by P F Walsh
“Bacon! I must have bacon!” As she jumped out of bed, out of his reach, to scoop up her robe, and head for the kitchen. Leaving Sean feigning a crestfallen face as he too got up while muttering to himself.
They had an Earth style breakfast, with lots of bacon imported from Earth to satisfy a fast building demand for this protein source that was not native to Hhearn, or the other fifty-one planets including the two ‘associate’ planets. Hhearnians just couldn’t get enough of this ‘first meal’ starter.
When they were finished, and enjoying another mug of Zeng tea, Nasht-Mer said,
“Tonight’s the big night! Tonight, is the opening night for the new Earth Restaurant/Nightclub, ‘The Top of The World,’ on top of the Council building, and you, my dear Duke, are taking me there!”
“How did you manage to get reservations?” He asked. “That’s been sold out for weeks.”
“You forget, I am a sitting Councilor, we all received invitations. I chose the later seating so we could dance after eating. They brought in a dance band from Earth now that the United States has their own starships. There’s rumor there will be some special guests, but no one knows who they are yet.” She said, while chewing the last bit of bacon on the plate.
“I am going to wear that black dress I bought on Earth that you liked so much. I have been waiting for a chance to wear it.” She said seductively.
That brought another smile to his lips as he lifted his mug and imagined her in it.
“By the way, how late do your friends sleep?” She asked.
“They’re both usually early birds. I guess the excitement of traveling in a starship to another planet tired them out. They probably did not sleep a wink on the whole trip.” He said.
Sean had finally extended an invitation to the men’s senior group from Palm Springs he socialized with. Only Artie and Mel, who were also bachelors and in good health, decided to come. Sean advised them to leave the shorts and the ‘Grateful Dead’ T shirts at home. He also arranged for them to attend the opening night at the restaurant.
Later, as they all arrived at the ‘Top of the World’ the Maître D’ greeted them,
“Duchess and Duke Mer, we are so glad you and your guests are here, I had your table ready, but a special guest insisted that you join them, this way please.” He said,
He led them away from the front door, and through the dining room. They greeted several Councilors and their Mates as they were led to a table behind a large fern with a view of the stage and the dance floor. The Band was softly playing dance music. The room was lit with soft lighting. The tables all had individual table lamps glowing low with a flicker as though they were candles. The surrounding glass wall looking over the city was filled with the lights of the city below, just like the Rainbow Room in New York which was the inspiration for the design.
Tonight, the room was filled to capacity with happy sounds of laughter and clinking glasses. Waiters in Earth style tuxedos waited on tables. One was sprinkling cinnamon into the flames of a flambéed dessert called ‘Bananas Foster’ being prepared tableside. This produced sparkling bits above the pan, and “oohs” and “aahs” by the guests. Table side cooking of dishes like ‘Steak Diane’ and desserts had never been seen on Hhearn. The room was full of appetite-wrenching cooking scents. As they came around the fern, Sean could see United States Secretary of State John Lewis seated with Maejel Tripperty, Cultural Attaché from Earth, enjoying a glass of spirits and each other.
“Mr. Secretary, and Ms. Tripperty, this is a surprise to see you here. This is wonderful. Thank you for inviting us to your table.” Sean said as Nasht-Mer smiled, and went to greet Maejel. Sean shook the Secretary’s hand as he rose from his chair. Sean introduced his two friends from Palm Springs, warning Maejel that Artie was a bit of a lady’s man as he turned to Artie,
“Artie, how many ladies did you wink at as we came into the dining room?” He asked.
“That’s classified.” Answered Artie, with a smile.
“Please join us, sit down.” The Secretary said as the Maître D’ pulled out a chair for Nasht-Mer.
