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Chapter 5 of next April book

Chapter 5

 

The next morning at breakfast April thanked Gunny again for supporting her at ISSII.

“It wasn’t so much supporting you personally, as I agree we can’t let the Norte Americanos slide back into ignoring treaty provisions and limiting travel to Home. They will just keep picking away at it if we let them. We can’t spare the funds or personnel to put an observer at every USNA exit point. It might precipitate another war to try. So it’s really up to all of Homes citizens to object, if they see somebody trying to detain a Home traveler.”

“I’m going to address that next Assembly,” April vowed. “Not to ask a vote, or suggest  anyone be obligated, but just to make an advisory announcement.”

“Not everybody has the nerve or ability to get in the face of customs agents. I saw the necessity of that. However, taking such a hard line with the guard later was more than was necessary. That was twice in a day you put yourself on the line, at risk. If you keep that up the odds will catch up with you. I think the second incident was more a matter of temper than principal.”

“You’re right, what can I say?”

“That’s sufficient. I was glad you didn’t call out Amos though. He is well known down below, and even if you were technically correct on custom, I think it would have been bad publicity. So far your image has been pretty positive with the common Earthies. If the politicians and security people hate you, well, there is a huge public undercurrent against them too.”

“Yes, I keep hearing that, but I don’t see it.”

Gunny shrugged. “It’s hard to explain if you haven’t lived there. They may be evil, but they aren’t stupid. The ways they have to control people have been carefully refined, especially the last hundred years. Most people don’t see any hope of getting public support if they openly oppose the government, so they don’t speak out publically. While the government has been quietly perfecting repression the people have invented all sorts of ways to resist. There is much more sabotage, wrecking, than is admitted. That gives some an outlet for their frustrations without open rebellion. I never saw any advantage to rebellion. I guess I was part of the repression, since I kept Wiggen safe.”

“But Wiggen was an advantage for us for a long time. She was moderate enough not to want to attack us, when everyone else were just arguing how to time our destruction.”

“I’m still not sure we are far enough away to not be a target. When we were attacked last year and your dad acted to move us out here L2, it seemed a long way away compared to Earth filling half our sky. But Earth is still there even if it looks more like a marble now. It still isn’t just another pinpoint in the heavens. I’m glad actually the halo orbit lets us monitor the Earth traffic directly. If we were ever tucked in all the way behind the moon I’d worry it was possible to sneak up on us and we might not see them coming until they came over the lunar horizon.”

“Always being in line of sight lets Jeff have direct command of his weapons. I’m more comfortable with that than working through relays,” April admitted.

“I was there you know,” Gunny said lifting an eyebrow. “You and Heather have the control codes too, not just Jeff, unless he took them back and you didn’t tell me?”

“No,” April said, embarrassed. “I just figure if they get used Jeff will do so long before Heather I would release them.”

She looked at Gunny distressed, and he was smart enough to keep silent when she was so visibly thinking something over hard.

“Jeff has some real issues from when he had to bomb the Jiuquan spaceport,” April revealed. “Not that he wouldn’t do it again, because once they had captured his ship there really wasn’t any other choice but to destroy it. If the Chinese had been given time to take her apart and reverse engineer everything we’d all be dead by now without a doubt. But he really had no idea the yield on that weapon would be enough to take out the adjoining town too. He wasn’t faking that. He might have been able to destroy it beyond any data recovery with the lighter warheads we had, but he just couldn’t take the chance when it was a matter of Home’s survival, when he had one big enough to vaporize the whole area even if they were already taking stuff off the ship.”

“What do you mean issues?”

“He sits and has crying jags. He has bad dreams. I finally got him to get some medication to help the PTS before we went down on vacation. I think taking a break helped too, but he is not like some of the Earthies paint him, indifferently depraved, like is a qualifier in Earth law for a murderer. If anything he is too smart, and only too aware of all the innocent individuals harmed.”

“Is he safe to retain control of his systems?” Gunny asked, frowning.

“Would you want somebody holding them who it wouldn’t be bothered to use them?”

Gunny nodded reluctant agreement. “OK, sometimes there are no good choices.”

Across the cafeteria at the order counter the fellow Matt Wilson and his two kids were getting breakfast. April called them to Gunny’s attention with a tilt of her head and a raised eyebrow. “You mind if I call them over?”

“Not at all. Those kids didn’t argue in the shuttle when I told them to go strap in, I would expect a lot of Earth kids to balk when a stranger started giving them orders. I was impressed.”

Matt herded the two little ones ahead of him. When they all had their trays he turned to the seating. April waved and invited them to the chairs opposite her and Gunny with a sweep of her hand. He nodded and started their way with no hesitation, so he must not think her a trigger happy lunatic.

“Miss Lewis, Mr. Tindal,” he said formally.

“Gunny is fine.”

“And I’m happy with April.”

“Thank you, for myself, but my children are trained to address older people respectfully.”

“I wouldn’t think to sabotage that,” Gunny agreed.

“This is Iaan and Jenifer,” their father introduced them.

“Welcome to Home,” April said, looking at the kids to make sure they knew they were included in the greeting. “Are you visiting or immigrating?” she directed at the father.

“Immigrating, if I can manage it.”

“We have a labor shortage, so you should be able to find something.”

“I’m hoping to not have to look for a job. I’m a writer, and circumstances are such now in North America that most of what I’d earn would go to my ex-wife for the rest of my career, so I had no real future there. It wasn’t the best of times to leave either, but I came to realize it would never be a better time to leave, so I bit the bullet and did it.”

“And yet you retain the children, despite having the minority of the income. I’d have expected your wife to pay child support,” Gunny said. It sounded like a question though.

“At the time I had no income. But my quitting my job to write full time was the reason my wife divorced me, although it was at her father’s urging. What can I tell you? It was California, with a female judge, very good lawyers hired with her father’s money, and the kids were not something that fit her proposed new life. She spoke frankly about that in front of the kids, so it’s far too late to shield them from that.”

“Giving her two thirds of any royalties I earned was to punish me for quitting my job as an insurance adjuster and doing what I wanted. They all assumed that I expected to live off her father’s money, and when my first three books sold really well it wasn’t welcome, it just pissed them off. Her dad sees all writers, poets, musicians and artists as lazy leaches avoiding honest work, unless they have been dead long enough to satisfy him. Bach, or Hemingway, or Paul McCartney for example, all get a free pass.”

April and Gunny were stunned to silence for a bit. That he’d speak so bluntly in front of his children did say they’d heard it all before, or worse. And they didn’t so much as twitch at hearing it again. Finally April worked up the courage to ask, “What does your father-in-law do that he can be so disdainful of creative people?”

“Ah, interesting question. He’s a lawyer too, but not the sort that does divorces, he does corporate law dealings with finance, and things like mergers. Things society needs to his mind.”

“Home doesn’t have lawyers,” April told him.

Matt was sipping coffee. He dropped the cup long enough to say, “The horror,” sarcastically and went on with his breakfast.

April was trying to think what that would do to a child and their lifelong attitudes to hear they were unwanted and see their custodial parent attacked. She frequently thought Earthies were barking mad, but this was a new level. Sometimes she’d felt her mother was distant, and sometimes that she’d favored her brother, but she’d never outright rejected April. She’d have asked other questions, but the two kids sitting there listening still made her not want to offend their sensibilities further. So she changed the subject.

“We have at least one writer I know, Ben Patsitsas, who writes mysteries.”

“Sure, I’ve read some of his stuff. I liked it.”

“There’s a bunch of guys, some retired, some self employed. Most morning, a bit later, there will be a cluster of them sitting close to the coffee. There might be three or a dozen, any given day. I don’t recognize your name though. What do you write?”

“I write romances, so far they have all been historical romances, but you wouldn’t recognize my work because I write as Molly Wilson.”

Jenifer looked up from her pancakes and smiled. “It’s lots of fun to tell your teacher your dad is Molly Wilson.” Her brother nodded amused agreement. “Especially when she’s a big fan.”

The two seemed unusually comfortable with each other. April kept expecting a frown or a nasty crack, but there was no sign of sibling rivalry. Instead they sat touching hip to hip. She had the sad thought that she wished her brother had been like Iaan when he was alive.

“Ms. Lewis, are there many children our age on Home?” Jenifer asked. “Will we be able to make friends?”

“I remember my mom told me recently there are still less than a hundred children on Home. She runs a private school, and the last we talked she had eighteen students. They all study in a room in common, because there aren’t enough of any age to have grades or classes like an Earth school. There were even less kids when I was growing up. There will only be a few kids your age, but most of my friends growing up were older than me, some adults even.”

