To Touch the Stars (Founding of the Federation Book 2) Read online

  “Well, no,” he said slowly. “I was thinking on stations, bases and ships. I'm not sure about ergonomics, maybe furniture design, but that's been done to death. I'm not big on color coordination …” He frowned thoughtfully.

  “Sounds like you are more interested in architecture or interior space design then the actual decorating,” Isley said as Amelia studied her cousins thoughtfully. Reno gave Isley a long look then a short choppy nod as he finished with the last of the dishes.

  “Think about it, Reno,” Isley said as he turned to leave, shoulders and back stiff. “And don't get so uptight about it,” she said.

  “I'm sorry, I …” Amelia looked at Isley as Reno left without a backwards glance. “He's really sore,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Isley sighed. “You know it's not nice to mock people that way. He let a part of himself go, showed us something. He was vulnerable, and you blew it kid,” she said.

  “Sorry,” Amelia said, face falling.

  Isley eyed her and then shook her head. Since when was she some wise adult? She snorted. No, she had a lot of growing up to do. And obviously a lot of thinking in the future. From the sound of it, so did her cousins. They were determined to do it right. They wanted out, away from the accusations of nepotism, which was good. They'd have to grit teeth and really buckle down to make it work out right though. One a future designer, another a doctor and another an engineer. That was good enough for her.

  “Come on, let's get this finished,” she said, poking Amelia. “When we've got some time you can show me your virtual doll collection. Have you gotten your doctor avatar leveled up yet?”

  “No, I'm stuck. But I'm working on it,” Amelia said as she swung back into the chore. Isley smiled as she listened with half an ear as Amelia prattled on excitedly.

  -*-*-^-*-*-

  Mario wool gathered as he sat in his chair. He was amused and slightly disgusted by the image he presented to the family of an ancient man too stubborn to die stuck in an arm chair. Well, at least it wasn't a rocking chair he thought, stroking the fur of the coonie in his lap.

  He considered Adam. Adam was … he sighed thoughtfully. He caught the look Sydney shot his way but just wiggled his fingers and ignored it. Geronimo purred in his lap, lulling him a bit. Adam … his latest get-rich-quick scheme was laughable on its face. He'd heard it for decades. The kid did have a point about being so resentful that they had gone into other investments though, but there was an old rule about lending money to family or friends Mario thought. You didn't if you wanted to keep them on good terms in the long run. Or you gave the money to them as a gift, not a loan.

  They'd done that with Wanda's grandnephew … old what's his name. He was one of the reasons that Mario was so leery about backing Adam. The bastard had come to friends and family, leaned hard on them to invest on his scheme to go to the asteroid belt to mine during the initial gold rush era seventy-four years ago he thought. When he'd played out the family, he'd turned to a ponzi scheme using the money he'd gotten from the family to pay off the initial investors. Not one questioned it, no one realized he hadn't launched a thing! Not until Mario had heard about it and blown the whistle on the bastard. He and Wanda had thrown down with a massive fight that had lasted days until the investigation had proven Mario right. Mario had relearned an important lesson … well, two of them. One, I told you so was not good for a marriage. And two, being right didn't help him either with Wanda, she'd resented the situation for weeks. He sighed.

  The mess there and all the investment schemes that hadn't panned out fell like a house of cards eventually, souring many people on investing in space for a few years. Those had been lean years for Mars, the moon and the belt. In fact, the moon had been temporarily abandoned for a brief period before investors and astronauts had gotten it back on track by volunteer work and the proposed L-5 colonies.

  At least some of their investments in the miners had paid off Mario mused. Luigi had put some of his own money in but only as a full on shareholder or investor. He'd insisted on a stake, either a piece of ownership of the craft or whatever they found and pulled out. He'd been careful too, doing his homework and researching not only the players involved but also their resources, additional financing and equipment. He'd spent long hours acting as a consultant to squeeze every bit out of their plan too, which explained why all but one project had succeeded wildly.

