Flow Control

Now that I am Customs and Immigration, I can keep anyone or anything I want off of the station. I also hired four chimpanzees to help with luggage inspection. It feels good to exercise a little power sometimes.

"Hey," a man shouted. "Get away from that. Scat!"

One Track, Kelly's enviro-tech and one of my luggage inspectors, was curling his lips at a red-faced, over-weight merchant. The merchant was trying to grab a small ship-bag while trying to remain out of reach of the chimpanzee holding it. It was very funny.

"Who is responsible for this animal?" the man shouted. "Is there a Customs agent nearby?"

I started laughing out loud. My laughter offended the man so much I almost passed out from laughing too hard.

"Control this animal," he shouted at me.

Through my laughter, I pointed vaguely behind him at the other three chimps. They had developed an interest in the rest of his luggage. This guy was obviously not from one of the troopships.

One of the launch workers who knew what she was doing had noticed and came over to untangle us.

"Can I help you?" She asked.

The merchant turned to her and thrust out his forefinger. "Get rid of these animals." Then he pointed at me and said, "And arrest this man for endangering the public."

The woman looked at me and raised her eyebrows. She knew who I was. Everyone did. I looked at her name tag.

"In a moment, agent Quinn."

"Yes, sir." She said with a brief smile and a nod.

"What's your name, applicant?" I asked the bug-eyed merchant.

"Sam," he said a bit numbly. "Sam Tellerwell."

"What's in the bag, Sam?"

"Who are you?" He asked.

"DeeDee Jackson," I said in my best noir voice. "But most call me Dizzy Jack. At the moment, I am Customs and Immigration. So are those chimps rifling through your luggage. Are you trying to hide something from us, Sam."

"Hell," He said. "Take the damn chocolate then. Just like all custom agents. I can't stop you."

"Chocolate?" I asked. "Chocolate?"

"Earth chocolate," Sam said quietly.

I looked at One Track, and he gestured something about Kelly (I'm still a bit shaky on the hand signs) before waving a half eaten but carefully rewrapped chocolate bar.

This could be good. "A man who can get Earth chocolate must have serious connections."

"Yeah," Sam said cautiously.

"One Track here wants some chocolate for a friend of his, but sometimes he has trouble focusing on more than one goal," I said suggestively. "If you were to 'donate' one or two bars, there's no reason you couldn't share the credit. Kelly is our acting governor--until we have a chance to hold an election."

"Kelly Grace Smith? The writer?"

I nodded.

"Governor?" Sam said, his voice going from excited fan to pure businessman in less than a heartbeat.

I nodded again.

"Can I meet her?"

I gestured. Sam looked at the chimpanzee and nodded. Then he held out his hand and introduced himself to One Track. Sam Tellerwell is going to fit right in.

I turned to Quinn and said, "See if you can find Mr. Tellerwell a merchant's suite with on-site storage and demo facilities."

"Yes, sir." The look in her eyes suggested Sam would be joyfully donating chocolate to more than one cause.

In other news, the Martian Republic has decided to withdraw from the Outer System Alliance. They put Mars Metro under martial law and are denying all traffic except to and from the planet. Many of those people came from here not so long ago, and we aren't happy about this. The OSA is now an unstable collection of twelve city-states centered around the remaining metros--and probably better off without Mars anyway.

Ceres Metro and seven other belt metro-stations have allied with Jupiter System. Wendy has officially requested 'OSA Diplomatic Headquarters' here on Fort Falling. She asked nicely, so what could I do? I set her up in a multi-family suite with Ben and Sarah.