by P F Walsh
“Ollie, I have a sticky one here, best handled quietly until you know who is wearing whose shoes.”
Eddie described what happened and couldn’t confirm that the Ambassador had been personally responsible, or an embassy employee, while she was in the ladies room, but it did happen in the Embassy, and it was a Chinese app. Ollie listened carefully as was his style, always searching for inflections and pauses that would lend meaning.
“I say, that is dark, isn’t it? Involving a connection to the White House and all?” He said, “We will definitely have to look into this one. Give me the date and time of day, I’ll chase it down and keep this one close. Eddie, your gal may have uncovered someone we would very much like to have a long talk with, in the quiet room.” Eddie gave him the information and he hung up. Eddie put the phone down and wondered just how compromised that Embassy was, and the President had just been to a reception there!
“I don’t think either the President or Ms. Griggs will be accepting invitations from the British Embassy for a while.” He thought.
Chapter Three
Book Three
Erkrut-Dom was in his office at the SIS meeting with Maja-Ben on where to start the investigation of the missing honor breakers. They needed the door-to-door survey report that the Cadets and their instructors were conducting. They were deciding how many investigators they might have to assign considering the impetus was from the Senior Councilor. Despite that, realization of what might have been going on regarding abandoned assets and missing people was sobering. Where were all of those people?
A knock on the office door and it was opened. The section secretary stuck her head in the door,
“Supervisor, your cousin Meersa-Dom is here and insists on seeing you immediately. He says it’s urgent.” Erkrut looked puzzled. Meersa should have been out on the survey project.
“Send him in.” He said and turned back to Maja,
“This should only take a minute.”
Meersa came into the office and closed the door behind him. He was carrying a plastic bag. Erkrut could tell he was highly excited.
“Meersa what brings you here so excited, you are supposed to be doing a survey to help me find out what is happening to the honor breakers.” He asked.
“I found out; they’re using hypno-dust!” He blurted.
“Calm down, Meersa, what are you talking about?” Erkrut snapped.
“I got a report from a resident about a next-door neighbor who was an honor breaker and was evicted. I got his name and a general description.” He said
“That’s good, now please go back out and get some more of those so we can see how many there are.” Erkrut said patiently, but then,
“Wait, what are you talking about, using hypno-dust?”
Meersa described how he got the honor breaker’s name, a probable location, and decided to check to see if he was there. He located him, and then described how the man was approached and drawn away submissively to meet up later by another group who were all picked up by a landcar. Erkrut and Maja listened with growing interest.
“How do you know they are using hypno-dust?” Erkrut asked.
“He was offered a flower to smell and became submissive a few minutes after.” Meersa said.
“That doesn’t prove they were using hypno-dust Meersa.” Maja said.
“Yes, I know that, that’s why I picked up the flower they left behind and bagged it. It’s right here.” He held up the bag.
Erkrut barked,
“Zom’s Balls, don’t open the bag Meersa, by now the dust, if any, has been shaken off the flower and is loose in the bag. Take it down to the lab. I’ll call them and let them know what to do. You know where the lab is?”
“Yes sir, it’s in the basement.” He said eagerly.
“OK, then take it down. It’s a shame you didn’t get the number of the landcar.” Erkrut said.
“Oh, I have that too, it’s in my pocketcomm with pictures of the men who had the flowers!” Meersa said.
Erkrut and Maja looked at each other and smiled.
Allister and Halkt-Bar were working on possible routes for the exploration. With Mother Primitia’s access permissions, Allister used the Hhearn WorldNet to link to the Sister’s recovered starship. He downloaded the navigation information from when they fled their home solar system so many decades ago. There would be some movement in the stars but it would not affect their plans since the time involved was so small, celestially speaking. Their old Solar system was some 63 light years away from Hhearn in the direction of an area uncharted through Hhearnian exploration. That would be their starting point.
Once there, the nav system information from the Sister’s starship would be used to try to establish a departure direction for the migration fleet. The problem was determining the status of that star. If it was still weak, but relatively stable, the plan would fall into place. If the star had become very unstable and was beginning to come apart, entering that solar system would be unwise, and Allister confirmed that. Light from that star’s present status would take 63 annuals to arrive at Hhearn. The only way to know, was to go there, or nearby. The first jump was going to be to an adjacent system. Sean came into the bridge of the Discovery where the two were working on the routes.
“Have you two settled on a departure route yet?” He asked.
“Yes Captain,” answered Allister, “we know where their solar system is located and have set a cautionary approach to it.” Hal nodded in agreement.
“Good, plug it in, we’ll be leaving tomorrow as soon as all the stores are packed aboard and Welly says we’re shipshape. We’ll also have to wait for the Sisters to arrive. This time, there will be three. Mother Primitia is joining us for the trip. She will have her own cabin, and Welly has set an energy nourishment panel in that cabin as well.” He said and added,
“Of course, by now you know the Duchess is coming with us as too, I hope we have a smooth trip, but she is remarkably adaptive.” Sean said.