Iaan and Jenifer exchanged a look that was a little alarm, a little consternation, and Iaan spoke for them. “On Earth, if we weren’t afraid to have an adult as a friend most of the time they  would afraid to be our friend anyway. I never had a teacher I’d have called a friend. They all had an obligation to snoop on us for the government, and some of them were pretty good at it. If they tried to be a friend somebody would have thought it was a bad thing. They’d probably get a warning on their record that they had an inappropriate relationship with a student. We had a teacher who played basketball at the city park where some of his students went, and when it was hot, he not only wore short sleeves, he took his shirt off. They kicked him out of the park and made him transfer to a school in a different county.” His sister nodded solemn agreement.

“My brother was older than me,” April told them. ” He was three years older, but we did all sorts of things together. We didn’t always get along, but when you don’t have that many people to do stuff with you learn to get along. That’s a big difference about Home. If you treat people as disposable you run out of people who will have anything to do with you pretty fast. That applies to adults doing business with each other too. It isn’t like Earth where if you get upset over some little thing and want to ignore somebody there are lots of other people to chose from.”

“Do you just have one brother?” Jenifer asked.

“I did. He made a few mistakes, and got with the wrong people a couple years ago, and his ship blew up while it was going around the moon. I wish we’d still been close when I lost him, but we were having a lot of trouble with each other. Now I’ll never have a chance to fix that.”

The brother and sister looked at each other. You could see them imagining the same situation for themselves. Jenifer put her hand around Iaan’s elbow like she was going to make sure he didn’t get away. It was kind of touching.

“The lady there that made your breakfast, Ruby, has been my friend since I was your age. She and I traded information lots of times. I knew when stuff like sani-wipes or gloves might get bumped back on the shipping schedule, and she seemed to know every time somebody changed jobs or was dating somebody new. I’d make sure she got stuff she needed before it ran low, and she knew who could drop stuff off at people’s cubic for us, or who would print stuff for my brother and me.” She smiled. “That was back when we didn’t have a print shop you could walk in and had to get somebody to run it off their private printer. Things are a lot different now. I’d come by and when she had a break we’d sit at a table and chat a bit. We’re still friends, and her husband is a good guy to know too. He works outside flying a construction scooter mostly.”

“When we went to public school none of the cafeteria ladies were allowed to talk to us. They would tell us if our lunch choices were outside the guidelines, but never just friendly chat. In fact the last school I went to we weren’t allowed to talk at lunch. We still would sign and point and do stuff like split up something we hated on a couple trays so the monitor didn’t see us throw away too much. You got written up if you wasted too much,” Iaan explained.

“I can’t see how that is much different than being in prison,” April said.

Iaan laughed out loud, shocked at that. “You couldn’t say that either! If you did you’d be labeled antisocial. Of course I guess the guys in real prison are already so solidly antisocial it wouldn’t matter what they say. I mean, what else are they going to do to them?”

“Stick them in solitary?” their dad asked.

“Yeah, like detention,” Iaan agreed, frowning at the new thought.

“And your parents wouldn’t have been upset to know you were visiting with a service worker?” Matt asked.

“Not at all. You might have to reconsider how you regard people here. Some of the things that were true on Earth may not be here. There aren’t a lot of stupid people on Home, even if their job description sounds menial to you. Even for something like corridor maintenance and cleaning, or supply and delivery, they screen for work history and psychological profile. They have more applicants than positions so they can be picky. People with degrees accept manual labor to get up here. You don’t get weirdoes, stinks, and thieves. People who can’t get along or manage to hide a problem end up back down on the mud ball pretty quickly.”

“Now Ruby, as an example, is pretty sharp. She grew up in Detroit, spent some time as a loadmaster in the air force, and was a college professor teaching Medieval music before she came to Home. But if you called her Doctor Dixon she might smack you with a spatula. She’s always been very insightful about people and what motivates them. I’ve learned a lot from her, and she was never shy to tell me when I was out of my depth.”

“OK, things are different up here. That’s why we’re here, but I can see it’s going to be true of a whole lot of little things I hadn’t planned on being different,” Matt admitted.

“It’s true, we are getting more people now who are self selecting to come to Home, instead of being hired. But there are still a lot of barriers to really undesirable people coming in. If you don’t have a job or a sponsor it takes quite a bit of money to live here until you can establish yourself. You have to be smart or lucky or ruthless enough to get that much money. Things on Earth are making it harder all the time for an average person to accumulate much wealth. That’s why you are here right? They were going to make it hard for you to make an honest living.”

“Yes, I don’t know if you’d classify me as smart or lucky, but I could see every time I made more money they were going to take more. I’m moving my book sales to other countries, and the new ones I’m already working on will never have any connection to the USNA. They simply won’t have any handle on me to collect the money the court awarded. They may try to block my North American sales, but almost everyone now can circumvent those sort of controls if they want to. There are all sorts of black markets and grey markets and bartering.”

“I’m trying to understand how the Earth economy works. My partner Jeff has me studying economics, and I read the news feeds and some of the private journals, but nobody will speak frankly about how the underground economy works, or how big it really is. If you’d explain the real mechanics of it to me it would be very helpful. I can trade you help with how things work up here. Does that sound beneficial?”

“Yes, but I’m trying to understand, how is it that Jeff assigns you something to study? Are you both in some sort of a study group in school? He looks quite a bit older than you. And are you planning a career track that will use economics?” He looked genuinely puzzled.

“I’m not in any formal school right now, except a Japanese class at the University of Kyoto. I don’t think I’ll ever not be studying something. I’m studying to get my lander certification, and I’ll have to put some hours in to qualify on the specific type lander I have access to. When I went down to Earth the trip before this one, I suggested strongly to Jeff he start a bank while there was a window of opportunity on Home. By the time I came back he’d formed it, and was gathering a clientele and doing transactions. He’d just started coining a local currency, the Solar, and if I wanted to be of any use to Jeff and Heather to actually help run the thing I needed to understand economics. Since it was my idea in the first place it seems like it would be pretty hard to refuse to help run it. We three do a lot of business together, and they always pitch in when I need something.”

“How can you contract to do business? I mean, how old are you?”

“I’m sixteen, but I’m an emancipated adult. If I look young to you, well I’ve had Life Extension Therapy, and it pretty much all kicked in before I was fourteen. I probably won’t look much different until I’m past twenty five. I’m content with how I look. If anybody has a problem with it – it’s their problem.”

“She’s the girl who was in Hawaii last year dad. They tried to hush it all up because it’s super antisocial to dress like her, and she disappeared from Hawaii and nobody knew where she went or anything, and then she showed back up here, and was in the gossip boards and stuff again. But my friends in Europe and Australia all send me pix and stuff the net censors block. I got ’em all on my phone. I’ll show you sometime if you want,” Jenifer offered.

“Don’t believe everything you see about me,” April begged. “If you want to know if something is true ask me and I’ll tell you honestly. OK?”

“OK, then tell me please, how can you eat such a big breakfast? You had twice as much as Mr. Tindal and you’re half his size.” Her dad looked horrified at the question.

“My parents bought me some genetic modifications, and I’ve added some myself later. My metabolism can run quite a bit faster than normal so I eat more. It lets me do some things like run a lot further than other people.”

“That’s really personal stuff, Jenifer,” her dad told her.

“Well she said to ask!”

“If there is ever anything I ever don’t want to answer, I’ll just tell you. Your dad is right, I have some stuff I keep private, just not the same stuff he might guess. Now down on Earth lots of people thing gen mod people are horrible, and a lot of people think Life Extension Therapy is bad too, but nobody thinks a thing of it up here.”

“This is a whole lot better than the breakfast at school,” Iaan told them. “And there’s no compliance officer counting our food groups.” He blinked and looked at his empty plates and his sister’s with a funny expression. “And I didn’t even think about throwing any of it away!”

* * *

“You were unusually tactful with Mr. Wilson,” Gunny said later, out in the corridor.

“Compared to my – usual self?”

“Well, you could have felt he was attacking your friend Ruby when he suggested service workers were not fit company. You do tend to have a certain directness.”

“I’m remembering how Lin told us how careful they had to be hiring people for the boat. It is probably the same in North America. Desperate people do bad things. If Lin is careful of his boat and crew how much more is Matt going to guard his kids? But we’ll nudge him along to see it’s Earth think, that he can ease off on a little bit. At least I hope we don’t get more weirdoes and criminals than we can weed out, so Home stays different than Earth.”

“I’m sure we’ll have some native criminals. Some people are just born defective, and the Assembly will have to deal with them. I’m just not sure how yet. You can hardly exile somebody who was born here. Where would we send them?” Gunny asked.

“Good question.”

“You should know, I elected to pay taxes so I can vote.”

