As I walked into the terminal, I could immediately tell the difference between the real gravity of the planet and the artificial gravity on board the ship. Planetary gravity is solid, unchanging. The forcefields on a ship that produce the artificial gravity vary slightly, making things seem heavier at some times, lighter at others. It's disconcerting at first, but you get used to it.
The rest of the passengers disembarked from the liner. I could tell which ones had never traveled before; to them, everything was worthy of comment, even though we were still sealed inside the quarantine portion of the terminal, unable to see outside. Everything around us was artificial (well, except the gravity), and not much different from any of a number of places back on Earth. When you've seen one spaceport, you've seen them all.
I still don't really get space tourism. Most Earth-sized planets are so complex that an individual can't possibly get to know the whole planet in a single lifetime. It tends to take about two or three lifetimes. A planetary exploration expedition, even with the latest technology, still takes about 200 to 300 man-years to complete a survey of an entire planet. Most of the time, though, expeditions are only about ten people. Rather than take 30 years to explore the whole planet, they find some of the more temperate places to live and explore them first, making sure the place holds few surprises for the colonists that soon follow.
Then, more expeditions follow, and stake out more areas for colonies. Each colony adds a little bit to the expedition crews, and for most planets, all of the livable areas are usually mapped out within five or six years. Then colonization can begin in earnest. The explorers start to work on the inhospitable areas: the high mountain ranges, the deserts, the tropical rain forests, the tundra, and the ice caps.
It always struck me as odd that people would pay to see the sights of other planets when there's no shortage of openings on the Exploration Corps. Almost every planetary exploration expedition loses two or three people to the planet, either because of the hazards of exploration, or just deciding to settle with the colonists of a given planet.
I wasn't on Hector (technically, Tau Ceti 3) for sightseeing, though. I had business to do. Hector has a population of something like 45 million, which is enough to support more than just bare-subsistence living. There's a full planetary economy, with art and industry and agriculture. There are seven major cities and about 20 smaller ones, plus any number of small towns scattered throughout the globe.
"Good evening, ma'am," said the customs agent. "Do you have anything to declare?"
"Not that I know of," I said. The agent put my luggage through the scanner, looked carefully at my underwear and my personal relaxation massager, decided there was nothing he could hold me for, and sent me through the second airlock to get out of the quarantined gate area and into the terminal itself.
Now I really had to contend with the tourists. They were all going quite slowly, fascinated by the views of Teresa Harbor, and marveling at the greenish tone to the sky. Eventually I managed to wend my way around them and get to the taxi stand.
I gave my destination to the dispatcher, he put it into the reverse auction system, and after a few seconds of bidding, a cab pulled up and said, "Good evening, Ms. Bateman. This trip will be 25 dollars. Would you like music, conversation, or silence on your way to the hotel?"
"Music, please. Some early 21st-century ambient music; I need to destress after the crowd in the terminal," I said. The cab sealed its door, got clearance, and set off for the Harborview Concord.
The cab's sound system began playing Brian Eno, and I was able to relax a bit. By the time the song was over, the cab was pulling up to the hotel. "That was 25 dollars," the cab said.
"Please add five to that for a tip," I said.
"Thank you ma'am. It is now transferred. Would you like to retain my services during your stay? I have very reasonable daily and weekly rates," said the cab.
"No, thank you. I don't think I'll be needing a car this week."
"Thank you for your custom, then, ma'am, and consider us for your future needs." With that, the cab sealed the door and moved off to the standby line at the convention center down the block.
The lobby of the Harborview was clean and well-lit, but not too bright for guests just coming in from the twilight outside. The concierge saw me, and said, "Ophelia, welcome back. Is there anything I can get you?" He pressed the bellcart summons, and one wheeled up. I put my luggage on it.
"No thanks, Martin," I said, "I just want to get settled in my room. I'll probably be down for dinner, though."
"Oh, Grant is making a local delicacy tonight. Broiled shimakwa in a lemon garlic sauce. Fresh catch from the harbor. Your room is 433." He sent the data stream to my assistant, which beeped from my pocket. The bellcart also beeped. Concord doesn't spend money on things like speech-capable bellcarts. In fact, the only speech-capable beings at work in Concord hotels are humans. It's why Concord can offer a four-star hotel experience for a three-star price.
But a hotel room is a hotel room, no matter where you are. A bed, a bathroom, a phone, and a Gideon Faith Tome are in every hotel room in the Explored Regions. The differences you pay for are in cleanliness, size, and service. The Harborview was very clean and had every service, but the rooms were not huge.
I settled in, performed the necessary ablutions, and went down to the dining room for dinner. The house chef made a spectacular meal, as usual. The shimakwa was perfectly done, a brilliant combination of native and terrestrial flavors. The dining is communal style, so I sat with several other people, and had a pleasant conversation before heading back up to my room.
There was a message waiting for me; I had left my assistant in the room to gather my mail and verify my appointments for the next day. And I didn't want it bothering me during dinner. For one thing, it's rude to the other patrons, and for another, there are plenty of times when I just prefer to be unreachable. If there had been some urgent need for me, the hotel could have paged me.
"Hey Ophelia, this is Bill Davis at Williston Industries. Just to let you know, the CEO is going to be able to be at the meeting tomorrow. See you then," said the recorded message.
I suppose I should mention what it is that I do. I am a consultant brought in by businesses to solve problems of an unusual or particularly difficult nature. In this case, I was brought to Hector by Williston Industries, or WillCo as it was popularly known, to help figure out why their terraforming project on Tau Ceti 4 was stalled. Just last month, there had been two incidents with cargo ships headed for the planet with supplies for the early colonists. The first incident had been rather grisly, but the second one had been resolved to everyone's satisfaction, the people responsible caught and punished. Everyone's satisfaction, that is, except WillCo.
As the major corporate backer for the colony, WillCo had the most at stake to see the colony succeed. The loss of the cargo shipment had set them back twenty million dollars and two months. The twenty million dollars wasn't the big problem; the shipment had been insured. No, the problem was the two months of lost time. There had been specific pieces of needed equipment on that first ship, and it would take time to replace them and get them shipped to the colony again.
The aftermath of the second ship incident had suggested that there might be some sort of organized effort to sabotage the colony in general. There was no proof, though, and the guilty parties had never indicated that they were part of any larger organization, even when asked under a Halperin machine.
