“Thank you,” Eileen said. “Do I have to tell you not to follow me?” she asked, looking at her father.
He just gave a small shake of his head no.
She opened her hand and gripped the bag without setting the shotgun down and backed out the door. There weren’t any goodbyes. It was a pretty day and she started down the hill to the old road, glad it was early because she had a long way to go.
* * *
“There’s a planet around Proxima Centauri,” Delores reported. “I’ll sell my interest in it for a Solar and a cold beer. Even though we haven’t been anywhere else yet, it’s hard to imagine there isn’t much better real estate to be found.”
“Want to give us a short summary?” Jeff invited. “We can read the blow by blow later if we have trouble falling asleep.”
“Big planet, but not that much over a standard gravity, almost no atmosphere, because the star farts regularly and has blown it all away. Not enough of a magnetic field to protect it or counter the stellar field for that matter. No liquid water and it is tide locked so figure about a kilometer band where it isn’t one temperature extreme or the other. As if that matters with no air. Undoubtedly it has mineral wealth if you look hard enough, but we can probably find easier places to mine. The only real advantage I suspect is that it’s close to Earth.” She paused. “Or that could be its biggest disadvantage,” Delores said.
“Indeed,” Jeff agreed, “location, location, location.”
“You have photos and instrument readings from orbit, and a list of other bodies big enough to find optically in the system by shifting position and checking the star field. The only body that stood out was an icy planetoid somewhat smaller than Ceres. It caught our eye out system because of its high albedo. Since it seemed to be a rich reservoir of water and potentially valuable. I named it ‘Bright’ and deployed the claim marker radio around that body.”
“I should have had them building two radios, but I might as well order a half dozen now. I see we’re going to need them as a regular thing. Did you mark the radar reflector as I suggested?” Jeff asked.
“Well, I had Kurt do it. He applied the sticker and used a vacuum marker to write it freehand just like you asked,” Delores told him. She couldn’t help a smile.
Heather’s eyes narrowed. “What did you do?” she demanded. “Use some weird thing out of mythology again?”
“Not what most people think of as mythology, something much more recent. I had them clip the radio on a radar corner reflector. If we don’t get back soon and it goes silent we can still find it fairly easily. On one flat surface I had them put a decal of your flag. And on the other side facing it I had them draw a graphic that was well known but by an uncertain artist of the last century. He pulled out his pad and showed it to Heather. “This was from the First Atomic War. Some say a ship inspector started it, but it usually said ‘Kilroy was here.’ Sometimes he had a few hairs, or a different numbers of fingers, but this was the basic form. It seemed to me the old form would just be gloating over being first, so I changed it to a real message. I had them write, ‘Kilroy says keep your hands off,’ instead.”
“I guess I have no sense of humor,” Heather said. “I’d have just put -property of- and my com code, but have fun doing it your way.”
“Just in case anybody wants to argue later, I’m going to register Kilroy Properties as a Singh Tech subsidiary with a Home com code,” April told them. I’m having second thoughts though, perhaps we should wait to make claims so near. It means the Earthies will find them sooner when they do get out there.”
“It’s so low powered they’d have to pass quite close to it to find it,” Jeff said. “The chances of them doing that are quite low until they can actually stay in the system and nose around exploring. That’s a ways off still. I hate to actually hide.”
“That will be amusing, when somebody does make it there, and does a search for Kilroy,” Heather said.
“I’m sure they will, eventually,” Jeff said. “I’m not sure they will admit finding it publicly though. Not for a good long while.”
“They only thing we’d really like, if you could pay for it to be written, is upgraded software for the pulsar location instruments. When we do smaller jumps inside a system it would be valuable to have it compare our intended jump to where we actually came out, and automatically calculate the real mass of objects we are moving around and update the map of the star system real time. If discrepancies suggest there are other unseen bodies deflecting our jumps after we have a few samples, then it would be nice to have the program tell us where to look for them optically.”
“That sounds like it would be worth the investment,” Jeff agreed. “You don’t really need that before you go out again, do you?”