“Good, that’s one more sensible voter.”

Another snippet of next “April” series book.

Chapter 4

 

They docked at ISSII and never went in spin, staying in the zero G mast, just moving down to another dock that had a screen showing a shuttle to Home in twenty minutes. The well inked man and his two bodyguards joined them, with one of the guards standing right at the hatch the entire wait, obviously intent on having first choice of seats when they boarded.

The guards handled themselves with enough finesse they had to have some previous zero G experience. The musician was a little more awkward, but was sensible, not trying anything fancy. He showed no discomfort, so either he had a natural ability to tolerate the weightlessness or he had the good sense to take the offered pill.

They were switching carriers, so their luggage was delivered to the dock. April didn’t bother, but Gunny broke the Tongan customs seal on his bag and put on a belt with a matched brace of 10mm pistols and a magazine carrier. He was after all on duty.

“Isn’t that a decompression hazard?” the  body guard near them asked, worried.

“Not with low velocity frangible ammo.” Gunny didn’t tell him the left gun held armor piercing, just in case. He’d really try not to use that one.

The flight crew arrived early and opened up the shuttle. Two ladies, both middle aged, and both with that smooth tight face and easy movement that said they had life extension therapy. April couldn’t put a name to them, but she’d seen both before. They had on the grey uniform with a stylized rocket logo of Larkin Lines. April was happy to see that, they ran a tight outfit.

They filled the luggage locker full as most orbit to orbit travelers didn’t have the volume of bags they’d brought up from an Earth visit. The musician’s body guards looked happier now, being able to pick their seats. Then they sat for awhile because there were three paid seats empty, and they had ten minutes until their published departure time.

It was down to the last thirty seconds before two kids hit the hatch fast, and utterly confident like birds landing on a fence, and the older one, the boy of about ten crossed over his sister and stuck his head in the hatch to the flight cabin. “Our dad is coming.” He assured the crew. “He just can’t move as fast as us so he told us to go ahead. They didn’t like his papers getting out of the North American Sector and wanted to argue.”

April’s face clouded over in a frown. “Are they aware you are boarding a Home vessel?”

“I don’t think they ever got around to talking about where we’re going, not while we were there, dad seems to be on the don’t fly list,” the boy told her. “We just jumped past them through the gate and what are they going to do? They can’t keep up with us either, and it looks really bad to try to Taser a couple kids.” The little devil grinned at playing that advantage.

“It’s stupid,” the girl declared. “We’ve been up before. We’re the same people.”

April got out of her couch, “The three of us,” she informed the crew woman, “are the partners of Singh Industries, with who Larkin Lines does a great deal of business. I’d appreciate it if you would declare a ten minute hold to local control. We will indemnify you for any loss or fines you receive for the hold.”

“I’m quite aware of who you are. I’ve seen you speak in the Assembly. We will tell local control we are holding until our passengers board, and hang our weapons boom out in case they don’t understand we are upset,” she hurried back into the crew space.

“Thank you,” April called after the crewwoman, she turned to Gunny, “I need a pistol,” she demanded, open hand out.

“I made sure your bag was on top,” Gunny said, getting up and going to the locker. “Get your own, because I intend to go with you.”

“You are not obligated to guard me when I seek trouble.” April admitted. Gunny already had the customs tape cut and spread the bag open. April pulled out an aikuchi and stuck it in her waist band, and then the laser, not bothering with a holster, just taking it in her hand.

“I want to.”

“Thank you,” April said. The brother and sister still hanging by the crew hatch looked shocked at this turn of events.

The lights flickered and there were various sounds as the vessel detached from station utilities, which wasn’t normal with the lock hanging wide open. Gunny closed the bag and stuffed it back in the locker. “You kids take a couch and belt in. When we come back we may want to leave quickly, and you are one less thing we need to sort out.”

“Yes sir,” they said in unison, and moved quickly to the furthest open seats.

Gunny went out the lock, with April close behind. There were two customs and immigration agents approaching down the mast with a man between them.

“Are my kids aboard?”

“Aboard and strapped in, ready to depart,” Gunny assured him.

“We did not release them to board,” one of the agents said, angry.

“Read the departure screen,” April told him. “Where is this vessel going?”

The man looked at the flat screen on the boom bulkhead. “Oh, shit…He didn’t tell us he was going to Home,” the agent complained. “He had a NA passport.”

“You don’t have a departure schedule at your duty station?”

“Yeah, but there are four shuttles in count to leave. Only this one is going to Home.”

“Now you know. Is there any further problem?” Gunny asked, not especially friendly.

“No problem,” the fellow agreed. He and his partner had holstered Tasers, April had a weapon in hand, and Gunny two visible. That may have helped keep the conversation simple and brief. They turned to go.

“You have my passport,” the fellow objected, holding his hand out.

He was sullen, but the customs agent put it in his hand.

“Do you have anything else they held up, any luggage?” April asked.

“No, I anticipated problems, so we decided not to burden ourselves with anything we couldn’t fit in our pockets. Thank you for your help. I owe you. We are the Wilsons, I’m Matt, could I have your names?”

“I am April Lewis, this is my hired man Mack Tindal, call him Gunny. Strap in and we can talk later, we’re past departure time. They know better than this,” she complained to Gunny.

When they came in through the lock the crew woman who had agreed to a hold was braced in the hatch opening to the crew cabin, feet on one side, shoulders against the opposite flange, she had a short barreled twelve gauge nestled in her arms, watching the lock carefully.

“They say we’re clear to boost,” Gunny told her. “Don’t trust them to mean it.”

“I won’t. Would you close and dog the lock, please?” she asked and closed crew access and they could hear it seal shut when the dogs clunked.

“Lock closed,” Gunny reported at the intercom before he was the last to strap in. The crew undoubtedly had sensors on their board, but it didn’t hurt to confirm it.

The little girl, not much younger than the boy, maybe a year, spoke to her dad when he strapped in seat ahead of her. “Dad, she’s the one the teenagers all copycat, and upset all the teachers and mall cops!”

The grapples withdrew with a distant thud, and they got a gentle push sideways with no delay. A couple more turns and pushes, and the speaker came alive. “Nobody is giving us any trouble. We will ramp to a very modest third G burn in fifteen seconds. Local control approved our altered departure with no comment. Thanks for flying Larkin Lines,” she added automatically.

* * *

At Home the musician and his guards hustled out the door quickly, they weren’t in any hurry, following them down the short north mast. Their business associate Eddie and April’s grandfather met them at the bearing portal to spin. It was a huge contrast to the mob that greeted her last return from Earth. It was the middle of main shift and April’s parent’s would both be working, and Heather’s mother had a very hands off approach to raising her children, so nobody felt slighted or ignored.

They all logged on at the security station, touching the ceramic plate of the DNA reader. Nobody was fussy enough to ask a wipe down before using it, but several of them used a sani-wipe before putting on fresh gloves. The plate was silver impregnated and had an ultraviolet lamp flooding it, but people were paranoid, they were incubating some strange diseases out of the African continent that were worth worrying about.

Eddie was babbling on to Jeff about getting landing rights for Dionysus’ Chariot in Australia, and Barack was bending her grandfather’s ear about something. The three ahead of them were a little slower in zero G and they were going to catch up before they got to the elevator. The musician pulled a granola bar or a candy bar out of his pocket and opened it. He crumpled the wrapped and tossed it ‘down’ to the floor, but there was so little spin here it rolled up the curved bulkhead on the air currents.

“Hey, you dropped something!” April called out to him. When he looked she pointed to the wrapper  still slowly climbing the surface counter-clockwise.

“It’s just trash, the clean-bot will get it,” he said, with an honestly quizzical look on his face.

“There is no clean-bot in zero G. The hand rails get wiped down weekly and the bulkheads get a wipe-down maybe every six months. Your trash will float around until it gets sucked into an air filter, or somebody else picks it up and takes it to a trash receptacle, because we don’t want to live in a pig sty like an Earth city. I’m informing you what local custom is,” she said pointedly. She was still irritated from the customs people breaking the free travel agreement, and not in a mood to let anything slide.

He’d turned around and April hadn’t stopped. It would have been OK, but his security man thrust himself between them and held a hand up to stop April. He wasn’t very graceful in zero G, and he ended up stopping his own motion by pushing off of April’s shoulder.

“How dare you lay hands on me?”

“I doubt the young lady is a threat to me Ron, I think you can back off.”

“They’re armed, and I see a hazard,” Ron insisted.

“There is a hazard, but you have no idea what it is,” April told him. “If you will promise to keep your hands to yourself in the future, I’ll ignore your ignorance.”

