Part 16

Tika hailed Ali and Assan as they approached. The two brothers were playing on the grass beside the flyer, gracefully kicking a small beanbag back and forth to each other.

"Lo Miss Tika." Ali called as he caught the beanbag and pocketed it. "Want me to spin 'em up?"

"I am inviting the two of you to spend the night here, at Davdan's Elder's Enclave house, if you do not have other plans?" Tika asked.

"Just watching football on screen." Assan laughed. "And we could do that here."

"Good. Then we will spend the night here, and you can fly myself, Jena and Jela back to the park in the morning." Tika nodded, and turned to her companions.

"I present Ali and Assan Bhil, my pilots and mission generalists, and my very close friends Pina, Raz, Jena, Slin, and the Elder Davdan." Tika pronounced. Everyone bowed and exchanged polite greetings.

"Ali and Assan, these others are interested in this fine aircraft you have here. Would you be so kind as to show it to them?"

"Certainly, Miss Tika." Assan grinned. "I'd be glad to. We take turns being spokesman when we're showing off the flyers, otherwise we tend to get a little carried away with our enthusiasm and spend our time interrupting each other. And it's my turn.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is a Bell 23741 Full Stealth VTOL Vectored Thrust aircraft. It was built in 2068 for the United States Marines Special Forces, and it was designed to insert a squad of operatives deep into enemy territory under the most hostile conditions, and to safely extract them after their mission. This particular one was mothballed without ever seeing service in 2069..."

While Assan proudly described the qualities of the flyer to the rest, Raz took Ali aside to ask more technical questions, and they all spent a half hour admiring the sleek, dark gray machine, inside and out.

"You have a very nice toy here, Tika." Raz said as they headed inside.

"It is my company," Tika laughed, indicating the two pilots. "But the flyers are these boys' toys. Wait until you see my toys!"

"Hey, when do we get to see it?" Ali asked.

"The day after tomorrow." Tika informed them as she held the door of the Enclave house for them. "You will pick it up with your Aérospatiale heavy lifter from Birmingham Spaceport in England, and deliver it to your hangar in Jaipur, but before you do, you will spend two weeks there training on the flight and maintenance of the Harrier, as well as familiarizing yourself with the space plane conversion process as it stood when the research was suspended."

"Hey, nice house." Assan remarked as they all headed to the kitchen for beverages.

"Thank you. Raz built it." Davdan said.

"I'm impressed." Assan grinned.

"Thank you." Raz nodded.

"So as you were saying, Miss Tika?" Ali prompted as they slid into the big booth.

"Yes. You will also do your best to hire the techs who are most familiar with the technology. You will entice them with more credits, or more fun, or both. After you have gained the skills, knowledge, information, and personnel, you will return with the flyer. I will have a team waiting, who will work with you on a complete overhaul, updating and refitting of the aircraft, including the modernized space plane conversion. Then your team will standardize the process, and you will be provided with the facilities to convert the rest of the planes, after which the new facilities will be converted for routine operation of the fleet.

"Here, I will show the rest of you what I am buying." Tika said to her band mates, tapping on her screen. "One hundred and sixteen of these, for conversion to space planes." She flashed the footage of the Super Harrier III from the Paris Air Show that she'd shown the Bhil brothers earlier.

"I have digitally re-colored the aircraft white in this vid, because I will paint them white, and I wanted to see what it would look like. But that is the only modification to the vid." Tika explained as the sleek aircraft was shown to lift vertically from the ground, fly sideways, then backwards, then tilt up onto it's tail in mid-air and blast vertically into the air, and continued with a dizzying array of impressive aerobatic maneuvers. "These were designed to carry a military payload of almost forty-five percent of its gross weight. I will use some of that capacity for two extra passengers, liquid oxygen, and more fuel."

All eyes were on the recording as the conversation continued.

"The fuel is liquid methane?" Raz asked.

"Or liquid hydrogen." Tika said. "It goes faster on hydrogen, but farther on methane. I will definitely use hydrogen for any missions out of atmosphere. It uses the supercooled fuel as coolant for the airframe during hypersonic flight. The supercooled liquid oxygen for use out of atmosphere will supplement this function. Ironically, though it will require very little fuel to return to earth from a space station, I will still need to fill up with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen before returning to Earth, as their cooling function is key to withstanding the heating of re-entry.

"Before I can use these as space planes, I will need to lift a load of fuel and oxygen to orbit from earth. How long until the freight launcher is operational?"