“Maejel was just sharing an interesting observation from her visits to the Hhearn Museums. They all had a section on Space development but no information on where the transition FTL drive was invented, or who did it. Something that game-changing, would bear mentioning.” The Secretary said. Sean raised his eyebrows at this curiosity, but said nothing. A bit later, with drinks in hand for all, they toasted to the success of the restaurant. After looking at the menu which was printed in both English and Shrep, the language of Hhearn. Both Nasht-Mer and Maejel succumbed to the scents of ‘Steak Diane’ cooking in the dining room and ordered the same. Artie and Mel both ordered steaks, medium-rare.
After dinner, while the ladies went to inspect the Ladies room, Sean asked the Secretary,
“What brings you to Hhearn Mr. Secretary?”
“C’mon Sean, by now you should call me John in private, please.” He replied, and then said,
“Well, we have a couple of things going. First, Ambassador Wally Henning and I will make a trip to the Twin Planets. They want us to open a starship dealership on Earth, owned and staffed by our people, and selling their starships.” He looked at Artie and Mel,
“That’s not for publication boys.” He said. They both nodded as they rummaged through the bread basket looking for the Hhearn version of butter.
“They will provide training for sales, and repairs on everything except the engines and the AI’s, those are sealed. Then, a stop at Mutus Colonium to establish some diplomatic connection, bring them some food supplies, and get some of that ‘darkplant.’ You recall, we had that one episode of plague in Louisville that really spooked our CDC people. They want to know if it will be effective against our own versions of the plague.” He continued,
“Additionally, of course, support for this restaurant, the first Earth/Hhearn enterprise. We also support some plans of our ladies clothing designers who have leased some of the shop space on the two new buildings that are almost finished. Photo-ops and all that. Finally, I get a chance to spend some time with Maejel with no photo-ops!” He chuckled.
“What about newly discovered B’eekan?” Sean asked.
“We decided to leave that one aside for now. They need to get their disease problem under full control before we encourage Earth business trips to that planet. That’s another reason for me to bring back some of that darkplant.” Sean nodded.
“What about you Sean, what’s on your plate?” He asked.
“I’ve been asked by the Sisters of Mak’am to join them in a hunt for their former planet residents. They all had to flee their planet since their star was unstable. They split off and got separated. They now have a permanent home here, but wish to reconnect with the old one. It’s been over a century since all that happened, so they are not sure about reception and asked me to provide humanoid interface. By now, of course, there are no descendants there that can speak to them, so I will function as interpreter as well. It’s another space-capable civilization we should make a connection with, if we can find them.” Sean answered.
The Secretary nodded, and then a thought occurred to him,
“Sean, have we ever spoken to you about planetary discoveries and claimant rights?” he asked. Sean shook his head negatively as he took a sip of his drink. The Secretary continued,
“The Outer Space Treaty established by the United Nations in 1967 states that, ‘Outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.’ That means technically that the United States could not claim a planet, but it doesn’t stop us from taking advantage of what we find abandoned or unoccupied. If the findings were important enough, we might consider abdicating that treaty. The key would be to keep the location a secret, and then occupying it in some way so we could decide the question without panic. Keep that in mind as you stroll about the galaxies, would you?” Asked the Secretary. S
ean said,
“I will John, but at minimum I could claim it for the Planet Earth in generality, couldn’t I?” He replied,
“There would not likely be any UN objection to that, but you and I both know Russia and China would raise issues, despite being signatories.”
“Yes, I agree with you there. I haven’t discovered anything yet so the question is moot for today, but I see your point, we are getting ready to travel into unknown space. Nobody at this end knows what’s there yet.”
They could see the ladies coming back and discontinued ‘shop talk.’ They both knew the ladies would want to dance, and they did, while a HworldNet reporter was wandering the room capturing video of the diners and dancers and broadcasting it to the forty-nine planets on their network. Artie and Mel dug into their steaks.