“I didn’t really intend to make contact, but I’m just doing my job. You can’t press in on my client like that when you are arguing. I’d have stopped you getting closer in any case.”

“You aren’t capable of stopping me if I decided to get physical with your client, or you, but you have no idea of your limitations. You will apologize or you will meet me here tomorrow morning and give me satisfaction. You have the choice of weapons, or if you come unarmed we will fight bare handed.” April was horrified, it was like some strangers voice saying this, but she was taking out every diminutive statement and insult built up in memory out on this final disrespectful act.

Eddie behind them muttered an indiscreet, “Oh, shit.”

“That’s easy for you to say with armed security standing behind you.”

“Hey, I’m standing back watching,” Gunny pointed out. He even took his hand off the rail and showed his empty palms to the guy before taking a grip again. “I’m supposed to deal with criminals and assassins, if she wants to duel that’s her’s to see to.”

“You’re crazy if you think I’ll duel with you, nobody does that anymore.”

“Indeed, I’m sorry to be the second person to advice you of local custom,” her grandfather said, “but if you refuse to meet her she will post notice, and you will be permanently expelled and barred from Home. The matter has come up before and is well established by the Assembly. Are you certain you want to kill this man?” he asked April as an aside.

“No, I just want a little respect. But what other way do I have to get it? I refuse to just brawl here with him until he yields, and if I had struck back at him when he pushed me it would have drawn in the other fellow, and then maybe some of our group. I won’t have them laying hands on me and bringing their Earth Think into Home corridors until it’s like living on the slum ball.”

The musician Amos jerked like he was slapped at slum ball. “Joe, you handle yourself better in no gravity, would you grab that wrapper for me, please? I’ll at least give Ms. Lewis that much satisfaction.”

“Thank you,” April was quick to acknowledge.

“Would you consider letting the matter slide with my man?”

“I’m sorry, no.”

“Ron, I won’t urge you to do anything either way. I’ve been happy with your service. If you don’t want to apologize I’ll pay your early passage off Home. If Joe wants to go with you I’ll find other security locally or do without.” Amos appeared more concerned than upset. He took his recovered wrapper from Joe and stashed it in a pocket.

Ron looked back and forth between them frowning. He took a deep breath. “I apologize for bumping you. I’ll try to not do it again. If I do please understand it’s just clumsiness in zero G. I’d really appreciate your assurance you won’t hold it against my client, since it’s true, I don’t know local customs.”

“Not at all, it was strictly between us, and as far as I am concerned it is like it never happened now. Let’s start with a clean slate,” she proposed.

Ron gave a tilt of his head that was almost a bow, acknowledging it, and kept his mouth shut. He went out front of Amos, to be away from April, trading places with Joe without any consultation. Joe picked up on it and fell back, so they weren’t totally clueless.

At the elevator Amos stood waiting with his brow furrowed. “Might I offer to take you to dinner sometime soon, by way of further apology, and to ask you more about Home?”

“I’ve been looking forward to going to go to dinner at the Fox and Hare tomorrow. If you’d like to join us at 1900 hours come along. It’s a private social club, and they won’t present a bill to our table, but you are welcome to be our guest.”

“Should I leave my security?”

“Whatever you wish. It’s a small place and if we sit together they may need to sit at an adjoining table, but they’ll be close enough to watch you. I suggest you go see Zach at the Chandlery near the cafeteria, and get spex like your guys have,” she said, touching hers. “They make getting around, like finding the club, a lot easier. Can you come Gramps?”

“I wouldn’t miss it, but after dinner I’d like to be excused to go off to the poker room.”

“What sort of poker?” Amos asked, interested.

“Oh, it’s just a friendly local game,” April’s grandfather explained. “Usually a fifty-hundred spread with a pot limit raise. If you suggest a bigger game with thousand dollar ante or more you may get enough guys to have a game, but most of them are going to beg off and have their own.”

“That sounds interesting. Do you have to be a member to play?”

“You can be my guest if you want to play. We’re not too stuck up to take your money.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Eddie grumbled.

April was surprised. Not that Eddie would play, but that he would lose.

Regarding comments:

I received a comment in both English and Chinese. I did not approve it to be posted. I have no problem with the Chinese people or language, but I lack the ability to read it. I would not delete it for a negative opinion, but I have no idea if it is spam or really vulgar. So safety says – refuse it. Please use English in comments or they will not be posted.

Family Business Chapter 3 snippet. (Thinking about April too.)

Chapter 3

 

The new system was quiet, like only an uninhabited system can be. There were some low frequency rumblings of a gas giant, quietly having minor indigestion in the depths of its atmosphere. One star held a tiny rocky planet so unbelievable close it was uninfluenced by the other star. Then there was a larger gap and the next planet wobbled around its suns in the grip of both. The orbit insured it had radical changes in climate at short intervals, and was inclined far enough it never lost sight of one star behind the other. Neither star was particularly noisy, one not very different than the other.

The first planet showed from afar as having a carbon dioxide atmosphere, dense enough to hide surface features from optical examination. They weren’t done doing a passive examination and hadn’t used their radars yet. The second planet out was larger than Earth, very dense, a high argon atmosphere, and had a surface gravity of about one point four-five G. High enough it would not likely be colonized, because the long term health effects would be horrible. The temperature ran to the high side too, nothing below 45°C more than twenty degrees from the poles. It had considerable volcanic activity, and surface water, although not near as much as Earth or Derfhome. Even Hin had more surface waters, though dispersed better.

The world was likely a source of ore of some sort, having so much activity and water in its crust. However, a quick conference decided they would make a note of it but press on without doing a formal surface survey or leaving a claim marker, because although having free surface water the extreme range of climate and high surface gravity made it unlikely it could be Terraformed to a condition it could be colonized. It would require an exceptionally rich ore body to induce someone to mine it by remote control from orbit. Before leaving a high powered sweep of the system with radar showed nothing unusual. They picked another system on a line straight away from their home worlds and jumped. This time the two DSEs and the Sharp Claws, the rest bringing up the rear.

* * *

Eight more jumps while running two shift days left everybody tired, and they all orbited a giant among gas giants in different orbits, taking time from the usual duty stations, scooping fuel to top everybody off, and declaring a day you could break out personal intoxicants and do what you wished for recreation. The few stuck working were promised the same freedom in two days, with a recovery day in between.

Their next target system was barely over two light years away, so the Sharp Claws withdrew from near any of the gas giants and deployed a huge antenna, listening to hear if their close neighbor had any signs of a radio using civilization. If they did they must be on the hand held walkie talkie level. After six days refueled and refreshed they jumped to the near system.

There was a rarity, a water world worth at least a quick survey, a world with most of the surface commonly in a temperature range humans could live without special suiting. The surface gravity ninety seven percent of normal was sweet too. They landed two shuttles, ascertained it was sterile for sure, and left a marker in orbit claiming it. The five year limit on reporting it might work against them on this voyage. Nobody planned on an expedition being out so long that might be a problem. The chances somebody else would follow their route and file a claim when the five year period expired seemed slight though, more likely they’d be the claimant even if they were late.

If they didn’t find more valuable worlds in the next year or so they might consider sending the Sharp Claws back to register this world. It was worth at least several million each to their crews. They also didn’t carry any inoculating materials to start the world on the path of Terraforming it, and making an oxygen atmosphere. An entire ship load of such materials, algae, grasses and lichens, would take years to put measurable free oxygen in the air.

The soil samples and salts in the sea water indicated there would be common ores for colonists when it came time to go look for them. The crustal plates were still active and it had an iron core and magnetism. The axial tilt and orbital measurements indicated it would have a stable climate, steadier even than Earth.

* * *

The next system had an unusually large star, somewhat noisy, and in a phase where it was showing quite a few sunspots. Several people predicted it was at least somewhat a variable, based on a few similar systems surveyed. There were a couple rocky inner planets with no real atmosphere, a couple small gas giants, but two extensive asteroid belts and a great deal of loose debris all over the whole system. Nothing stood out as useful or worth studying for scientific reasons.

They did a high powered radar scan of the system fairly early, while they’d still have time to read the echoes. The returns from the asteroid belts would be complex. Gordon and Thor were video conferencing with the other ship commanders, picking a target system for their next jump.

“Anomalous return on radar in the asteroid belt,” Navigation broke into their conference with that message. Almost immediately he added. “Make that two extremely bright reflections, well separated.”

“Not a powered source, like a transponder?” Gordon asked right away.

“No, but it is unlikely to be a natural return. It would take a very unlikely corner shape in the face of a metallic asteroid to bounce such a signal back.”

“Can you steer a high powered bean on the points of interest and find out more about them?”