“No, but we’ll bring back better charts once we have it. We’re ready to try something fresh, itching to go really, if you want us to,” Delores said. The other two nodded agreement.
“How does Gliese 667 sound to you?” Jeff asked. Delores and Kurt both looked to their pads. Alice didn’t, Jeff noticed. “Is that on your list?” Jeff directed at her while the others were reading.
“It was in my top three,” Alice admitted. “Close enough one may hope we aren’t stretching the jump distance beyond reach of the technology, and every indication of multiple planets.”
“And if we don’t find anything at one star, can we check out the other two in the group?” Delores asked.
“That’s one of the reasons to pick it,” Jeff agreed.
The crew all looked at each other. If there was some signal that passed between them he couldn’t see it, but they all nodded agreement in unison.
* * *
“Nathan, I heard you missed your lunch companion, Adam,” Head of Security for Mars Base, Liggett asked the warehouse man, Tolly.
“Well we weren’t buddies, but I spoke to him once or twice. He seemed like a nice fellow and somebody said he was transferred. I hope it was a promotion.”
“No, we went through the recordings and we found you never sat at the same table with Adam. Not once, and twice is simply not credible.”
“Maybe we are talking about different people?” Nathan asked. “Adam is the name I remember. We never talked enough that I knew where he worked or anything.”
“Come along,” Liggett said. “We’ll put you under the cap and help you remember,” he offered. With the two big security guys behind him it wasn’t an offer he could really refuse.
* * *
Arnold Woodleigh was Vic’s second neighbor down the road, from about seven kilometers away. Vic wasn’t terribly surprised to have company. He had business with a pretty wide sample of the community. The fellow knew to ring his bell before walking up the hill, and he had a distinctive ring, one, pause, another and then two close together that he used consistently. He didn’t mind the fellow being armed either. They knew each other sufficiently well to have a good basis for trust.
When the two figures were about halfway up the hill Vic realized that it wasn’t Arnold’s girl Pearl with him. His heart skipped a beat and his mind ran through a hundred scenarios to explain why Eileen would be here before they reached his porch.
Arnold had on high rubber boots, muddy almost to the top, and Eileen without such gear was a mess to her knees, and probably cold from being soaked wet. She had Vic’s gift pistol stuck in the front of her pants with her jacket zipped just below it, and the butt of a long gun sticking up over her shoulders on an improvised sling. There would have to be a story attached to that he was sure. He’d seen both guns her family owned and that wasn’t either.
“Mr. Foy,” his neighbor said, with uncharacteristic formality, “this lass was passing our place quite late yesterday and I persuaded her to stay with us because it was almost dark. I assured her we know you and your place well and she’d not reach you in any safety in the dark. I don’t think she’d have accepted our hospitality even then if she hadn’t seen we have a girl her age. Did you know she was go
ing to be traveling to you?” He seemed a bit put out at the idea.
“It was an unlikely contingency plan for her to come here,” Vic assured him. “I gave her a map for how to get from her family’s place to me if she ever needed to. I also gave her that pistol in her belt. But I really wasn’t expecting to see her until the spring get together,” Vic said. “I assume things went very badly wrong if she is here, and I know that gun on her back isn’t one her dad or grandpa owns, so something happened?” he asked, looking at Eileen not Arnold.
“I’m wet, cold, and tired. Could we discuss this inside and preferably close by the stove?” Eileen asked.
“Of course, but you… don’t have any other things?” Vic asked, noting the lack of any other baggage. But he stood back and waved them in.
“We got her cleaned up yesterday and her stuff dried by the stove when we started a couple hours a go,” Arnold said, “but she wouldn’t take any of my girl’s things, not even on loan for a day, if we wouldn’t take payment for it. Damn girl is almost as stubborn as… ”
“You?” Vic butted in.
Arnold stopped for a heartbeat with his mouth still open. “Maybe,” he finally admitted. “I was going to say my Mrs.”
