Shoshone Station: The Galactic Consortium season 2

Episode One: Not a Good Day to Die #4

Jack walked Barry to the central hub to catch the elevator the surface.

"You be okay for a few days?" Barry asked.

"Sure," Jack said, hoping it was true. "Shouldn't be much traffic yet. The economics office promised they would send by a housekeeping crew later today to un-mothball the rest of our offices. Not that we have any use for them yet. What else?"

Barry merely shrugged. "Any idea about to do about visas?"

"Most can wait," Jack said. The more he thought about, the less intimidating it seemed. He could get through this. "We've maybe a half dozen Earthsiders already doing something on the station. Several hundred more applying for day jobs. I will talk to the new security chief, Fox, later today. Suggest we get background checks and then rubber stamp most of those requests. Tourist are just going to have to wait."

They paused and shook hands at the elevator entrance. "Good luck back in DC," Jack said.

"Don't worry. Won't take more then a few days and I'll be back."

When Jack returned to their office he checked his email. The sign-in page whirled and whirled but did not let him on. He checked a couple of other websites to make sure it wasn't the internet connection. Then he called the main office.

"It's been like this all morning," a harried sounding secretary told him. "The servers been up and down since they announced the new office on the station."

"What's up?" Jack asked, worried. Could they be the target of some hack?

"Traffic," was the reply.

"Oh, it's coming up now," Jack said. "Thanks." Then he saw the number in parentheses next to his inbox. That could not be right.

He called his own office next and talked to Blumenthal's personal assistant. "Blumenthal called right before boarding his plane this morning," the man told Jack. "Said to forward all visa and import/export requests to you."

"But," Jack spluttered, "There's over a million."

"They've crashed our server four times this morning already," the secretary said. "Yeah, I know. Don't know how many are serious and how many are just, you know, curiosity."

Jack skim read the first page worth of emails and decided that the second category outnumber the first by a long stretch. There were orders for Soma Achai, the tea drink that the Consortium loved, as though the diplomatic core was a mail order service. There were requests for any knick knack or souvenir he could send. There were letters from clearly deranged individuals wanting implants removed from their heads now that the aliens were publicly established.

Other letters were serious requests, but equally improbable at the moment. Many people wanted tourist visas along with information about money exchange and travel in the consortium. More than a few businesses wanted to send representatives to check out the financial opportunities available.

Blumenthal's final comments floated through Jack's mind. "You will have to review and approve each request individually." Surely Blumenthal must trust him to have laid this on his lap. He wrote an auto-responder stating that they were still ironing out the process and delays were to be expected. The auto-responder gave detailed instructions for subject lines, to help automate the flow of request. Most would not read or correctly re-apply. That was just as well. It was an easy way to eliminate those that weren't serious.

He checked the station's population logs. The consortium numbers were fluid. Hoppers arrived and the numbers jumped a dozen or so, it left and the number dropped. The general population of the station rose and dipped in time. The Shoshone cultural collective rose steadily, another hundred or so arrived earlier today. Two of the collective were marked for departure, both had warrants pending down below. They had thought to escape them but found the long arm of the law longer than expected.

The American number stood at twenty seven. Down two and up one. Two members of the transition team had found permanent apartments and shifted from the American numbers to general population. Later today Jack would go apartment shopping and perhaps join them.

One new American? The entry was tagged "Sophia." No last name. He messaged the ground station. "Are we letting people up?"

"My counter part, Die-may," the officer groused.

"Dayaamaya," Jack corrected.

"Some hard luck case. Wanted to start over in the consortium. I told..." there was an awkward pause. "Them that they wouldn't be able to get back without a proper passport and such."

Jack checked and Dayaamaya was off shift already. "Okay," he said. "Well, let's try to limit such traffic as much as possible. You're right, she's not going to be able to get back until we finalized visa requirements. God only knows when that will happen or what happens until then." He made himself a note to keep an eye on this Sophia and to have a long talk with Dayaamaya.

The rest of Jack's day passed quickly. He had no sooner set up the auto-responder than he started to get a second wave of requests. Many had followed the steps correctly and making them easier to sort and answer. The others went straight to the spam folder could be dealt with later.

Luckily for them, Denver was home to several foreign consulates. Despite the fact that the nearest security office was Chicago, the corps had offices active in Denver. Jack called them all, begging for any secretarial help that wanted to work part time up on the station. He hoped curiosity, if nothing else, would draw a couple extra office workers up.

He closed up the office around four pm and headed for the upper decks, were his hotel was. He grabbed a bite to eat on the rimward court of sixteen above, wondering what life on a station would be like. He queried the system for real estate agents and left courtesy messages with three, selected at random, about renting an apartment.

He watched the crowds go by, strangers. Friendly strangers for the most part, but still strangers. He felt suddenly alone. He sighed. His social circle, even back in DC, wasn't that large and the feeling was not entirely foreign, but the foreignness of this place accented it. I will adjust. Find friends here.