“I can map their size better, but they are both over four light-hours out system from us. I’d suggest moving one of our ships to investigate rather than wait over eight hours for what little clarification a second sweep will give us.”

“Sharp Claws, are you prepared to do quick burn and head out there to see what they found?”

“We can boost in fifteen minutes if we can take time to close up the galley for hot meals and secure duty stations for a two G boost. Is that acceptable?”

“Yes, do it, and don’t break any legs or damage equipment pressing an arbitrary dead line.”

“All hands, secure for acceleration in fifteen minutes,” they heard the Derf Captain announce on ship com. His customary human name was Frost, as in Robert Frost. “We shall ramp up to one G as soon as the horn is sounded. Secure all personal possessions and configure your duty station for acceleration. At five minutes a second horn will sound and you will be prepared for two G acceleration. Only special duty stations will be permitted tethered vertical personnel outside an acceleration couch. Off duty crew must be in their bunks. You are expected to have bottled water and urinals. Acceleration will not be eased for anything but the direst emergency. Heavier acceleration or an abrupt cessation of  drive are both possible unannounced. All department heads acknowledge when prepared and report any failure to conform and why.”

“Thank you, Sharp Claws, you are our eyes there now,” Gordon sent to them.

“Do you think we should disperse further or take any defensive measures?” Thor asked.

“I think whatever bounced our signal back was there from the moment we entered the system, and hasn’t given us any trouble. I expect some sort of artifact, but honestly no alien presence.”

“Alright, let’s just stand our normal watches and wait to see what they report,” Thor agreed. “I’m glad you didn’t rush us all out there though, I like having one ship poke it’s nose in for us.”

* * *

“Commander Gordon, we have images of the first object. It appears to be entirely passive. It’s just an old fashioned corner reflector. It’s only about a meter across, and it doesn’t have any sophisticated geometry to boost the signal when it is oriented unfavorably. It is anchored to a fairly large asteroid with a stout mast. I’m assuming something about the asteroid makes it worth finding again. We don’t have the testing equipment of one of the DSEs, but I can test a few points with the laser and see what sort of emissions we get. If anything looks interesting we’ll cut off a sample.”

The image they sent was well lit with a flood lamp. The reflector was crude, thick sheet metal just tacked at a couple points with a rude unpolished weld. The surface was aged, the metal smoother deep in the corner and frosted by micrometeorite abrasion nearer the edges. There were even a few visible pock marks where larger grains struck it, and one actual hole four or five millimeters across drilled right through the metal.

“Before we go check out the other site I intend to cut off a piece of this reflector. I’m not a hundred percent sure that’s what you’d want, but I’m going to chance it on my own initiative rather than wait for orders at the speed of light lag both ways at this distance. I hate to waste a full shift waiting for instructions. Several people have said this has to be old, as in thousands of years old. I’m going to put a sample locker for this on our outer hull. I don’t want to take the piece we cut off in atmosphere and ruin it by contamination for some sort of testing.”

“This just in from my crew out there. The rock shows it has very high cobalt content. I’d say it was marked as an ore source, but nobody every came back and worked it. If it is fairly homogenous we’re looking at a several million kilograms of cobalt. I’ll get a sample and move on to the next location. I expect to find another marker just like this one.”

“You’re doing just fine,” Gordon transmitted to them. “Your sampling procedure is exactly what I’d have done. If you find an identical reflector on the other asteroid no need to cut into it. Just sample the rock. I’m sending The Champion William and Murphy’s Law around the star to do a radar survey of the opposite side of the system. I’d like to know if there are more reflectors outside our viewing angle here. Since we’ll be several days doing that there is no rush to get to the other reflector at high acceleration. Take your time to avoid stressing your crew needlessly. I’d add that my personal guess is the erosion on the reflectors indicates a time frame of hundreds of thousands of years, not just thousands, so we have a mystery here why the miners never came back.”

“The fellows who cut a chunk off the reflector say it’s pretty pure titanium,” the Sharp Claws transmitted. “I’ll leave the other alone until I hear from you. We’re looking forward to hearing your take on it and instructions. We’ll plan to leave for the other soon after getting your transmission. Until latter, Sharp Claws out,” he ended.

“That reflector is crude, it isn’t designed to fold up and be carried aboard a ship,” Thor suggested. “I’d say it was made on site, as a field expedient. So, yeah, they marked them to find again easily, and never came back. Why? Did they find an easier source to work, or closer to home? Or was the ship lost and never reported their find, or did something bigger happen to their entire civilization?”

“Maybe we’ll find out as we go deeper,” Gordon hoped.

In the end they found five reflectors. One was on another cobalt rich rock. One they weren’t very sure about, but it might have been the vanadium content. Two were thick with native silver, and they mounted their own claim beacons on those rocks. The entire body of asteroids warranted a closer examination given the richness of the alien finds. They did a close fly-by of both rocky inner planets and a couple sizable moons around the gas giants. If there was a alien base or machinery anywhere it didn’t show up on radar down to a half meter resolution. It was a mystery.

* * *

They did their first five ship jump into the next system. Everything went smoothly with all of them in a circle less than a kilometer across. There was nothing of interest. No alien reflectors. No rich asteroid belts or worlds worth claiming. This continued for five jumps until they took another break. Gordon wondered if they might have found something by jumping to one of the other systems accessible from the one with the alien artifacts. But it went against their established doctrine to stop and investigate a globe around one star. They still intended to continue along the same general heading, going as deep away from Human and Derf space as possible.

The next system along their approximate line of flight was a bit over seven light years away, that was on the fringe of their detection ability, but Gordon had the Sharp Claws standoff, far enough from any natural emitters in the system and wide enough from their view of the star to examine the next system. There was a lot of unnatural noise, some suggesting audio and several frequencies suggesting video, but not clearly, and not on any scan rate or pixel count used by man.

In conference they decided to avoid giving away their present location as it gave too obvious a vector back to their home planets. Several wondered why there was no evidence of an alien presence in this system, one jump away from an occupied system. Several suggested they might not have star flight, others pointed out that Survey System 418 was not much further from Earth then this next jump, but manned ships never attempted it. They always jumped in from one of two other nearby systems with greater stellar masses and a higher jump probability. Nobody wanted to risk a jump with even a one in a hundred thousand chance of not emerging. No one had any idea what happened to a ship that failed to display a quantum emergence, and nobody especially wanted to find out the hard way.

They all did two jumps to a system off at about ninety degrees from their establish line of flight. They looked carefully and with caution, but neither system showed any signs of having been visited.

The Roadrunner was temporarily equipped with extra sensors and cameras, radios and recording systems. Mostly from the DSEs. She’d jump in, coast through on a long slow look at the system, and then take an exit line that went on to a different system on the far side of their entry, and minimized their drive signature as seen from the planet. It might take three or more jumps into virgin systems and a week to get back to them, but it seemed worth it to them to stay somewhat unexposed. They would do a minimal survey of each system they transited to rejoin their fleet, but stop in none. They expanded their crew to four pilots, all qualified to bring her back, so they never had to drop boost and rest.

* * *

Waiting was the hard part.  Eight days later there was a familiar burst of uncommon particles, decaying and making a electromagnetic chirp as Roadrunner rejoined their universe from its indeterminate state. They were very happy to see her, and happier yet to hear her quickly sent signal instead of an alien ship.

“We have no indication we were detected,” Sharp Claws reported. They were wrong, but they had no idea. “There were radars active in the system, but none of them changed mode or steered a beam to examine the Roadrunner closer.” The system was dirty, full of lots of small objects and the planetary surface subject to a constant rain of small meteors. The radar was to give warning for the bigger more dangerous pieces.

The recordings were interesting. The video took awhile to figure out. It was analog. There were additional signals that had to be audio. The scan rate told them something about the native’s vision. It wasn’t hard to estimate the frequency of the sound track. The real bonus came with the understanding that the other channel was a universal text captioning service, on a separate display. They appeared to have one language.

The natives were bipedal, bilaterally symmetrical and had binocular vision. The eyes seemed big compared to Humans or Deft, on a par with the Hinth. Their hands were three fingered with double thumbs, as were their feet, much more dexterous than Humans or Derf, but having nothing on the ability of Hinth to use their feet, even though the Hinth appeared to have less delicate and suitable feet. Watching them shuffle and deal cards dispelled any idea Hinth feet were not very capable of subtle manipulation.

