Friends in the Stars

by Mackey Chandler

  “Will you ask to terminate the mission and go home now?” Kirk asked.

  “Are you that eager to be rid of me?” Pamela asked.

  “On the contrary, it bothers me that if we go home, I’m sure you will be sent off on some other assignment. Senior people with off-world experience tend to be tapped for that duty again. I’m not sure where I’d end up, or if I’d quit for a civilian job. I’m not sure I’m a good fit for public service and it might be smart to move on while I’m ahead.”

  “We’d both be let go if it became known we were fraternizing. The department is death on that and follows the guidelines exactly,” Pamela said. “So, going home would likely be the end of our time together. I don’t have the kind of seniority needed to start demanding I can maintain a team of my own.”

  “I hope you don’t think I’d be careless and hurt your career. I’d never do anything to hurt you,” Kirk promised.

  “Oh no, I admire your good sense. As far as asking to go home I think there is far more happening here than we had any idea. Issues of importance to North America’s dealing with the Spacers back in our system. We may have solved the question that brought us here, but I think it would be a terrible idea to abandon a good cover that will give us a long-term excuse to keep an eye on things here. Bill King could be working for any of a half dozen spy shops, but he’s likely with Interstellar Intelligence. It doesn’t matter much because whichever it is, they aren’t suddenly going to share any information they don’t have to with us. They all hoard their best stuff. So, we need to maintain our mission here. Even if Wilson wants to bring us home, I’m going to strongly suggest he rotate somebody else in and keep it going”

  “And you want to know if the bees are viable. Admit it,” Kirk said.

  “Yeah, the stupid things are fascinating the more you know about them, and it would just impress the hell out of my father if I created a profitable business in the process of maintaining a cover. Let me ask you a question. If we keep getting along so famously and we’re serious about each other. When we do have to return, would you consider letting me recommend you to my father? I think your talents are underutilized in the department. His sort of business would challenge you more and pay a lot better. That is, if it wouldn’t make you feel like a kept man.”

  With her religious upbringing, Kirk knew “serious” was code for “marriage” to Pamela. Would he mind being son-in-law to a billionaire? Hardly. He hadn’t been impressed with her at all when they were traveling here, but she’d risen to the realities of the mission beautifully.

  “Were all kept by someone or another,” Kirk said, tactfully. “Better we’re kept by somebody who values us and we can feel good about supporting them in turn. I’d like to have the security of knowing where I’m going from here. If I worked for your dad you could stay with the department and nobody could have any complaint about us at all.”

  “Good,” she said and gave him a hug.

  * * *

  “Do you need to go to the clinic?” Atlas asked Leonardo. “You were completely out of it for a moment there when he used the Taser on you. For a horrible instant, I thought he’d killed you. Do you feel OK now?”

  “It never feels OK to be blindsided. We had no idea all these other players besides Lee were involved with Born and that little Badger creep. I just wish we’d gotten those samples safely a couple of days ago before this Singh showed up. Now, I have to figure out some other way to find out what they are working on. That Red Tree fellow, Strangelove, is going to have their lab and storage locked down tight. Obviously, it’s really important or all these high powered off-world people wouldn’t nosing around trying to get in on it too. They always erase their data when they are done with the machine. Maybe we can tap the input channel to the machine controls, so we have a copy of the program before they erase it at the end? I assume you know to keep your mouth carefully shut about all this?” Leonardo asked, with a nasty threatening scowl.

  “Of course,” Atlas said with all the sincerity he could muster. Leonardo was going to keep messing with these people until he got his butt fried dead. It wouldn’t do a bit of good to try to tell him that, he was chronically hard of listening. Atlas had come way too close to sharing his fate today. He hadn’t forgotten that lanky big Human male hadn’t been bothered in the least at the idea of killing them on the spot. He had the sense to be scared even if his professor was oblivious. It seemed like a really good idea to go see Bacon at his first opportunity. He needed to change his major to something like Construction and Architecture, or just about anything else, as long as it wasn’t something Leonardo taught.

