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  He could see Morozov and Voronin still didn’t get it, and right now he didn’t have the patience to explain it to them. It was a simple enough plan: monopolize the production of RzVz to deny assets to Harvest Moon, and monopolize the production of Harvest Moon while they lacked their own transportation. If Earth was taking itself out of the picture, then the Horsemen were dependent on one another for resources, and with a little maneuvering that could mean—it must mean—that they were all dependent on Clementine, which of course was just a thin mask for Orlov Petrochemical. Named for an American lunar probe (which in turn was named for an imaginary daughter from an old American mining song) Clementine was an independent company, only forty percent owned by Grigory Orlov, and with an international crew, only forty percent ethnic Russians. And yet, most of the startups and nonprofits and hedge funds and high-net-worth individuals who held shares in Clementine were in Grigory’s pocket one way or another, and the Clementine entity was self-incorporated according to its own laws. Each man (and three women) aboard had renounced an Earthly citizenship, and held a passport issued by Clementine itself. The station was, for all practical purposes, an independent nation, with Grigory Orlov as its ruler, and any profits that didn’t land directly in his pocket came with . . . encumbrances. The arrangement was mostly for the purpose of avoiding taxes, but it had other advantages as well. It let him risk other people’s money, for one thing. It let him bring in people eager to take on a large share of his risk, for a relatively small share of his profits, and it gave him a handy pool of scapegoats for when things, inevitably, didn’t go according to plan.

  As for the business at hand, Helium-3 (also known as “tralphium” to nuclear chemists and “threelium” to the tabloids) was simply a lightweight version of the normal helium atom, with only one neutron instead of two. Though fantastically rare on Earth, it was actually rather common throughout the universe, and one of the many volatiles Harvest Moon Industries was pulling out of lunar craters. And the thing about that was, Orlov-brand utility-scale fusion reactors were fully capable of burning a tralphium-deuterium mix instead of their usual deuterium-deuterium. In fact, they already produced and combusted tralphium that they produced internally, as part of their normal fusion cycle! Feeding it in as a primary fuel would require some minor plumbing changes and software updates, but simulations suggested the reactors would not only produce five times as much net energy, but would last six times longer before neutron-producing side reactions wore out their components.

  This was by design, not by coincidence, for Grigory Orlov had always believed in a future when he controlled a supply of 3He. He just hadn’t counted on controlling the only supply, so quickly. It made sense, though; he already had seventeen reactors operational around the world, whereas Sir Lawrence Edgar Killian, the CEO of Harvest Moon Industries, owned zero, and was presently selling his tralphium output to a diverse and ever-shifting assortment of government labs and quasi-governmental utility companies, plus a trickle to Dan Beseman for his alleged Mars colony. By selling through Orlov exclusively, Killian could probably reduce his own overhead, making it actually a good deal for him, as well as the only deal Grigory left open to him.

  It had taken Grigory all of ten seconds to work this out in his head. He could see that Morozov and Voronin needed time to catch up, but they could do that while following his instructions.

  “Place the orders,” he told them. “Right now, before one of them figures it out and beats us to it.”

  Of course, Clementine did also produce conventional fuels (hydrogen, oxygen, and methane) and other volatiles (mainly nitrogen and CO2), so he spent a few minutes thinking about these, and when Morozov and Voronin were ready he told them, “With terrestrial carbon unavailable, extraterrestrial carbon is about to become a lot more valuable. I want you to double the price of CO2, and triple the price of methane. Triple nitrogen while you’re at it. Leave hydrogen and oxygen alone, or we’ll simply force Beseman and the Chinese to buy it from Harvest Moon. That must not be permitted. Drop those prices if you have to.”

  “You’re cornering the market on three separate materials,” Morozov observed.

  “We. We’re cornering the market, and in two cases it’s only the extraterrestrial market, so let us not get too excited.”

  Unlike Renz Ventures, Clementine only sent its gatherbots after carbonaceous, volatile-rich space rocks. Still, they did produce some elemental aluminum and magnesium as a waste product of the processing (for which Beseman was the sole customer), as well as iron and slag, which Grigory practically gave away to the Chinese for radiation shielding. Now, Grigory dropped the price on these, mainly (again) to keep Harvest Moon at bay. Let them control trade on the lunar surface itself—there was little Grigory could do about that!—but he would do what he could to stymie their growth into other sectors.