They were close coated with a fine fur down their backs, ranging from tan to black, but semi nude from the chin to crotch, with very fine hair. There was much variation among individuals. They wore clothing but didn’t appear to have as strong a taboo against nudity. Part of that might be because their genitals were carried tucked away in folds neatly, and it was hard to tell at a glance if one was male or female for sure

The hair on their heads was just as short and fine as on their backs, but they had tufts of hair on the face, more prominent in the males, which looked somewhat like a set of mutton chop whiskers on a human, running from upright triangular ear to chin. Those tended to be a lighter white or yellowish color than the body hair. The nose was broad, cleft, and active. The females carried mammary glands, but the nipple tucked in a fold by the hip, not by the arm pit. They looked sleek, and carried a thin long tail.

There was a lot of display of what they took for status symbols. There was a profusion of hats, some simple knit affairs, some with ear holes, to elaborate hats with molded shapes and decorations. The clothing ranged from full jumpsuits that appeared to be serious protection for professions doing manual labor to frilly decoration. The one item everybody wore was some sort of collar, even if otherwise naked. Some fancy with studs and jewels, some simple chains or elaborate jewelry.

“The videos are odd. I don’t know what to make of it. There isn’t anything that looks like advertising. There are short local stories, but they aren’t man in the street type videos with normal stuff happening in the background,” Thor said.

“How do you know what’s normal?” Gordon asked.

“Good point, but I’ve seen broadcast news from Humans, Derf and Hinth. These folks never have traffic behind them or crowds in the city. They all look stiff and uncomfortable in front of the camera. And I’ve noticed already anytime one says “Teen” they give a little jerk of the head almost like bow.”

“OK, we need to figure that word out. I’m going to make this available to everybody in the whole fleet, and see what people get from it. I want everybody to give me ideas, and assign a numerical probability. For example, this video looks to be in front of a field, and the one fellow points off  camera and says something. Is he pointing out the way to town or showing which way his livestock took off or what? Ten percent probability or ninety? Don’t be afraid to reach a bit.”

* * *

Three days later they had their first conference. “Give me two items first,” Gordon requested. “I’d like any item on which a large number of people had consensus, and I’d like anything an individual assigned a higher probability than ninety percent.”

“We have forty-eight people who concluded that anyone wearing that dark orange color is some sort of official, with some mentioning government and some identifying it as a religious order. Thirty two people noted that in three scenes the wearers of orange are the only natives we see carrying weapons. In two videos they carry swords, and in the third they have both swords and two of them have spears.”

“OK, the color is some sort of emblem of authority. Are the weapons authority emblems or are they functional? These people have radar and geostationary satellites. Am I to believe they don’t have guns? Or at least bows and arrows? Something that acts at a distance?”

The com gave a ping. Jeremiah Ellis from engineering on the Retribution wanted to speak and was connected. “There are very few frames that show mechanized vehicles, but this one video shows orange wearing natives arriving in a motor vehicle. I’d guess from the smokestack at the rear it is a steam powered vehicle, but note the exhaust is quite clean as it arrives. It may be turbine powered. The thing appears to be damn near as big as a city bus, and it has pneumatic tires. Notice the artwork near the front door,” he manipulated the image to expand it.

“The shield shape suggests military origins for the symbol, and note the two figures on each side. One has a spear held straight armed tilted away from him, which may be a parade pose. The other figure has a weapon held the same way, but it is shorter and has a distinct butt stock on the ground. He also has a pouch hung, which could be for ammunition, and lacks the sword the spear carrier has. That’s a musket or rifle or I’ll admit Mrs. Ellis raised one very slow son,” he challenged.

“What do you think the objects above the figures are?” Gordon asked.

“I’ve run it past my engineering section, and we get some sort of fruit for the cluster of ovals, think something like grapes, the lines behind it being some sort of trellis or carrier, and everybody agrees the arch of rectangular shapes between the solid irregular masses is a dam between rock masses. There are no openings or castellations to suggest it is a castle or fortification. We have consensus it’s a dam.”

“Thank you, has anybody else analyzed this art?” Gordon prompted.

“I would have never figured out the dam, because I’ve never seen on in real life,” Thor allowed. “But I figured the words on the top edge are important. Three words would suggest a motto or unit identification, the first and last words I can’t identify yet, but the center word is the ‘teen’ we see everybody bob their head when they say it. It matches up to the captioning.”

Gordon got a request to speak, and connected to Propitious Harrington on the Murphy’s Law.

“Every video scene in which we see a street or road it is laid with brick. That sort of road is very enduring, cobbled roads on Old Earth are still in use that were built in the Roman Empire era. But they are very labor intensive, some of them having bases laid down six or seven meters deep. There appear to be no utility poles even in town, so they either bury them for aesthetic reasons, or their technology is deliberately restricted in how it is distributed. There are cultivated fields in quite a few videos, so they are an agricultural civilization, but we don’t see anyone carrying anything you could take for a computer or phone. Also, the population level in a long static society suggests tight control of reproduction.”

“Obviously they have video screens, or there would be no point in these broadcasts, but there is no scene in any of it showing a viewing screen. Either they are rare and communal, in a sort of theatre, or there is some dislike of showing a screen on a screen. There is no scene of a street busy with vehicles either, I’m starting to suspect they have a lot of the same technologies we have, but for some reason they aren’t commercialized and widely distributed the way we do,” he finished.

“Gordon, please note we have one statement, from one person, with a hundred percent handle. I think we should examine that. Nobody else had such certainty about anything,” Thor explained. “I’d either like to know why or find out what duty this person is charged with. Such absolute certainty honestly frightens me. I’m rarely ever that certain about anything.”

“Ming Lee?” Gordon read off the screen. “Would you like to explain your assessment?”

“Yes, I’m the second cook on the Sharp Claws. Despite what Mr. Thor seems to think, I am not a crank or disturbed person. I simply have experience, strongly reinforced in my family, as to what these broadcasts are. My great-grandfather and grandfather lived in an area of China on Earth which was populated by an ethnic minority. The government kept very tight control, suppressing even the slightest expression of dissidence. I have searched and highlighted a number of files of similar human video productions I will attach right now as references. I suggest you watch them silently, with no translation or captioning. The resemblance is uncanny. What you are seeing in these broadcasts is revolutionary theatre, or propaganda. Even the dark orange color of authority is a coincidental match to the red of my homeland. I predict they will be authoritarian, and very difficult to deal with,” he finished.

“Thank you Ming, Mr. Jefferson?” Gordon allowed next.

“Even before Mr. Ming’s assessment of the honesty of what they portray in their broadcasts, we only have a view through their camera lens, and never got close enough to see for ourselves what is on the surface of the planet from orbit. I’d suggest we need some direct observation, perhaps even some closer looks from atmospheric drones, and try to establish some communications from orbit before risking physical contact.”

“This seems the course of caution to me too,” Gordon agreed. “If anyone disagrees and feels it is too stand-offish write out your thinking and submit it to these suggestions. I should warn you that if you are in favor of an immediate face to face meeting, we’ll take it as volunteering for such duty.”

Nobody seemed eager to be such a volunteer, and they closed out the session.

“We need to decide how we are going to approach this world, and compose a greeting and initial contact video formatted for their receivers. I’d like to do a few orbits and map the surface before we decide where we are going to direct our contact message. I find myself leery of transmitting it to the entire surface as we orbit. We’ll discuss this fleet wide against first shift tomorrow, and consider any further analysis of their transmissions that wasn’t considered today. That ends ship’s assembly,” he announced. “Let’s get some supper and let the B team carry the ball a bit,” he told the bridge crew.

Progress on many fronts

I’m feeling better. The first week home from the hospital was horrible, but I’ve made good progress. I’m out shopping and cooking again.

And my writing has picked back up. I have 53k words on the new April book and 24k on the sequel to Family Law. And it’s fun.

New snippet of “Family Business” sequal to “Family Law” 2nd Chapter

Chapter 2

 

The Hinth proved a challenge to recruit. They didn’t do well alone. Ha-bob-bob-brie, who Lee had met on Derf home station, isolated himself after a catastrophe had wiped out his shipmates and family in an exploration gone bad. He’d offered his name and bared his face to Lee in camaraderie after hearing of her own loss of family. However other Hinth regarded him as insane to be able to live years without other Hinth companionship. In fact the first Hinth Gordon and Lee had interviewed had visibly shivered, and almost lost the ability to speak of it, trying to describe how abnormal it was.

Ha-bob-bob-brie they did hire, sane or not, but as crew on the High Hopes, and the best they could do for other Hinth was a family group of three, who would all remain together on the Retribution. The idea they would be close associates to the other crewmen and not wear the mask like at home took a bit to work through. It said a lot about how hard set the custom was that they still wore the mask, but hanging lowered like a Fargoer’s medallion of rank. All the marks and writing on their mask spoke to what and who they were, and they had no other way to show it.

