Sister Time lota-9

by John Ringo

  “You got him. Let’s go.” The taller blonde strode back up the alley, turning the corner as her niece had to jog to catch up. Neither of them said a word all the way back to the car, and then, via a circuitous route that probably wasn’t the way they got out there, to base.

  “Can I… know what he did, now?” she asked as her aunt dropped her off at the room she’d been assigned.

  “No.”

  Three floors down and two corridors across, Cally sought out Harrison, who had beaten them home and, of course, changed immediately.

  “So she passed,” he said.

  “Maybe,” Cally answered. “If we didn’t need her, I could come up with half a dozen reasons to flunk her. But yeah,” she sighed, “she passed.” She lit a cigarette in a convulsive, angry motion, arms hunched in close. “That is, she passed if she still wants to sign on after thinking about it for a couple of days. You overdid the snoring just a bit. I could hear you all the way out in the alley.”

  Wednesday 10/27/54

  The Darhel Beren had recessive metallic gold fur, threaded with black. His slit-pupilled eyes were a vivid deep green. The deeper purple tinge to the portion of his eyes around the pupils spoke of too many late nights playing strategy games against his AID. With a roundedness to his frame, he was the closest thing to a fat Darhel one would ever see. He sat staring at the image over the altar to the Lords of Communication and crunched on a bright turquoise vegetable. It actually wasn’t bad. He’d made something of a study of the available vegetables and their varieties — an extensive study. The trick was to find the high-protein ones, just close enough in taste and saltiness to… He didn’t even think about meat, just shied away from the idea when he felt that tell-tale twinge of euphoria as his body threatened release of the deadly-addictive Tal hormone.

  Right now, he was replaying the transmission that had just come in, light speed, from the jump point. The message was so hard to believe that he couldn’t tell whether he was looking at a fantastic opportunity or a piece of disinformation, leaked as part of some elaborate plot against the Gistar Group. Six level nine code keys, or the better part of them, missing. An Epetar freighter on one of their highest margin trade routes stranded in the backwaters of the Sol System waiting for cash to pick up its cargo. This was an especially intriguing opportunity, if true, simply because pick-ups and deliveries to the Sol System were so onerous, anyway. Most systems had the resources to build their outer-system trade base two weeks or less out from the major jump point or points servicing the system. Titan Base in the Sol system was far, far inwards from normal.

  Galactic ships used an FTL system of traveling along lines of low resistance in hyperspace, which was why jumps that took months for Posleen vessels took seven to twelve days for Galactic vessels. The current Galactic ships were much faster than their own old standard, too, since they had incorporated the improvements spurred by the war into newer vessels and retrofitted them, however imperfectly, into the old ones. The bulk of the transit time for goods and passengers was between jump point and base. Ancient vessels with hyper drives too far gone for economical repair plodded through the space between base and planets, delivering the goods in-system over the long real-space legs of the trip. Fleet vessels too battle-damaged for their drives to be reliable, and too expensive to repair, formed the nucleii for the deep space bases that received incoming cargoes and loaded up the outgoing ones.

  Beren disliked humans, as any other civilized being would, but some of their optimization ideas increased profits. In this case, the innovation of keeping a dedicated courier on station at a system jump point for high-priority messages, while costly, was less costly than the delay in critical communications from the old system of sending messages with whatever freighter was headed out.

  Certainly they used the old system for routine communications, or when, as now, a freighter happened to be going to the right place at the right time. However, keeping couriers a day or less out from a jump point had been a marvelous improvement over having them waiting weeks away at a base.

  Humans were unpredictable and disconcerting as hell. Stupid, but incredibly cunning. They naively gave away the most valuable suggestions — for free. Gistar had a whole department dedicated to receiving, sorting, and analyzing every recorded human utterance that began with the phrase, “Why don’t you do it like…” So far as he knew, Gistar was the only group with such a department. Its existence was the most closely guarded secret of the group. Beren only knew about it because he had helped to set it up, even worked there briefly. Which was how he came to distinguish himself enough to be the factor of Adenast, fifty years younger than other Darhel in the most minor of systems — and how Gistar came to be the only group to maintain a hard currency reserve, in deposit, on board the neutral courier vessels of the highest traffic systems.

  He was proud of Adenast. Adenast’s space repair dock was the most patronized yard in this region of space, sitting a mere two days from the major jump point out. Adenast could cut weeks off the repair time of any vessel and get it right back in service. They could stabilize junkers that could barely limp out of hyperspace, that would have died one way or another before reaching another system’s repair yard at a base deeper in-system. Sure, they sometimes, very rarely, had a catastrophic collision. Still, the profits far outweighed the costs. All profit entailed some risk. Besides, he conducted his own work on the surface of Adenast Four, so he wasn’t in any personal danger.

