by Jerry Boyd
I replied, “Nope.” I let that hang for a few seconds, till Nikki said, “Tell her, you big meany!”
I said, “It has been brought to my attention that you are out here in the black, without any family to depend on. It was even suggested that perhaps Mrs. Wilson and I should adopt you, since you did so well while you were staying with us. Is that something you would be interested in?”
Again with the surprise hug. When she settled down enough to talk, she said, “Of course, silly. You are going to get me my own bed, so I’m not in the way all the time, aren’t you?”
“I’ll get Jeeves right on that.”
Nikki asked, “So, how do we go about this?”
I replied, “I dunno. I’m the Boss of this outfit, right?”
“Yep.” in stereo.
“Master of a Stateless Vessel, right?”
“That too.” more stereo.
“Hang on one.” I went and opened the door. “Gene, give me public address to the fleet, if you would.”
“You’re on with the fleet, Boss.”
“This is Commodore Wilson. Let it be known that from this time forward, Janet, of the Engineering department on the Gene Cernan, is the adopted daughter of me and Mrs. Wilson. Anyone who has a problem with that, is welcome to meet me in the gym for a vigorous discussion. Commodore Wilson out.”
I turned to my two ladies. “That work?” Double hug, this time. Janet said, “Thanks. You two don’t know how much this means to me.”
Nikki said, “Sorry we didn’t figure out what you were needing sooner. I’ve been preoccupied with Becky and Gus, and, well, he’s male, you would have had to hit him with a brick to get his attention.”
“How did you figure it out?”
I looked at Nikki. She said, “That’s your decision, Caveman.”
I said, “I’m not sure I should tell you how I found out. I’ll check into it, and let you know.”
Janet looked at me, and said, “I may not have had that fancy cold-reading course, but I know enough to smell BS. Charlie said something, didn’t he?”
I replied, “One thing you need to learn, if you’re going to be a member of this family. We don’t rat out our friends.”
She looked at me, and tilted her head. She said, “You’re saying it was him, but you can’t tell me that, because he didn’t say you could.”
I replied, “I’m middling sure you could play back a recording of that conversation, and never find a place I admitted to that, Daughter.” Another hug. “You called me daughter!”
“What, exactly, am I supposed to call you, after I just told the whole fleet I was adopting you?”
“Well, I suppose so, but it still felt good.”
Nikki asked, “Should we call Jeeves?”
“I would think he is already working the problem, but we can check, if you like.”
I opened the door, and said, “Gene, could you please connect me to Jeeves?”
“On it, Boss”
Jeeves’ voice came over the speaker. “Boss, the soonest I could get a crew from Engineering to open a door to another sleeping room is later on today. Young Miss Wilson will have to go to her quarters to tell the bots what is hers, and what is not. They say the two girls’ belongings are too mixed for them to figure out.”
“Anything you might need my help with?”
“No, Boss. I’ve got it moving in the right direction. Not as quickly as I might like, but it’s moving.”
“I figured you had it under control, but Mrs. Wilson thought we should be sure.”
“My track record from when I was bound to the Squirrels isn’t that good, I’m not surprised she felt the need to check in.”
“Glad you understand. Sorry to bother you.”
“No bother, Boss. Talk to you later.”
“Bye, Jeeves.” I put my comm away, and turned to Janet. “You need to go by your quarters, young lady. The bots trying to figure out how to move you can’t tell what is yours, and what is Milly’s.”
“I’m pretty sure there’s some of Rhonda’s stuff in there, too.”
Nikki said, “I don’t think that makes it better.”
Janet replied, “Oh, but it does. She brought lots of music from Earth.”
Nikki growled, and Janet was on her way. I said, “How are you going to explain this to Jimmis?”
“You aren’t going to help?”
“Your Mother doesn’t want me to have any contact with him, remember?”
“Some days I just want to send Pete and Abe to fetch him, you know?”
“I can see how you would, but that would cause more problems than it solved. Your Mom never said he couldn’t talk to Janet, did she?”
“My Mother doesn’t know Janet exists, Bob.”
“Well, then, let them get to know one another. By the time your Mom figures it out, it will be too late for her to do anything about it.”
“How would I tell him?”
“Jimmis seems to be pretty squared away. Just tell him, straight up, don’t try to be cute about it. I don’t know about Commonwealth kids, but Earth kids can tell right away when you’re working up to tell them something. It just makes it worse.”
“How would you tell him, then, smartass?”
“Hey, Jimmis. How are you doing? Listen, I’ve got something I need to tell you about. I hope it doesn’t upset you, but if it does, we’ll work it out, just like always, okay? Bob and I adopted a girl about your age. She was stuck out here in the wild stars with no one to look out for her, and we stepped up. It doesn’t mean either one of us thinks less of you, but I can see how it might bother you. Her name is Janet, she’s here if you would like to talk to her. Something along those lines, I think. Would that work with Jimmis?”