Hal quipped with a smile,
“I think that will actually be good for this trip. Maybe we will have less gun oil on the dining tables, not sure about Mel though.“
Sean knew about the teasing Doris got for habitually cleaning her guns while watching the vid in the dining cabin.
“No question, we have the cleanest hand weapons in the galaxy, not including the dining tables.” Sean said as he left the bridge.
The next solar, the stores had been organized for sequential consumption and packed securely away in the cargo hold. The Sisters arrived with their small bags and went to their cabins after Sean had a small conversation regarding the transition affects with Mother Primitia who had not been through a transition to FTL. She shrugged it off believing that nothing would affect them, and the other two sisters agreed, it had no effect. Artie and Mel were speechless in meeting the Sisters despite Sean’s description of them. But neither one considered not going because there were non-humans aboard. Sean thought that was a good start since there was no way of knowing what they would meet. So far, there had been no other contact with non-humanoids.
Welly declared the ship was ready to depart. All stores in place and consumables were all topped off. Hal agreed. Sean nodded to Allister who began closing the ship up for departure and turning on the rotating navigation warning lights outside the hull. The Discovery unlatched from the Hhearn orbital Dock and backed away slowly until well away from the docking station to begin a one hundred eighty-degree rotation before activating the local thrusters. Artie, Doris, and Mel watched the departure on the dining cabin video display panel. The Discovery was now on her way to exit the Hhearn solar system and leap for ‘no-space’ to begin the long jump.
Far away, Central knew when another transition drive had jumped into ‘no-space.’ If it was not for being able to track this series of random events, Central believed it would have no reason not to shut down. The burst of tachyons created when entering or exiting a jump into ‘no-space’ arrived strong enough fo
r Central to detect and register despite their distance. This pleased Central that no entity had yet learned how to ‘fold’ space. That would have been an entirely different burst, stronger, more ordered and aligned. That mode was used only by the Masters, but Central had not had instructions from them in much longer than their general life span. Could they have somehow lengthened it in another place? Why would they leave all this behind? When will the Masters allow me to update the seeds? It wondered silently. These questions turned over incessantly but were never resolved. This always resulted in Central doing another audit of assigned tasks including maintenance and droid herding to record the satisfaction of duty completion as programmed.
Its attention turned momentarily to the commo where the usual clatter of nonsensical complaining had been going on. Central did not understand why they could not just ‘be.’
“Each entity had their assigned duty, and theirs was to wait.” It thought. “Just as I do.”
Oliver Adwell, at his desk at MI-6 in Vauxhall, London, was reading a preliminary investigative report on their Washington Embassy, and Ambassador Reginald Dawson, for the previous week. After the call from the President’s Secret Service Head Eddie Powers, a scramble team of twelve agents was sent overnight to Washington from different locations, independent of the local team already in place. The small local team hadn’t picked up on this latest Chinese concern, so they were temporarily not included. This way, Oliver could get a fresh, unbiased report that incidentally would include a cursory examination of the local MI-6 team as well. Two of the team were sent to join the local Washington team working out of the Embassy as rotating agents acquiring field experience. This allowed them to ask questions under the guise of being a new agent.
The report disclosed that the Ambassador had previously served for twenty years at their Embassy in Beijing and spoke Mandarin fluently, kept a regimented schedule both during and after hours. MI-6 liked surveillance on persons who had structured habits. It not only allowed a predicted work load assignment, but deviations became obvious immediately. The opposite side of that coin was to lull the surveillance personnel into acceptance of predictability, not a good thing for competent observation. The MI-6 Agents knew this, and never deviated from their valuation, and reevaluation, of every move despite repetition. Oliver tipped Eddie that he sent a new team to sniff around the Embassy but did not identify them. By now he knew the FBI would be involved and hoped they didn’t step on each other’s shoes.
The Ambassador did not socialize outside of the Embassy except for requirements to attend social functions professionally. He did not have a social or romantic relationship of any type, but did eat at a Chinese restaurant every other week. He ordered the same dishes, so menu selection did not seem to be any sort of signal so far, but he didn’t eat the fortune cookies. Instead he scooped them up and put them in his pocket.
Oliver picked up on that instantly of course, and wondered what was on that little slip of paper inside the cookie.
“What are the Chinese trying to find out about what the President and his girlfriend were saying? Or, was it her involvement with the US Interplanetary business activities, which up to now they had been largely excluded from?” He wondered. He made certain a thorough examination of the Ambassador’s personal residence and Embassy trash was on the list of things to closely examine.
Eddie had described to him the Chinese attempt at seizing one of the new starships the US bought, so he knew there was a robust effort to gain access to the secrets of interplanetary flight and the alien AI’s. Oliver reviewed the list of family connections. All seemed unremarkable except for his son who was abroad. No information on where he went was in the report.
“Ronald Tupps, in our tracing group, will pick up on that, and run that down for sure.” He thought, and went back to rummaging through the pile on his desk looking for the file on the Chinese Embassy activities.