"Eight to nine months." Raz said. "If you need to have it lifted before then, it would be cheaper to get it from the Moon. And the Lunar Colonies could sure use the sale to help their balance of trade."

"Good point." Tika nodded. "For that matter..." she tapped her screen rapidly for a minute. "All right. If I can re-fuel in medium Earth orbit, I can reach the moon. Interesting. I will not need to buy a deep space ship so soon after all, I think. If I have full access to the Earth-Moon system with the Harriers and the tube launcher system, it is more practical to rent the mission capacity I will need for the retrieval of 16 Psyche."

"Retrieve 16 Psyche? The asteroid?" Assan laughed. "Sorry Miss Tika, no offence. But do you realize how many gigatons of mass you're talking about moving? Hell, even the fuel would have to be in the megaton range!"

"It will be a big, slow project, that is for sure." Tika nodded. "We will form the rockets directly in the steel surface of the asteroid. I hope we can capture a conveniently passing comet, or find a handy ice asteroid of comparable size. If not, we may have to retrieve an ice fragment from Saturn's rings, or lift ice from Europa. And I am still not sure whether it would be better to crack the water into hydrogen and oxygen with huge banks of solar cells, and then burn it in rockets, or to simply form water boilers in the surface of the asteroid and super-heat the steam with solar concentrating mirrors, and use it for steam rockets.

"The combustion rocket plan is much faster, and could be completed in about ten years with the Saturn leg, or as little as four years with a close ice asteroid. The steam rocket is dirt cheap by comparison, because mirrors are so much cheaper than photo-electric cells, but it requires far more water for reaction mass, and would be a fourteen to eighteen year project."

"Just win The Grande Championship, Tika." Pina laughed. "Naz-Father will be glad to put the majority of his winnings from the Great Bet into our projects, as he has no expensive aspirations of his own."

"That is true." Tika nodded. "But I am as not as confident as Naz that the bet will be promptly paid. I have a hard time believing that anyone would just give away that kind of credits, simply because they lost a bet. It would take years of selling companies and assets if they could raise the funds at all."

"You are wrong, Tika, I assure you." Raz told her with a grin. "Our father is very astute. He could have been an intellectual prodigy if he had been inclined to spend the effort on it, and when it comes to gambling, he has spent the effort. I have audited his gambling service and his gambling programs myself, and if they say the debt will be paid, it will be paid, as they check with many government and corporate sources to confirm both the identity and financial status of the gamblers. In this particular case, I have also personally investigated the man who is betting against my father. He is the third wealthiest human being. If he loses the bet he could pay it immediately, and he would still be the third wealthiest human being."

"Great Gods!" Tika exclaimed.

"What is this 'Great Bet'?" Ali inquired.

"Do you know what the Grande Championship is?" Pina asked.

"Ya, it's the global armed hand-to-hand combat championship, basically, right?"

"Right. Early last December, my father decided to try to set the record for gambling winnings in a six-month period. He started with one hundred and forty million credits, and has since won over one billion, six hundred million credits, by betting on the accomplishments of our group. He has bet eight hundred million of that on one Great Bet. When he placed it in early December, Tika was about forty-five pounds, and she had fought with weapons three times, and my father bet that she would win the Grande Championship within six months. He was given odds of seventeen thousand to one."

"Great Gods! That's almost fourteen trillion credits if he wins!" Ali exclaimed.

"Exactly." Raz nodded. "Naz-Father would then be the seventh wealthiest human. And as I say, the man who would be paying could lose four times that before he was in danger of losing his status as third wealthiest.

"So, just make sure that you win the Grande Championship, Tika, and we will not have to worry about financing anything, even the 16 Psyche project. Naz-Father would gladly give us almost all of it, as he truly does not care about it, and has no use for it beyond setting the record for gambling winnings. And he is only doing that on a whim, and as a favor to Davdan.

"And as to your asteroidal propulsion system, wait until Pina announces the final stages of her research. Then we will build you a better system with a fusion drive."

Ali grinned in amazement. "The only problem is, Miss Tika still has to win the Grande Championship!"

"That is not a problem." Tika stated casually.

Ali could only shake his head. "You'll have to excuse me if I find that hard to believe."

"I have had four fights not counting Training Fights, and you can watch them for less than five credits each." Tika shrugged. "If they do not convince you, I would be glad to take your bet, of any amount at any odds."

