I continue to let the NSA spy keep an eye on me, simply because I find it funny. I do more touring of the facilities - and get to climb into a few of the actual rockets they have on site - while waiting for everyone to come back.

Which they do, eventually. We’re out at the landing pad when she comes back, opens the door, and lets the astronauts out with their haul.

The director speaks directly to my minion, “If you’ll come with me, please, I have a few questions to ask…”

I talk as well, “He wants to determine if you qualify as a slave by his reckoning. Answer questions in that vein honestly,” 《But don’t do things like ‘teach him magic’ or tell him about my milk.》

“Certainly sir,” my Companion replies to both as she follows the director away.

Yeah, the obvious intent is that I don’t get to watch. But I’m curious how it’ll go, so I park myself a hundred feet away from where they’re having the discussion, and use lip reading via Improved Blindsight.

The director takes her to a small conference room, and has her sit down. “All right, so… first off, what’s your name?”

My companion considers, “Oh… let’s go with Alicia for now. Because A is first, and I’m the first of the spaceship models.”

The director picks up on it, “‘For now’?”

“Yes, Chris lets us select our own names when he makes us.”

“Made you, like in a lab?”

“No, he pretty much just wills us into existence. And I remember not existing. Existing is better, I enjoy it."

"How could you remember not existing?"

"I don't know how it works, and yet, it does.  I mean, do you know how your own memory works in detail?"

"Fair point.  And why do you serve Chris?"

"Why does a bird fly? Why does a fish swim? Why do bees make honey?"

"Evolutionary survival strategies."

"There’s some severe practical problems with big E if you look at it closely enough, but that’s beside the point. You gave a biology answer, but this is a question of slavery and freedom - philosophy. Switch subjects and try again."

"Because it's their nature."

"There you go. A bird is made to fly, a fish is made to swim, a bee is made to make honey - as you said: it is their nature.  By the same token, I was made to serve Chris. It is MY nature. And as long as he is not pointlessly cruel to me, I will continue to do so."

"And what happens if you stop serving Chris?"

"I don't know, it's never happened with any of us."

"And how many people like you are there?"

"Enough."

"Right… speculate, please. What do you think would happen if you stopped serving Chris?"

"Chris is a big fan of freedom. He'd probably wish me well, make a passport for me, and set me up with some cash to start a business and pay for my expenses for a little while. Not that I have many, if any."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I don't eat, I don't sleep, I can create minor things on my own, I could swim in lava, soak a lightning strike, or roll around naked on the snow. Seriously, I'm fully equipped to travel the stars - I have to be largely independent… although I am tied to Chris. I can only rest when he does."

"Huh?"

"Oh, I can be still, I can stop moving… but ultimately Chris is the source of my being. I am a part of him, I am not an entirely independent being. I recharge when he does."

"So more like a clonal tree, but with no real roots of your own… above ground, you seem like a normal, independent tree to most tests, but dig down and it's part of the same plant."

Alicia considers, "That metaphor works well enough for now."

The director considers, "All right then… I’m… confident enough that you're not a slave for now. But I really need to spend some time talking to a philosophy professor, because you are very murky. Let's go tell Chris."

They get up and come my way. I feign ignorance, "Ah, Director, you're back. So did you like what you heard?"

The director frowns, "Not entirely, but she doesn't seem to be in forced service, and definitely not the 1860 kind of slavery. So… let’s get this done."

He calls a notary, we sit down in a conference room, and we do the signing. He orders twenty off the bat, going for the extended carry capacity on all of them, and asks for passenger airlocks and the full life support package on all of them as well. All told, the rental fees come to five million a month.

And of course, he asks the obvious question, "So when can I expect delivery?"

"Within 24 hours of the first month's rent payment."

He hands me the briefcase, "I'll see you tomorrow, then. What time? I'd like to have some news crews here to see us take delivery."

I check the contents without opening it… it's full of stacks of neatly pressed and wrapped hundred dollar bills. Appraise tells me… yes, it's five million. I Fabricate a receipt as I store the briefcase in my Warp storage, "I plan to have them deliver themselves… how do you feel about them flying in at noon?"

