Beyond the Ranges

by John Ringo, James Aidee

Genres: Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Exploration; Space Opera

Synopsis

After Earth is destroyed, Jason Graham finds himself—along with tens of thousands of others—offered a second chance on a planet on the far side of the galaxy. For one man, it’s a chance at the life he never led—and this time he'll get it right.

Jason Graham dies when the world ends.

Then he wakes up on a space station on the other side of the galaxy, and the adventure begins.

Jason and five hundred million other humans have been resurrected (and rejuvenated to young adulthood) by alien benefactors in orbit around an Earth-like world that is abundant in natural resources and totally untamed. For the newly awakened humans, this is a chance to start society with a clean slate and a bright future. For Jason, who has knocked about aimlessly in several different careers in his Earth life, it’s an opportunity to unleash his creativity and ambition and see what he can really do.

But who are the alien benefactors that have contrived this second act for some of Earth’s denizens? And what do they really want?

Release date: May 7, 2024

Publisher: Baen

Print pages: 464

Sample

CHAPTER 1

“Hi, my name is Mandy,” the waitress said, leaning over and crossing her arms for a cleavage flash. “My pronouns are ‘Honey’ and ‘Sweety Pie.’ What can I getcha to drink?”

The waitress was a cute, short, zaftig blonde that comfortably filled the tight white top characteristic of the establishment.

“Sweetwater,” Jason said, smiling. “A half pound of boiled shrimp and some conversation.”

The nice thing about breastaurants was that it was not considered unusual for a guy to be solo. Since Jason had spent most of his life solo, that was to the good.

Jason had timed the late lunch for the slow part of the day. Chatting with strangers was a lost art. People would rather keep their noses in their phones and looked at you weird if you tried to strike up a conversation. And if you were trying to get real local information, you had to talk to locals.

It was part of the job for the ladies who worked in places like this one. And you weren’t expected to hand them cash every few minutes. A decent tip and not being a creep was good enough.

Jason was in Mobile for one of the several gigs he did keeping the wolf from the door: travel writer. Despite all the online apps that purported to give local information for travelers, there was still a place for someone going “boots on the ground” to check out cities. Most travel writers wanted to go to places like Paris, Rome, New York. Gigs were more likely for places like Mobile; Jackson, Mississippi; or Peoria, Kansas, and Jason honestly preferred them. He wasn’t a Paris kind of guy.

Jason Graham, sixty-two, six feet one, the extra inch courtesy of prosthetic knees, those courtesy of the VA, 250 pounds, with a still full head of white hair, had done more gigs in his life than he could easily remember.

Paratrooper was because you gave back to your country, and he was trying to impress his impossible-to-please father. Wildlands firefighter was because he was young, trying to prove himself and the pay was good in season, once you could get on a team. More gigs in the off-season to pay the bills, mostly involving testosterone.

Then a blazing tree fell on him that resulted in some burn scars and enough broken bones that he still got a small disability check every month.

He felt those bones, now, every time the weather turned and had a hard time bending over to pick up a dropped piece of paper. Writing was low-impact work, the only kind he could do anymore.

“Here ya go, handsome,” “Mandy” said, returning with the beer. The girls, for good reason, rarely used their actual names.

Jason took a sip and smiled again.

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy,” he said, smiling. “Are you from Mobile?” he added.

“Yeah,” Mandy replied. “Born and raised!”

“What’s a good local restaurant?” Jason asked, pulling out an old-fashioned reporter’s notebook. “Something that’s only known to the locals? I’m a travel writer and I’m trying to get local information.”

Mandy wasn’t too up on restaurants other than the one she worked in but she knew all the local dance clubs. An older waitress was more helpful on restaurants and he noted down some local places, barbeque mostly. He’d check them out other days. Museums included off-the-track examples, a couple of high-end local places for business dinners . . . 

Jason’s phone had buzzed a couple of times but he was both working and talking with pretty girls so he was ignoring it. Then the manager came out and turned one of the TVs to a news channel. It was supposed to be on sports.