Senior Councilor Trakt-Men was frustrated. While the Council agreed with him that something must be done to reintegrate the ‘honor breakers’ back into society, His staff could find no record of who had their hands dyed. A civil complaint of an honor breech resulted in a Social Worker certifying the complaint’s basis and issuing approval for the staining of the hand which was done by Rules Enforcement. The Councilor was astonished that no records were kept, nor was there any code of standards by which certification could be guided, or how they were to be treated by the public. The original civil complaint was discarded. The whole process turned people into non-people overnight, and enhanced the intention to have them disappear.
The population of Mutus Colonium, the formerly secret respite location for honor beakers who fled Hhearn, was only 3,200. His staff was able to check the records of dye purchases over several decades and an estimate of how many people’s hands could have been dyed was staggering. There were many thousands and no one knew where they were. Erkrut-Dom, SIS Supervisor and Maja-Ben from the SIS, the State Investigation Service, were sitting silently while the Councilor muttered over the small report his staff had placed upon his desk, not sure at all why they were there.
“Erkrut, I am not an investigator, and even I can see there is something very wrong here. We have thousands of people missing and no idea what happened to them. Even more challenging, we have no idea what happened to their assets. This will be the biggest case of missing persons you will have ever worked on. I want you to find out where all these people went and what happened to their assets. I have a very bad feeling about this, and I will bet a case of Earth’s whiskey that my predecessor is somehow involved in profiting from all this.”
“This has been going on for decades, right under our noses, and no one has had the temerity to look into it until Captain Flynn-Mer dropped it on my desk.” By now, the Councilor was shouting. No one had ever heard him shout like this before.
“Put together a team of canvassers and take a section of the City, go door to door and ask if anyone knew of a neighbor or family member that had been an honor breaker. Document the name, then have the computers do a record search of titles and licenses to see what they owned, vehicles, property, businesses. Let’s start there, extrapolate that number and asset type to get an idea of what we are looking at.”
Erkrut-Dom and Maja-Ben looked at each other with realization that this might have become the biggest fraudulent scam in Hhearn’s history not to mention the disappearance of all those people.
“Councilor, we will have to hire quite a few people for this.” Erkrut said.
“Maybe not, strip out the Rules Enforcement Training Academies for a two-week suspension of classes and put the cadets and instructors to do some real work. Let’s find out what’s going on here, and fast!” He barked.
Later, Meersa-Dom, Erkrut-Dom’s cousin, a cadet in the Rules Enforcement Academy was ringing doorbells inquiring who might have been an honor breaker. At the fifth house he stopped, the lady answering the door said there was an honor breaker who lived next door but was evicted by the landlord last week. She gave him the name and a brief description.
“Do you know where he is now?” He asked.
“I have seen him in the square, a few blocks over, near the fountain. I don’t know where he lives now.” She said, as she closed the door wanting nothing more to do with an honor breaker.
Meersa made notes of his name and former address, and on a whim, decided to go to the square to see if he could actually see him. The square was filled with people some sitting on the edge of the fountain in the middle of the square. One by one he examined the people there, until he noticed a man sitting against a building wall and looking downtrodden. No one paid any attention to him as they passed by. As Meersa got closer, he could see a part of his right palm and it was dyed blue. He decided to sit on the edge of the fountain and try to imagine what he would do if happened to him. There were no options he could imagine except just what the man was doing.
He watched as people avoided him, mothers pulled their children away as they walked by. Then, a man dressed all in black came up to him, stooped down, and offered him a red flower to smell. After a bit the two got up, and began to leave the square. Meersa picked up the red flower left behind, reached into a trash can to retrieve a plastic bag, and put the flower in it as he followed, reminding himself of what he had learned in class about following a suspect. He stayed a block or so behind as long as he could see the two as they walked without talking except for a word or two from the man in black. They walked several blocks and met up with two other similar pairs. Meersa had been snapping photos on his pocketcom, and now got a shot of all three pairs as a large landcar pulled up and took them away. He got another shot of the vehicle number as they went by.
“Hypno-dust, they’re using hypno-dust!” He thought, as he realized he had witnessed an honor breaker being taken. He rushed back to the dispatching precinct excited over his first investigation.
