- Bussjaeger, Carl.
Bargaining Position.
Lyndeborough, NH: http://www.bussjaeger.us/, [2010] 2011.
-
In
Net Assets (October 2002)
the author chronicled the breakout of lovers of liberty from
the Earth's gravity well by a variety of individual initiatives
and their defeat of the forces of coercive government which
wished to keep them in chains. In this sequel, set in
the mid-21st century, the expansion into the solar system
is entirely an economy of consensual actors, some ethical and
some rogue, but all having escaped the shackles of the state, left to
stew in its own stagnating juices on Earth.
The Hunters are an amorous couple who have spent the last decade
on their prospecting ship, Improbable, staking claims
in the asteroid belt and either working them or selling the larger
ones to production companies. After a successful strike, they decide
to take a working vacation exploring Jupiter's leading
Trojan position. At this
Lagrangian point
the equilibrium between the gravity of Jupiter and the Sun creates a
family of stable orbits around that point. The Trojan position can be
thought of as an
attractor
toward which objects in similar orbits will approach and
remain.
The Hunters figure that region, little-explored, might collect all
kinds of interesting and potentially lucrative objects, and finance
their expedition with a contract to produce a documentary about their
voyage of exploration. What they discover exceeds anything they imagined
to find: what appears to be an alien interstellar probe, disabled
by an impact after arrival in the solar system, but with most of its
systems and advanced technology intact.
This being not only an epochal discovery in human history, but
valuable beyond the dreams of avarice, the Hunters set out to
monetise the discovery, protect it against claim jumpers, and
discover as much as they can to increase the value of what they've
found to potential purchasers. What they discover makes the
bargaining process even more complicated and with much higher stakes.
This is a tremendous story, and I can't go any further describing it
without venturing into spoiler territory, which would desecrate
this delightful novel. The book is available from the
author's Web site
as a
free PDF download;
use your favourite PDF reader application on your computer or mobile
device to read it. As in common in self-published works, there are a
number of copy-editing errors: I noted a total of 25 and I was reading
for enjoyment, not doing a close-proof. None of them detract in any way
from the story.
April 2013 