  “Is that all?” Morozov wanted to know.

  Grigory thought about that. “It is all I can think of for the moment. Clear a workstation for me here, and I will go through the books. You gentlemen are adequate at following orders, but I’m guessing there are patterns you’ve missed, and every ruble is going to count in the coming weeks. In fact, order ten kilograms of sulfur and ten of phosphorus from Harvest Moon, right now, before they start raising their own prices. We’re going to need it for the food and drug synthesizers.”

  After that, he drew up orders to convert his fusion energy plants over to deuterium-tralphium—a contingency plan that was already in place for most of them, and easily drawn up for the remainder. And then he simply farted around for a while, looking at numbers and adjusting allocations here and there. For all his bluster, he did tend to hire good people, and they should be more than competent to take matters from here. But he liked to stay closely involved, particularly with his off-world assets, so he dutifully expanded each line of the cash flow statements until he had a clear understanding of what Clementine and its people were doing, and ought to be doing. He could of course have done this work from his quarters, or Earth, or anywhere really; taking up space in Operations was mostly theater and partly social, since even cartoon gangsters need some level of human contact.

  Finally, he logged out of the workstation and excused himself to the mess hall, stopping by his quarters along the way for the bottle of vodka and the bento boxes of egg and onion and caviar. And the cigars, of course.

  In the mess hall, Epureanu was waiting for him, with a slightly nervous impatience.

  “Drinking with gangsters can be unnerving,” Grigory told him. “I should know; I’ve been doing it all my life.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Epureanu said.

  There were tables and benches in here, and seat belts, to create the illusion of sitting down to a meal with one’s crewmates, who were of course also one’s neighbors and coworkers and friends. In early days, the module had simply been a big open space where people could hang about at any angle they pleased. That was certainly a more efficient use of space, but Grigory found it weirdly isolating, so he’d ordered it changed to this admittedly rather silly configuration. There were also festive decorations taped to the walls—paper flowers and paper animals, shipped up from a party supply store in Paramaribo. It was silly, but it worked. It set the tone Grigory wanted for this room: relaxed camaraderie.

  Settling down across from Epureanu, Grigory stuck down his bottle and bento boxes on their magnetic bases, and leveled a gaze at the young man.

  “I can assure you I’m no gangster, but drinking with the boss can be tricky as well. One worries about saying the wrong thing; will I pump you full of truth serum and then punish you for what you say? This is a legitimate fear. This is exactly the situation I’ve put you in. But it’s also one of the only ways for grown men to make a real connection. This is valuable, particularly for a man in my position, with whom the right sort of people might be loath to connect, while the wrong sort are entirely too eager. I think you’re the right sort, Epureanu, and this is why I compel you to drink with me.”


  “I appreciate the invitation,” Epureanu said, with a nervous attempt at warmth.

  Grigory smiled at that. “You’re very kind to say so, and I believe it demonstrates my point.”

  He took up one of the cigars, clipped it with a tool snugged into the lid of one of the bento boxes, and let the fingernail-sized cut end drift away as someone else’s problem to clean up. He then took up the cigar lighter from the lid of the other box, ignited a butane flame, and puffed the cigar to life. And then, in a naked and admittedly somewhat juvenile show of power, he handed that very cigar to Epureanu.

  “It’s not Cuban,” Grigory said. “For all their vaunted reputation, the Cubans roll a harsh smoke, and this has only grown worse as the global market for tobacco products has declined. No, this is a Don Collins, from the American island of Puerto Rico. The size is ‘robusto,’ which means it will burn for more than half an hour. Do not inhale the smoke, or it will make you ill.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Epureanu said, taking the cigar from him and puffing from it experimentally.

  “Call me Grigory.”

  “All right.”