“I think it might, but first I would have to tell Janet about Jimmis, wouldn’t I?”
“I suppose you would. Is that a problem?”
“To explain Jimmis, I pretty much have to have the talk with her, don’t I?”
“Aren’t you already going to have to do that to explain Gus and Becky?”
“I guess I am, now that you mention it.”
“Think about where she is from. I’d say the chances are good she knows more than you give her credit for.”
“That’s true.”
“Any way you decide to go about it, you might want to get on the stick, before the Squirrels decide we aren’t having enough fun, and bring us another party.”
“You’re just a barrel of fun today, Caveman.”
Right on cue, Ambassador Natti came off the transit, waving a comm at me. “Commodore, my people would like to speak to you, please.”
I took the comm unit, and said, “Commodore Wilson. What can I do for you today?”
“You can return our fleet, you dastardly monkey.”
“Only too happy to, as soon as I find people to fly the ships who aren’t going to attack, as soon as I turn them loose.”
“You don’t trust our fleet officers?”
“They’ve already attacked once during these negotiations. Why should I believe they wouldn’t do it again?”
“Because I say they won’t!”
“That’s nice. I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“I am the Emperor of Oak, you impudent monkey!”
“I’m sure your Mother is very proud. Correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t you give the fleet orders before you sent them out here?”
“I did. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Were those orders to attack the first time they got an excuse?”
“No, they were not.”
“Then, I think you have trouble with getting your people to comply with your orders. Why am I to believe that they will suddenly decide to do as you say, after already countermanding your orders once?”
“The stories I have heard are true. You are frustratingly logical. What do you propose?”
“I have taken the liberty of training one of your officers in lie detection. I have hop
es that he will be able to root out the members of the fleet who are trying to foment a war.”
“You do not want war with us?”
“I don’t want war with anyone, Your Highness. War wastes time and resources we could use for better things.”
“But you have reactivated the Commonwealth Navy!”
“Only because I didn’t want these good ships and bots to go to waste.”
“You have studied tactics and strategy until you can outfight any of our Captains.”
“All the better to send them home alive. It is harder to defeat them without harming them, than to simply blow them out of my sky.”
“Why would you expect me to believe all this?”
“To tell you the truth, Your Highness, I don’t. So far, I have met very few of your people who believed what I told them. I have no reason to believe you will be different.”
“Yet you are willing to make agreements with the Ambassador.”
“He is one of the few of your people I have found it possible to make deals with. I have confidence that he negotiates in good faith. I do not, however, have confidence that you will hold your people to the agreements he negotiates.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, if you will give me your personal guarantee that any agreements I come to with the Ambassador will be honored, I will be more than happy to continue negotiating with him. If you can’t give me such an assurance, I’m afraid we are done here. Be advised, I will try to hire your Ambassador into my company, if that is the case.”
“You would hire him, even though he came to you without the power to form binding agreements?”
“I would give him such power, and send him right back to negotiate with you.”
“Why do you think that would work?”
“Nothing I’ve tried so far has worked, that would be something I have yet to try.”
“You’re saying you don’t know if it would work, but you are willing to try it, because you haven’t yet?”
“Your Highness, I have tried everything I can think of to make peace with you and your people. None of it has worked, so far. I’m willing to try whatever I can, to keep the peace. I just want to trade a few walnuts, and get along. So far, that goal has been out of my reach. All I’ve seen from your people, is a desire to start a war that I have no interest in.”
“You could conquer our stars, with the fleet you have. How can you say you have no interest in war?”
“What could I do with it, if I had it? A monkey, trying to administrate an Empire of Squirrels? How is that supposed to work?”
“You don’t think you could rule the Empire?”
“Even if I could, I don’t have any interest in that kind of work. Running a fleet of starships is enough of a headache, as far as I am concerned.”
“You expect me to believe you have no interest in our Empire?”
“As I said before, I don’t expect you to believe anything I say. That seems to be something only a very few of your people are able to do.”
“If you don’t expect me to believe you, why are you still talking to me?”
“I suppose I’m hoping to be wrong, and that you actually do listen. It’s a weak hope, but it’s all I have at the moment.”
“You don’t think it will work, but still you talk to me, hoping I will listen?”
“Yes. If I can’t get a peaceful resolution of all this, our people are going to be wasted in a long and bloody war. I’ll do what I have to, to keep that from happening. Before you ask, no, destroying the fleet is not on the table.”
“Why not?”
“How would I be assured you were going to hold up your end of the deal, if I did that? I destroy my ships, and you walk in and take what you like. That isn’t a satisfactory outcome for me, or my people.”
“Why shouldn’t I order the fleet in to destroy your fleet for you?”
“Their performance so far would indicate that might be beyond their capabilities, Your Highness. If your people thought they could defeat this fleet in battle, why didn’t they do it fifty thousand years ago, instead of resorting to trickery to get it mothballed? I don’t think you could possibly be as sure of the outcome of such a fight as you want me to think you are.”
