“Yet,” Lee said.
“Of course,” Gordon agreed.
* * *
“There are riots in Pakistan,” Jeff said, not looking up from his reader.
“I’d have to look into it, but somehow I imagine there have been riots in Pakistan numerous times before,” Heather said. “How are these different or important to us?”
“This time it’s happening due to the Claims Commission subsidy being cut. Their government has had to impose austerity measures. Telecommunication charges have been raised, the surcharges for small credit purchases has been raised. This time the cost of bread and cooking oil have been jacked up too,” Jeff said.
“Surely other non-space powers are feeling the pinch too,” Heather said.
“Yes, but Pakistan already had internal political problems and the opposing factions used the loss of the subsidy as a weapon, blaming each other. There is no clear majority party in power and everybody is pointing fingers at others for refusing to meet the Commission’s standards to receive the subsidy. They could have joined an association to sponsor a ship, but all the associations available to them were filled with traditional enemies or opposing styles of government. They would cut their own throats before they would partner a ship and crew with India and Sri Lanka. Now the groups that had a ship share have all withdrawn from the Commission because they won’t support sending them off on a multi-year voyage. Pakistan would have to go it alone to get back in the game,” Jeff said.
“And they can’t afford to do that?” Heather asked.
“On paper, they look like they could,” Jeff said. “That’s why the Commission won’t give them the freebie. They tightened things up so that besides some small islands, only Lichtenstein, Monaco and East Timor got the full subsidy. Pakistan could probably qualify if their economic reporting was accurate, but their official numbers have been a fantasy for decades. Making them accurate would cause more chaos than losing the subsidy. Even their population numbers are off by at least a third if you look at how many cell phones are registered.”
“Sounds to me like Pakistan is just first and other countries will have problems with the loss of Commission money,” April said, finally joining the conversation.
“Likely,” Jeff agreed. “I suspect a lot of the ships on the registry were hanger queens, and not really fit to leave Earth orbit. They were just built to qualify for full membership and then never updated or maintained. From my viewpoint, the Claims Commission has lasted a long time. How many other Earth pacts or treaties have lasted seventy years without being done away with or altered beyond recognition?
“It’s been ninety years since we agreed to allow exploration ships with limited arms passage beyond L1. It’s been seventy years since they found the Elves world and at least knew they would find some living worlds, even if the first was occupied.
“That’s what really triggered them to form the Commission,” Jeff said.
“Yes, they could see there were going to be living worlds worth fighting over and stealing. I’m still shocked they had the sense to not waste the majority of their new wealth on protecting their discoveries. On the plus side, that means the Earthies have a few dozen ships on the registry that can’t really be any threat to us,” April said.
“True,” Jeff said, “But they could use them as expendable game pieces, just like the one they pulled out of mothballs to test us at Derfhome.”
* * *
“Oh, Sweet!” Born called out.
“They put candied bacon back on the faculty lounge menu?” Musical quipped. He didn’t look up from his screen. Born tended to gush over minor matters. Neither was he being racist. Badgers liked their treats sweet about the same as Derf.
“Sweeter than that. Our patron has somehow managed to obtain the current research data for the gravity plate the Little Fleet got back from the Caterpillars.”
“I thought they were hung up because the majority didn’t want to dismantle the thing and cut up the active disk to find out what makes it tick?” Musical said.
“I suspect that even if the majority wanted to hack it to pieces and Gordon wished to continue with non-destructive testing it would remain untouched,” Born said.
“You’re right about that,” Musical said. “My own supervisor has made plain that Gordon’s management style is to politely suggest this and that, and then if you are too dense to find some path to accommodate his suggestions, he proceeds to what the Humans call ‘knocking heads together’. The idiom isn’t supposed to be literal, but I get a mental image of those lower arms doing just that far too easily. You might say Gordon is effectively a majority of one.”
“And he might be right,” Born allowed. “They’ve got more data than I’d have expected going the slow and cautious route. I’m sending it over to your inside machine.” Meaning the one that had no outside network connections. They followed an odd mix of security, air gapping their computer but leaving the door unlocked to go to the restroom.
Musical switched his attention to that screen and read the list of tests and theories advanced. The other screen abandoned for now.
Born, who was a bit ahead of him called out rather than text, “Go to line 39062. They took a diamond wipe and got a list of elements and isotopic concentrations.”
“Ummm… they didn’t get enough transfer to see the gross structure,” Musical complained. They have the relative ratios of elements, but not bonding structure.”
“Yes, but they have x-ray diffraction studies and it shows a glassy structure instead of a crystalline structure with distinct grains,” Born said.
“You read that fast? Where are you?” Musical demanded.
“Line 41723. You know, the ratio of elements really isn’t that far off most of our known superconductors,” Born said. “But they were all in crystalline form. That kind of puts us back to square one, because we were looking for a liquid superconductor. A glassy structure is similar. It means we really have to examine if any of the known materials act differently prepared as a glass. We’re going to need new equipment.