“I’d take charity if I had to – to live,” Eileen said, from where she was hunched over the woodstove. “Here I am, breathing, so I didn’t need it, did I?”
“You just may be right,” Vic had to grant Arnold about her stubbornness.
Arnold just nodded silent agreement.
Eileen just scowled at their byplay.
“What you said pretty much agrees with what she told us,” Arnold allowed. “I’ll let her tell you her story before I say any more.”
“If I go get you some of my long-johns and socks, do you want to take a bucket of hot water in my room over there,” he nodded at the door, “and clean up your muddy legs and feet and then come back out here to warm up?” Vic offered.
“It’s perfect here beside the warm stove. I don’t think Arnold is going to faint away to see somebody his daughter’s age in her underpants, and I intend to show you a hell of a lot more than that soon enough. I can tell you the story while I clean up just fine, and if you want to ogle my legs, good!”
“Plain spoken, ain’t she?” Arnold asked a little taken aback.
“I’ve had experience of that already,” Vic said, getting a bucket and wash cloth, a clean towel and some of his precious better soap. There was hot water on the stove. They all sat on dining room chairs close to the warmth of the stove.
After Eileen was clean and dry Vic tossed the water off the porch, and came back with a pair of long johns and heavy wool boot socks. She had to turn cuffs up on the legs and cinch the waist in, but they were warm.
Vic let Eileen finish the end of her tale without questions. He had some, but determined he would hold them until he could ask them in private, or not at all if that’s the way things went. Instead, he reminded Arnold he said he would speak after Eileen.
“I’m of mixed emotions about this,” Arnold admitted. “My having my own Pearl, of a like age, probably colors my thinking,” he admitted. “I see there’s no sending her back to her family. She plainly said she won’t go and if she did I’m figuring somebody would die, and odds seem to be running with her on that too. I’d hate to have that on my conscience.”
“No worries, you’d be first if you tried,” Eileen told him.
“See what I mean?” Arnold asked. “She wouldn’t sleep at our place unless she was in Pearl’s room with a door to lie against and both her guns with her.”
“In her room, with Pearl, or without?” Vic asked.
“With,” Arnold admitted, and thought on that.
“I see what you mean there,” Arnold allowed. “She doesn’t have a lot o’ reason to trust men, does she?”
Vic didn’t even answer the obvious.
“But she insists she has agreements with you, to wed, not just shack up, so you seem to have a pass with her, somehow.”
“She has my word on that, and agreements to be my sole heir and other promises,” Vic confirmed, “but we didn’t figure to do it and make a public announcement until whenever we have the fall festival, next.”
“Well, we got no law. Far as I know we don’t even got no preacher close. I guess we’re back to writing in the family bible if you got one. We need to mind our business pretty much to get along, and I can’t see this is any of my business. My women heard the same story you just did and they plainly told me it ain’t any of our business,” he said with a wry smile. “If you say you’re wed, now or when we all get together, it’s right by me.
“Of course, if her daddy and grandpa make it their business and come after her you’ll have to deal with that, and I’m not going to get involved with that if it happens any more than this now,” he warned Vic. “I suspect most folks would feel the same. That’s the way people been acting.”
“When I left, I asked my father if I had to tell him not to follow me,” Eileen told Arnold. “I didn’t mean just the next hour or day. If he didn’t take my meaning he does so at his peril. He shook his head no, and I take that as a binding agreement. If you see him headed this way, feel free to remind him. It would be a great kindness to him. I expect to see him at the spring get together. I even have a promise to see my mother there. But if he shows up here he better do so clanging the hell outta that bell down there, and leaving any attitude at home.”
“Well, that satisfies me,” Arnold said, getting up to show he intended to leave. “The girl plainly wants to be here, and not there. Might as well try to tell a cat it belongs to you when it has adopted the neighbor’s family. I might tell your dad what you said if he asks, but if he shows up with, like you say, attitude, it’s not my business to try to persuade him.”
“Fair enough,” Eileen agreed. “Thank you for your hospitality and for escorting me, Mr. Woodleigh.”