"No thanks!" Ali laughed. "I get the feeling that betting against you in anything wouldn't be too smart!

"You know, I feel better about selling the company every second. I think we hitched ourselves to a winner this time, brother!"

"Hey, you don't have to convince me!" Assan laughed. "I've known that since I saw her throw the cryo-canister! Not to mention that night assent she did perfectly, with no practice or training!"

"She is magic." Slin stated, giving Tika an affectionate squeeze.

"Aww, thank you Slin. You are sweet." Tika crooned, and gave his earlobe a quick nibble.

"Ah, Loral arrives." Davdan smiled at the message on her screen, and rose to go greet him at the elevator.

They watched the remainder of the Harrier recording as Jena freshened their beverages, then Davdan returned with Loral. She introduced him to the two pilots, then she and Loral retired for the night.

"There are dens, up those ramps on the second level." Tika informed the pilots. "Breakfast is at seven. We should be in the air by eight. Feel free to use the hot pools. The washroom is behind the kitchen on the left. If you watch football, I presume you drink beer?"

"Yes, though I never realized there was such a direct connection!" Ali laughed.

"We have Canadian, Guinness, Heineken, Corona, Sapporo, Tsingtao, and Budweiser in the bar fridge, and we have warm Guinness if you drink it British style. Only, try not to be too loud when you yell 'goooooaaall!'" Tika laughed.

"Actually, we watch American football, so we yell touchdown!" Assan grinned. "But we'll keep it quiet. And thank you for the hospitality."

"Thank you for being flexible. It is time for Slin and Pina and I to say goodnight." Tika smiled as she rose.

"It is time Raz and I were in a den as well." Jena stated, playfully tugging him out of the booth by the hand. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight." the pilots called, before downloading that day's game, Dallas at Stockholm.

There was much giggling and fondling as the five young climbed the stairs to the dens, then they said goodnight as Jena and Raz ducked into the first available den.

Tika led Pina and Slin to the last one in the row.

Pina giggled and tickled Tika's bum from behind as the younger girl ducked into the den ahead of her, and Tika yelped a little in surprise.

Tika instantly turned and grabbed Pina's arm, pulling her suddenly into the den and throwing her gently to the furs before leaping atop her, pinning her. She chuckled at Pina's surprised yelp, grinning down at her dark prettiness, then favored her with a soft kiss.

"Oh Gods, Tika." Pina murmured when Tika broke the kiss. "I am so glad I do not have to spend tonight without you. I know it is selfish of me, but it makes me lonely just thinking about it. And I was so worried about you. I knew you were planning more than a vacation, and not knowing what was happening to you was just killing me."

"My mind was so busy with my plans that I did not think of it." Tika smiled, tenderly caressing Pina's face. "But I think if I had not come back tonight, I would have felt terrible trying to sleep without you.

"I do not want to be apart from you, Pina, but I cannot change my plans in the middle of enacting them. Could you come with me tomorrow? You could meet my father."

"Yes, thank you, my love. That would be beautiful." Pina murmured, and lifted her mouth to Tika's for another kiss.

When she settled back to the furs she turned her head at the sound of Slin's movement, and Tika followed her gaze.

Slin had turned at the entrance to the den and was leaving.

"Slin! Where are you going?" Tika asked.

He stopped in the entrance, but did not turn. "I am sorry. I must go." he stated, sounding a little choked up.

"Why?" Tika called in hurt confusion, as he started moving again.

Again he stopped, but did not answer.

Tika rose to her knees and put her hand on his shoulder. "Slin, please, tell me why you must go."

"I ... I ... I am..." he stammered, then took a deep breath, held it, let it out. "You love Pina." he said, almost sobbing. "Pina loves you. I love you. You are not in love with me. When I am not with you, it is hell. When I am with you, it is heaven, but it is like being tortured in heaven, because you are not in love with me.

"I must go. I must not see you until my heart heals. And it may not."

And with that, he was about to move forward again when Tika took a firm hold on his shoulder and held him back.

"Please stay with us tonight. I know it is so selfish of me, but no one makes me feel better, and feel beautiful, like you do, and I really need that tonight. I am in love with Pina, but I need you too, and Pina understands that. In fact, it was she who suggested calling you tonight. If you stay, I will do my best to love you, and to fall in love with you."

Slin slowly turned to look at her, and she flinched at the look of sadness on his face. Tears began to spill down his cheeks.