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Kara
Cargo-hold
Manfred VII
All the passengers heading for the colony
were concerned about what happened in
In any case, Carmen and Jared were meeting
to work on the builders. Their purpose
was to decide how to make the platinum.
The biggest concern was getting it into a presentable form.
They were using an empty cargo-hold as a
workroom. They had a few computers set up
along with all the builders and Jared’s tools.
The equipment was spread out along an old table they had found in
another part of the ship. The chairs
were the worst part of the room. They
were wood and had no cushioning or even ergonomic design. Just looking at the chairs could make a
person uncomfortable. They were a few
decks from the galley, where the good chairs were, and neither of them felt it
was worth the work to bring better chairs down.
Jared said of the platinum, “We haven’t
really done any special shapes besides balls and items we scanned.”
“The shape can’t be two hard. We can plug in the dimensions.”
“It’ll take some time. On top of that, a plain bar might concern
them. Most bars have numbers and
markings on them. How do we explain the
lack of those markings?”
“It shouldn’t matter,” she pointed
out. “It’s platinum. They’ll find that out quickly enough.”
“We can’t risk not being prepared for the
question.”
“What if we say the place we bought it had
no time to stamp it?”
Jared remarked, “What if they think we
just had somebody change its shape? Then
they’ll think we have a precious metal machine!”
Carmen shook her head. “No.
They don’t realize how simple what we are doing is. They probably think the ‘Midas Machine’ took
as long to make as one of those diamond-creating machines, in which case a
machine to make platinum would take as long.
Plus, why bother making a machine for platinum once you have a machine
for gold?”
“Platinum is more valuable, so it makes
sense to make one.”
“Exactly, so we would never have made a
Midas machine in the first place!”
He nodded, “OK, I get what you mean. Therefore, we can make plain bars, but it’ll
take time. We still need to make it work
faster.”
“How are the hardware changes going?”
“Slow.
It’s hard to work in these conditions.”
“What if I changed the code to compensate
for physics? It probably won’t solve the
issues here on a rocking ship but for movement in one direction we can probably
get more accuracy.”
He agreed, “Sounds good! Every bit helps. I’ll still make the hardware changes. Hopefully they’ll be done before we get
there.”
“Cool,” she said with a smile. “So now we better get to Kara’s birthday!”
He smacked his forehead, “I forgot about
it completely. I was going to make her
something.”
“Like what?”
“I hadn’t decided yet. I was thinking something with the builder,
but I had no time to think about it.
What’s Keith giving her?”
She chuckled, “Oh, you’ll see.”
“Hey, no fair, I want to know! As your father I command you to tell me!”
She laughed, “Sorry, it doesn’t work that
way. Besides, you’ll know soon enough
anyway.”
“I hate waiting for surprises.”
“This isn’t even a surprise for you.”
“It’s still a surprise. Plus, it’s a secret. Everybody wants to know secrets!”
“If I told you it wouldn’t be much of a
secret!”
They laughed as they got up to go. Carmen powered down the computers and Jared
put the builders in a safe spot in case the ship entered a storm. Thus far, they had been lucky and had fair
sailing. Neither of them could imagine
how rough an Atlantic storm could be.
When they got to the galley everybody else
was already there, except for Kara. The
captain and some of the crew were also there.
Michelle walked over to them and said sarcastically, “I was worried you
wouldn’t make it. Do I need to draw maps
for you two?”
Jared said, “Maps sound good to me.” Michelle swatted his arm affectionately in
response.
The galley was set up with balloons and
streamers. There was even a Happy
Birthday sign, but it was dog-eared from extensive use to celebrate other
birthdays. On the buffet table, lunch
was ready, along with a carrot cake that Aaron had made. Beside the table was a small pile of
gifts. One of the packages was a huge
green box.
Aaron stood and said, “OK, we’re
ready. I’ll get her.”
“Get yourselves good hiding spots,” said the
captain. Everybody crouched or found a
place to hide. Sarah and the captain
shut off all the lights as Aaron left.
With the portholes covered, it was very dark.
After a few minutes Sarah whispered, “Here
they come.”
When Aaron opened the door, Sarah and the
captain turned on the main lights and everybody shouted, “Surprise!”
Kara screamed in delight, “You
remembered.”
Sarah and Aaron walked over and hugged
her. Sarah said, “Of course we
remembered. Nine hours of labor are hard
to-,” she cut herself short when she realized Michelle was listening.
Michelle laughed, “It’s OK, and I know
what’s in store.”
Kara noticed the presents, “How about I
open these now!”
Aaron said, “Nope, you know the
tradition. Eat first, then gifts.”
“But, Dad, I’m an adult now.”
Sarah said, “You might be 18, but you’ll
always be our girl.”
Kara frowned in dismay, “All right.”
Everybody got a plate of food and started
eating. Kara was the second to
finish. Michelle wasn’t hungry because
of the medicine for the nausea, so she ate very little . . . which seemed to concern
Jared. Fortunately, it was still early
in the pregnancy and the fetus didn’t require much food.
As soon as Kara finished, she waited as
patiently as she could for everybody else to finish. While waiting, she noticed how slowly some
people ate. Her father, for example,
would take small bites so if somebody started to talk to him he could quickly
swallow the food to reply politely. Then
there was her mother who had bigger bites but had to follow each bite with a
long drink followed by a pause. Keith
ate his food fast, but his conversation with Carmen took a toll on his
speed. Carmen was eating at about the
same rate.
Kara noticed that the captain was unconcerned
with his appearance while eating. He
made loud chewing noises that could be heard a table away. He chewed his food with his mouth open. He would take huge bites, which were usually
too much for him to handle at once, so he seemed to chew it for an
excruciatingly long time. When he was
done, he swallowed it all down at once.
When they were all finally finished, she
glared at her father looking for his approval to continue. He nodded his OK. She walked to the pile and picked out the huge
green box. She picked it up and read the
tag. “This one’s from Keith . . . that
explains the color scheme.” Her mother
shot her a disapproving look. She
shrugged and started to open the box.
After unwrapping and opening it she pulled out a slightly smaller box,
this time wrapped in red. Inside the red
box was a slightly smaller blue box. She
continued to find smaller boxes in yellow, orange, brown, black, and finally a
box barely a few inches on all sides wrapped in white. Inside it was a folded envelope. She opened the envelope and pulled out a USB
flash drive. On its label, it listed two
album’s worth of music tracks for a boy band called the Escape Artists. She smiled and said, “This is one of my
favorite bands! Thank you, Keith!”
She continued through the gifts. Carmen had got her an electronic book of
poetry. Her parents got her a
laptop. Michelle gave her a
sweater. When she opened it Michelle
said, “I’m sure it’s not something you were hoping for, but I’ve gotten into a
knitting mood. I hope you like it.”
It was a nice sweater. The sweater was thick enough to keep a person
warm on the coldest of days. It was
mostly red, but had a pattern with a few other colors. Kara tried it on and said, “It’s nice and
warm, thank you!” She kept the sweater
on for the rest of the day.
When they were finally done and Kara had
thanked everybody, Aaron announced, “It’s time for cake.”
He cut a huge piece for Kara, but Kara said, “Dad, I can’t eat that much.” He cut it in half then lifted his eyebrows asking if it was better. She nodded and took a piece. The cake was very rich and moist. Everybody had a piece.
Copyright (C) 1998-2001 East Coast Games, Inc. and 2001 - 2006 Forest J. Handford
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