  It was all very well woolgathering like this, but he was going to have to reply to this transmission, which he was now replaying for the third time. All right. Assume it’s genuine. Time is of the essence. “AID, display Adenast system with functional freighters marked and labeled.” Immediately, the transmission ceased its replay and a modified three-dimensional representation of the Adenast system took its place. It had to be modified, because if it hadn’t, any holo that showed the system from its star all the way out to its jump points would, of course, have rendered the relevant bodies and ships too small to see. The jump point pulsed bright red.

  “AID, what is that freighter practically on top of the jump point?”

  “That is the Dedicated Industry. Heldan of Gistar commanding.”

  “What is its status?”

  “The fault in the gravity feedback sensors was certified repaired point eight days ago, local. Dedicated Industry is outbound for Rienooen to rejoin the food transit circuit.”

  “Display the particulars of its holds, plus the particulars of the anticipated Epetar cargo out of Dulain.”

  Friday 10/29/54

  Michelle liked to begin her workday early in the morning. It was more comfortable for her to navigate the low, multihued corridors then. In the megaskyscraper where she lived and worked, the smaller Indowy crowded corridors to near immobility during the morning rush. The press of the little green teddy bears at this hour was heavy, but not impassible. The brightening blue light shone down on their symbiotic chlorophyll, feeding Adenast’s dominant sophonts a gentle post-breakfast snack during their commute. The filaments gave each Indowy the appearance of being coated by green fur. It was quite a contrast to the robin’s egg blue, bumpy, gently-wrinkled skin of an infant Indowy. She did not know whether all baby Indowy looked that way. She had only seen the babies of the breeding group who had been her childhood foster family. She had maintained close ties with her foster sibs. They were the only Indowy she knew who sometimes almost forgot she was human.

  If they had not been so familiar, the corridors and rooms of her building would have been terribly claustrophobic. Michelle was a good twenty-five centimeters shorter than her older sister, and the ceiling was still only about fifteen centimeters above her own head. All the Indowy-raised were short, by human standards. Their hosts had tinkered with their hormones to keep them from having to stoop and hunch their way through the buildings when grown. It was easier to keep the humans on the lower side of their species’ height range than to re-engineer entire buildings.
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br />   Once they got used to the tight quarters, the only thing that kept humans from developing agoraphobia when away from home was the high ceilings of both the work spaces and the general Galactic areas. The latter had Darhel-height ceilings, of course. Also, humans and Indowy both underwent early and intense training and conditioning to be comfortable with spacewalk maneuvers.

  “Human Michon Mentat Michelle O’Neal, I see you.” The Indowy Roolnai waited for her when she entered the engineering bay, where she was orchestrating the build of a core chunk of the new Cnothgar mining station for one of the system’s inner planets. It was a cutting edge project, and a rather exciting one. It used some of the interoperability lessons of Earthtech manufacturing standards to build a large station whose pieces would snap together like one of her childhood building sets back on Earth. After they mined the planet out, the pieces would unsnap for transportation in freighter holds to a new system, rich in exploitable resources. Cnothgar would disassemble and reconstruct it, over and over again, for mining in systems normally inhospitable to Galactic sophants. The Adenast mining would be the shakedown operation for a facility she expected to last, with proper maintenance, at least two thousand of her local years.

  Roolnai, the head of one of the major clans, had to meet with her at the beginning or end of her work day, because it was impossibly dangerous to interrupt a Sohon or Michon engineer during operations. Poor Derrick had been a terrible reminder of that basic truth. Her late husband had lost concentration at a critical moment in an operational process. The materials had, violently, proceeded to the natural conclusion of the chemical reactions involved, instead of the engineered reaction paths required for that portion of the project. Everyone had mourned with her, but been thankful that the accident happened in the outer system and he had merely been working on a chemical-level operation. If he had been a single level higher in operations classification, and the associated tasks, it could have been so much worse. Derrick himself would have just been grateful he was several light-hours away from the children when the accident occurred.

  So here was Roolnai, doubtless to ensure that another dangerous, and much higher level, human accident was not in the offing. “Indowy Roolnai, I see you,” she said.

  “Please will you sit with me, Michelle?” he asked, gesturing towards the respite chairs along the wall. They did not go into a private room, privacy not being big on the Indowy list of concepts. By Indowy standards, their privacy was inviolate simply because no Indowy would ever repeat or even try to remember a conversation between a major clan head and a Michon Mentat.

  “You are here about my meeting with Pahpon,” she stated.