  Both Mario brothers hadn't bought in to the crowd funding schemes. They were supposed to be the evolved version of investing. What they really were was bubkis, Mario thought darkly. You get the promise of an end product or some sort of gratitude. He'd learned once when one project he'd thought for sure would get off the ground had failed miserably not to get near the projects.

  Two of the Irons family had gone to the belt. One was still alive, Irena, married and working in the Ceres cantina which also served as one of the centers of business and other things for the small mining town. Or so he'd last heard. She'd asked for a single handout to grubstake a couple buddies and another to get her side business playing outfitter going. The loan to her buddies had failed, but the outfitting business was still going strong. She was making money by the bushel, sending back a tithe to the family electronically. She didn't quibble about it either. Betsy had; after all, it was her daughter. But Mario had convinced her to use the money as additional seed money to look after the kids. That had mollified her.

  The hand had been out to other descendants of the original Mars explorers as well. In fact for decades they had been favored by Mario and Wanda over most anyone else. Only Luigi bet on people who had a good business plan. The Longfeathers and their Mars Aerospace Company, they had needed seed money as well as funding and help getting Latisha Sominall and her family back to Mars.

  Briefly he remembered the Han family. The daughter of their friends and colleagues Chung Yin and Li Han had emigrated to Mars when she'd gotten her medical degree, then she had set up her medical practice with help from the Irons family. She'd moved other Chinese and Asians to Mars, then they'd set up their own community away from the central communities. That hadn't sat well with some of the colonists.

  He put the thought aside as he refocused on some of the other investments made over the decades. Some investments had been in time, support, a friendly word, money, or other resources that hadn't panned out … or they'd gone their own way and conveniently forgotten the helping hand they'd been given. That was fine; Mario and Luigi hadn't done it to collect favors like some sort of mob boss. Well, they did collect favors but … he sighed again annoyed with his train of thought. He really was getting old, he thought in disgust.

  He refocused his mind on Lagroose Industries and how the small seed investment, really a loan Luigi had insisted on giving Jack had grown into an incredibly powerful oak. Jack had been a good kid, but something in him had gotten to Luigi. That spark, the drive. He hadn't been a big talker, he'd been a doer. He still was for that matter. He had a gift for synthesis, the ability to see things others were blind to and pull them together into a working system no one had thought of before. To conceptualize something, he wasn't an innovator but he could see past the blind spots others had. His family had been into law enforcement and animals for years, but he had that trustworthy face and gift for getting it done, the zest for life the young had … Mario shook his head. He was getting maudlin again he reminded himself.

  It had come at just the right time he mused. The genetic engineering scandals had lit a fire under Jack's mom to push her son into space. Brian Dagle had been friends of their family; he'd called Luigi. Mario didn't know all the details but he did know whatever Jack had said when he'd fast talked his brother it had worked and been worth it. He'd gotten his ticket off the planet as well as his initial seed money to start his business. They'd been scrupulously honest about the whole thing, making certain it had been written up legally as an investment. The family had shares in Lagroose Industries, shares they held to the current day.

  Geronimo's tail flicked in
annoyance at his distraction, so he directed his hand to keep petting. After a moment the purring started once again. He smiled softly. Some things never changed he thought in amusement. Nor should they.

  Jack, he frowned. Jack had bought some of their shares out, he remembered. Not totally, but a lot. Luigi had agreed to give him his vote on the board too since Jack had to contend with politics in his business. Mario was all for that; he didn't want to have to deal with the extra headache. Lagroose Industries was a megacorp, a diverse conglomerate of high tech operations scattered throughout the solar system. They were hands down the largest corporation in human history, beyond Google, Microsoft, the works, he thought, stroking the coonie.

  They weren't just into industry … or at least not just metal industry, he thought, then felt a flush of annoyance at how he'd thought that. He really should write a memoir or something, do something to pass the time. He frowned. People had been after him to do that very thing for years, he remembered. He'd resisted because he thought it was stupid. He for one wasn't interested in reading some old fart's memories.

