Read Online April 4: A Different Perspective by Mackey Chandler - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mackey Chandler
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kindness to allow them to use her home for such an important meeting. Sylvia's had at least twice the floor area of her new place. Even though she was determined not to clutter her new place up, she doubted all of them would fit there without it seeming crowded. They had Jeff, Heather, herself and Gunny, the Santos and apparently the ex-lieutenant Eric Brockman was a guard for them just like she had Gunny. That made a mob on Home and Sylvia's was one of the few homes she knew that could seat that many without dragging out the folding chairs.
The place was impressive from the moment you stepped in. The entry was an L-shaped lock and the panel facing the outer door was a thick one piece glass slab backlit by the living area. It was deeply carved and subtly tinted with a fabulously detailed swamp scene. A life size Great Blue Heron shared the cat tails and lily pads with frogs and fish, dragon flies and blackbirds. Calling it museum quality was no exaggeration, because Heather's mother had art in museums and lesser galleries, as well as the palaces of Arab princes and penthouses of successful executives.
Heather offered drinks just as smoothly as her mother would have, April thought. She also had pretty little finger food trays on the low table April liked so. The stone slab that was its top had a wealth of fossil sea shells oriented all different ways. Papa-san set his drink down just a tad harder than necessary and laid his hand on the table. Between the sound and how it drew the warmth out of his hand he knew it was real stone. April could guess he was calculating what something like that cost to lift to orbit.
The table and leather sofas on each side were arranged on a huge oriental rug which defined the living room, without breaking the space up with screens or stub walls. The wall coverings mirrored and defined the area similarly.
The gracious touch was mixed with hard practicality. Along the area with a lower overhead was a hydroponic garden and no effort was taken to hide it behind an opaque curtain. Instead natural sunlight came through the translucent curtain from a long viewport for a few minutes on and off as the habitat rotated. When the natural light faded the area didn't go dark as a sensor ramped up grow lights wired above each plant carefully.
"Do I understand correctly this is your home, Miss anderson?" Mama-san asked.
"It is, but I live in my Mother's household," she explained. "She is visiting on the French habitat Le Navet right now. An old friend happened to lift for it and she took the opportunity to visit with him after hours, when his business is concluded." April suspected who that would be, but refused to ask what might be taken as gossip until she had Heather in private.
"Surely they didn't name their space station The Turnip?" Santos objected.
"No it has a long bureaucratic name that includes the agency and names the French state, in a title that takes half a minute to recite. That's just what everybody called it for the shape."
"I find this very gracious," Mama-san decided. "I have not seen much beyond our hotel rooms, so I was getting perhaps an unfavorable impression. "I can see now there is much you can do with private spaces."
"My working spaces are very cramped and utilitarian," Jeff explained. "Not to mention scattered about. I have rented cubic beside my tiny apartment that you might say is my drafting space, as well as working at Dave's our spaceship fabricator and in a zero-G cubic April's grandfather loans me."
"Do you have dedicated cubic for the bank then?" Papa-san asked.
"The bank exists basically in one laptop computer and as secure storage and back-up on ISSII and the Moon. Perhaps you have seen the very elaborate offices of The Private Bank of Home, on the corridor just around spin from the cafeteria? If I had built that fancy an office, even in rented cubic, we would be running a deficit instead of a profit. I don't see us having dedicated cubic for the foreseeable
The place was impressive from the moment you stepped in. The entry was an L-shaped lock and the panel facing the outer door was a thick one piece glass slab backlit by the living area. It was deeply carved and subtly tinted with a fabulously detailed swamp scene. A life size Great Blue Heron shared the cat tails and lily pads with frogs and fish, dragon flies and blackbirds. Calling it museum quality was no exaggeration, because Heather's mother had art in museums and lesser galleries, as well as the palaces of Arab princes and penthouses of successful executives.
Heather offered drinks just as smoothly as her mother would have, April thought. She also had pretty little finger food trays on the low table April liked so. The stone slab that was its top had a wealth of fossil sea shells oriented all different ways. Papa-san set his drink down just a tad harder than necessary and laid his hand on the table. Between the sound and how it drew the warmth out of his hand he knew it was real stone. April could guess he was calculating what something like that cost to lift to orbit.
The table and leather sofas on each side were arranged on a huge oriental rug which defined the living room, without breaking the space up with screens or stub walls. The wall coverings mirrored and defined the area similarly.
The gracious touch was mixed with hard practicality. Along the area with a lower overhead was a hydroponic garden and no effort was taken to hide it behind an opaque curtain. Instead natural sunlight came through the translucent curtain from a long viewport for a few minutes on and off as the habitat rotated. When the natural light faded the area didn't go dark as a sensor ramped up grow lights wired above each plant carefully.
"Do I understand correctly this is your home, Miss anderson?" Mama-san asked.
"It is, but I live in my Mother's household," she explained. "She is visiting on the French habitat Le Navet right now. An old friend happened to lift for it and she took the opportunity to visit with him after hours, when his business is concluded." April suspected who that would be, but refused to ask what might be taken as gossip until she had Heather in private.
"Surely they didn't name their space station The Turnip?" Santos objected.
"No it has a long bureaucratic name that includes the agency and names the French state, in a title that takes half a minute to recite. That's just what everybody called it for the shape."
"I find this very gracious," Mama-san decided. "I have not seen much beyond our hotel rooms, so I was getting perhaps an unfavorable impression. "I can see now there is much you can do with private spaces."
"My working spaces are very cramped and utilitarian," Jeff explained. "Not to mention scattered about. I have rented cubic beside my tiny apartment that you might say is my drafting space, as well as working at Dave's our spaceship fabricator and in a zero-G cubic April's grandfather loans me."
"Do you have dedicated cubic for the bank then?" Papa-san asked.
"The bank exists basically in one laptop computer and as secure storage and back-up on ISSII and the Moon. Perhaps you have seen the very elaborate offices of The Private Bank of Home, on the corridor just around spin from the cafeteria? If I had built that fancy an office, even in rented cubic, we would be running a deficit instead of a profit. I don't see us having dedicated cubic for the foreseeable
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