Friends in the Stars

by Mackey Chandler

  “That makes me feel a little better,” Lee said, “but I could have probably fit a beam weapon and anti-missile missiles in the hull with a better drive.”

  Jeff sighed. “In for a penny, in for a pound. We’ll show you how to make armed jump drones that serve the same purposes better,” he promised.

  “I’ve read that expression in old books, and still don’t understand it,” Lee said. “It doesn’t make any more sense than, ‘In for a centum, in for a kilogram.’ would,” Lee insisted. “It’s mixing units of money and mass.”

  She had no idea why Jeff laughed.

  Lee turned her attention to Born. “I understand why you didn’t want to burn Leonardo, it just rankles me to let him get away with it.”

  “I won’t say anything publicly, but you better believe I’ll have a private word with Leader Bacon,” Born said.

  “Will he do something about it?” Lee asked.

  “Probably not the way you mean,” Born said. “Leonardo gets included in official events, but nobody is going to include him in social things. That’s hardly anything new. You can see for yourself the way he acts. I doubt he is going to improve.”

  “I’d see that as a negative I’d have to correct,” Lee said. “I can’t imagine his being a social outcast doesn’t hurt the university. With Humans, a lot of professional contacts are made outside the place of business. People form bonds at charity events and playing sports together. They get invited to play golf or handball.”

  “Now that’s interesting,” Born said. “We may share a meal that falls in our work period. But if Bacon asked me to go fishing with him, I’d be surprised and wonder why.”

  “Bacon is your superior, right?” Jeff asked Born.

  “Very much so, he has significantly more power and responsibility than a dean at a Human university. I was thrilled to be asked to have lunch with him once.”

  “The sort of socialization Lee is talking about happens between peers and near-peers,” Jeff said. “If your boss asked you to play a game of handball with him on Home it would be a sure sign he was going to offer you a significant promotion. One to a level reporting directly to him at a minimum. Otherwise, he’d have somebody at a lower level make the offer to you. If you wondered who the most favored person in the department is, being groomed to move up, it would be the person invited to the big boss’ country club, or invited to his gym to work out together.”

  “Now see… that doesn’t connect emotionally for me,” Born admitted, “even aside from the whole weird Human thing about exercise as recreation.”

  “That doesn’t make social sense to me either, because Derf don’t do things that way, but it explains Human behavior I didn’t understand before,” Strangelove said.

  “But it makes perfect sense to me,” Musical said. “Now let me ask you a question. How would it be regarded if the underling tried to initiate such an intimate event?”

  “Whoa! Super pushy and above his station,” Jeff said. “He’d either be brought right along in admiration of his audacity or tossed out on his ear. It would be a risky gambit.”

  “The same for Badgers,” Musical said. “You wait for the boss to take your hand walking along. You don’t initiate it.”

  “Well, that’s one social faux pas I got away with,” Lee told Musical. “I took your boss, Talker’s hand and he accepted it.”

  Musical looked up sharply. “Lee, that’s very different. He said you befriended him. I know Badgers who are married and have not befriended each other.”

  “Then that’s a story I’d like to hear,” Jeff said.

  “Maybe later,” Lee allowed, embarrassed.

  They dropped off Born and Musical. That made it a lot more comfortable as far as the room in the cramped car. It also opened it up to speak more freely.

  “What do you think of my guys?” Lee asked Jeff.

  “They display every sign of being very intelligent, and all the stereotypes of distracted naïve academics. I understand that with Born, since he comes from a university, but it surprises me Musical is that way since he is a spacer and a tech. Spacers are usually very practical and aware of realities.”

  “He probably is,” Lee said, “dealing in his own society with other Badgers. Here he has no clue what the social norms are, and looks to Born to take the lead. It would be better if they had reversed backgrounds, but I was lucky to get these two from a very short list of candidates with the required skills, twice lucky, because they seem able to work together despite being so different. I had to tell them what direction to take a project without having the math to adequately describe it to them. If I hadn’t had hours of video recordings to verify there was something worth researching, they would have walked away, sure I was a raving lunatic.”