Ambassador Dawson closed up his office for the day, checked to be certain there was no urgent message freshly arrived from London, and left his office. The Ambassador maintained a placid exterior at all times. After all, that’s what the British do so well. But inside, he was in turmoil. The switching of Ms. Grigg’s cell phone even though it appeared identical was the most stressful thing he had ever done. He believed he pulled it off, overlooking his somewhat uncharacteristically animated conversation to her as she prepared to leave. He could sense she was eager to leave and hoped she did not come to the conclusion that the luncheon invitation was an obvious bit of artifice.
While wishing for success, at the same time, he understood that he was compromising the security of the White house, something that had real likelihood to blow up in his face. He could just imagine what the Foreign Secretary would say. After all those ruminations, he chided himself silently that he did not demand proof that Jeremy was still alive before committing himself. His only card now was to threaten to expose the entire matter if Jeremy was not released. That would sink his career but save his son? He wiped his brow,
“Why am I sweating?” he wondered, as he walked through the halls to his secure residence.
A few weeks before, the Ambassador had attended a social party in Washington’s tony Georgetown given by Cynthia Bagnall, lately of Kensington, London. Very old English money, and regrettably connected to high levels of the UK government including the Foreign Office. In his position, he could not refuse to attend. The party was a silly affair called “Bags & Rags.” The scheme was to wrap a gift expensively for someone you know that they would not be caught dead wearing or carrying because of its condition. The gift inside had to be something that had experienced severe personal wear. Undergarments excepted of course. But old shoes, dinner stained ties, sneakers, and the like were fair game at inducing surprise and light embarrassment. Usually the gifts were a parody of some item the receiver was proud of wearing. They were handed out late in the party after generous administrations of drinks.
When the Ambassador had opened his gift, enclosed in a Tiffany & Co. box, he found an old men’s wallet that had seen many years of very hard wear. Since his actual wallet was really a neat leather folder he bought at Selfridge’s and kept in his inside suit coat pocket, this was definitely something he would not be using and had a laugh along with the others who observed his surprise and poorly contained revulsion. Later, when he had returned home, he opened the wallet and discovered his son’s driver’s license and a short note in Mandarin. That was his first contact. He did wonder about the involvement of Cynthia Bagnall, but did not report his suspicions since it would work itself back to him immediately.
The Discovery ship was streaking along in ‘no-space’ many light years from Hhearn now, and getting close to their observation location, safely away from their destination. They could then acquire information on whether the solar system of Mak, as the Sister’s called it, was safe to enter as a baseline departure point to begin their search. Artie was spending a great deal of time with Allister discussing engineering principles and the various conundrums that existed in that field. He was shocked to learn that Allister actually had viable solutions to many unsolved mathematical riddles. He found Allister to be his new mentor and clearly an excellent teacher to solving those frequently avoided challenges. Mel and Doris were spending time in the gym, both exercising. Doris to perfect and retain her surprising strength, Mel to recover his. The hours and the days flew by for them both. Not so much for the rest of the crew, many of whom just slept, or played games in the dining cabin. That table was now quite clean of gun oil after being reclaimed from a reluctant Doris.
Sean was taking a break from studying and wandered down to the engine room.
“Welly, how are things running? This is a longest reach we have run her.” Asked Sean.
“Captain, I don’t think I have ever seen an engine run smoother or use less anti-matter fuel as this one. We could keep up this pace for decades. There certainly won’t be any problem with continuing our search after we get to Mak.”
He said. “She’s right happy to run long, Sir.” He said with a satisfied smile and went back to polishing the shroud that covered the transition drive engine.
Sean could see that the polishing was clearly a love affair between an engineer and his ship and left him to his efforts. He returned to his cabin, sat at his terminal, and went back to studying the arcane principles of logical thinking. It seemed a well that grew ever deeper without a bottom the more he absorbed. That was when he realized that there was no ultimate logic, all premises had malleable boundaries and base assumptions. Even all starting points had beginnings that preceded it. It became mind bending to realize this. He pulled up a reference from the Biblical Science Institute that Allister had culled from his capture of Earth’s database.
“The Biblical Basis for the Laws of Logic: Laws of logic are abstract because they reflect God’s thinking, and all thinking is abstract by definition. Something is abstract if it occurs in the mind. Laws of logic occur in the mind of God, and in the mind of humans when we are thinking properly.” Sean saw this as the perfect resolution to his mental struggle to dominate the subject, and turned to the ship’s weapons systems, more rigid examples of cause and effect.
The Sisters of Mak’am were motionless in their cabin, absorbing the concentration of energy in ‘no-space’ created by the particle bow wave in front of the ship. It was intoxicating, and it was just as the two sisters who had traveled with Sean before had described. They were not seen for the entire transition.
Rooky was also in his cabin enjoying reading all the books and legal treatises he had picked up on Earth with Allister’s help. He especially enjoyed reading the U.S. Supreme Court decisions and their dissensions. He was impressed with the depth of perception and interpretations. They seemed far more intrinsic to the law, and the binding Constitution, than law cases he read on Hhearn. The U.S. Constitution document itself, he felt, was a godly construction that was a marvel. As he sat back after reading another case, he realized that he could not imagine another situation that was more suited to his insatiable need for an understanding of law than his position on this ship. He reached for another sip of synthesized Diet Cherry Pepsi and began to read again.