  Grigory then clipped a cigar for himself, and lit it with the little butane torch. An old-fashioned cigarette lighter would never work in zero gee; the lack of gravity convection would turn the flame spherical, and burn the thumb holding down the thumb switch. A proper cigar lighter, though, was a pressurized torch that spat its flame a centimeter and more from the butane nozzle. It actually worked better in zero gee than it did on Earth, as the flame shot out straight, rather than curving upward.

  Next he saw about the vodka, the drinking of which in zero gravity Russians had been perfecting for decades. Yet another tool clipped into his decadence kit was a stopper syringe, and once he’d uncapped the bottle and tossed the cap over his shoulder, he jammed the stopper part into the neck of the bottle, cold and sweaty with condensation, and pulled back the plunger on the syringe, drawing a perfect shot of liquor into it, which he then withdrew and injected into his mouth, and swallowed gratefully.

  He was not above drinking warm vodka, or bad vodka for that matter, but this was Stolichnaya Elit, and the bottle had come fresh from the chiller in his quarters, cold enough to freeze liquid water. It would certainly do the trick, and meanwhile taste good on the way down.

  He drew the syringe full again and passed it to Epureanu, who sipped from it and mmm’ed his appreciation.

  “Don’t be a schoolboy,” Grigory told him. “You drink the good stuff the same way you drink proletariat swill: a gulp at a time. Come now. There, yes. Let me fill it for you again.”

  Once you got past the first couple of shots, you had to move the bottle a certain way to get the vodka within reach of the syringe. He did so, and then when he’d filled and handed over the syringe he began prepping crackers and sliced hardboiled eggs with smears of caviar topped with diced raw onion, held in place by surface tension and hope. A few gawkers had stopped by already, to watch Grigory and Epureanu drink and smoke and eat, and that was fine and according to plan. A feast like this was meant to nourish the ego as well as the body, and it did help to have an audience.

  He knew he was succeeding when, a few minutes later, Epureanu drew a third shot for himself without waiting for Grigory and without asking permission.

  “Yes,” Grigory said approvingly, “like a man. Good. Take what properly belongs to you, without apology. Men like us do not apologize, Epureanu, unless there’s something to be gained by it. Or shall I call you Daniel Florinovich? I’ve read your dossier.” Calling a person by first name and patronym was a sign of familiarity in Russia. Not necessarily of friendship, though; one could also be “familiar” with underlings, who could not respond in kind. So the question was simultaneously neighborly and domineering.

  “If you like,” Epureanu answered.

  “What did I just tell you, Daniel Florinovich? You must tell me what to call you. Me, your boss’s boss’s boss.”

  “Then call me Daniel,” Epureanu said. “You are not my mother.”

  “Fuck your mother,” Grigory said, and laughed. The vodka was taking hold, yes. So was the reek of cigar smoke, sure to let the entire station know their leader was on board, for no one else here was authorized to ignite anything but a welding torch.

  “Grigory?” A voice from behind him. He turned, and saw Andrei Morozov hovering there.

  “The grown-ups are drinking,” he said. “What is it?”

  “We’ve received a message on the entangled channel. For you, I presume.”

  It was a valid presumption; the ul’trashirokopolosnyy was for Grigory’s own personal use, so any message on it was, by definition, intended only for him.

  “Contents of the message?” he asked.

  Morozov looked uncomfortable. “A woman’s voice, sir. Saying, in English, and I quote, ‘The asset is embedded at TPS.’ Nothing after that. Do you know what it means?”

  “I do, yes.”

  “TPS is Transit Point Station, I assume. Have you got a spy in position there?”

  “You’re a nosy fucker, aren’t you?”

  “Just doing my job, sir. Do you want me to reply?”

  “No,” said Grigory. “The asset has its instructions already. You look thirsty, my friend. You and Voronin should find a squeeze bottle of that drug-printer vodka and join us here.”

  “All right,” Morozov said neutrally. Grigory knew Morozov enjoyed a good party as much as the next man, but he was on edge, and this display wasn’t helping his mood. Nor was it intended to, but now that the point had been made, they could all let down their guard. In fact, he required it.

  “Your soft, flabby underbelly is showing,” Grigory told Morozov. “Get Voronin and have a fucking drink with me and Daniel Florinovich here. Bring everyone, in fact; the world doesn’t know it yet, but we made a trillion rubles today. We took a trillion rubles from Lawrence Killian, and there’s not a thing he can do about it. So now we celebrate.”