  Chapter 23

  “Have you heard from my guys yet this morning?” Lee asked Jeff first thing at breakfast. “I can prompt them to get in touch with you right now if you want.”

  “I took the liberty of leaving them a message at Born’s com address,” Jeff said. “I’m not familiar with what the sleep habits of either species are, but I informed them we would be having breakfast together and any time they are ready to show me their lab and get down to technical discussions I’ll come over.”

  “That’s fine,” Lee agreed, “if they aren’t forthcoming let me know.”

  “The little one, the Badger, is feisty. I thought he was going to wade into Leonardo bare handed when we caught them in their room. He may take a little more convincing than the Derf, that I know what I’m talking about,” Jeff said.

  “If he seems skeptical take them for a ride in your ship,” Lee said, and grinned.

  “Likely a peek at the machinery after would be more to the point,” Jeff said.

  Lee’s com chimed, which surprised her since she had it set to reject most calls while she was with Jeff. She expected it to be Bacon and Musical but it was Sally from the bank. Well, on loan from the bank, she reminded herself. The new claims commission was a full-time job for her now with office staff.

  Sally didn’t keep her long, and Lee was smiling when she disconnected.

  “Was that your guys, hunting me down?” Jeff asked.

  “No, my… woman I guess I’d say. She certainly isn’t a girl. She’s near as old as you!” Lee said, and embarrassed herself.

  “That’s entirely all right,” Jeff said. “When a bit of age doesn’t turn you into a decrepit wreck it doesn’t remain such a sensitive subject. It’s funny, people used to know when they were middle-aged and when they were old, even if one didn’t admit it. Now we have no idea how long life-extension therapy will be effective. We may be just starting or a bunch of us could start dropping dead no matter how young we look.”

  “I hadn’t thought about it, but it changes how you look at risks,” Lee decided. “If lightning kills one in a hundred thousand, how should we regard it when we are exposed ten times as long?” Lee looked up at the sky. “Do we stop having breakfast on the balcony because we might get zapped by a bolt out of the blue?”

  “One could install a field potential sensor and have it send an alert to your spex,” Jeff suggested, always thinking practically.

  “Yes, I imagine we might keep adding things like that,” Lee agreed, “and add a lot of redundancy. I’d rather really do that than become obsessed with avoiding all risk and live in a deep cave. The thing about Sally is she was in her nineties when she went to Earth with us. Even with the best of conventional medicine, she was going to start declining very soon if she hadn’t gone to the Moon with us and gotten LET. I’m told now she looks about half her age. I’m very poor at judging that, but she has filled out quite a bit. She was still sharp when I met her, and her experience is invaluable.

  “They keep making little advances. She may look forty-five now and in a few years, after getting a few more tweaks, look like thirty-five,” Jeff said.

  “She had some really good news,” Lee said. “The Deep Space Explorer Early Bird out of Fargone has made Derfhome orbit and is inquiring how to register a world claim from their voyage on our list instead of proceeding to Earth.”

&n
bsp; “Was she off in the beyond away from Earth?” Jeff wondered. He privately hoped they hadn’t named the world Worm…

  “More of an angle off from how the Little Fleet went, not that deep really, but an area not well documented. There are actually some claims beyond their course registered with the Commission if you go by straight distance,” Lee said. “So, you might reasonably expect they’d have taken them to Earth.”

  “And so it starts. They’ve really shot themselves in the foot,” Jeff said. “It will be painfully obvious when an Earth registered explorer comes here instead of using the old commission. What are you calling it anyway? You can’t just call it the new commission.”

  “It says ‘The Exploration Society Protection Registry’ on the forms. That translates nicely for everyone. We aren’t really a commission, nor do we have a charter, and we don’t want to tie it to the High Hopes Exploratory Society. That would be a mess to sort out. We’ll apply to register our claims like everybody else.”

