WHO: James Holden and YOU WHAT: Catch-all for April WHEN: Fantasy April WHERE: The Gallows and Kirkwall, mostly, but around NOTES: Starters in the comments, lmk if you'd like something bespoke or feel free to drop in a wildcard.
"OK, I was going to offer to buy you a drink after this frustrating afternoon anyway, but now we are definitely getting drinks because I deeply need to know if you were in danger of blowing up the Gallows. Preferably with details."
"Good to know, as someone who currently lives in the Gallows. But my point still stands. Do you want to finish up here and get that drink now, or do you have plans? I can take a rain check if I need to."
"Sound logic." As she starts to pack up her things, she asks, "Is the alcohol here really different than what you get at home? Even though there's way less variety, most of what is here doesn't seem wildly different to me, but maybe you've developed past grapes stomped into wine by your time."
"Wow, man, that's bleak. Do you ever get planet-side stuff, or does the distance make that impractical?" She's conscious of asking a question that may be silly, but there's no other good way to learn about a time so different from her own.
He shakes his head. It's an answer that comes easily, an economic system he knows well, or well enough.
"It's 560 million klicks from Earth to Ceres Station. It's a hell of a lot more than that once you start thinking about the outer planets. Moving resources that kind of distance takes a long time and is expensive as shit. Besides which, Earth and Mars care more about bringing raw materials in than selling nice things out to the Belt."
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Probably. It's still hard to say what that pyramid is capable of doing.
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Is what he confirms, moving to pack up some of these papers for later.
"Besides, I think we could both use a drink right now."
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"Yeah," he says, "booze from vat-grown yeast and fungi is most of what you can find in space. It's even shittier than it sounds."
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"It's 560 million klicks from Earth to Ceres Station. It's a hell of a lot more than that once you start thinking about the outer planets. Moving resources that kind of distance takes a long time and is expensive as shit. Besides which, Earth and Mars care more about bringing raw materials in than selling nice things out to the Belt."