Stephen's Secure Blog #46
These stories about Stephen began was when he was 10 years old, and
moving to a new part of the country to attend a special school for
gifted students, in the 1950's. This was from a time before computers
would fit on a desk, and when people communicated with friends in other
countries by actual letters sent through the postal service. He wrote
225 of them to a friend. He stopped writing to his penpal, but found he
still wanted to record his life, in case he lost his memory again, and
wrote 30 entries in his first logbook. Then he wrote to an artificial
intelligence called Geenee, in the master computer in his school for
gifted students, which he started attending in 2016. Now it's 2018 and
later, and he's continuing to save his memories in a secure blog.
All characters are fictitious, even if some of them might have names
that belong to some actual people, or act like people we know.
The stories may not be posted in chronological order.
Stephen is 12 in this story, in Winter after Thanksgiving of year 3 of
his special school.
Stephen's Secure Blog #46 "Gem of an Idea"
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Ichi and I had a meeting with the elder Senior Adepts. We briefed
them on our recent mission and decisions. Nigel really liked my
"twisted" plan for the new station, and he said, "I wish I had thought
of it." I said "If you had been with us, you probably would have." He
said with a grin, "I would like to believe that." I said "Unless there
mention. Zander is home, and is training his Guardians, and they are
about to open a special school, but are short of funds. Do you think we
should help with that?" Ichi said '"Sale of the first ship." Pete said
"That would be best. Gives them actual credit, where if we gave them
precious metals, they would have to explain where they came from." I
said "Not exactly. We could put a solid platinum, or other in demand
heavy metal astroid in their system, and have them claim it." Ichi said
"I like that idea better. In fact, if an astroid like we want for this
is already there, we could use that for the gift." I said with a grin,
"Or more than one. Get busy." He grinned back and said, "Already
started, boss."
Rod said "I like this mining angle. There is something else, though.
Your gem sculptures. You made the materials from elemental sources. We
could market manufactured gems the world has never seen before." I said
"Do we need the money?" Race said "Not only do we not need the money,
we actually have too much of it. We manage the entire world economy
now, and are spending trillions on aid projects. In 20 or 30 years, we
plan to institute a universal dole system like England has, so nobody
has to be homeless and hungry." I said "That should be very
interesting. I hope nationalism doesn't get in the way." Nigel said
"Corruption is the biggest problem we anticipate. By then, we should
have enough Adepts to monitor most of it, and expose the criminals when
we want to."
I said "Rod, I like your idea. Let's go really big with it. Galaxy
wide. We need to open a business office on a free trade world of the
GC, and set up a firm to do the marketing and distribution. We could
fake making the gems in orbit there, in case regulators need to look at
an actual source. We can make things nobody else can make, in an
instant. Here is a copy of chopsticks I made for Ichi's beautiful
sister." They admired them with some interesting noises. Then they did
more of that, when Ichi ported his family's other chopsticks to the
table. I stared at him, and he got the message and made some fancy gem
spoons and forks. I said "Ichi just made those himself. We can incase
different gems inside other gems, even carvings. We should go big with
this, and even accept commissions. I like this a LOT! I finally get to
be an artist for real. Or am I getting too caught up in this idea?"
Pete and Ichi hugged me. Pete said, "I love to see you like this. If
nothing else, we should do it because you like it so much." Ichi said,
"We could BUY the GC." Race said in partially suppressed excitement,
"There is something to that. In interstellar commerce, it's the small
high price luxury items which make the most profit. We have to be
careful not to flood the market, and only offer really expensive things
to the most snobbish of clients. They won't spend real money if
ordinary people can have anything like they can have. Has to be
exclusive. Precise marketing is critical, and we have to buy the best
representatives. We will have to do a lot of that personally, but in
disguise, naturally."
Nigel said, "I think he's been converted." We all laughed, except
Race, who was busy thinking up big plans. I said to Nigel, "When Race
comes up for air, have him think up some ideas for samples we could
make." He grinned and nodded. I said "We've been talking about
synthetic gems. With our scanning and porting abilities, we can harvest
the real stuff from uninhabited systems, and carve them, too, or at
least cut them for jewelry. I'm going to scout the GC jewelry stores to
see what they have. There might be some things we don't have on earth
which are even better for this. Ichi, you handle the funding of
Zander's school. I think I'll be busy for a while." He laughed and
said, "I'll bet. Have fun."
I went over to Rod and sat on his lap and hugged and kissed him very
thoroughly. I said "I expect to be very happy because of your idea.
Thank you VERY much!" He dripped some tears on me and said, "That makes
ME very happy." I gave everybody in the room my love.
Ichi found three very valuable astroids in Zander's system, which
were unclaimed. Ichi contacted Zander and told him about them, and what
they were for, and while he thought it was a great idea, he couldn't do
anything with them, because he didn't have the money to mount an
expedition to claim and mine them. When Ichi told me that, I grumbled,
"Do we have to do EVERYTHING for everybody?" He said "Surely not in the
bathroom!" We laughed. I did some research and found a reasonably
honest local mining company in the system, and offered to sell the
coordinates of the astroids to them. I was in their company office on a
large astroid, disguised as an alien they never saw before. I know they
didn't, because I made it up. Ichi and I used one of the new small
shuttles. We call it that because of it's small size, but it could do
everything the big ship could, without some of the fancy space
occupying luxuries. I showed them a picture of one of the asteroids,
and gave them the measurements, including the estimated specific
gravity, and some core samples, which they weighed, themselves. The
boss of the office said, "We are interested. Why don't you want to mine
it or process it yourselves?" I said "We're interested in testing and
improving our instrumentation, which is our primary business. That's
why we're out here. We aren't interesting in mining. We figure if we
can make a profit at the same time, that's good business. If the people
we do business with also make a profit, that's just good relations for
us. You won't cheat us, if you want the coordinates of the other two
like this we found, and the ones we find in the future. Am I correct?"
