Friends in the Stars

by Mackey Chandler

  “I am not a tattle to run our conversations back home,” Pamela objected. She didn’t agree with Kirk, but the points he made at the end about the food and the way the ship seemed nicer and more advanced were already bothering her. It was nicer than the promotional videos Kirk would undoubtedly label as propaganda. The only reason she could see for that was if the dreary Earth ships in the recruiting videos were the very best they could present.

  “I’ll look at some more of the ship web and run the searches you suggested.”

  She felt like a traitor to even say that much.

  Kirk just gave a curt nod, unimpressed. He didn’t expect her to do it.

  * * *

  “As near as I can figure, the main shaft simply exploded from the disk upward,” Musical said. “Then the shaft, unsupported, whipped until it got far enough off center to snap off above the bottom magnetic bearing. There’s still a hunk of it in the lower bearing friction welded in place. The disk itself totally disintegrated, with the superconductor delaminating from the base disk.”

  “Is any of the superconductor recoverable to use for experiments?” Born asked.

  “It has so much contamination I wouldn’t try. At the speed it impacted the walls and the chunks of shaft flying about inside, it isn’t just surface contamination. There are particles of other materials embedded in the superconductor. Trying to do anything but run the pieces through a screen might destroy the glassy state. It’s not like we don’t know how to make more.

  “The real loss is not this test batch. I’m sorry to tell you the centrifuge is a write-off. It contained the explosion just like it was supposed to, but there are dents and bulges that I would worry might not stand being hit the same way again. We need to just replace the whole thing. We aren’t going to save much but the floor stand and lower shell anyhow. And the new shaft needs to be hollow, not a stock one, to allow us to test what this force is that it projected up through the ceiling.”

  “A hollow shaft will be weaker. We won’t be able to spin it up as fast. And how big a bore do we need to avoid the same sort of damage all over again?” Born worried.

  “I’d suggest we farm out the design, making the hollow bore as big as we safely can make it with a respectable margin,” Musical said, “at least as big as the hole in the ceiling. Another explosion would be needlessly expensive.”

  Born thought to reply and then stifled it. No matter how much he and Musical got along and liked each other, there was still a cultural gap. He’d stuck his foot in his mouth several times already, thinking the Badger was making a joke when he wasn’t.

  “This is a significant enough finding I think we should make a report to Lee,” Born said. “Don’t you?”

  “Yes. She may even have suggestions about how to proceed,” Musical said. “It wouldn’t surprise me at all. She may be able to dig up new information again, given she has new facts now with which to inquire of her sources. She may even decide to throw more money at us. The girl has a surprising intuitive grasp of cutting edge physics for all of needing to express it in plain language instead of numbers.”

  “You could do that if you had to,” Born insisted.

  “Yes, but it would make my head hurt,” Musical said. “Numbers are much more compact and succinct. Doing it her way is too hard.”

  Born had such a change of expression even Musical could read it on the Derf’s face.

  “Did I trigger a thought?” Musical asked, when Born wasn’t forthcoming.

  “It is irrelevant and unessential to our task, but it occurred to me that what you just said suggests Lee may be smarter than… me,” Born said.

  “Us, you mean,” Musical corrected.

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Born admitted, “but I’m still struggling with learning to be polite across three cultures. I thought it might be offensive.”

  Musical considered that carefully. “It might be, against a different standard, but I think you are right, and that should be one of our base assumptions as we proceed.”

  Born just nodded. “Let’s send a note over by bank courier. I don’t want to trust this to a text. I’m getting paranoid,” he admitted.

  Chapter 9

  Kirk Fuldheim got a hot chocolate in a thermo-mug and returned to his bunk. He’d had a bite of supper in the galley a couple of hours ago. He suspected that the crew was under orders to take their meals elsewhere if there were passengers using the galley. No one said anything but it was a pattern he noticed. If there were two or three already there when he went for a meal they dispersed fairly quickly if he stayed. If he took his tray back to his and Pamela’s cabin, they stayed. Since it was one of the few places to get away from his confining bunk, he hated to impose on them that way.

  He didn’t mind returning to his bunk, it could be configured like a lounge chair, and he was free to watch a video or wear earphones without feeling he was being antisocial. The galley didn’t fit any social situation with which he was familiar and made him feel awkward. It felt odd to ignore them, yet they would be obligated to humor him if he tried to engage them in conversation. Pamela hadn’t gone to eat at all as far as he could tell. He couldn’t see that as any of his business.

  At the moment Kirk didn’t have any music playing and he was reading a book rather than having it read to him. He preferred that for non-fiction. If he let a narrator drone on he found he might drift off in thought from something in the book triggered without stopping it, and before he knew it he had no idea how long it had been running without him listening. He had no sound canceling activated, just an obscuring privacy net of a dark soft cloth material pulled across his bunk opening. He suspected Pamela made comments aloud with the same unawareness with which he drifted off in thought. Just now she muttered an ugly string of expressions he was sure she never could have learned as a good girl in a religious school.

