New Portal Contract

Diversification is just good business.

Ashley Hanson is just back from the long grind of the Sanctuary Contract when she gets hit on by Elroy Risk, the Responsible Entity for Earth.

It’s business.

Entity

Risk Enterprises Corporate Jet, En Route Boston

“Ashley, please have a seat.” Ashley Hanson did so, watching the man she had followed into the small flying office in the Risk Enterprises executive jet take his seat at the workstation. She took one of the deeply padded leather seats at his hospitable gesture. There were non-alcoholic drinks to hand, and she picked a Perrier.

This is not usual. Elroy Risk was the Big Boss of the whole ecosystem of companies which earned the Galactic credit keeping Earth’s Portal dropping regular technological miracles down on the rest of the planet. He had come all the way from San Francisco just to talk to her as soon as the shuttle arrived from Emporium. There was absolutely a reason for it, because Elroy Risk did nothing without a reason.

Ashley was nervous because she didn’t know the reason. Her entire training and experience as a Contract Negotiator told her not, to the fifth power of never, go into a negotiation unprepared. Prepped meant knowing, to as many decimal points as possible, what the other party wanted and what she wanted, and where the overlap was, within which a deal could be cut.

Whatever Risk wanted, right now she wanted to spend the next week in bed, some of it sleeping. Sanctuary had been a long haul spent working very hard with no time to spend with her boyfriend. Couples time had been hard to come by when she was in orbit above Sanctuary, and he was on the surface of it, not to mention the galley slave working hours.

Elroy was looking way too cheerful. There was another shoe, and she wasn’t seeing it. “Congratulations on being an Entity. Well deserved. You got a four-star review on your Contract with them, which of course includes the purple goo deal.”

She frowned. “Four star. Not five. I told Grand-dad to put on his hard nose. We needed the credit.”

He chuckled. “They were a tough audience. Master Blasters only got a three star. You made Contract. The rest is a nice to have, Ashley. Gratitude doesn’t pay the bills.”

The Portal Alien Race(s), universally known as the PAR, split the Galaxy’s inhabitants into two categories. Entities had credit, standing, and could do business in the Portal economy. Then there was the rest of the Galaxy’s population, for whose very existence they did not give the alien equivalent of a single rats ass. It was up to the Entities to see to it, as they chose and as they could.

The inhabitants of Sanctuary made their credit in the Galactic economy by creating tailored life forms. The purple goo was one such tailored life form. It ate radiation for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Cut it loose on an area, and said area would be clean of any radioactive contamination a very short time later. It even brought the radioactive elements back to the mother of the colony, sorted neatly by element, with everything else left pristine and untouched.

Risk Enterprises already had a company making bids on cleaning up old Cold War contaminated sites in the US and elsewhere. Since they could underbid anyone else by about 90% and still show a fat profit, they were going to get a lot of business. Since Ashley got 7.5% of said fat profit, she had a definite interest.

Just not right now. “Elroy, we have a Deal. It goes without saying you’ll keep your end, and you have competent people minding the store. Unless there’s a problem?”

He shrugged dismissively. “The usual problem in dealing with the government. Elections. President Winfield is coming up to the end of her second term. Nothing will get done until after the election, and the new administration decides what the policy about us and Portal technology will be.”

Risk snagged himself a bottle of orange juice and cracked it. “Between us, there are some details we’ll need to iron out, but it can wait. I wanted to have your Grand-dad do the negotiation, but he recused himself. He paid you a very high compliment, you know.”

“He did?” Ashley was as wary as she was pleased.

“Another young Turk on my six, and the Force is strong in this one.” Risk did a good imitation of her Grand-dad being grumpy.

“I don’t want my Grand-dad’s job.” Ashley was entirely and sincerely truthful. Negotiating Contracts with the god-like Portal Alien Race(s) was not anything she wanted anything to do with. In good truth, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do next, but she wanted to be rested up and unstressed before she tackled such decisions.

Ashley got more nervous watching his expression. Elroy was about to drop the shoe, and she’d walked right into it. “Good. I have another one for you. One for which you are uniquely qualified. PortalNet Liaison has had three inquiries asking whether you are available to do a survey of another system. You have found a rather under served market niche in the Portal economy. The Entity and CEO of Galactic Surveys would be just the person to work it.”

CEO of my own corporation. Galactic Entity in my own right. More credit in my account than most sovereign nations. Talk about hitting the big time.

Slow down, Ashley. Get practical. Ashley began running the numbers in her head. “We can’t use Emporium. The transit fees alone would eat the profit margin. It’s down for maintenance, anyway.”

Sanctuary had been hard on the equipment as well as the people. Both needed the downtime.

Risk smiled. “Precisely. We need something small and agile. It only has to carry a sensor suite and an analysis cell to crunch the data, so it won’t need a lander. You need to draft an RFP and get it out to the aerospace industry.”

“Well, let’s see …” she began.

Darn. She caught up from being behind the curve … again.

What’s the old joke? We’ve established what you are. Now we’re haggling price. Good one, Elroy. Of course, the sweetener in this deal, which Elroy knows, is getting to do the sort of astronomy to put me in the books next to Edwin Hubble and Galileo Galilei. All right, I’ve sold my soul. Get a good price.

“I’m going to need capital. I have to save the credit for the surveys themselves.” She started blocking out the problem in her head. Always start high.

He was still looking cheerful, and ahead of her. “I’m thinking a billion to start. Once you have the design contracts done we’ll have a better idea for the real money.”

No, he’s not kidding. A billion’s just a good start. We’re talking an entirely new design here. Then there’s going to be … a lot of things.