He considers, "That'll work well… think they can do formation flying?"

"Yeah, no problem. I'll see you on the news."

I collect the information on how to invoice going forward, we make our goodbyes, I drop the relevant information off with my accountant, and then head home.

I have a Time Clone do the instant crafting for the Keyhomes themselves, as well as the airlocks inside them… but I make the demiplanes to increase the size of the Keyhomes myself. Why? So I’m “very familiar” with them, and will be able to stage a rescue if one of the Keyhomes is destroyed in space.

The keyhome setup for this rig is a grid three tall and three wide at the door (with the door in the center), with the tenth cube being set off to the side and filled with a normal utility package (water and power systems), and the actual airlock is inside the Keyhome - the idea being that anything big enough to get through the main door will also fit through the airlock. Behind the airlock is a Permanent Warp Portal to a demiplane I make for the purpose - one per Keyhome - and then set up with Bountiful so it has food for a very large number of people forever. I also set them up with wifi attached to the same type of fiber optic rig I use for my cell phone, connecting each to a high speed switch in a different demiplane. I might as well give them FTL comms, after all. I also set them up with power, water, and disposal. I set up twenty five of these setups - I figure NASA might want more eventually, and they’re fun to have. And even if they don’t, someone else probably will. There’s a couple of rich folks that are into space travel, right?

The companions themselves are mostly standard (I go with humanoid bases rather than orbs, so I get a bonus trait with Anthropomorphic Transformation and don’t need to negate any of their base form talents - which includes Regeneration and a zillion other Conjuration form talents), except that I use Permanent Transformation from the Alteration Sphere on them to grant them the various boosts that are needed. I can squeeze in a caster level of 31 (Circle Magic and Create Proxy with largely limitless minions, a +5 Implement, nineteen hit dice that I can make count fully, and a +2 boost from “Magical Mastery” ability copied from the Bound One), and with Greater Changes, three copies of Extreme Changes, and a bonus from using Anthropomorphic Transformation on a creature that’s already anthropomorphic I can squeeze in twelve traits. Elemental Purity (Air) for Fly 100 (Perfect) that does not have the ‘no running’ clause from the Fly spell, Star-Spawn Body (Starflight) for what they’re paying for, Manipulate Healing for Regenerate Flesh so they heal back lost body parts, Mechanical Customization for a force field, Flesh Pocket from Twisted Shapeshift to store the Keyhome, and more. Plus all the buffs, of course. Space is a very unforgiving environment, and I want them to be fine if, say, they get hit by a meteor traveling at 10% of c. Which they will: Regeneration is awesome, and they have three distinct methods of having it. Massive damage doesn’t unsummon them, it just takes them a while to recover.

This actually doesn’t take too long. So I have them ready on schedule, and have them fly in a diamond formation.  I don’t go with them. 

I do watch it on the news, though.

It’s a sunny day (My minions have the weather sphere: If I want it to be a sunny day for the presentation then it’s a sunny day for the presentation, whether it was supposed to be that weather or not). The camera is on the director as he’s reading a statement about the new era of space travel that they’re in thanks to the alliance with Arcana, and that the order is coming in today… and of course, my minions are right on time, and so he ends with “And there they are now!”

My flyers do a loop-de-loop for the cameras, then land on the stage behind August Allard. The lead Conjuration Companion walks up to the Director and hands him the earth half of the fiber optic net and a small index card with the current wifi network names and passwords as she explains: “It’s tied to the wifi on the inside of the storage areas, to allow you to use standard wifi connections so you can communicate your equipment - and your astronauts, if they have some device to translate between wifi and voice, like a phone - so you can keep up with everyone. Part of the rental.”

He nods and takes it, and continues shmoozing the news folks. I eventually turn it off.

Hmm. I wonder what project he took the funding from? I mean, sixty million a year isn’t much to NASA - they have an operating budget of something like two or three billion - but I’m somewhat curious what they dropped for this.

Not that it matters too much: They’re getting a lot of bang for their buck, and will probably not need nearly so many rocket launches now… that’s probably where they’re getting it.

Probably.