeanne, you were right. I’m still learning on the job here. What’s next?”
“Next we hold an Executive Committee meeting, just like the old days: the Chairman, the Counselor, and your Executive Officer.”
“But I’m—All right, I used to be XO. Now I’m Chairman, so who’s the Executive Officer?”
“Kim Stone, of course. She’s already d
oing every task you’ll let her. I’ve promoted her and made the pay retroactive—assuming we have anything left to pay anyone with. She’s outside waiting for us to have it out. Are we good?”
I thought long before answering. I had so much to learn about being in the top seat; but with Leeanne’s help, it had already gotten easier. And now with Kim’s help as well, maybe I could handle it.
I smiled and nodded. “We’re good. Hell, we’re great! Bring on the next challenge!”
Leeanne knocked on the hatch, and it opened. Kim floated in and closed it behind her. The two women floated there, one large and dark, the other a pale blonde pixie; but both were strong, especially inside, and I was going to need that.
“You straighten him out, boss lady?” Kim asked.
Leeanne raised her free hand. “Ah-ah-ah! None of that. Sam’s the boss, so let’s get in the proper habit.”
Kim nodded and turned to me. “Right. Okay, boss, I think we need to get the mass driver ASAP. Tidal force won’t be large enough to damage it for a couple weeks, but the strain is mounting. It won’t take much strain to misalign the rings.”
I tried to answer, but Leeanne jumped in. “You’re right, but Sam has that handled already.” Yeah, I was the boss all right, except when Leeanne wanted to be in charge. But I could work that way. It was comforting to have somebody watching my back.
Still, I had to keep up appearances. “Yes, Hank has approval to modify his plan as needed. You keep an eye on it. Don’t interfere with him, but make sure we’re not blindsided by any unexpected charges.”
I felt better. Now what next? Well, I would follow Wilson’s protocols. “Okay, let’s tally our assets and status. We have almost our full crew. Only a few people have quit. We have Habitat, our prospecting fleet, our construction fleet, and all the smaller stations we built before Habitat. We have the fuel depot and the generator stations. And we have active contracts to sell power here in the Settlements, and we have contracts to deliver raw metals to Earth orbit. We also have twenty months of supplies in the pipeline, and we can get more as long as we don’t default on any of those delivery contracts. Mari will persuade our suppliers to give us a little more time, since we’re technically not in default yet.”
Leeanne added, “And we have the mass driver.”
“Yes, we have the driver, and power to run it, though that will tax our generating capacity quite a bit. Anything else?” Both women shook their heads. “Okay, that also defines the problem, pretty much: we need to find some way to fulfill those contracts, or somehow generate equivalent income to keep the pipeline open. Our credit is stretched too thin: if it looks like we’ll miss a month or more in the pipeline, people will start abandoning us. That’ll create a feedback loop, and we’ll collapse long before the pipeline runs dry. Other Settlements will lay claim to our assets, and who could blame them?”
Kim broke in. “Boss, I’ve made a few inquiries with friends in other Settlements. Callisto One is primed to take us over. Almost as if they were ready in advance. And they’ve been making offers to some of our key staff.”
I nodded. “Interesting …” Callisto One was the Initiative’s official presence in the Pournelle Settlements, and had been a thorn in Wilson’s side. We all guessed how they had been “ready in advance”; but I shook my head. “Our people hate the Initiative. If we have any hope of getting through this, they won’t go to Callisto. Now we just have to find that hope.”
And for the first time since that call from Kim three weeks ago, Leeanne smiled. “Oh, I figured that out. While there was no hope, I was happy to let you screw things up. Boss.” And her smile actually became a brief grin. “But once I saw an answer, I knew I had to kick your ass into gear so you could make it happen. They won’t follow me, but you’ve got the touch. All you need is some hot pilots—me, and I can name others—who really understand gravity deep in their guts. You’ve all been worried about tidal force and its danger to the mass driver; but tidal force is still a force, just like any other. And force can be dangerous, but it can also be harnessed.”
It took a month to turn Leeanne’s idea into a plan, and then another three to put the plan into effect. It took over two months just to pull the mass driver out of its doomed orbit and into one that we could use.
Mari had persuaded our creditors to give us a little more time. Maybe they figured they couldn’t lose much more than they already would, and they could afford to stretch a little in hopes of a payoff. Maybe they just had a lingering respect for Wilson’s legacy. Hell, for all I knew his ghost was out there somewhere still applying that old Wilson charm.