  1.4

  22 March

  ✧

  Transit Point Station

  Low Earth Orbit

  Cislunar Space

  “I’m Derek,” the pilot said, reaching out to shake her hand.

  “Of course you are,” Alice said, a bit more snidely than she’d intended. She backpedaled slightly, with, “Sorry. I’m Alice.”

  She felt embarrassed by her reaction, but not that embarrassed, because goddamn it, the male pilots she knew (and she knew a lot) were never “Chris” or “Dana” or “Timmy.” Did men with names like that simply never go to flight school, or never get taken seriously there? Or did they all change their names to “Mitch” and “Hank” and “Thor”? Seriously, she knew two guys named Captain Thor! Of course, the female pilots were nearly as bad. She knew a female “Mike” and a female “Brandon,” for God’s sake.

  “Whoa,” said Derek, smiling but confused by her tone. “Hostile. What’s that about?”

  The name tag on his jumpsuit said D. Hakkens.

  “Oh, you pilots and your names,” Alice said, unhelpfully.

  Derek snorted, then nodded, then tongued his cheek from the inside, seeming unsure what to make of her. “Pilots, huh? Okay. I heard you were pararescue. Is that right? Special Forces medic? I’ve found . . . excuse me, I need you to sign this.” He thrust a tablet computer at her. “I’ve found Special Forces people sometimes have an issue with pilots. Not tough enough, something like that.”

  “It’s not a toughness issue,” she said, glancing at the form on the screen (some kind of safety waiver) and scribbling her finger on the signature block. “I’m sorry, it’s not you. Well, maybe it’s you; I mean, we haven’t met. I’ve had a lot of soccer dads ferry me around and expect me to swoon for it. Can I help you with that, sweetheart?”

  Derek laughed out loud at that, cheerfully refusing to take the bait. And why was Alice baiting him, anyway? Was she attracted to him? Was she pushing him away so she didn’t accidentally sleep with him? Damn i
t. That had certainly happened with a soccer dad or two, but she couldn’t tell right now if that’s what was going on. Was he anything more than just all right? Did she want him to be? Did it matter? Unfortunately, Alice never seemed to be in good contact with her own brain about stuff like this. Like a lot of adrenaline junkies, she was never in touch with much of anything when the world around her was too calm. She did have a job to do, so she decided to focus on that.

  “My call sign is ‘Beaker,’ if that helps,” he offered. “Probably not the most macho you’ve heard.”

  Alice opted not to smile at that. “Muppets fan?”

  “My father was.”

  Was. Past tense. Okay, now that was bait Alice wasn’t going to take. No, she wasn’t going to ask some flyboy about his dear dead father, and listen to all the stories about him sitting in Daddy’s lap, landing the goddamn plane at the age of three. Jesus Christ already.

  “What did you want to see me about?” she asked curtly. “What’s this form I just signed?”

  They were floating in a too-busy service hab on this too-empty station, their voices elevated over the surprisingly loud hiss of the station’s ventilation system.

  Like the spaceport at Paramaribo, Transit Point Station was some kind of joint venture between RzVz and the three other private space companies: Orlov Petrochemical, Harvest Moon Industries, and Enterprise City LLG. And like Paramaribo, TPS had a seat-of-the-pants vibe to it. As the shuttle had approached, Alice and her fellow passengers had seen the structure of it—much larger and spindlier than you saw it online, from angles carefully selected to be photogenic and dramatic. The station orbited at a higher altitude than the Marriott Stars, so the Earth was smaller and rounder below it, and revolving more slowly underneath, than Alice was used to seeing it. TPS had ten cylindrical habitat modules arranged in two rows of five, with connecting modules in between, and the “pier” structure extending upward from that, with berthing slips for, it looked like, ten spaceships at once, although only three were occupied. One was filled by a little shuttle like the one they were in, and one by a deep-space craft Alice actually recognized from one of her briefings, as the L.S.F. Dandelion, the “low speed ion ferry” that would carry them out to ESL1. Or a vehicle of the same type, at any rate.