Artemis

“Why are they in there?”

“Hell if I know.”

I rubbed my eyes. “Okay, so why is it so exciting? You can use less energy to transmit data?”

“Oh, it’s way more awesome than that,” he said. “Normal fiber-optic lines can only be fifteen kilometers long. After that, the signal’s just too weak to continue. So you need repeaters. They read the signal and retransmit it. But repeaters cost money, they have to be powered, and they’re complicated. Oh, and they slow down the transmission too.”

“So with ZAFO you don’t need repeaters.”

“Right!” he said. “Earth has huge data cables. They run across entire continents, under the oceans, all over the world. Just think of how much simpler it would be without all those repeaters mucking shit up. Oh! And it would have very few transmission errors. That means more bandwidth. This shit is fantastic!”

“Great. But is it worth killing over?”

“Well…” he said. “I suppose every telecom company will want to upgrade. How much do you think the entire planet Earth’s communication network is worth?

Because that’s roughly how much money ZAFO is going to make its owners. Yeah. That’s probably murderin’ money.”

I pinched my chin. The more I thought about it the less I liked it. Then, the pieces all fell into place. “Oh! Goddammit!”

“Whoa,” said Svoboda. “Who shit in your Rice Krispies?”

“This isn’t about aluminum at all!” I stood from the stool. “Thanks, Svobo. I owe you one.”

“What?” he said. “What do you mean it’s not about aluminum? Then what’s it about?”

But I already had a head of steam going. “Stay strange, Svobo. I’ll be in touch.”

—

The administrator’s office used to be in Armstrong Bubble because that was the only bubble. But once Armstrong became all loud noises and machinery, she relocated. Nowadays she worked out of a small, one-room office on Conrad Up 19.

Yup, you heard me. The administrator of Artemis—the most important and powerful person on the moon, who could literally have any location rent-free—chose to work in the bluest of blue-collar areas. If I were Ngugi, I’d have a huge office overlooking the Aldrin Arcade. And it would have a wet bar and leather chairs and other cool powerful-people stuff.

And a personal assistant. A beefy yet gentle guy who called me “boss” all the time. Yeah.

Ngugi didn’t have any of that. She didn’t even have a secretary. Just a sign on her office door that read ADMINISTRATOR FIDELIS NGUGI.

To be fair, it’s not like she was president of the United States. She was, effectively, the mayor of a small town.

I pressed the doorbell and heard a simple buzz emanate from the room beyond.

“Come in,” came Ngugi’s voice.

I opened the door. Her office was even less fancy than I’d expected. Spartan, even. A few shelves with family photos jutted out of raw aluminum walls. Her sheet-metal desk looked like something from the 1950s. She did at least have a proper office chair—her one concession to personal comfort. When I’m seventy years old I’ll probably want a nice chair too.

She typed away on a laptop. The older generations still preferred them to Gizmos or speech-interface devices. She somehow carried grace and aplomb even while hunched over at her desk. She wore casual clothes and, as always, her traditional dhuku headscarf. She finished typing a sentence, then smiled at me.

“Jasmine! Wonderful to see you, dear. Please, have a seat.”

“Yea-thank-yes. I’ll…sit.” I settled into one of the two empty chairs facing her desk.

She clasped her hands and leaned forward. “I’ve been so worried about you, dear. What can I do to help?”

“I have a question about economics.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Economics? Well, I do have some knowledge in that area.”

Understatement of the century. This woman had transformed Kenya into the center of the global space industry. She deserved a Nobel Prize. Two, really. One for Economics and another for Peace.