“Some of the Earth system orbitals deal in significant volumes of glassy steel and other materials, mostly structural. I’m not sure if it is an industry at Fargone. I suspect we shouldn’t broadcast what our new line of inquiry is by openly buying the equipment. There may even be lab size processors to be had used since it’s a fairly mature tech. Perhaps Lee can arrange the purchases for us. She seems to have a surprising variety of useful contacts in both places. Then the responsibility for how discreet to be isn’t on us.”
“Please, I’ve no long-term experience at being secretive,” Musical agreed. “Humans just excel at spy-craft and being devious. Not that I’d say that to Lee,” he added.
“Don’t worry, I’m aware enough to know she wouldn’t take that as a compliment,” Born said. “Gordon might, but he’d never admit it. I’ll look into what sort of processors exist. I know they spray molten metal on cryogenic disks for some things. I’m not sure if the tech has advanced beyond that.”
“Uh huh,” Musical said, still reading the new report. “Maybe vapor deposited? Thanks for taking care of that.”
It never occurred to either of them to question if their employer would willingly foot the bill to transport a large metal processing machine at interstellar freight rates.
* * *
“The Foys are requesting our further assistance beyond a security presence, to provide a facilities manager for their embassy,” the First Mother announced over breakfast to the Second and Third Mum. “What are your thoughts on that?”
“Are they that far along?” the Second Mother asked. “I thought they barely had the beams up the last I knew.”
“They are asking well ahead. I appreciate it actually,” the First Mother said. “It gives us time to consider who we can let go and how to train their replacements.”
“I wish the Badgers had done so,” the Third Mother said. “I’d like some eyes and ears on the inside there to kn
ow about any problems early on.”
“The Badgers and Bills left a lot more staff for their embassy, but Queen Heather just sent the Foys. I do wonder why they didn’t send any support people?” the Second Mother said. “I realize we are getting off cheaply to support them, compared to what it would cost us to mount a system defense. Have the Badgers hired any local help?”
“They have three, a Derf gardener who is doing a lot of their landscaping in native plants. They have a Derf handyman who is familiar with Derf construction and electrical systems, and a Derfhome born human who is interesting. He is supposed to help them with Derf and English usage, how to deal with the differences between Clan and city Derf, aspects of human culture here that differ from the Earth Humans, and make sure they don’t get taken advantage of in dealing with local merchants for things like groceries. He said that in Derf he is called a local expert, in Badger he is a facilitator, and in English he’s a cultural advisor, but he said Gofer would be closer to the truth. Somebody who runs errands and just does whatever is needed.”
“You’ve met this person?” the First Mother asked.
“They use the same staples grocer we do. I was going over standing orders and negotiating with them over spices and happened to be there at the same time.”
“I’ve too many years on you to believe in coincidence,” the First Mother said.
“Well, I was interested in who works for them, and it didn’t take any extraordinary effort to be there at the same time, but thinking the Human would be more interesting was an error. He’s a bit beyond my ability to understand deeply because he seems a mish-mash of cultures. I mean… the man tells dirty jokes in Derf that embarrass me. I did give him my com code, said the embassy and Talker were of special importance to us and, if he ever needed to, he should feel free to call. He just said that he knew that and thanked me. I don’t think I’ll ever get any inside information from him.”
“Fascinating,” the First Mother said, propping her chin in a true hand. “I had no idea you had this inclination to dabble in spycraft. What of the Derf employees? Have you contrived to meet either of them? If they are town Derf with no Clan loyalties are they given to talking too freely? Have you thought or planned on this?”
“That would seem unfriendly to me if they ever found out. I’d rather, as I said, have our own people in there, but the Badgers already have a reputation for paying well and being easy going. I doubt either of their hires will leave on their own any time soon. But if we hear they decide they need more help I’d sure like to send one of our own to apply.” The way the Third Mother was looking at them made it a question.
“I have no objection to that. Do you?” the First Mother asked the Second.
“Certainly not, I wish I’d thought of it first,” The Second Mother said.
“Do, however, tell us if you supply them with such an employee,” the First Mother insisted. “I wouldn’t give them any special instructions about being observant or reporting back to you. Otherwise, they are liable to expose themselves by displaying too much interest in things by simple guile. It’s not like we have any trained spies to send. Just make sure you send them a very bright young person and allow loyalty and native intelligence to motivate them to inform us if they hear something we should know. An occasional neutral inquiry if they are still happy in the position should be more than enough to trigger them to discuss it if they have seen anything irregular. Even that shouldn’t be repeated too often or too regularly, lest they come to think you are fishing for something.”
The Third Mother smiled and assumed the same affected chin in hand pose to tease the First Mum. She could only do that because they both liked each other. “Neither did I ever think you’d ever have such detailed advice for me on how to handle an agent.”
“I’ll be another fifty years teaching you all the hats you’ll need to wear before you even get stuck with being Second,” she warned.