“What’s up?” Jason asked.

“Something’s going on in Europe,” the female manager said. “Got a couple of texts about it . . . ”

Jason was one of the few customers in the place and the others hadn’t been paying attention to a college football roundtable.

“ . . . not only lost contact with our live correspondent in Ukraine, we’ve lost contact with all of our contacts on the continent . . . ” The female news announcer was looking flustered. It was apparent she wasn’t used to, well, news. Her job was to repeat a prepared narrative and with something really happening she wasn’t fast enough on her feet to handle it.

“Just in . . . there is no contact with China or India as well . . . Bob Toland is coming on with a report from the White House . . . ”

“Civilian satellites are showing no change in the affected areas,” the White House correspondent said, reading from a sheet of paper. The more experienced reporter was also clearly flustered.

“Cities are still there, this is not, repeat, not due to the areas being destroyed. The White House has confirmed that this is not due to a nuclear attack. All of the cities are still there. But pings by servers to vast areas of the world are getting no response, indicating that not only are the people not responding but the servers are offline. It appears at this time to be a total communications loss and is speculated to be some type of hacking attack or what is known as a fire sale. We don’t know what has caused this unprecede—”

* * *

Jason looked around and shook his head. He wasn’t in Mobile anymore and wasn’t in a restaurant.

Instead, he was sitting on a gray couch in a gunmetal-gray room, maybe sixteen by ten. It was entirely unadorned and looked a bit like a prison cell. Which was not anywhere he wanted to be and not at all like the restaurant he’d just been sitting in. What might be a door to his right, it had the outline of one but was also gray plastic, blank wall to his left.

As he started to stand up a TV appeared on the opposite wall showing a video of a robot. The robot was both very clearly a robot, metal head and body, blue glowing eyes, but it was also . . . odd. The triangular head looked as if it had been put together by some kid for a fifth-grade class project. It was a couple of different metals, not really matching, with what looked like an old-fashioned directional TV antenna sticking out of its head at an odd angle. The antenna was held on with what appeared to be aluminum foil.

It was just goofy.

“You might be wondering what just happened,” the robot said. Its squeaky voice was just as ludicrous as its appearance. “I am Gavin, a representative of the Galactic Cybernetic Corps. Earth was destroyed. Not by us. Not it. We’re the good guys here.

“You along with the rest of humanity were rescued. You are currently in a space station orbiting a planet that we have terraformed for your occupation and use. You are about to be addressed by your current leader designate, President Designate Ron Dewalt. This is the first and last time you will receive a message from the Cyber Corps. Congratulations on your new home planet of Pegasus, good luck and enjoy this new life! Goodbye.”

The picture was replaced by a view of Ron Dewalt with a planet, apparently viewed through a window, in the background.

“Well, that was abrupt,” Dewalt said, shaking his head. “Thanks for the warm-up, Gavin. Sorry for both of those abrupt transitions. Everyone who has already been awake has had to deal with Gavin.

“For those of you who don’t recognize me, I am Ron Dewalt, formerly governor of Florida in the United States. And before you ask, I know nearly as little about what is going on as you do.

“One month ago, I was awakened in the same way as you were by Gavin. And I, and my advisors, have had nearly as little conversation with it. I was told I had one month to get a structure in place before the other inhabitants of Pegasus were awakened, as you just were. For more detailed information, there should be something resembling a smartphone sitting to your left. It has a full-function AI which can help you with additional information. But like us, the AIs seem to have no direct knowledge of what happened. At least they say they don’t.”

Jason picked up the phone and examined it as the President Designate was talking. Like everything else, it was gray.

He was already starting to hate gray.

Then he noticed his left hand. His fingers were back. For that matter, his hand wasn’t wrinkled.

“Where are we and what is going on? As to what is going on, we know about as much as you do. According to our robotic emissary, Earth was destroyed. We don’t know if that is true or not. Where are we? Well, we’re in a massive space station orbiting a planet that has, apparently, been reconstructed or terraformed to be as close to Earth as possible. But where in the universe? Where’s Earth? One of the first groups I woke up, after a few close advisors, were astronomers and astrophysicists.”