  “Raving lunatics can be right too,” Eileen said.

  “Indeed, sanity can be fragile and shattered by the unexpected,” Jeff said. “A little crazy lets you yield instead of break when reality ambushes you.”

  “Like the White Queen,” Vic said.

  “Exactly,” Jeff agreed.

  “That isn’t Heather is it?” Lee asked, confused.

  “No,” Vic said, laughing. “It’s a literary reference to a fictitious character.

  “Oh, I haven’t read much fiction. But I’ve seen quite a few really old videos.”

  “I’ll find a copy and send it to your pad,” Vic promised.

  “Sometimes I feel I’m as isolated from Human things as the Derf and Badgers,” Lee said. “You absorbed all these trivia growing up and I’ll never catch up.”

  “With life-extension, you will if you want,” Jeff said, “or decide it’s really not that important, look to the future, and just study a very limited view of history.”

  “No, there’s too much to learn from it to ignore it,” Lee said. “Every time I read about a new period it’s the same thing. They messed up so often and so spectacularly. There’s no point in repeating the same errors if I can learn from their mistakes.”

  “I hope you can do that,” Jeff said, looking somber. “It would make you a better ally. We’ve had local defense agreements between Home and Central, even though we have very different sorts of governments, because Earth is so close and threatening to both of us. It’s scary to have an even closer relationship with yet another kind of government with the additional difference of another species and your own pacts with the Badgers and Bills added in. It gets increasingly complex.”

  “When we went off on a voyage of exploration with The Little Fleet, I was completely ignorant of your history with Earth and North America in particular,” Lee said. “We had mostly the commercial fraction of the English web as a source. I had no idea then how biased it was. If I’d had any idea how badly they acted toward Home and Central, it wouldn’t have been such a shock when they turned us away and didn’t want to register our claims.

  “But I don’t think the Mothers are that different. There are three Mothers. You might as well say they rule as queens, though they have a rigid ranking. Your Heather is an absolute sovereign, but what you are telling me is that you and April advise her heavily. If she declared you co-rulers would it change all that much?” Lee asked.

  “Dear God, yes. It would complicate everything. Please don’t suggest that to her,” Jeff begged. “Humans are subtly different. I don’t think a real triumvirate would work nearly as well as what we have now. If we were seen as anywhere near equal there would be all sorts of lobbying to try to influence each of us against the others. It would dilute Heather’s authority and waste our time. Humans also have different sexual politics the Mothers don’t have to deal with. For Derf, the Mothers are firmly ensconced as authority figures, but there are lots of Earth factions that disdain female rulers. They would try to approach me and ignore my ladies. That could be a fatal error, dealing with them. There have been a lot of triumvirates on Earth, from ancient China to modern republics and very few of them were as equal in reality as they publicly presented themselves.


  “OK, that doesn’t surprise me,” Lee said. “The Mothers are ranked by seniority. Still, it’s pretty neat we have a tribal matriarchy, and a monarchy able to agree and be allies.”

  “Heather gets along just fine with Home too, which is a rather starkly simple democracy, but you are a signatory to the earlier treaty, and since it is you developing a new drive, you will be more important to this new expansion of our agreement than the Mothers,” Jeff said.

  “But I’m just an individual,” Lee protested, “a facilitator.”

  “Modesty is a luxury you are going to have to deny yourself,” Jeff said, bluntly. “I’ve seen you give orders and dictate just as absolutely as Heather. You went straight into command mode when you had to inform your researchers they would have security oversight imposed. You treat directly with sovereigns, hold lands, direct fleets, and build ships. You bind the Mothers by your word.

  “I have no doubt that somewhere along the line you are going to dictate terms to races or worlds that we will end up having to support as your allies. I want you to be fully aware when you do that. Don’t minimize this in your mind or you may fail to see the import of your actions.”

  “I hear you,” Lee acknowledged, “and I’ll own that. But I’m no queen with sworn subjects like your Heather. It leaves me not knowing what to call myself.”