“I’ve given up planning much of anything about my life until we see if Gordon and Lee get this life-extension tech they are talking about to work for Derf,” the Third Mother said. “I suspect that would turn our world upside down in ways I can’t predict.”
The other Mothers said nothing. It was horrible having something they both wanted and dreaded so badly at the same time.
Chapter 3
The Champion of Red Tree, Garrett, relaxed in one of the command chairs on the flight deck of the Kurofune. He had it adjusted fairly upright since the vessel was in orbit and not anticipating any acceleration. There was one belt drawn loosely across his legs to keep from drifting away from every little motion. It was a rare treat for him to lift to orbit, and he’d welcomed the chance to do so by handling this himself. This ship and its owner Lee Anderson were important to the Mothers of Red Tree and he would have worried all the while if he’d assigned this duty to anyone else.
He had a security screen active and feeds from a half dozen cameras showing the two weapons techs and a couple of riggers easing a pair of Fargone missiles onto the hard points on the Kurofune’s hull. Keeping an eye on the Fargone contractors worked better if they had no idea they were being watched, so he’d been dropped off hours earlier than the Fargoer ship’s arrival and the scooter that delivered him was taken away by the hired pilot. He had nothing activated to show the ship was occupied.
The civilian workers had suits visibly different than the two Fargone sailors who opened the weapon ports and stood by watching the riggers pull the missiles out of active launch tubes. It was interesting that they transported them that way. It was good though, that they had been through being connected and had experienced acceleration from differing directions while mounted up and live on the trip to Derfhome. The diagnostic systems would tell them if all the movement and vibration triggered any fault.
The ports weren’t closed back up until Garrett saw the tips of other missiles come into view from the ship’s magazine. The sailors inspected something in each opening carefully before allowing the hatches to be secured. Then the naval workers went back in the Quantum Queer. The cruiser was huge compared to the Kurofune, the suited workers giving him some scale to its size. The missiles looked tiny coming out of the cruiser but he knew they were a quarter of the Kurofune’s length.
Garrett listened to the suit chatter. A lot of it was technical stuff he didn’t understand. But some of it was obvious. The techs had plenty of time to probe in the mounting points with test leads and confirm that external power was available as needed. On other connectors, they confirmed that data buses had live power pins.
All that was easily done before the two handling the missiles had them turned the right way and eased down within a hand’s breadth of the mounting points. One of the technicians joined the riggers and found a mark on the missile halfway between the mounts but on the opposite side. After they confirmed alignment he said. “OK, pushing it now, so the tapered mounts started to engage.”
The man had both hands on each side of a mark Garrett couldn’t see on camera. His suit jets had no visible plume, so nothing appeared to be happening for a full minute. However, if some force wasn’t holding him pressed to the missile flat handed he’d have drifted away. They were doing it exactly right and by the book. Jerking big heavy things around in zero-g was a formula for disaster.
“Front taper in the track,” One man called.
“Back taper close,” the other fellow called, “still lined up.”
“Back taper has overlap,” he confirmed in another few seconds.
“Does it need a push more towards the rear?” the man in the center asked.
“It’s still moving. Wait and see if it engages. I’d hate to bounce it.”
“Roger,” was all the other man said and they were silent almost two minutes.
“Are you in past the marks to engage grapples?” The tech in the middle asked. Both riggers replied affirmatively.
“Activate on three then. One, and a two, and a three,” he counted off.
“It looks good, but I’m testing continuity electrically,” The back techie said.
It wasn’t long until he reported a good solid connection.
“How would you like to do that in combat?” His buddy asked. “Thank goodness for power fed magazines and automated connectors.”
“You might have done this at one time in the field, but never in actual combat. If you shoot yourself empty, and can’t run, you’re dead.” He started packing his instruments.
“You guys are done,” one techie told the riggers. “We have to check some other stuff and we’ll be along in a few minutes.”
Without any discussion, the two technicians withdrew to the main airlock of the Kurofune even before the riggers got back to the Quantum Queer. That wasn’t planned and it wasn’t right. There was no need or prior arrangement for them to come aboard. This was planned or they’d have had some discussion during the mounting upon finding a sudden need to come aboard. Garrett could see them peering at the lens of the control panel for the lock. He powered his chair around to face the hatch to the lock deck now, while they were still out in vacuum and wouldn’t hear it moving.
“Well crap, it has a keypad and a camera. But which one is the primary system?”
“I’d try facial recognition first,” his companion said. “It has to be set to just ignore unknown faces or you’d have a lock-down event every time a visitor or new crew member tripped the system. The keypad is much more likely to lock us out hard after three false entries.”
He made a face, “Or fewer, if they’re really paranoid.”
They both hesitated, frowning at the panel.
“You might be over-thinking it,” his companion warned. “Before you use your image, or try to scan the wear pattern on the keypad, why don’t you just hit the open button and see if it’s unlocked?”
That was very interesting. Just what sort of an image did they have that might open the ship’s lock? There might be six faces that would do that and a handful of other licenses or documents the camera could scan and authorize.
Friends in the Stars Page 4