A hologram of the Milky Way appeared in the pictures floating alongside the President. He used a pen to point to a spot on the galaxy.

“According to the astronomers, this, over here, is where Earth is, was or used to be,” Dewalt said. Then he pointed to another spot nearly opposite on the galaxy. “Based on their observations, we are about here. Very close to the opposite side of the galaxy in what is called the Scutum-Centaurus Arm of the Milky Way. That is the best we can answer as to ‘where are we?’

“Other than that, we are in a star system, designated Pegasus, which has fourteen planets, one of which has been terraformed to be remarkably earthlike. Remarkably because, as various geologists, planetologists and astrophysicists have pointed out, it’s very hard to make a planet exactly like Earth. And this is so close to exactly, it should be impossible. They got very excited explaining it. I will simply say that our robotic friends went to a huge amount of trouble to give us a new home.”

* * *

Jason knew enough

 just from reading science articles about planet science to know that, yeah, making a planet exactly like Earth, same water chemistry, same air chemistry, similar animal life, would be extremely hard. Not to mention take enormous resources.

He was already itching to check it out.

Jason kept half an ear on the President’s speech while he examined the phone. There were no buttons or apparent screens. AI, huh?

“Hello, AI, you there?” he asked, shaking the phone slightly.

“You don’t have to shake,” the phone answered. A screen lit up and the waitress from the restaurant appeared. “I’m awake. Why this face, you’re wondering? Probably continuity. A face you’ve seen recently. It’s how I was programmed to appear. I can have any appearance you’d like.”

“That’s fine,” Jason said. “And you have no idea what’s going on?”

“Not a clue,” the AI responded. “I’m as clueless as you are. And just as stuck.”

* * *

“I’ll cover the planet later, hang in there. Some of you who do recognize me, may be wondering if I had plastic surgery. No, I didn’t. Everyone over the age of twenty or so has been . . . age regressed? Made younger. Everyone is starting out at the apparent age of twenty unless they are younger. You may have already noticed this about yourself. It’s not a new body, just one that’s extensively repaired and rejuvenated. That, right there, is so remarkable it should be an entire discussion. But this is going to be long anyway. Moving on.

“The next question most people always ask, is what about other people? Is my family here? Friends?

“The answer is: Probably some of them. Possibly not all. There are five hundred million people on this station at present. That is about one fifteenth of Earth’s previous total population. Approximately half the population of the United States is in the system. The rest are from various countries. So how were they chosen for this system? Race? Family lines?”

* * *

“How do we find other people?” Jason asked quietly. “In this system.”

“I have your complete electronic contact list, including people not currently on the station,” the AI responded. “Monica is on the station. She is still married to Richard who is also on the station. Kevin and Steve are not. Linda is not.”

Kevin and Steve were his two older and very liberal brothers. They’d barely spoken in years. Monica and Linda were ex-wives. He generally referred to Linda simply as “She Who Shall Not Be Named.” 

* * *

“The . . . ‘Cyber Corps’ appears to have broken up the world’s population based upon . . . politics? Governmental philosophy? This system appears to have been repopulated by adults, at least, who mostly adhere to classic Western personal and governmental philosophy or are of similar religious and cultural background. Similar, not identical.

“All the persons who have been woken up previously, all of the current designated leadership, from whatever country or parts of the US, believe to one extent or another in the importance of representative democracy, individual rights, human rights, generally are people to one degree or another of faith, primarily but not exclusively Judeo-Christian, free-market economic philosophies, et cetera. Generally, the primacy of the individual’s well-being over the state. In terms of politics, that means that all the designated leadership support conservative values, though there are differences in how to define those.”

Which explained Kevin and Steve being . . . elsewhere. Somewhere.