If they ran into aliens they wanted be able to feed them video of three races standing on the vessel’s bridge together, sharing command. It would suggest they should be able to get along with these strangers too. Or that was Gordon’s theory. They might of course find it an abhorrent mixing, but if that was the case establishing good relations was probably a lost cause anyway.

The ships were all short crewed. In the case of loss to mechanical failure or hostile action they wished to be able to double up a crew and leave a vessel behind. If it came to that they would also destroy the abandoned ship to prevent its capture and examination. The Fargoers had a very hard time being persuaded to reduce their crew to the required level. They agreed in principle, just not in particular. Every position seemed to have a reason to be exempt from being cut.

The ships being short crewed worked better on a long voyage for another reason. The volume of food and other perishables they laid in was much larger than for a conventional voyage. There simply wasn’t room for the supplies and a full crew. They even had some hydroponics for fresh salad things, which no ship in living memory had used, but they were trying it again in both DSEs and the Retribution. The Sharp Claws had no room for gardens, even short crewed.

The ground attack nukes were unloaded, all but a half dozen, and their slots filled with ship to ship X-head missiles. Those were so expensive they took a sizeable hunk of Lee’s cash to buy, even trading in the ship to ground missiles for their nuclear kernel. But the newly minted Fargone models had both better guidance packages and warheads that could be altered in the last seconds before detonation to emit their x-ray beams in a shotgun pattern, or steered at specific angles to try to hit more than one target. USNA warheads had a set geometry, and you had to orient them exactly to put a beam on target.

Unless the USNA had made advances kept secret, these new missiles would give a significant advantage between two ships of the same size and throw weight to the Fargone equipped ship.

Gordon also had a secret weapon he’s ordered developed after his unpleasant fight with a USNA fleet in fringes of the Fargone system. He’d aborted his run out system knowing a fleet was waiting to ambush him, and fired blind at their potential emergent point before he’d diverted to another system on a jump that was far too risky.

He’d had the same weapons developer who created the ‘peashooters’ make him a jump drone carrying an X-head. He could fire blind down a jump track he was certain had an ambush waiting on the far side, or fire it after a fleeing vessel he had no chance of catching in a straight chase before it jumped out. It was an ugly weapon, with the potential to kill an innocent ship unseen if you guessed wrong. But war is messy and survival sometimes costly. He had just two of them on the Retribution.

The considerable computing power to allow the weapon to act autonomously and pick a target or continue a pursuit after making a jump, cost more than the nuclear explosive part of the warhead. To the point it seemed an extravagant waste to treat that much computer as a perishable asset. But unleashing a stupid weapon on the far side of a jump line was even less defensible morally. The hardest instructions to write were those that made the weapon abort a pursuit and self destruct.

With a planned absence of several years the crew could not be left to choose their own kit. Cotton underwear and socks, popular and low cost, wore out too fast and crew were required to buy extra longer lasting hemp or synthetics. Shoes had to have one or two back-up pairs depending on the person’s duty stations. Personal drugs and other consumables had to be stockpiled for the crewmen.

A generous personal mass allowance for recreational items, including video, music and even recreational intoxicants was an acknowledgement of how long they’d be gone. Fargoer’s all seemed to bring at least a half case of their excellent rum. The Purser assured Gordon from personal experience that the cure was worse than the disease. Denied any outlet crew would raid supplies to make alcohol, grow various weeds, and even assembly entire synthesis labs from spare parts and shop supplies. Some brought small trade items hoping they’d meet an alien race who would appreciate them. The expedition itself carried little, thinking it a very hard matter to predict. They could dip into stores to a certain extent if they needed trade goods.

Almost all the human supplies loaded at Fargone. Derf specific items came from Red Tree. Much of their food came directly out of Red Tree stores. The ships rotated back to Derfhome to load stores and back to Fargone as their refit and load for weapons became available. There was such a shortage of Hinth related items outside their system that a fast courier had to be dispatched to acquire more food, medical supplies, and personal weapons for the bird-like aliens.

The usual ship’s web package for entertainment and instruction was often five to ten percent of the English web. They needed a deeper resource if they dealt with aliens. They loaded near half of the English web and special attention for Derf and Hinth elements. They also had obscure texts and references for language and translation, including dead languages, cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphics. Their studies on stellar formation and planetology were extensive and up to date. The history of mankind was fleshed out in some detail, no matter how unpleasant the truth was.

Given the fact they might want to trade with any race they found, coinage in standard weights was brought along in copper, silver, gold, platinum, and palladium. They welded in the safe for the money right in the flight deck. It wasn’t that much volume, but it was a significant mass item. Their machine shops had extra cutting bits and the 3D machines extra stocks of exotics like tungsten and beryllium.

One point on which Gordon drew the line was the inclusion of a ship’s cat in addition to the regular testing animals. He had personal experience cats got in trouble on ship. Sometimes in inaccessible areas. He did allow a cubic meter stuffed with seeds of every plant that might be an item for trade.

Gordon went over the manifests personally. He was horrified to find there was no shared supply of brandy laid in, neither was there sufficient small arms ammunition in his estimate. There was the usual moon-hut and tent in the Deep Space Explorers, but no tenting or camp cots and such, if they wanted to bring the crew of the two war ships down to a planetary surface. All that was corrected.

Thor his second in command and weapons officer insisted they bring a couple hard suits with support gear and parts, such as shipyard workers wore for long shifts doing exterior repair. If they had some major damage to deal with along the way soft suits were neither as safe or comfortable as hard shell suits for heavy labor in high vacuum. They had better maneuvering jets and offered better radiation protection too. In the end the master manifest was so large it seemed a miracle it could all fit inside six hulls.

Admiral Hawking called him up after the Sharp Claws and the Retribution were both armed with the newer interceptor missiles and the Deep Space Explorers were doing a minor refit so that the short range defensive missiles they usually carried could be replaced with the military versions.

“Gordon, do you suppose you could be a good fellow and rotate your escort ships back to Derfhome now that they are stocked and armed?”

“We could. No reason the whole expedition can’t depart from there. But why? It’s not like you are short of parking space.”

“This is stupid, and embarrassing, but I have to deal with it. There are Captains in our navy all bent that you have such a formidable force parked around Fargone. Some of the idiots are complaining we should have a defensive watch on your movements, and park you much further from the planetary surface. It would just be much easier to have you rotate out than deal with their paranoia.”

“Are they aware there are only a couple crewmen on board and the duty crews are all enjoying the last of their leave on a world?”

“Yes, I pointed that out, and the fact you’d just unloaded almost all your ground strike missiles. They countered how slickly you suckered the North Americans during the war and captured their ships at dock without a shot. You seem to have gathered a bigger than life reputation as an exceedingly sneaky bastard. A pretty hard thing to do given your personal scale,” he quipped.

“Well then, I guess the crews can finish up their last liberty as well at Derfhome as Fargone. What’s one more shuffle back and forth? The local merchants, flooded with bonus money aren’t going to thank you I’ll predict, but I’ll broadcast a recall and make ready to move both escorts,” he agreed. “We shall wait at Derfhome for the Deep Space Explorers to join us and depart from there.”

* * *

“Any serious objections from the crews to being shuffled off to Derfhome?” Gordon asked Thor later, after he’d had a chance to pass the orders down the line.

“It’s the oddest thing. I thought they’d resent it. But they are taking perverse pride in the fact they are regarded as too dangerous to have around. Sneering at the Fargone crews, saying their brass are afraid of their little fleet. Even the Fargoers in the cruiser Murphy’s Law seem to have picked up this superior attitude, and have staunchly integrated with ‘Little Fleet’ as they are calling themselves. They’ve all taken up wearing a black brassard or neck cloth, since we don’t share any uniform, even the Hinth! And strutting like they are special forces. I asked, but damned if any of them will tell me who’s idea it was. At least they didn’t take up something even more provocative like the Jolly Roger. ”

“If you take the complaint literally, then it’s true,” Gordon pointed out. Thor just rolled his eyes. He didn’t say anything when Gordon had a black silk scarf worn like an ascot next shift. A day later he too had a black wrist band, rather than appear to reject his own crew.

The move back to Derfhome allowed Gordon and Lee to make one last visit to the Red Tree Keep. They didn’t have the time to travel by surface like their last visit. They set down by air car, and if anyone thought it too fancy they’d just have to swallow it.

Lee was shocked to see all the trees near the Keep dead, bare limbed in mid-summer, killed in the burst of radiation from when the USNA had landed four combat shuttles full of Space Marines in front of the empty Keep. The Great Champion of Red Tree , William had stayed to challenge them, and when they refused to surrender he’d triggered the weapon killing them all, himself included.