  Jeff nodded. “That works. People will just abbreviate it to the Registry in everyday conversation the same way they spoke of the Commission.”

  “You’re welcome to use it you know,” Lee said.

  Jeff looked surprised at the idea.

  “You don’t have a registry of your own, do you?” Lee asked.

  “Not in the legal sense,” Jeff admitted. “We have a catalog and charts for navigation, but no public proclamation of ownership. As it stands, Heather claims sovereignty over our worlds. Our living planets are always occupied and have a watch set to intercept any ships that stumble upon us.”

  “Yes, she told us the story of that happening at least once,” Lee reminded him. “If not your settled planets, you might want to at least declare ownership of mining sites or fuel sources. Eventually, people will happen upon them. It might be less trouble if they know they are owned from their charts than being hailed and challenged, or not challenged at all if you just visit occasionally. We found one of your mining sites you know.”

  “We’ve been… secretive,” Jeff admitted. “Not without cause. We don’t have a good relationship with Earth, and we don’t depend on anyone else to defend our ownership. It would require a major shift in thought and policy to declare what we hold, and where. I will discuss it with my sovereign,” Jeff said, with a suddenly formal tone that made Lee drop taking that line of inquiry further.

  This time it was Jeff’s com that interrupted.

  “Now your fellows are ready to talk science,” Jeff said. “I’ll have Strangelove run me over there if you don’t mind.”

  “If you’ve had your fill,” Lee said, waving a hand at the remains of breakfast. “If you get past theory and do a little engineering that would be fine too.”

  “You don’t want to come along?” Jeff invited.

  “I have a friend I rescued from Earth who I’ve been supporting and helping. I promised her lunch and a visit today. You will probably be dealing in such abstract ideas that I’d just slow down your discussion to have to stop and explain things to me. Born and Musical are painfully polite with me that way and I don’t want to do that,” Lee said.

  “Perhaps we should meet again for dinner,” Jeff suggested.

  “Alright, but we’ll have Strangelove take us to a restaurant,” Lee said. “I can’t eat-in every meal and you should see more than labs and hotels while you are here.”

  “It’s a date then,” Jeff agreed. “It will keep me from getting carried away and doing an overnight with your researchers. I know how easy it is to lose all sense of time when you get together with people who have the same interests.”

  Lee nodded yes, but was inwardly taken aback by his casual remark. She had a different idea of what a date was, but Jeff hadn’t said anything other than that single word to imply it was a social outing. She decided it was just a minor cultural difference.

  * * *

  When sundown arrived with no word, Lee knew dinner was going to be late by the time Jeff could pry himself away from talking shop. Lee didn’t call and ask if they were still on. She figured if they were deeply immersed in their discussion and finding it hard to break away it was all to her good. If they broke up early, it would probably be because they weren’t able to agree on something critical and found themselves in opposition. With the strong personalities involved, that wasn’t something she’d wanted to try to repair. It was good if they ran late. They hadn’t set a hard time for dinner. She went ahead and had a snack, just big enough to keep her from getting irritable and small enough she’d still be able to eat something when Jeff did tear himself away.

  When her pad finally chimed Jeff had the social sense to be a little sheepish.

  “Is it too late to do dinner?” he asked. “If you’ve already eaten, we can put off meeting until tomorrow and make it breakfast instead.”

  “I had a snack about an hour and a half ago but left some room. Have you eaten anything?” Lee asked. “I assume you have the jacked-up metabolism like most people with LET?”

  “I do, and I’m starved,” Jeff admitted. “Your guys were still working at Born’s lab when I left. I wouldn’t be surprised if they stay up all night. I’m outside in the car with Strangelove driving. If you still want to go somewhere, I’ll meet you at your elevator and walk you to the car.”

  “If Strangelove will let you. I admit I’ve got some bad memories associated with hotel lobbies, but being Derfhome instead of California, I can probably make it to the car OK without being mugged this time. At least I’m properly armed here.”