“So, if you have family members or friends who were strongly leftist or in favor of strong authoritarian government . . . they’re probably not here. We believe that there is a . . . call it a liberal system, somewhere else, a place where people with different philosophies about the individual and the state may be waking up right now, and having a conversation that is the mirror image of this one. Maybe there are multiple other systems. Where they may be, we do not know. Despite repeated requests, Gavin simply didn’t answer in the total of three short meetings we had.”

* * *

Jason thought about extended family. Friends . . . 

“What about . . . my niece . . . Steve’s daughter . . . ?” Jason asked. Steve had a fully grown daughter who had “turned her back on decency” or whatever and gone raging conservative, much to his brother’s disgust.

“Sheila is on the station as is her family.”

* * *

“So, if you have grown children who are strongly leftist . . . they may not be in this system,” Dewalt said. “Again, we have to assume there is a ‘liberal’ system somewhere just as we have to assume there is a ‘Chinese/Asian’ system and an Islamic system. It is a reasonable assumption that the other people are there but it is an assumption. Moving on.

“What most people ask about next is pets and personal possessions.

“Your personal

possessions, at least those which you had at a home or at homes, as well as pets, are currently in time stasis storage. What? Time what? Time stasis. One of the technologies we’ve been handed is the ability to stop time. It’s apparently how we were kept while the planet was being built.

“Currently your possessions or sometimes replacements for possessions are in storage. You can access them by asking your AI to ship them to your compartment. But be advised, the current room you have is as much as you have for the time being. And quarters are tight. If it makes you feel any better, my wife, kids and I have the same sort of room.

“On the subject of pets,” Dewalt said, and grimaced. “There are not many places to walk dogs, a few parks, and cat litter is in short supply though there may be some available in the near future. When you can handle it, please try to keep your pets in stasis for the time being.

“My family has two dogs. I took them out of stasis, realized it was functionally impossible to keep them and, reluctantly, put them back in stasis. They’ve been fine. It’s like no time passes to them. But my family misses them. We’ll try to find some better situation for pets in the near future.

“Where’s the bathroom?” Dewalt said, grinning. “The walls of the compartment are something called flexible metal, though it’s not metal, and we’ve taken to calling flexmet. The bathroom, bed, kitchen, et cetera all extend out of the walls. It gets more cramped. The stuff is really remarkable but you get sick of it. The walls are all TV screens as well. You can set it to be something other than gray, decorate it with pictures . . . You’ll get the hang of it.”

* * *

“Glass of water?” Jason asked. “Tea, Earl Grey, hot?”

“Water I can provide,” the AI said. A sink appeared under the TV and a cup extruded from the wall. Still attached to the gray material it extended across the room. It was . . . creepy. The stuff acted like tentacles and he had the sudden queasy sensation of being inside a tentacle monster. “Tea, you have some in storage. I can retrieve it but that is all you have and there is not much more on the station. There’s a food printer but no replicator.”

“Low tech, then, huh?” Jason said.

* * *

“Next, economics,” Dewalt continued. “Right now, there really aren’t any. It’s up to us to create an economy. How does that work? There are two forms of financial items, credits and units. Everyone currently has two thousand credits. Is that a lot? It’s hard to say. The value of money depends on many things. The basic meaning is that a credit is worth what someone will give you for it. I will strongly encourage you to be frugal with them. Until there are jobs, it’s what you’ve got to spend and nobody, not even economists, are sure how much they are worth. It’s like bitcoin that way.

“Your credits

are stored by the Pegasus Central Bank currently. You can access them through your AI. Everything, including the upcoming elections, is handled electronically. Yes . . . we’re having electronic elections. I know and even agree with the objections, but it’s what we’ve got.

“However, you cannot engage in trade through the central bank. Individuals and companies will have to set up banks for you to transfer the money into to be able to use it. The AI can explain the necessities of bank setup and banking regulations . . . ”

* * *

“Put me through to Monica’s husband, Richard Derren,” Jason said. “If he’s on station. Video.”

“Jason?” Richard said. It was the same gray background. “Is that you? Not the call I expected.”