  He shook his head. Geronimo stretched out a paw, spreading his toes and then yawned. He snorted at the animal’s cute antics. The coonie got up, turned around, then resettled himself. The tail tucked in and then his breathing softened once more.

  “Glad that's settled,” Mario murmured. He sat back, rubbing his chin. He needed a shave, he thought. “Oh yes,” he murmured thoughtfully.

  Jack was a legend. It had started long before his epic beanstalk project, building a skyhook on Earth. Or the follow-up, when he'd had to deal with his fame and the antics of Emerite Space Initiative. ESI was gone now, long digested by Lagroose without a hint of a burp.

  As he was thinking, he smiled wryly at his mental poke at himself. Jack hadn't let much grass grow under him. He'd diversified, buying into genetic engineering projects, making cloned tissue … he ran a hand over his chest briefly. He owed Jack for his own cloned organs. He wasn't sure if he should be grateful or not.

  Jack hadn't done all that investing in medical technology purely for greed and profit. No, he'd seen the hoops the medical industry was going through on the ground, the fliverous lawsuits, the hemming in on both sides over everything and anything. He hadn't been interested in it until his uncle had been critically injured. Only Jack and his prosthetic initiative had saved his life.

  Mario looked back over the past … how Jack had set up his company, doing buyouts and such but always dealing fairly with friend and foe alike whenever possible. He'd been the one who had stepped in when the space colonies had been on the verge of bankruptcy and turned them around. He'd built L-5 colonies, Moon base expansion projects, tapped the sun for plasma for his company's research and energy needs, and was currently working on terraforming Venus and more. Much, much more. Adam could learn a lot from Jack, Mario thought.

  He was aware, well, sort of aware … not really officially aware … he smiled to himself. He was aware of some of the other projects Jack was involved in. Genetic engineering was far beyond the basics of organ replacement for one. He knew because Hope Reshenkov, sister to Sydney, had worked on the first dolphin and aquafarm projects for a number of years. She'd signed an NDA, but that hadn't stopped her from whispering things to Sydney when she'd come home. Things both ladies had thought he'd missed since at the time he'd pretended to be snoozing. It was fine; technically he was on the board even if Jack held his proxi vote. What annoyed him was that Jack didn't bother to brief him on such things. Or the board, though he couldn't blame Jack in that instance. Oh, he knew the more people that knew a secret the less secret it was, but it bothered him.

  The dolphins explained why Jack had imported so much fish for a number of decades but hadn't explained the fruits and investment in zoos, primate research centers, the frozen genome projects, or the import of dogs and cats. He stroked Geronimo again. Well, okay, maybe the cats were explained by the coonies and their ilk. The designer pets Lagroose exported were popular on Mars.

  They were also heavily involved in the growing use of AI. Mario was fairly certain Lagroose had some of the best AI but not necessarily the best. There were at least two, maybe three other specialized software companies that might have them beat.

  He frowned, then shrugged. The AI weren't his problem. Robots now … his eyes lit with a bit of fire as he pulled out his tablet and looked at a website Lagroose had set up. Some of the bots were androids in all but name. Some were droids. What they didn't advertise was their nanotech.

  No one knew Jack had offered an extremely dangerous reverse aging method that relied on nanotech to Mario. He'd also offered some conventional other methods his company offered to rich clients. Mario had politely refused them all. He'd earned his years. He also firmly believed in not standing in the way of his kids and grandchildren. They needed to be their own people, not his shadow. They deserved to stand on their own two feet in the sun and damn well earn their own respect.

  Lagroose Industries and others moving rocks around or building bases inside them. Lagroose wasn't shy about breaking massive rocks down for its orbital smelters. There were still some Earthers who protested that, but they were largely ignored.