At least most of the grasses and weeds survived, but there was still a charred circle where the one pilot had tripped the self destruct charges on his shuttle after the Fargone supplied neutron bomb killed them all. The wreckage had been cleared, but the locals took up bringing stones to the scorch mark and making a cairn. It was growing to be a memorial to both William and the battle. Lee approved and found a stone she could lift and lugged it to the pile. That didn’t go unnoticed by the Derf. The Mothers said nothing either way, content to let the people follow their feelings.

The other three shuttles had been moved out of the way, lined up neatly further from the Keep, and all the dead soldiers buried. A crew was systematically felling the dead trees, saving the main trunks for lumber, and planting replacements that would take years to mature.

Gordon asked and was granted to recover the shuttles to the Retribution and Sharp Claws to be externally grappled and taken on their expedition. They only had room inside for human crews, but that was fine, a majority of their personnel were human.

As their departure date approached there was a steady stream of news people and academics asking to go along. The news people seemed to be of an opinion that they couldn’t operate  a video camera competently. The academics all seemed to be of obscure disciplines unrelated to any need they had as an expedition. They’d have welcomed a really good linguist or an historian dealing with the modern space era, but none volunteered. None of either group offered anyone who could fill a ship board job day to day in addition to their specialty to be exercised when they finally arrived somewhere.

On literally the last day, their number two cook and missile magazine technician for the Retribution announced he had sudden remorse for his enlistment, and didn’t want to be isolated from society for several years. The number one cook privately informed Gordon that the real reason was the fellow had acquired a new and very serious girlfriend the last week he’d spent on Derfhome. He’d also blown his enlistment bonus on said Honey, so they pretty much had to write that off. No point in being vindictive about it. He’d find out nobody on Derfhome would give him credit or take his contract with the squandered debt hanging over his head.

This would have required a rush recruitment, but the Mothers also decided on the last day that there should be one of their number in the expedition to watch their interests and provide a voice of law. That of course fell to the third and youngest Mother. She was young, fit, strong, and too inexperienced to be afraid. Best of all she’d come up through the kitchen. She could cook and they could easily teach her to sort and move missiles under way. They’d hoped she’d serve on their own Sharp Claws, but Gordon dashed those hopes citing necessity.

When the two explorers joined them in Derfhome orbit they had everything needed stowed aboard. The ships were all in the same orbit well above Derfhome station. Notice was given departure would be the next day, several shuttle lifts being needed to lift all the crew to the new fleet. That night there was much serious partying, and tearful sayings of goodbye. Particularly heartfelt weeping by several bar owners and restaurantuers.

Late the next day everyone was aboard. For a miracle nobody was absent and unaccounted for. The command ship, the High Hopes, had all five bridges tied in a tight little com net, nobody having a full tenth of a second lag to his signals. The Roadrunner grappled empty.

“We are departing orbit first,” Gordon announced, “with The Champion William to follow, then Murphy’s Law, and the Retribution. Sharp Claws will bring up the rear. That will be our normal order unless we find some reason to alter it. In deep space, beyond the frontier, we may send in the Sharp Claws first, as the fastest most nimble armed ship, before entering as a group. Unless I am really paranoid about a system, in which case I may even send in the fast courier Roadrunner, which would normally be carried grappled and unmanned on the Murphy’s Law. It is unarmed, but nothing here can touch it for speed.”

“We shall transition in sequence this first jump to a known system, Survey System 2723. It has no particular navigational hazards. We’ll go with thirty second intervals, spaced a hundred kilometers laterally. After comparing notes and transit clock settings we’ll jump to our last surveyed point, Survey System 2754. It has a gas giant and a few minor navigational hazards to anyone going deep in system. However, we shall transit the fringe and exit to our first uncharted system.”

“That will be our first exercise in coordinated jumps. We’ll do so with the same physical spread for safety during training, but making every effort to exit and arrive within the microsecond of each other. Eventually I expect us to have the capability to jump together within a kilometer of each other, even if for some reason one or more of us has a speed differential. Emerging together as one radiant point in a new system masks our numbers and size. The military does this all the time, there is no reason we can’t do so with the same nine nines probability of arrival a standard jump demands. I am pinging your clock and starting our run. See you on the other side.”

“The military does it two ships at a time and counts it a damn hot piece of piloting!” The navigator Parsimony Cho noted to his Captain Precocious Henry. “Does he really intend to have all five of us jump in a bloody fur ball together to show off to any natives we meet?”

“I doubt it Mr. Cho,” he said amused. “If I read our Commander right, I expect after we have the trick of five down, he’ll cut the Roadrunner loose and make us jump with it overtaking us a few hundred kilometers per second off our group speed so it sprints ahead on transition.”

“I suppose that’s why God and the Admiralty gave us three clocks,” he said weakly.

“Indeed, look sharply here! Our turn coming up and we don’t want to muff the easy one, do we?”

“No Sir! I’ll do us proud or dead,” the navigator promised.

* * *

Survey System 2723 hadn’t seen a ship emerge in twelve years. There was nothing of interest there, no rocky planets worth mining, no need to get fuel from its minor gas giant, no sensors left to watch the system, since it was a gateway to nothing interesting. Six bursts of mixed radiation marred it’s tranquility at regular intervals. The ships formed up in a parallel line, turned slightly and accelerated for an unremarkable portion of the sky, and disappeared together this time.

* * *

The fleet appeared in Survey System 2754 in one microburst of particles along a line. If anyone had been here since the original survey it wasn’t noted on the latest chart file. One clock of one ship disagreed with the count on emergence. Not a full microsecond by any means, but enough to wonder why. They took the opportunity to replace it rather than worry about why. They had a complete replacement set if need be, clocks were life and death.

“It shall be our habit, upon emerging in a new uncharted system, to coast dead quiet and inertial, simply listening for at least a quarter hour. Making every effort to catalog planets and radio sources.  This is another reason to make a close entry. We can communicate by com laser instead broadcast. If we encounter immediate hostile action we are all of course free to maneuver and engage in any manner necessary to our vessel’s survival.”

“If we should emerge in a system with an obvious civilization, especially radiating from different points in the system, not just one planetary body, then we’ll listen and record, and formulate a response. Likely we’d send Sharp Claws forward in system and try to establish communications. We might disperse somewhat physically, High Hopes and Retribution pairing off and taking some distance from The Champion William  and Murphy’s Law.

“Would you entertain a suggestion?” Bodacious Williams, XO of Murphy’s Law asked.

“Anytime and welcome,” Gordon offered.

“When we transition into a new system I think you should have two pilots strapped in the Roadrunner, ready to ungrapple and head back the way we entered. If we find a major outpost or inhabited planet it will remove any temptation to try to capture or silence us to keep us from reporting home. They will see the cat is out of the bag already, and have to deal with us on that basis.”

“An excellent safety measure. Captain Henry, make that your standard procedure for entry on the Murphy’s Law.”

Thor spoke up.”As we get deeper, make sure the Roadrunner navigation suite is updated with our most recent jumps, and at some point inventory and make sure they have food and supplies sufficient to take them all the way back to Derfhome too. I’d also suggest they do not demonstrate their full acceleration capacity unless it is needed to avoid interception.”

“Again, all good ideas, make it so please.”

Since the next system they entered would be new to their civilization, Captain Henry immediately ordered the new pilot of the Roadrunner to his command. Chance Ochocinco had previously served as number two on several fast couriers. He was delighted to step up to his own ship, and he had as number two the previous Captain Fat Ortega, who gave up the command of the heavy cruiser Quantum Queer to get his new berth. This was a measure of what people were willing to do to join the ‘Little Fleet’. Chance had no illusions that Fat didn’t have two decades of command experience on him, and he didn’t intent to waste that much expertise sitting next to him by being jealous of his authority. He intended to ask Fat’s opinion and recommendations at every turn.

“We shall enter a new system next jump, never seen through the eyes of any of our three races. I’d like to take the High Hopes in heavy, with Retribution and Murphy’s Law. If you do not see Roadrunner coming back out within a half hour, then I’d like The Champion William, and Sharp Claws to jump in together. We’ll pair up like this, practicing jumping in together in different combinations until everyone is comfortable. If you have any objections to your jump mate speak up. I will not force a movement against the Master’s will if he feels his vessel at risk.”

Each reported in turn they were good to go. They were on their jump line, and Sharp Claws and  The Champion William throttled back to allow the other three ahead.

“Tighten up, we shall jump at 1300+.6 hour to fourteen zeroes on my clock. That’s the smallest interval of our clock and we should have the meter per second differential inside single digits when we go. Double check your settings with two different officers, because if you get left behind the tidal stresses will kill your ship,” he reminded them.

At 1300.6 they ceased to exist by all appearances to the two left behind.

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