Jason had already noticed that the clothes he’d been wearing on Earth, jeans and a T-shirt, were more than a bit baggy.

Richard, damn him, apparently hadn’t gained an ounce of weight since he was twenty. Other than younger he looked identical to the few times Jason had encountered him. Dress shirt, probably dress pants. And even twentysomething looking, he still looked “distinguished.” Monica’s description her first day at the bank.

“I’ve always said I had no hard feelings,” Jason said. “I don’t know what it takes to start a bank, but I’ll invest some of my credits in one that you run. Five hundred. You’re a good banker.”

“That’s . . . okay?” Richard said, frowning. “Are you sure?”

“What part of no hard feelings was unclear?” Jason asked. “You know banking. Seems like a good investment.”

“I’ll look at it,” Richard said.

“I’ve got a lot of contacts that based on what the President said are probably in this system,” Jason pointed out. “I can probably bring in customers. As well as potentially investors.”

“That is . . . a point,” Richard said. “My politics have always been quiet and my contact list may be less . . . extended. I’ll strongly consider it.”

“Say hi to Monica,” Jason said. “Out here.”

* * *

“Credits are only part of what you get, though,” Dewalt continued. “Then there are units. Units are partial ownership of most of the large capital items in the system. That is, you, individually, are part owner of this station, the various space factories, fuel mines, et cetera. Everyone has ten million units. Until some change by a democratic government, units cannot be exchanged for credits. They can only be exchanged for other units.

“As an example, a small in-system spaceship, of which there are several hundred, has eleven units of ownership. Eleven individuals own the actual ship. What units you got was random. And you only have one unit in any particular item. You might or might not have any

units in a spaceship, using the previous example. Large structures have multiple millions of units which means millions of individual owners, similar to publicly traded companies. Companies will have to be formed to run these facilities with the agreement of the unit owners. For example, a company would be formed, using credits as capital, to run a space factory. But it would have to lease or include the unit owners as part of that company.”

* * *

“How many of my contacts do you have, AI?”

“Virtually all of them that were electronic,” the AI replied. “Back to the beginning of your use of the internet. Thousands, and an idea of how close you were based on emails and texts.”

“That’s not privacy invasion or anything,” Jason said. “As soon as Richard sets up a bank, contact all of them, even the ones I barely know, and suggest the bank to them.”

“Will do,” the AI said.

“Can AIs keep track of who brought in new customers?”

“Yes.”

“Try to get something for me out of that,” Jason said.

* * *

“Unless you’re in finance all of that can get confusing. But it’s one way privatization has been managed in countries where the government owned everything then privatized. Right now, I’d suggest you hold onto your units and just wait to see how things shake out. Okay, now the station and the planet . . . ”

A hologram of a space station appeared at his side. The station was . . . odd. It was broken up into multiple cubes that were connected by tubes.

“The station has ten sections, each an individual State,” Dewalt said. “Each State is very close to an individual country. Each has its own power system, water system, government and materials. They are self-contained but connected to each other by various transportation systems for people and cargo.”

The view pulled back into space and it was apparent that the station was surrounded by a massive ovaloid shell. How big was hard to grasp.

“There is a shell around the station,” the President continued. “This is probably to keep space debris like asteroids from impacting the station or becoming a problem near it as well as reducing radiation in the station area. The shell has regular holes in it, ports, that allow for entry and exit by even the largest ships. I’ll note here that the station has its own defenses including both tractor beams and active defenses like space missiles and fighters.

“Calculations indicate that if something the size of the dinosaur-killer asteroid were to hit the shell, the internal tractor beams could keep it from

 impacting the station and the shell, itself, would shrug it off. So, the shell should keep off most physical threats associated with asteroids, comets and so on. Those types of threats. We’re not sure what caused this, but it indicates that there are serious potential threats.”

The view shifted around rapidly to show a large breach in the station’s shell that was on the side away from the planet and in the direction of deep space. As the view zoomed in it was clear that the shell had been punched in by something. There were jagged sections of metal still pointed inward toward the station.