Chapter Two
Book Three
Marte’e-Fel, a funds transfer agent at Central Bank of Hhearn was processing several funds transfers when her supervisor came by her work module.
“Marte’e, the department manager wishes to see you immediately.” She said,
“Stop doing what you’re working on and go to his office now, he’s waiting.” She said crisply. Marte’e closed up her files on her computer and walked to the manager’s office, a room she had never had the occasion to be in.
“By the Gods, I hope I haven’t made a big mistake.” She thought nervously as she walked to his door and knocked.
“Come in.” The voice inside called. She opened the door to see the Manager with two other persons she didn’t know waiting for her to come in. She stepped into the room closing the door behind her, and moved to the front of the manager’s desk,
“You wanted to see me sir?” She said weakly.
“Yes, Marte’e, please sit down.” He indicated the chair in front of his desk. The other two persons she didn’t know remained standing which served to elevate her fears.
“First of all, I see you are a bit nervous, let me assure you that you have done nothing wrong. In fact, your twenty-six annuals of service without errors are some kind of department record of which we are very proud. We do have a bit of a problem though, and we need to solve it today.” Then, he introduced the two other persons standing by his desk as representatives from the bank’s legal department. He continued,
“As you are well aware, we are very careful in handling customers’ money, and you have been exemplary in that task. However, we have a block of funds that had become stranded without apparent ownership. That alarmed me, so I contacted Legal to look over the matter and advise precise instructions of how to comply with the law. As they have described to me under the law, funds always have ownership.” He paused as he looked at the legal staff who nodded affirmatively.
“Every step of the way there is an ascribed ownership and never a time when that does not exist. In this unusual case, both the sender of the funds and the recipient are now dead with no estate, and the transaction cannot be completed. Under our laws, relating to the tr
ansfer of funds, there is a provision to ensure that there is never a moment, however fractional, that the funds do not have an owner. In this case it is ‘possessor during transition.’ The law defines that it cannot be the bank, since the Bank is neither a person or a trust, but is called a ‘Hovering Fiduciary.’ Therefore, it turns out, the possessor is legally to be you Marte’e, since you were the officer handling the incomplete transfer. Now, this is a most unusual situation that has not come up before. We would like to do two things. First, I need to advise you that the funds, under the law, are now yours, and secondly, to request that you sign a confidentiality agreement not to discuss this event or where you acquired the funds. That last part is important to us, and I hope I can count on your cooperation in signing the agreement.” He passed the long one-page agreement over to Marte’e.
Marte’e signed the document without hesitation, and the legal staff signed as witnesses.
“Thank you Marte’e, the funds will be in your account within the hour.
“Thank you sir. May I go now?” She asked.
“Don’t you want to know how much it is, Marte’e?” He asked.
“Yes, of course, sir.” She stuttered wanting nothing more than to leave the room.
“Marte’e, the amount is, one million kalt.” He said with a smile. “The stranded transfer between the parties Beztl-Tor, and the Zakarian Kastm’n. We are sure the Council will not make a claim for recovery of soiled funds since Beztl-Tor had legitimate business operations as well, and there would be no way to separate the funds.” He said.
“What will I do with all that money?” She asked stunned.
“That is the question now Marte’e, isn’t it?” He responded with an envious smile.
Sean walked down to the engine room of Discovery to find Welly, the ship’s engineer as he took Artie and Mel on a tour. Sean was glad to be back aboard the Discovery after taking a few weeks off to enjoy the serenity of Estate Mer with Nasht-Mer and his two friends from Palm Springs. But long periods of inactivity for him were anathema, in fact, he had labored unpleasantly for years in Palm Springs hoping to find a ‘mission’ to occupy his later years. Now, with the Collector drone from the Seeker having infused him with micro nanites, his life was even longer. Looking around him, the thrill of now owning a starship was still fresh with no limitations of where or when he could explore, this was the prime pursuit of a lifetime and he was grateful.
