I opened the door. Her office was even less fancy than I’d expected. Spartan, even. A few shelves with family photos jutted out of raw aluminum walls. Her sheet-metal desk looked like something from the 1950s. She did at least have a proper office chair—her one concession to personal comfort. When I’m seventy years old I’ll probably want a nice chair too.
She typed away on a laptop. The older generations still preferred them to Gizmos or speech-interface devices. She somehow carried grace and aplomb even while hunched over at her desk. She wore casual clothes and, as always, her traditional dhuku headscarf. She finished typing a sentence, then smiled at me.
“Jasmine! Wonderful to see you, dear. Please, have a seat.”
“Yea-thank-yes. I’ll…sit.” I settled into one of the two empty chairs facing her desk.
She clasped her hands and leaned forward. “I’ve been so worried about you, dear. What can I do to help?”
“I have a question about economics.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Economics? Well, I do have some knowledge in that area.”
Understatement of the century. This woman had transformed Kenya into the center of the global space industry. She deserved a Nobel Prize. Two, really. One for Economics and another for Peace.
“What do you know about Earth’s telecom industry?” I asked.
“That’s a broad topic, dear. Can you be more specific?”
“What’s it worth, you think? Like, what kind of revenues do they pull down?”
She laughed. “I could only hazard a guess. But the entire global industry? Somewhere in the five-to-six-trillion-dollar-per-year range.”
“Holy shit! Er…pardon my language, ma’am.”
“Not a problem, Jasmine. You’ve always been colorful.”
“How do they make so much?”
“They have a huge customer base. Every phone line, every internet connection, every TV cable subscription…they all create revenue for the industry—either directly from the customer or indirectly through advertising.”
I looked down at the floor. I had to take a moment.
“Jasmine?”
“Sorry. Kind of tired—well, to be honest, I’m hungover.”
She smiled. “You’re young. You’ll recover soon, I’m sure.”
“Let’s say someone invented a better mousetrap,” I said. “A really awesome fiber-optic cable. One that reduced costs, increased bandwidth, and improved reliability.”
She leaned back in her chair. “If the price point were comparable to existing cables, it would be a huge boon. And the manufacturer of that product would be swimming in money, of course.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And let’s say the prototype of this new fiber optic was created in a specially made satellite in low-Earth orbit. One with a centrifuge aboard. What would that tell you?”
She looked puzzled. “This is a very odd discussion, Jasmine. What’s going on?”
I drummed my fingers on my leg. “See, to me that means it can’t be created in Earth’s gravity. It’s the only reason to make a custom satellite.”
She nodded. “That sounds reasonable. I take it something like this is in the works?”
I pressed on. “But the satellite has a centrifuge. So they do need some force. It’s just that Earth’s gravity is too high. But what if the moon’s gravity were low enough for whatever process they’re using?”
“This is an oddly specific hypothetical, dear.”
“Humor me.”
She put her hand on her chin. “Then obviously they could manufacture it here.”
“So, in your expert opinion, where’s a better place to manufacture this imaginary product: low-Earth orbit or Artemis?”
“Artemis,” she said. “No question. We have skilled workers, an industrial base, a transport infrastructure, and shipping to and from Earth.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “That’s kind of what I thought.”
“This sounds very promising, Jasmine. Have you been offered a chance to invest? Is that why you’re here? If this invention is real, it’s definitely worth putting money into.”
I wiped my brow. Conrad Up 19 was always a comfortable 22 degrees Celsius, but I was sweating nonetheless.
I looked her in the eyes. “You know what’s strange? You didn’t mention radio or satellites.”
She cocked her head. “I’m sorry, dear. What?”
“When you talked about the telecom industry. You mentioned internet, phone, and TV. But you didn’t bring up radio or satellites.”
“Those are certainly parts of it as well.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But you didn’t mention them. In fact, you only talked about the parts of the industry that rely on fiber optics.”
She shrugged. “Well, we’re talking about fiber optics, so that’s only natural.”
“Except I hadn’t brought up fiber optics yet.”
“You must have.”
I shook my head. “I’ve got a very good memory.”
She narrowed her eyes slightly.
I pulled a knife from my boot holster and held it at the ready. “How did O Palácio find my Gizmo?”
She pulled a gun from under the desk. “Because I told them where it was.”
“A gun?!” I said. “How did a gun get into the city?! I never smuggle weapons!”
“I’ve always appreciated that,” she said. “You don’t have to keep your hands up. You do, however, have to drop that knife.”
I did as I was instructed. The knife floated down to the floor.
She kept the gun pointed at me. “May I ask, how did you come to suspect me?”
“Process of elimination,” I said. “Rudy proved he wasn’t selling me out. You’re the only other person with access to my Gizmo location info.”
“Reasonable,” she said. “But I’m not as sinister as you think.”
“Uh-huh.” I gave her a dubious look. “But you know all about ZAFO, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re going to make a shitload of money off of it?”
She scowled. “Do you really think so little of me? I won’t make a single slug.”
“But…then…why…?”
She settled back into her chair and relaxed her grip on the gun. “You were right about the gravity. ZAFO is a crystalline quartzlike structure that only forms at 0.216 g’s. It’s impossible to make on Earth, but they can make it here with a centrifuge. You’re such an intelligent girl, Jasmine. If only you’d apply yourself.”
“If this is turning into a ‘You have so much potential’ lecture, just shoot me instead, okay?”
She smiled. She could be grandmotherly even while holding a gun. Like she’d give me a butterscotch candy before putting a hole in my head. “Do you know how Artemis makes its money?”
“Tourism.”
“No.”
I blinked. “What?”
“We don’t make enough from tourism. It’s a large part of our economy, yes, but not enough.”
“But the economy works,” I said. “Tourists buy stuff from local companies, companies pay employees, employees buy food and pay rent, and so on. And we’re still here, so it must be working, right? What am I missing?”
“Immigration,” she said. “When people move to Artemis, they bring their life savings with them. Then they spend it here. As long as our population kept growing that was fine, but now we’ve plateaued.”
She angled the gun away from me. She still had a good grip on it, but at least she wouldn’t kill me by mistake if she sneezed. “The whole system has become an unintentional Ponzi scheme. And we’re just cresting the top of the curve now.”
For the first time, my attention was torn away from the gun. “Is…are we…is this whole city going bankrupt?”
“Yes, if we don’t take action,” she said. “But ZAFO is our savior. The telecom industry will want to upgrade, and ZAFO can only be cheaply made here. There’ll be a huge production boom. Factories will open, people will move here for jobs, and everyone will prosper.” She looked up wistfully. “We’ll finally have an export economy.”
“Glass,” I said. “This has always been about glass, right?”
“Yes, dear,” Ngugi said. “ZAFO is an amazing material, but like all fiber optics, it’s mostly glass. And glass is just silicon and oxygen, both of which are created by aluminum smelting.”
She ran her hand along the sheet aluminum desk. “Interesting how economics works, isn’t it? Within a year, aluminum will be a by-product of the silicon industry. And that aluminum will be handy too. We’ll have a lot of construction to handle the growth we’re about to have.”
“Wow,” I said. “You really are all about economics.”