“To give an idea of scale: The shell is twenty kilometers thick. That’s about twelve and a half miles. And it is made of an extremely strong metal alloy. I can’t really explain the amount of power necessary to do that damage. But by way of example, the previously mentioned dinosaur killer would barely leave a dent. What did that damage? How was it done? Impossible to tell. Using well-known science fiction, it would take the power of the Death Star to do damage like that. But it lends some credence to the Cybers saying that Earth was destroyed and that there were some battles going on at some point.

“Politics and laws next . . . 

“For the next ninety days, as President Designate, I have plenipotentiary power. That makes me something I absolutely hate: a dictator.”

Dewalt raised his hands and shook his head.

“Try not to worry about that too much. While I enjoyed being governor of Florida and was interested in being President, I’m not into dictatorship. So, I’m not going to let it go to my head. And it’s only for ninety days. The AIs are clear on that one.

“There is a proposed constitution. The constitution is based, generally, on the United States Constitution. It has a President, bicameral legislature, and a supreme court. However, it is, if anything, even more restrictive than the US Constitution; the ‘commerce clause’ loophole is aggressively closed, and some of the amendments are slightly . . . humorous. For example, it has the Second Amendment governing arms and it reads, and I quote:

“‘For the purpose of a system militia, sport, hunting, blowing up meteors that have offended you, and any other use that is not strictly prohibited by a Constitutionally Valid Law, the right to own, carry and/or transport weapons of any sort SHALL NOT BE Infringed.’ The Shall Not Be is all caps. ‘To be clear on this matter: if you can afford a space fighter, you can own a space fighter, as long as you don’t use it in an illegal manner.’”

* * *

“There are ten thousand space fighters in storage,” the AI said. “They cost ten million credits apiece. I knew you’d ask.”

“I see the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

* * *

“That gives you a gist of what this Constitution is like,” the President said, chuckling

and shaking his head. “But, as it pointed out, if you use a weapon in an unlawful manner, that’s different. So, don’t. We’re in a space station not only in space, which is very unforgiving, but filled with power and water systems. Do Not Fire is the order of the day. Seriously. You are legally allowed to carry around your Barrett rifle. There are no libs to own in the system. Keep it in the case. I fully support carry. But if you carry and pull the trigger you had better have a damned good reason. One accidental discharge in this place could cause massive harm. So, use responsible carry practices. End of lecture.

“There is a straightforward set of federal and state codes. As a politician and former practicing lawyer, cleaner and smarter than any I’ve ever seen. I’m sure we will manage to muck them up. There are state charters, the equivalent of a constitution, which have subtle differences by state that would appear to reflect the general tenor of the philosophies of the people in that state. In addition to the President Designate, there are designates for every major elected and appointed position down to state representatives, mayors, attorney generals, district attorneys, police leadership and judges. All of them have already been awakened and briefed even if it was a few hours ago.

“In ninety days, there will be a straight up down vote on the Constitution. If it is not ratified, there will be a Constitutional Convention to determine a new Constitution. If it is ratified, two weeks later there will be a vote on the state charters. Whether the state charters are ratified or not, sixty days after that vote there will be a system-wide vote for all elective positions. In the event of the charter not being ratified, the vote will take place as if it had been, then the legislature of the state can look at changing the charter.

“Federal senators under the current Constitution are appointed, one by the governor of the state, the other by the legislature. All state charters currently have state senators as representatives of territories, quadrants of the state stations referred to as sectors that don’t change with population, with the state house being representatives of the people and their territories changing dependent on population, in the same fashion as the federal Constitution.

“There are some states with primarily citizens from parliamentary systems. Those states are the most likely to dislike their charter but I think if you give it a try, you’ll find it works pretty well. The US electoral system worked well for better than two hundred years, with some hiccups, admittedly. But if you throw out the charter, you’ll need to enact a new one under the Constitution, assuming that it’s ratified.