“You’re welcome, and bein’ neighbors, I’d say to you, be a little easier to take help if offered, now that we know each other. You’re plain spoken. Hell, blunt as a bump on my nose, so I doubt we’re going to have any misunderstandings.” He turned to leave and looked back to smile at them. “So good day to you, and we’ll see you again sometime soon Mrs. Foy.”
“Thank you, Arnold,” Vic said to his back, headed out the door.
Eileen just looked stunned from being addressed that way.
“So, I suppose I can just forget about ever getting my good socks back?” Vic asked.
“I don’t want to be hard to live with,” Eileen said, and came over and stood between his legs, sliding her arms around his neck to hug him for the first time while he was still seated. “I can get by with your second best pair,” she offered.
Chapter 14
“My agent, who was quite certain he was working for the Turks, has had an accident,” Paul said. He appeared genuinely sad.
“Well they won’t trace him back to us will they?” Markus asked.
“No, they could strip him clean and never get the truth out of him, since he never had it himself, But I do regret his inquiries called any attention to agent 71,” Paul said. “It appears 71 was taken behind a security wall and cut off from communicating with us. It seems at the moment that he is as lost to us as the Turk. However, one never knows but what the channel could open up again if there was a turn of events.”
“And we couldn’t trust his reports after such a separation,” Markus said.
“Yes, but there is a risk they would find out 71 is a EU agent and it’s better they never know we had one in place. They might suspect another.”
“Yet they have no idea why the Turk wondered about 71, since he had no idea himself. For all they know 71 was a target, maybe someone who the Turks thought to recruit. That doesn’t mean they are going to strip mine him if he’s useful to them. You can find reasons to suspect anybody,” Markus said.
“Only if you are paranoid,” Paul said with a smile.
�
�Oh yeah,” Markus agreed, and did a perfect dead-pan scan each way with crazy eyes.
* * *
Hershwin walked up to Adam’s work station all relaxed and friendly. He shoved a photo under Adam’s nose and asked, “Do you know this fellow?”
Adam looked at him hard, and tried to remember.
“I might have seen him. He looks vaguely familiar, but I’m sure I’ve never talked to him. If you need to know anything important about him I can’t be any help at all. Certainly nothing that would touch on the project,” he added.
“Well crud, thanks anyway,” Hershwin said and walked away.
Hershwin reported to Liggett, hoping he wouldn’t proceed to more drastic methods, because Adam was proving to be a very skilled worker.
“We had him scanned every which way sort of capping him for a full brain scan and he had no warning or way to prep to answer,” Hershwin told Liggett. “You can ruin a man’s usefulness to you with unfounded suspicions and capping him when he’s clean. People resent it. He’s doing good work. He didn’t skip a single heartbeat or flicker a pupil. You just can’t fake innocent that well, not even drugged up and conditioned. He really doesn’t know the guy except the faint doubt you get trying to classify any stranger who looks like a hundred others you’ve seen, and he might have seen this fellow in the corridors or cafeteria.”
“OK. Well, he won’t again,” Liggett promised.
* * *
“Their message was quite clear,” Pierre Broutin told his Prime Minister. “I will note also that Heather let April and Jeff speak for her. The three of them act as a unit and one never contradicted the other. Jeff informed me they don’t have any need of He3. He did however assure me they would meet all their obligations to supply it to us. April flat out rejected your terms of an alliance with them. She quite bluntly said I might have simply asked her and saved a trip because the three of them have a common plan of business and goals they all know.
“They are quite aware of the specific connections between the Brazilian partners and our government, and suspect Weir was not aware. I intimated their new ship might not be purposed as we thought, but they were not tempted to enlighten me on that one way or the other. April utterly rejected any special favors or relationship between us that touched on the L1 doctrine. Jeff Singh was upset at the public accusations against the shipyard Weir used, with which they do have a relationship. Perhaps if I knew more I could have seized the initiative,” Pierre complained, “but on the whole I believe they were operating with better knowledge than me.”
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