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Chapter 15

Chapter 15

July 17th 2157

The chilly ocean air wafted over the railing of the shuttle boat without too much resistance.  The air mixed with a salty tang tried to pull Logan from his dark mood.  Working for the company as a translator had its ups and downs, and travel was definitely an up.  Actually, it was almost all up, except for the baby-sitting.

Logan had graduated from The University of New Congo among the top of his class in Linguistics.  Languages had come easy for him.  Before he had finished prep school at the age of eighteen he had already mastered his third.  After four years at University he could honestly say that he was fluent in nine languages, with at least two dialects in each.

The company had wasted no time putting him to work, and he was currently recognized as one of the top translators in the world.  Most of his jobs were translating for world leaders and officials.  But there were many other jobs that filled in his time in between the important official ones.

Three months ago he had just finished as the official translator for a large budget movie in Australia involving actors and actresses from over forty countries.  Most had brought personal translators, so Logan found that he often had little to do.  The job became a six-month extravagant working vacation.

It was after this job that he had received the unfortunate news that his brother had tragically died on a shuttle en rout to the Mars Station.  The news had struck hard and left Logan unable to work for several weeks.

Growing up Logan had been Jacobs’s protector.  He had watched out for him and helped him in any way that he could.  He felt a little guilty that this was the first time that they had been apart for any reasonable amount of time, and Jake had died.  He knew that there wasn't anything that he could have done to save his brother, but it still ate at him.

Slowly, with the help of his mother he began to claw his way out of his depression.  A month later he took his first job, and then another, and another.  Each time it became easier to be in the presence of others.  Acting the part of a good translator, he marched forward.

Today he was escorting a group of CEO's, and government officials to the Atlantic Space Elevator.  The company owned almost all of the patents that were involved in building a space elevator, and guarded them fiercely.  The elevator had been the draw to bring this group, but the company was actually selling the rights to use other patents that they owned.

The two patents that the group would be looking at today involved water.  The first one was a small modification that made the tidal energy seven times more efficient than the next model on the market.  This was the source of power for the space elevator.  The other was a machine that made desalinization of salt water much quicker and more efficient than any previous models.

The moderately sized shuttle boat was a modified hydro jet that could travel at incredible speeds.  Underwater hydrofoils raised the body of the boat off the surface of the ocean giving it a deceptively smooth ride.  It would only take a few hours to travel the two thousand kilometers to the docking pad of the space elevator.

The boat had a large deck on top, where those willing to brave the wind could stand and watch the water almost literally fly by.  Logan was alone on the deck with his eyes closed.  It didn't take long for his eyes to become wind burned but he didn't want to go back into the crowded dinning area where the VIP's lounged lazily making small talk.  He still didn't feel comfortable in the presence of strangers, and the group could do without him for a little while longer.

Like with most important people, and this group was no different, they had brought private translators.  But the translator’s usually only spoke two or three languages and that limited the amount of communication within the whole group.