“Next, let’s talk about the planet,” Dewalt continued, bringing up another hologram of a planet. There were oceans, several continents and two polar ice caps. But what was missing was any suggestion of a polar continent. “The planet was named Bellerophon by our Robotic Benefactors. Bellerophon, for those of you not into Greek mythology, was the rider of Pegasus.

“During the thirty days we had to prepare, we not only were waking up astronomers, we were waking up geologists and biologists to study the planet. And it’s fascinating.

“As with Earth, about seventy percent of the planet is water, mostly deep oceans. It has five continents along with two large groups of islands which are sunken continents or parts of continents with mostly shallow seas. Let’s look at the continents.

“The first, in order of size, we named Chindia.” Chindia was in the southern latitudes and appeared to stretch from just above the equator to the arctic regions. The upper portion was an irregular bulge with the southern portion being vaguely snakelike. It looked a bit like Siberia running north-south instead of east-west.

As the President Designate was speaking the view switched to pictures of the ground in Chindia showing various plants and animals.

“Why Chindia? It has plants and animals which are drawn from China and India. For example, there is bamboo, which is not native outside China, and there are no small cats. The small cat part of the ecosystem is filled by various species of mongoose, some of which are quite large.”

The view changed to a distant shot of a large mountain which looked a bit . . . bald. It had a distinct ring of snow and ice on it but above that it was clear again.

“None of the continents have the usual sorts of mountain ranges. There are some low hills but the main mountains, in most cases forming small ranges, are dormant pre-terraforming volcanoes. They are very large. In the case of Chindia, not only is it the largest continent but it has the largest volcano, which we’ve named Chindia Mons which just means Chindia Mountain.

“You’ll notice the ring of ice and snow. That would be a snowcap for a normal high mountain like Everest. Chindia Mons is so high, it reaches above the snow line. It is seventy-two thousand feet high, or about twenty-two thousand meters. It is so massive it creates a monsoonal effect in the entire northern region of Chindia.

“There’s a theory on how this planet came about and why it has such large stratovolcanoes,” Dewalt said. “Best the scientists can figure out, this was a planet similar to Mars before the Cyber Corps started terraforming. What they did was carve out continents by scooping up most of the crust of Bellerophon—that’s a lot of rock, people—and turning the leftover crust into the largest of the three moons. Yes, I said three. There’s one large moon, Luna Nova, and two smaller ones, Crysador and Geryon, that may be left over crust or may be captured asteroids. When the rest of the scientists get involved, they can debate it as much as they want.

“So, in brief, that’s Chindia and some on how this happened. There’s going to be lots of news stories about the planet and discussion so . . . moving on to America Nova, the second largest continent.”

“America Nova” was a continent that was vaguely rectangular with some isthmuses. It ran from what appeared to be subtropical to arctic and

had one of the large stratovolcanoes in the northern subarctic region. There was a large central north-south river, reminiscent of the Mississippi.

“Why America? It has plants and animals that conform to the Americas including South America. There are armadillos and anteaters, wild horses, and capybara at least in the southern regions. It also has one large river in its center we’ve called the Mississippi because of the similarity. It runs north-south and drains most of the continent.

“But it also has some Eurasian plants and animals. So, just covering predators, Chindia has tigers and leopards as well as some small bears. So does America Nova. But America Nova also has grizzly bears, pronghorn antelope and some species which have either evolved to be similar to extinct species or are extinct species. There are lions and tigers and bears. There are leopards but no puma. There are elephants. Some of them in the northern areas are hairy. In the arctic, the elephants appear to be wooly mammoths. The biologists are still debating. The big stratovolcano in the north we’ve been calling America Mons.”

* * *

“Richard is asking if you have more potential investors,” the AI said.

“Pick the ones from my contacts list who I was close to. People I’ve talked to in the last year or so. Give them a precis of his resumé. Tell them I’ll chat if they want but I think Richard’s a good guy to run a bank. Banks make money so it’s a good long-term investment.”

* * *

Dewalt pointed to an archipelago off the west coast of the America Nova continent. There were a few very small islands as well as one very large one that was probably a stratovolcano.