  She might be pursuing the lines of inquiry he’s suggested this morning, but the angry outbursts didn’t really tell him if she was upset at the things revealed or upset with him for giving any credence to the ravings of foreign devils. It didn’t seem like a good idea to ask. He wondered if she could be heard outside the cabin or if the Fargoers ran surveillance on foreign nationals for their government? That was something he’d expect his own USNA carriers to do. If so, they were getting an earful.

  There was a high-pitched sound the eyelets for the security curtain made when you whipped it back on the plastic track as Pamela exited her bunk.

  “Are you awake in there, you motherless bastard?”

  Ignoring her would probably just make things worse, Kirk decided. It didn’t sound like this was going to be pleasant or avoidable. But he didn’t open his curtain so she could scowl at him.

  “Yes, I’ve been reading. I was concerned when you didn’t have any supper.”

  That produced a quiet pause. “It is late,” she admitted. She must have just checked the clock, unaware she’d been so engrossed she’d lost track of the time.

  “I’m extremely unhappy with what I am reading,” Pamela said. “This is not just a difference of perspective or cultural bias.”

  “Oh?” Kirk asked, neutrally, still not certain with whom she was unhappy.

  “Do you realize the Spacers think we are funny?” Pamela asked.

  “I’ve seen that on parody sites,” Kirk admitted. “Things like headlines that Spacers are stealing our irreplaceable water in secret by buying health drinks, that oceans will fall a meter in the next decade as they drain it away, a half-liter at a time. One hopes even the most innumerate know that is tongue in cheek.”

  “I wish that was the extent of it,” Pamela said. “It’s subtle and much, much worse. Like at the end of a serious news program they will quote something from a politician that implies what I told you, that Spacers depend on Earth for the necessities of life. But after making the quote with a straight face they will look off in the air like something is flying by or outright roll their eyes and sigh, like it is beyond refuting.
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  “When I was a girl in school I had to deal with all the bullying and cliques anyone does. Girls are much nastier than boys. What I absolutely hated though, was being made the object of humor, being laughed at. Now, I find not just my nation but my whole world is an object of snickering disbelief.”

  “Well yeah, I wouldn’t expect the government to allow people to see that,” Kirk said.

  “You realize I believed yesterday that if a Spacer sat down to a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast it was lifted from Earth somewhere? Not off on other worlds. I know you couldn’t ship that much interstellar, but in our own system. I was a fool,” Pamela said.

  Kirk pushed his privacy curtain back and rested his book on his chest. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. Those commodity numbers are a little harder to gather and analyze than how many cans of drink it would take to drop sea level. In fact, a lot of them are classified now, that used to be public.”

  “I never thought to take a hard look at any numbers, because I couldn’t imagine they would lie to me,” Pamela said.

  Kirk said nothing. That wasn’t going to satisfy Pamela, but it was safer than anything he could think to say without lying.

  “You won’t speak against your supervisor?” Pamela asked.

  “It’s much more complicated than that,” Kirk objected. “I am obligated to advise you if you want advice. I am not obligated to volunteer advice and am hesitant to do so if I’m not sure it will be both welcome and actually beneficial.”

  “Well, at least you aren’t smirking and laughing at me,” Pamela said.

  When Kirk said nothing she looked perplexed, then finally got it.

  “Oh, OK, I’m asking for it. What do you advise me?”

  “First of all, stop thinking everything is about you. No, let me modify that statement. Stop feeling every titter and smirk about Earth is directed at you. None of these Spacers are snickering at you. Haven’t they been quite polite? Have you gotten as much as a sly smile directed at you? You won’t unless you actually do something as colossally stupid as the people they are mocking. They do business with lots of Earthies who have their heads screwed on straight and they know that very well. Be one of the competent ones. You are under no obligation to identify with every fool who happens to be on your world, in your government, or even from your own family. You didn’t choose to associate with them and don’t owe anybody any apologies for others over whom you have no control.”

  Pamela was aghast at any hint that the Spacer’s contempt was deserved. “How can you reconcile agreeing with this opposing view of your fellows with being loyal?”

  “If I were to immigrate to Home and take their citizenship, I am fairly confident I would find at least some of my fellow Homies were degenerate swine or fools as bad as the news programs all paint them. Probably nowhere near as many as they make out, but there are sure to be some. Having billions of people on Earth we can’t help but have far more flaming jackasses in total than them. No matter where I live on or off Earth there are going to be people I wouldn’t invite to dinner or want to consider my friends.

  “I have no illusions there is any group of saints hidden away in a secret valley for me to join, free of strife and ugly personal ambition. Some group so pure I can offer them unconditional loyalty without any reservations. I’ll just have to continue to be as loyal as is reasonable to my own flawed peers without demanding their perfection.”

  “That is horribly cynical,” Pamela protested.

  “Indeed, I plead guilty,” Kirk said. “I just regard it as being realistic.”

  “I’m not sure how I could do the mental gymnastics needed to accept my government and coworkers as flawed and just look past it to function every day as if it doesn’t matter,” Pamela said.