  Mars orbit was aswarm with rocks, stations and other facilities. Over the past two decades Lagroose and Pavilion had begun to shift their operations to Mars due to the favorable laws and atmosphere. The space around Earth was hostile in many respects. Also, companies like Lagroose were building their newest space stations with their new force emitters as a means of creating artificial gravity. Or at least that was the plan. So far they had stuck to building centrifuge stations when the station wasn't burrowed into a convenient rock.

  Lagroose had facilities all over the system, just about every planet had some outpost even if it was unmanned. Some of their largest were the research centers in belt as well as their smelting stations and shipyards. There were rumors in the media of stations outside the solar system. Mario knew them to be true but he refused to break any confidences over them.

  Ceres had been enshrined as a landmark as had many of the dwarf planets. In order to appease the grounders the megacorps had avoided them. But a few had been settled anyway but independent outfits. Many grounders didn't know that Ceres had a small mining town burrowed inside the rock. If they only knew just how far Irena and her friends had gone.

  All in all, Jack had been a worthy investment. Mankind, the solar system … human civilization had benefited greatly, perhaps even more than what Luigi and Mario themselves had done he thought. Definitely more, he thought. Sure they'd blazed the trail for people like Jack, but Jack had been the one to see the opportunity and seize it.

  He wondered if Adam would if someone believed enough in him. But he had to prove himself. The kid was still too flighty. He danced from one project to the next. He refused to accept blame when he was let go from a project. Mario had his own contacts. He'd learned that Adam had gone in all excited and full of energy, but when he hit a problem he imploded. It was like he hit a wall. He just gave up, refusing to focus on the project. He then went on to look for new things and became a liability to the project. But woe if anyone told him that! He sighed as he realized, even in his advanced age he wasn't willing to come out and do it. He was blunt to the point of rude, but … but not with his grandson. No.

  Jack, he thought. Jack might have something, even a shit tech job for the kid. He wasn't sure if he wanted to call the favor in, but if it straightened him out … he made up his mind to do it before the purring lulled him into a doze.

  Chapter 2

  Jamey Castill stretched, feeling incredibly lucky to be alive. He knew many men and women in his field would kill to be where he was at. They'd sell their souls … and he couldn't blame him. He was the luckiest man on … well, technically, off the planet.

  His father Bret Castill was brilliant, but a hands-on man. Not Jamey, who loved the theoretical. Oh sure, Jamey could handle the hands-on when he needed to … he'd done it for sev
eral years when he'd lived with his parents at the company's telemetry ground station, but he'd desired more, and his parents had desired more opportunities for him.

  He was brilliant. He knew it but tried not to let his ego build to epic proportions. Some of his team kept him grounded; many were just as smart as him, just in a different field or with different experiences to draw off of.

  Whenever he felt a bit conceited, Kathy Abrams or Jamey's little sister Hannah would find a way to burst his bubble and get him back down to earth. It was humbling in a way but helpful. When he got too full of himself and then hit a wall, he became intensely frustrated and focused on it. Taking a step back and seeing it from another perspective … or getting fresh eyes on things usually helped to find a solution or work around, which provided the humbling lesson quite nicely in his opinion. There was no need for Hannah to terrorize him in person, thank you.

  He missed her. She was getting to be a heart breaker; he knew their dad had his work cut out for him. When the boys, or hell, even some of the girls started to sniff around … Jamey shook his head. And Hannah had some of the brains of the family like he did. He knew it; she was a bit slower off the mark. He was pretty sure she was worried about dad if she left the nest early, but that was normal. Dad could look after himself. He closed his eyes. The last video conversation with Hannah had driven home how much she looked like mom. He bet dad was having trouble with that too. She was still young, not even a teen yet, but damn. He shook his head.

  Kathy … he wasn't sure what to make of his relationship with her. He wasn't even sure it was a relationship, more of … a friendship. Adopted sibling? He smiled. She treated him like a younger brother, which had helped him adapt to space. He hadn't had a friend and at the time hadn't known he'd needed one when he got to Mars orbit.