But one thing I do know: it wasn’t our plan that sold them, since Mari never told them what it was. We had enemies, but we didn’t know exactly who they were nor whom we could trust. So we kept the full plan to just the Executive Committee as long as we could, and doled out details on a need-to-know basis. Once we were sure the plan would work and no one could stop us, then we filled in everyone in Gray City. The cheer when they understood almost shattered the walls of Habitat. Mari even smiled at me.
When the day came for us to test out the plan, Leeanne insisted on flying one of the chase ships, and I insisted on flying shotgun with her. She tried to argue me out of it, but I pulled the trump card I’d held back since our first Executive Committee meeting. I looked her straight in the eyes and asked, “Leeanne, am I in charge here or not? You can’t have it both ways. If you as the Board say no, I’ll sit back and watch you run things; but if you as my Counselor say no … then I’m happy to take your advice, but I’ll do things my way.”
For almost a full minute, I thought I’d been fired. Then Leeanne answered quietly, “We can’t afford to lose you, too, Sam.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’ll be flying with the best damn pilot in the Pournelle Settlements.” And that settled it. I was in the copilot’s harness as Leeanne idled between Jupiter and the driver. We watched the feed from Kim and the team on the far side of Jupiter as relayed by polar comm sats.
I called over the sats. “How’s it going, Kim?”
Light speed delayed her response by over a second. “Fantastic, boss. The first load just launched, and we’ve got three more coming. Take a look.”
I switched to Kim’s station camera, which showed a large lump of ice, dirt, and valuable metals. If we sent that lump to Earth directly, Magnus would charge us a huge fee for clearing off the dross (which they claimed was useless, but we knew they made a few percentage points from the volatiles); and then they would assay the remains.
Somehow their assayers always came up with a value far lower than our estimates. If it were random, the error should have been in our favor once in a while, but it never was.
That was why Wilson wanted to break up the rocks ourselves, ship only the metals (which were easier to mass drive, since the driver was strong enough to grab even paramagnetic minerals), and deliver direct to our customers instead of to Magnus.
Now four such rocks were on a trajectory close to Jupiter, and we would rendezvous on the other side. I got on the chase fleet circuit. “Folks, get your rest. Targets coming your way in about six hours. Sleep while you can.”
But we didn’t sleep, and I doubt anyone in the chase fleet did.
Like us, most spent the six hours watching on the polar cameras as the first rock dove closer to Jupiter. When the rock passed within the Roche limit and started to break apart, I shouted over the chase circuits: “Yes!” And at least a dozen voices echoed mine.
Jupiter’s tidal force pulled the near side of the rock much harder than the far side, and the ice and dross couldn’t hold together. The metals that remained wouldn’t be as pure as we would’ve gotten from the refinery, but they would be good enough to meet our contracts. I might have to give back a few points, but we would meet our contracts. We would survive.
And someday, we would build another refinery, and Wilson’s F
olly would become Wilson’s triumph.
But that would be in the future.
I got back on the circuit. “Computers will feed target trajectories to you over the next three hours. We’ll assign pickups. Plant your bots on the big targets, then look for targets of opportunity.”
The drive bots would attach themselves to the metal fragments, calculate a burst plan, and drive the metals to the induct of the mass driver.
There the magnetic fields would grab them and accelerate the metals on their path to Earth. It all took careful computer calculations. That had chewed up much of our planning time: making sure our computers were clean.
The effort hadn’t been wasted: we found three more virus traps waiting to be sprung. Someday, somebody was going to find out just how angry I was that they had killed my best friend.
But not today. Today we had metal to chase. “Leeanne, you picked our first target yet?”
“Yeah, boss, but it’s not on the computer’s list.”
“Huh?”
She pushed a spectrographic report to me. “That blip there? That’s nearly a quarter tonne of platinum. Computer says it’s on a bad trajectory, we’ll never recover it this time.”
“Then leave it! We can get it on another orbit!”
“And let some other Settlement claim it after we did all the work? Hang on, boss!” And instead of waiting for the fragments to approach, Leeanne powered up the engines. She turned us back, and suddenly my view port was filled with brown bands and the Red Spot. I was pushed back into my couch at over three gees as we dove toward Jupiter.
What could I do? “Leeanne, you’re fired!” But I said it with a big grin on my face, accentuated by the acceleration.
Leeanne grinned back even bigger. “Take it up with the Board. After we get that platinum!”
She laughed, and we sped deep into Jupiter’s well. At a certain carefully calculated point, Leeanne flipped us around and fired the thrusters to slow us. I watched the computer project our course, and I was happy: the old Leeanne was back, at least for now.