He said "How do we know you aren't trying to cheat US?" I said "Here
are the coordinates to the first one. Go look for yourself." He said
"Suppose we just take it and claim it for ourselves?" I said "Not good
business sense. Oh, and one other thing. We can only be cheated by
somebody, once." Then I said in his species telepathy, "Remember, we
make instruments, and we are VERY good at it." Then in regular GC
speech, "No, don't ask for that. We already assigned the rights to it."
He said "Wow!" Ichi almost choked holding back his laughter. The boss
said "We'll take it. If it is all you say it is, we'll pay you what
it's worth after we refine it, with the usual charge." I said "No. We
want to sell it to you whole. We don't want to involve ourselves with
checking up on you while you're working the claim. We find mining to be
very er, uninteresting. No offense intended, naturally." He said "To
each his own. None taken. It will take a few standard days to check it
out. How can we contact you?" I said "You can't. We'll contact you, and
understand this well, WHEREVER you are, in six days." He said "Agreed.
I have a feeling it would be unsafe to underestimate you." I grinned
and said, "Very perceptive of you." He grinned back, and we said our
goodbyes and we left. Ichi maintained a 4th viewpoint with him, just in
case.
Six days later, we were back. Because we had maintained a watch on
them, we knew what we were walking into, before we walked. I contacted
them by radio from our ship, and announced myself, and said, "We have
returned after the agreed time. Are you ready to finalize the
arrangement?" The boss said, "We are. Please come ahead." I said "There
are armed people in your office. Are you in danger from them?" He said,
"Your instruments are VERY good! They are for our protection." I said
"We don't need protection from anybody. If you need that kind of
protection, then we must assume your business is too risky for us to be
involved with. We are not interested in violence." He said "Interested?
That's an unusual way of expressing it." I said "But most accurate. I
think I neglected to mention this before. We do not lie." He sent the
armed men into the next room, and said, "They are gone now. Please come
ahead." I said "We will." We did.
The boss said, "Our survey agrees with yours. Please give us the
coordinates of the other asteroids you have found." I said "After this
current arrangement has been completed to your satisfaction and mine."
He said "I must insist." I said "Is that a weapon?" He said "Yes. You
didn't bring any with you. That wasn't smart." I grinned and said, "We
don't need weapons, and won't be harmed by yours. Do you REALLY want to
test our truthfulness? Think about what you have to lose." He did
think, and then put the weapon down. He said "I'm so confused I don't
know what to think now. Either you have so much courage you are fools
who shouldn't have lived as long as you have, or you are telling the
truth, and I almost got myself killed. I can't believe you are fools,
or react to it, and came back with the gun, and fired the energy beam
at my outstretched shielded hand. It wasn't damaged. I showed it to the
boss. I said "Or we could have suppressed it's action. We are ACTIVELY
uninterested in violence. We don't allow it." He said "Wow!" Ichi said
"We've heard that before." He laughed.
I said "Now that's over with, how much do you want to pay us for the
astroid?" He thought for a minute, and told us. I just looked at him.
He gave us a higher offer. I still looked at him. He protested "There
IS some risk that it won't all be as easy to process as it looks." I
remained silent. He sighed like a collapsing party balloon and upped
his offer. I said "We accept the transaction now. Please record it to
this account." I gave him Zander's account numbers. It was all recorded
in the credit machine, and radioed to the central bank computer on
their homeworld. It would take a while to reach it, due to the distance
involved. But a copy of it did reach the Bank of the Astroids. I
announced that, and the boss said, "You do have some impressive
instruments. Are any available for license or sale?" I said "Not at the
moment. Some are still in development, and some give us an advantage we
would be reluctant to lose." He said "I can believe THAT! If you
weren't so unusually honest, I would be very afraid of you, and what
you could do to the galactic economy." I said, "That would be a kind of
violence, wouldn't it?" He grinned and said, "I'm glad you think so." I
said "When do you think it will be processed, so we should come back
and give you the next one?" He said "In about 20 days. I plan to make
it the top priority." I said "We'll return in 30. No weapons then?" He
said "I sincerely apologize for that foolishness. I'm not really like
that, but you looked so tempting." I said "I apologize for looking like
that. Should I try to look more dangerous, next time?" He laughed and
said, "No, that's not necessary. You have my respect. Friendship, if
you will allow it." I said "We are friends with all who don't act
unjustly." We bowed to each other, and parted ways.
In the ship, while we were carefully leaving the astroid belt, so
they wouldn't see us port, Ichi and I were laughing about what
happened. We parked the ship at the main ship and ported home. While we
were in bed that night, I said, "I think I'm beginning to see why they
allowed the Van to enslave them." He said "Yes. So evolved, they
couldn't act with violence." I said "We have a long way to go, then."
He said "But an interesting way, for sure." I said "There is that." We
exchanged love.
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Grant
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