  “I’m not sure either,” Jeff admitted. “Merchant Prince? Is there such a thing as a Merchant Princess? You haven’t established a house, but what you are doing reminds me of when merchant families on Earth sent out ships to foreign lands and other cultures. In any case, you wield power for good or bad for all of us. Your chop on our treaty is just as the Mothers’ voice, so what else it represents will be determined in our future by what you do more than what you are right now.”

  The Old Hotel was in sight.

  “That’s entirely sufficient,” Lee said. “I’m not certain I aspire to be more than a Voice and an explorer. Whatever I am, do you want to have breakfast with me in the morning and we can talk some more?”

  “Yes, that would please me, Milady.”

  Eileen and Vic got neither an invitation nor a questioning look, and Vic was pleased Eileen didn’t try to invite herself.

  * * *

  “Do you really think this Singh intends to reveal everything to us?” Musical asked as soon as he was alone with Born.

  “If it were just us, I’d have no confidence,” Born admitted. “Do you really think he’d come here and falsely represent himself that way to Lee and by extension the Mothers? To forswear his word to either with his chop on that treaty would be a very dangerous game. At the hotel, with non-technical people, we spoke in generalities, and then we got interrupted by Strangelove’s concerns, but tomorrow he will have every opportunity be very specific and reveal his secrets before we reveal ours, or I’ll tell Lee he is acting in bad faith. He may think we are a bit simple because we did not see any security problems with using the storage service. If he has that attitude I will disabuse him of it quickly. Security is not our area of skill, but we are no fools dealing with physics.”

  “We Badgers may be to too much like humans,” Musical admitted. “I find being suspicious very easy. Let’s meet early to prepare a concise presentation of our work for him, but insist he makes good on his side of the offer first.”

  * * *

  “I feel up in the air,” Eileen said. “I’m not sure what the final outcome of Jeff working with Lee’s people is going to be. If they have their own jump drive are we going to be needed here at all? We’re just getting settled in and the whole basis of our needing to be here may change.”

  “I wouldn’t get overly concerned about it so early,” Victor advised her. “Even they don’t know what they are going to find when they compare notes. If the theory is there, it’s going to take time to translate that to designs and actually build things like ships. Having an embassy here seems a permanent matter to me. I can’t imagine Heather is going to withdraw us because the Derf get a better drive. Indeed, she is going to want to keep a closer eye on them than before. Neither does it mean we don’t need to continue to support the defense of Derfhome as a message to the Earthies that we are allied, even if they do gain a better ability to defend themselves.”

  “You don’t think Heather will yank us back home and send a flunky to keep the embassy open once they can defend themselves?” Eileen asked.

  “Not a chance,” Vic said. “Derfhome will become more important to us not less, and Heather will want her best people here, not somebody who needs their hand held. It works the other way finally too, you know.”

  “What does?” Eileen asked, not getting his chain of thought.

  “With better drives, the Derf as allies can reciprocate and help protect Central as full partners,” Vic said, “not just be under our protection like charity cases. Who knows, once Lee has her claims organization fully functioning, Heather may want to register our worlds with them, so they are under the protection of the Derf and their allies too.”

  “Now that would be a change I’d have never imagined,” Eileen admitted.

  Vic could imagine a great deal more, but didn’t want to overwhelm Eileen.

  * * *

  “Do you really intend to keep this entire episode to yourself?” Sam asked.

  Bill looked alarmed. It occurred to him that Sam might take it upon himself to report this independently. It would be hard to prevent that happening. He had to have the means of stay in contact and report if something happened to Bill.

  “What are the upsides and downsides of reporting it?” Bill asked.

  “For which players?” Sam asked.

  “Consider us first,” Bill said, but then he prompted Sam a little.

  “If they believe the Centralists have no evil plans, have we benefited our own?”

  “Maybe eased some worry,” Sam said, “but if they intended no harm then there was never any real danger in the first place, so no real benefit but to feelings.”

  “And if they don’t believe what Singh said?” Bill asked.