“The Captains of those ships were well trained, then. You couldn’t possibly be as competent as they were.”
“Well, I have beaten all their scores in the simulations.”
“Why should I believe that?”
“Hmm, perhaps the results your Captains have had against me?”
“You have been lucky, so far.”
“Maybe you should have someone whose career doesn’t depend on the fiction that your Navy is competent look at those battle records. Sounds to me like you’ve been letting your Admirals convince you you’re not seeing what you think you’re seeing.”
“What makes you think my Admirals aren’t competent?”
“For starters, I’m talking to you over the comm, and not in chains at your feet.”
“There are explanations for that.”
“I think we had a translation error, Your Highness. Those are called excuses, not explanations.”
“Well, I never!”
“Buy the Empress some jewelry. That should take care of your problem. We jumped this ship into orbit around Oak, and back out again, without regard to your FTL suppression grid. That was luck, according to your Admirals? How, exactly, does luck cancel out technology?”
The Emperor got flustered at that point, and took a bit to calm himself. Then he said, “How do you explain your ability to jump in and out, then?”
“One of my engineers found the software glitch that let your grid turn off our drive, and eliminated it. You folks depend on trickery entirely too much, I think.”
“That makes no sense. Our grid works by suppressing the drive field itself. Why else would our ships be affected as well?”
“Someone has sold you a bill of goods, Your Highness. Your drives have the same glitch built into them. We checked.”
“How can that be? I would have been informed!”
“About a system that has been in continuous use for thousands of years? It’s entirely possible nobody in the Navy knows how it works, either.”
The line was quiet for a few seconds. The Emperor said, “You give me a lot to think about. Would you be amenable to talking again, after I have time to check some of the things you have said?”
“That sounds fine. Thanks for speaking with me, Your Highness.”
“Have a good day, Commodore.” I handed the comm back to Natti. “What do you think, Ambassador? Will I get a call back, or another fleet to capture?”
“To tell you the truth, Bob, I don’t know the Emperor well enough to say. I certainly never heard anyone speak to him the way you did.”
“I thought I needed to speak to him as an equal, or he would get the idea that I thought I was subservient to him.”
“You’re learning this fast, Bob. I hope that was the right line to take.”
“Me too. Some days I want to get back to doing something I understand, instead of having to make things up as I go along.”
Nikki said, “If that was making it up as you go along, I’d hate to see you once you get the hang of it, Caveman. You turned him every way but loose.”
“I was just trying to get him to realize the situation he is in. He’s being told things that are demonstrably not true, but he doesn’t think to question them.”
Natti said, “I think you’re right, Bob, but I don’t know how well he will take being informed of that fact by an impudent monkey.”
“None of your folks seemed to be ready to step up and give him the bad news.”
“You’re right there. Hopefully, he will take the time to check what you said, before he sends more fleets.”
“Is Snappi having any luck figuring out who he can trust in the fleet?”
“He’s gotten one ship squared away. It looks like it will be
a time-consuming task.”
“We could always give some of the officers he has decided to trust the same training he had, and let them assist in the process of vetting the rest of the fleet.”
“I’ll ask him about that. It sounds like a good idea. I better get back.”
“Talk to you later, then.” He headed toward the transit. Once he was gone, Nikki asked, “You just talked like that to the HRIC of all the rodents?”
“If I didn’t, he would have thought I was subject to his authority, don’t you think?”
“I suppose. Just seemed like you were pretty rough on him.”
“His fleet has been showing up here, and everywhere I go, wanting to take me out. I’m a little tired of it, I guess.”
“Do you think he paid any attention to what you said?”
“I expect we’ll know for certain in forty hours or so.”
“What happens in forty hours?”
“I’m guessing that’s about how long it would take him to get another fleet out here, if he decided not to listen.”
“You don’t think Murphy is finally going to give us a break, then?”
“I’ve learned not to bet that way. It doesn’t mean I can’t hope for better results, just that I need to be prepared if I don’t get them.”
“What’s next?”
“I ought to go talk to Frank, but I surely don’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“I keep telling him he needs to straighten up, and he keeps finding ways to blow it off. If I can’t get results, all I’m doing is undermining my authority.”
“You don’t think the new system is going to keep him out of trouble?”
“We recruited him because he’s the best we could find at developing innovative solutions to problems. It just never occurred to me that he would use that skill on us, too.”
“You’ll figure it out. Go by and see him, don’t let it get bigger than it actually is.”
“You coming for immoral support?”
“Hey, we’re married! There’s nothing immoral about it.” When we got to Frank’s, there was a Marine out front. He said, “Hi, Boss. Checking up on us?”
“More like checking up on Frank. Is he behaving himself?”
“Ms. Witti hasn’t found any problems on her after-shift checks.”
Something about the way he phrased that didn’t sit right with me. I asked, “Is that because there isn’t anything to find, or because Frank has gotten better at hiding his work?”