  “There’s no way I could let you do that after such a story,” Jeff said, horrified. “We will both come and walk you to the car. Strangelove would likely suggest it if I didn’t.”

  “See you in maybe two minutes,” Lee promised. “I’m ready to walk out the door.”

  It probably wasn’t a full two minutes, but Jeff and Strangelove were there when the elevator doors opened. Jeff facing her and Strangelove turned the other way scanning the lobby. There wasn’t a soul there besides the clerk, but Strangelove was all business. Jeff was surprised to see Lee had on the very decorative dagger she’d worn to his suite yesterday, and had added a brace of pistols, grips forward.

  “Do you have somewhere you’d like to go, a favorite spot perhaps?” Jeff asked.

  “Yes, it’s been boring today. There’s a place by the port that’s fun. The name of the place translates to ‘Bottom Berth”. If you have Strangelove get us over near the port, I can direct you. For some reason, the automated cars say they have no such address when you ask for it.”

  “I know where it is,” Strangelove told her. But why did he smile so? Jeff wondered.

  “It’s not out of the way, I want to swing by our facility and get a couple of troopers,” Strangelove said. “They can keep an eye on the car while we are having… dinner.”

  Jeff had questions but decided to keep his mouth shut and observe.

  The troopers were armored up, but nothing like the black soft armor Strangelove’s men wore at the storage facility. Their armor was pre-contact hard armor of a bronze alloy, engraved in complex lines with enamel overlay. They wore a bright sash of Red Tree colors to identify the clan they served, and the only item of modern equipment was a single machine pistol slung on their hip from the opposite shoulder.

  “They put on quite a show, don’t they?” Lee asked.

  “I’m trying to imagine it in full bright sunlight,” Jeff said. The enamel overlay was eye-searing bright green on one soldier and an absolutely vibrant violet on the other.

  “Oh, the thing about that is when they move,” Lee said. “All the engraving catches the light and throws flares. It’s positively dazzling. It’s a treat for them to be able to show off, and it reminds the town folk that Red Tree has a history and reputation.”

  “I guess camo never caught on with Derf,” Jeff decided.

  “And our car will be here when we come out,” Strangelove said, “all of it. The car companies don’t dispat
ch rides to the port entertainment district, because the custom isn’t worth the damage and clean up to service it.”

  “The more I learn, the more Derf and Humans are alike,” Jeff said.

  “I’ll take that as intended for a compliment,” Strangelove said.

  The club was the first Derf business Jeff had entered with visible security. There was a bouncer on each side of the door. He thought Strangelove was large. He was merely average. The two flanking the door had to have difficulty fit fitting in cabs and airplanes sized for normal Derf. They surprised him by giving a little bow to Lee and never glanced at her entourage. He suspected she must be a regular customer.

  Jeff couldn’t imagine she came here regularly alone. Did her large furry father escort her here? Somehow, he doubted Gordon would approve. It was none of his business to ask, but he added it to the list of things he’d like to know about Lee.

  Derf had horns and strings, but they favored percussion instruments. The music hit him in the face when he stepped inside like a physical hand. They obviously had some kind of hush field on the outside to placate the neighborhood. Just now there was a group of drummers trying to beat something to death that sounded like timpani, though a couple of them ran off the scale below human hearing. He knew they were there though because they made his insides jiggle.

  The maître d met Lee and took her hand in both of his, leaning close and somehow speaking over the drums. He led them towards the back and set them in a private nook that looked down on the stage. Jeff was amazed to see Derf dance. There were two facing each other mirroring each other’s moves. It looked a bit like Tai Chi, but the tempo was increasing, and they were keeping up. The slightly different beat of each drum drifted together as it sped up and on the last four beats all the drums were struck in unison, and the dancers struck palms like Humans doing a high five. The finale just about knocked him over and the sudden silence was shocking.