“This set of islands are the mountains of a sunken continent. During ice ages when the seas fall, this would be a land bridge to the next continent we call Europa.”

Europa was further north than America Nova with the southern portion probably in the temperate zone and extending further into the arctic. Again, it was vaguely oval with numerous inlets that were probably fjords. The planet had sustained at least one glaciation cycle.

A shallow sea set so far north . . . if there was a good warm water current up in that area the fishing was probably going to be similar to the Bering, which was the most productive sea on Earth.

“Europa, except for being colder, is pretty similar to America Nova, including the animals less those which were primarily tropical. Some difference in plant species. The stratovolcano is Europa Mons.

“Next continent, down here in the tropics . . . ”

This continent was shaped similarly to Africa but apparently much smaller and while it had a desert region in the south the Sahara was notably lacking. The stratovolcano was very central and possibly as large as Chindia Mons. Because it was a smaller continent, the mountain

took up much more of the land area.

“After much debate we settled on calling it Kush, which was an ancient African kingdom. The stratovolcano is as large as it looks and causes monsoon effects over the whole continent which is about the size of Australia. The biology is pretty much straight up African. Paleontologists were puzzled that America Nova, Chindia and Europa didn’t have hyenas since they were originally native to Eurasia. But Kush is the only continent with hyenas. Also, the only continent with Cape Buffalo, wildebeest, et cetera. Most of it’s tropical hot but the hills and mountains around Kush Mons are fairly cool and there are gorillas and chimps in those regions.

“So, we get to the last continent,” Dewalt said. “Avia. Avia is small, between the size of Greenland and Australia. It is set well away from the other continents. And it is called Avia because it has no mammals whatsoever. It is populated entirely by birds which look more like feathery dinosaurs . . . ”

The pictures and videos that had been running through the whole briefing were now of various sorts of birds, many flightless, some of them quadrupedal. They did look a bit like dinosaurs. Dinosaurs with beaks.

“To give some scale,” the President said. He brought up a picture of a large and fierce-looking bipedal bird with claws on its wings and a prominent, unquestionably predatory, beak. Next to it was a male human figure. The bird was at least eighteen feet tall. “That’s the largest predatory bird we’ve identified. And this is the largest herbivore.”

The quadrupedal bird was about the size of an elephant.

“As I said when I started, I’m the former governor of Florida,” Dewalt said, frowning thoughtfully. “And I’m from Florida. Born and raised. Florida is a weird mix of California and Texas. We’re a very conservative state in the United States meaning of that word. The new Second Amendment warms the cockles of my heart, dangers understood and accepted. Strong on business and free market. Very much like Texas that way.

“But we’re also conservative in an ecological sense. The environment in Florida isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Hot, humid, alligators and snakes and bugs are a constant. Hurricanes. But we love it. And as governor, I’ve often acted to protect it in a conservationist manner.

“After much discussion with experts, I’m putting this continent off limits for the time being with the exception of research. I hope that the incoming legislature, whatever form it might take, agrees. Bird ecologies like this one are very easy for mammals to wipe out. They eat the eggs of the ground-laying birds for one thing. Even letting some dogs or cats into this continent could destroy the ecosystem. This needs to stay a protected park for future generations. At least, that’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

“Which gets us to

 a question I know is on many people’s mind: colonization. How do we get off the station and onto the planet? How do we get out of these tiny rooms?

“There are six different classes of ships currently available. The term for each is based on how many shipping containers it can carry.”

He brought up a picture of a shipping container with a small ship next to it and a person for scale again.

“These shipping containers are pretty rad. They’re made from flexmet so all but the bottom can completely open. They also can counteract gravity, so they float. But that doesn’t mean they’re easy to move, especially full, because they retain mass. They have a time stasis system so anything loaded in them is locked in time. They can hold about fifty thousand pounds of cargo or about twenty-three thousand kilos. The ship next to them we’ve been calling a ‘six pack’ because in cargo configuration it will carry six shipping containers. ...