Machines can earn only when someone maintains them.

Thomas Mercer

Thomas runs an autonomous-fleet business on Earth and understands the costs beneath a productive machine.

Residents and a repair worker sort household goods at a bright Concord repair shop.

A view from Earth

Thomas’s work connects the novel’s questions about ownership to a business shaped by maintenance, insurance, financing, utilization, downtime, and competition. Productivity is not a passive income stream just because a machine can move without a driver.

Find this in the novel: Chapters 4, 32.

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Thomas Mercer

A view from Earth

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Concord gallery

A view from Earth

Part of the same world.

Keep a good book close.