  “Then they’d continue with the same level of caution as before, and no real harm is done there either,” Sam decided. “I doubt anything we’d say could spur them on to greater action if it cost any serious money.”

  He looked thoughtful and Bill stayed silent since he seemed to be processing some thoughts.

  “The only way we would improve the USNA’s position is if we could verify they intend serious hostilities and warn them,” Sam decided. “They’d probably need a hard date and plan of action to believe us. Otherwise, the benefits are really marginal. Like with us as an example, they are going to keep us here supplying a stream of intelligence on the general conditions on Derfhome even if we informed them the Derf and Centralists have a very benign agenda. The cost to keep us here is insignificant. We could damn near pay our own way with the occasional client.”

  “Not to make you feel bad, but if the Centralists did intend serious hostilities, I have my serious doubts our report would make much difference,” Bill said.

  “That’s ugly, but probably true. It would be something like a deliberate asteroid strike, and as far as I know, nobody has an effective defense against that,” Sam realized. “The only defense is a promise of mutual destruction if it is used.”

  “And how would it affect just the two of us?” Bill asked.

  “Well, we’d be heroes if we had an actual attack plan,” Sam said. “If they believed us, even if it didn’t keep them from dropping a rock on Vancouver. It might be just a matter of being hailed as heroes in some history book, if anybody is left to write it.”

  “Or a continent-sized rock,” Bill said. “Then the detailed history of how it happened might be lost in the rubble.”

  That was too horrible to contemplate, and Sam was quiet for a moment.

  “Either way there would be nothing to go home to for us. I sort of imagine with Vancouver removed North America would go entirely Texas Republic. I’m no
t sure what we would do, but I doubt Texas would require our services.”

  “And if we inform them the Centralists and Derf intend no harm? How would that impact us?” Bill asked.

  “It might harm our careers and mission here if they disapproved of us speaking to Singh, all for no real benefit to our country,” Sam concluded. “We didn’t exactly cover ourselves with glory at the storage place. I’d rather that story didn’t get out.”

  “The only way that would happen is if somebody present is a double agent working against their apparent loyalties,” Bill said. “On Earth that would be a concern, here we are dealing with tribal loyalties and spacer nations. The only weak spot I can see is Ms. Harvac’s sidekick. She’s too firmly attached to her father’s interests to be a risk.”

  “It just occurred to me,” Sam said, “in a worst-case scenario we’d not only have a terminated mission as agents, but our business here as legal advisors on North American law would be pretty well shot too.”

  “What do you want to do about that?” Bill asked Sam.

  “Well, we’ve found we can keep our people happy with abbreviated reports. Since we aren’t going to be busy tracking all these local players as actively, perhaps we should build up a real local business, just as a safety net.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Bill agreed. If he’d suggested that a week ago, he was certain Sam would have called him a traitor.

  * * *

  “Is Bill King going to tell his agency we are running an intelligence operation outside our mandate and make trouble for the department?” Kirk worried.

  “Mr. King and his boy wonder don’t dare breathe a word of this affair or they will look like a pair of inept clowns,” Pamela assured him. “He’s coasting along in a nice safe back-water assignment until he retires, doing routine data collection. His agency doesn’t expect any danger or need of real spy-craft or they wouldn’t have sent Bill King here. We lucked out actually to be caught and have opportunity to speak with Singh candidly. We can report what happened, edited somewhat to our benefit, without looking foolish and they can’t. I think on the whole Undersecretary Wilson will consider everything and come to the same conclusion I did, that Singh’s statements are basically honest and answer our concerns about Central’s new collection of biological specimens. Whether he will agree with Singh’s alien view that we are recklessly foolish in pushing the Chinese isn’t a concern of mine, I’m just quoting Singh, and Wilson can draw his own conclusions. Even if he agreed with that analysis, I have my doubts he could sway his boss. Secretary Sepulveda is a very strong and opinionated personality. But he’s older and Wilson may be the subordinate to replace him when he retires. My father has taught me to play the long game.”