  “If the alternative is believing none of them are flawed, then I’d say you have performed a feat of mental gymnastics far exceeding my cynicism,” Kirk said. “Did they somehow convince you in school that it was your duty and obligation to correct any error you found in others? Did you agree with everything your teachers taught you? How have you refrained from correcting our superior, Under-Secretary Wilson? Surely you have seen him make an error. I mean, he’s a pretty decent boss, but there must be something you’d have done differently. You plainly dislike me, so why didn’t you object to my being assigned with you?”

  “I’ve never said I don’t like you,” Pamela objected.

  “You don’t have to. You always look like you just smelled something rotten when forced to say my name. Usually, people who dislike me try to get me ousted from their working group. I’m used to people not liking me, and good at ignoring it.”

  “Whether people like you or not you are very good with numbers. I had a class on basic statistics, but you have a talent for translating numbers into trends and explaining it to others. Why don’t you work on making yourself more likable?” Pamela said. “I understand they have actual coaches and courses on doing that.”

  Kirk blinked rapidly, assimilating that. “I don’t think you understand. It’s not personality. Most people like me just fine at first. It’s usually when I refuse to massage the numbers to say what they want that people get upset with me. Wilson is different, refreshingly so. He wants the hard facts even if they aren’t what he’d rather they be. I can work for him OK. If he retires or doesn’t drag me along when he’s promoted, I’ll probably have to go to private industry where my sort of analysis is more appreciated.”

  “What sort of private industry?” Pamela asked. The idea seemed to puzzle her.

  “Oh, there’s all sorts of things,” Kirk told her. “Weather forecasting is difficult and very interesting to model, I could get into that. Farmers and insurance people will pay big money for accurate long-range forecasts. The best of the paid private ones always beat the pants off the government services. Not just in North America but all over the world. Similarly, insurance companies always want to know the trends in things like life expectancy and morbidity. The life-extension treatments the Spacers are doing must be driving the actuaries nuts. Harvest yields and things like power demand all need to be predicted. A lot of the government data on that is secret now and people pay to have their own projections. I’m not so much worried about having a job as having interesting work to do.”

  Pamela had the sudden uncomfortable thought that if she had to abandon public service she had no idea where she could go. Every form of civilian work she ever considered going to would presume she voluntarily went to it after a successful stint in government. All of a sudden that seemed like a huge supposition where it hadn’t before. At least the family business would take her in no matter how badly she screwed up.

  “I’m suddenly tired,” Pamela said. “This is more than I can sort out and come to a satisfactory conclusion about all at once. I’ll think about what you said,” she promised. “I’m just going to get some sleep now.”

  She rolled back in her bunk and pulled her curtain. Kirk wondered if she was really going to go to sleep without any supper, but he decided it wasn’t any of his business.

  * * *

  Born and Musical showed the design file for the new centrifuge shaft to the student, Atlas, who Leonardo sent over from the College of Practical Applications, what Humans would refer to as the Engineering School.

  “What’s going to happen in this new bore?” the engineering grad student asked.

  “Nothing that will put a load on the shaft,” Born assured him. “Beyond that, it isn’t anything with which you should concern yourself.”

  The Derf didn’t have a well-established culture of secrecy and security so that made the young Derf unhappy.

  “There’s no contract number on this file,” Atlas noticed. “We always have a contract with outside jobs.”

  “This isn’t an outside job,” Born said. “We’re in the same university. If you doubt our financial responsibility or have any further questions, ask Leader Bacon to clarify the matter for you.”

  Atlas wasn’t a ge
nius, but he was bright enough to know going over the head of his college to ask questions of the Leader of multiple university departments wouldn’t be a career-enhancing move.

  “OK, this is a pretty straight forward design change. I’ll have an amended file to Professor Leonardo tomorrow and he’ll let you know when he can assign it as a class project to be machined.”

  “Thank you,” Born said. They would be waiting for almost the entire parts collection for most of a new centrifuge minus the support equipment, external stand, and main shaft to be shipped from Fargone, so he wasn’t in any rush.

  * * *

  By the time the Kurofune entered the Providence system, Lee had taken advantage of the transit time to instruct Mike on how to put a pressure suit on and off properly, all the little details of how to care for it and stow it properly. He was impressed Lee knew the details about how a Derf suit differed from a Human suit. He’d been instructed on the art of patching a leak quickly and gotten much better about handling himself in zero-g during those brief periods they weren’t under acceleration.

  Mike understood now that Lee, though tiny, was at about the same level of growth and maturity for a Human as he was for a Derf. He had a new respect for her experience he didn’t have when he’d showed up at her apartment just a few days ago. Under the Mothers’ rule, clan Derf tended to be trained to one thing. He was starting to see Lee and Gordon were of necessity generalists.

  He’d learned just enough about ships to understand he didn’t know anything about what an able-bodied Spacer was expected to know and was just barely beyond being a danger to himself, someone who had to be watched closely. Lee, on the other hand, didn’t feel he was as great a danger to the social order and stability of the clan as she had at first.