  “Yes, I am. He contacted one of the other clans, who in turn contacted me because of my prior experience of humans.”

  “Your experience is formidable. Nevertheless, I remind you that no Indowy-raised human has ever acted, significantly, in a way that was not in the best interests of his or her clan,” she said.

  “Yet. We may also disagree as to what constitutes significance, and what constitutes the best interests of one’s clan. Threats of Galactic annihilation would, by most standards, fall outside the interests of one’s clan.” The Indowy’s face was angry.

  “I am not aware that anyone has ever made such threats, directly or obliquely. If you speak of my meeting with Pahpon, I did quite strongly remind him of the dangers of declaring a breach of contract prior to any such breach occurring.”

  “He felt otherwise,” Roolnai said tightly.

  “He was certainly mistaken. The purely socioeconomic risk to his group of breaching the contract himself, by declaring breach where none has occurred, would be severe enough that it could only be a kindness to remind him before he made such a serious financial mistake.”

  “He felt you threatened to misuse your abilities,” the clan head insisted. The Indowy from her work group continued to bustle around, but increased the berth they were giving the two leaders.

  “He implied that he felt as much. I immediately laid out my case that there was no breach, which tactfully made it clear that our discussion was solely over the details of our contract. Perhaps a prejudice against humans caused him to assume a threat where there was none, but I certainly made every attempt, immediately, to correct his misperception.”

  “He says your breach of contract is inevitable, and that you gave him no reason why it was not.” At least Roolnai was calming down.

  “He is quite correct that I gave him no explanation of how I will avoid breach of contract. I am not obliged to. I can and will, however, give you a reason. This is a clan matter, and must not be divulged.”

  “Accepted,” he said.

  “As you know, I have clan members whose existence must remain unknown to the Darhel Groups. My contract allows unlimited delegation of tasks according to my judgment. I have, as is quite proper, delegated the tasks involved in ensuring I do not breach my contract to those members of my clan most uniquely qualified to succeed. Would you doubt that, with my guidance, properly limited by traditional wisdom, they are likely to succeed?”

  “I do not like this. I find the risk almost as high as direct action on your own.”

  Michelle finally made an expression, one that the clan leader might actually recognize since it was close to a similar Indowy expression. She raised her left eyebrow. The slight, closed-lip smile was less conscious.

  “That is gross exaggeration and unworthy of you, Roolnai.”

  Galaxy death. It seemed such a silly thing to suggest. However, the Indowy knew the power of Sohon. One unchecked Sohon master truly could bring about the destruction of all life, perhaps all formed matter, in a galaxy. It would take time, mind you. The mentat would be dead long before the galaxy. But the destruction would spread and spread, wiping out planets, stars…

  Killing one Darhel, or even a clan, would barely cause Michelle to break a sweat.

  However, Michelle knew the dangers as well as the Clan Leader did. No mentat was allowed to rise to her level if they had the slightest trace of interest in that level of violence. By the same token, suggesting that putting Cally on the job, while fey as any human in history, was anywhere near the same level of danger was just… silly.

  After a long moment he sighed, “In that, you are correct.” Now he looked nervous. “Please tell me you are supervising them closely.”

  “I am supervising them closely.” Childlike, she crossed the fingers of the hand that was hidden by her robe.

  “I will tell Pahpon that there is no threat, that you are using legitimate, proprietary techniques to fulfill your contract, and that you have a traditionally acceptable likelihood of fulfilling your contract without breach.”

  “Thank you.” Michelle bent her head slightly. The Indowy accepted the human gesture of respect and returned it. Arguably, they were of the same rank. The interaction between mentats and clan leaders had always been one aspect of fealty the Indowy were unsure about.

  “Please, please keep them under control. I respectfully bid your clan good fortune.” He rose and turned to go, but stopped before he had gone more than a few steps. “Oh, there is something else,” he said. “You should be aware that the Darhel are becoming restless. We do not know what has disturbed the balance, but Gistar diverted one of their freighters leaving this system, two days ago, to intercept one of Epetar’s prize cargos at Dulain. Gistar is acting under the impression that Epetar has been the victim of a large robbery. In the Sol System. It is not good for the Darhel to be restless.” He made a shifting motion, the Indowy equivalent of a sigh. “What is done cannot be undone. Your fellow humans do not comprehend the damage such rashness may do. I know you may not have… opportunity… to contact your clan head directly for some time, but please use all your influence to restrain them.” He inclined his head, tacitly acknowledging her difficult position in interclan politics. After long years of practice, she had no trouble reading the plea in his eyes.

  Friday 10/29/54

  “Now that
I finally have a chance to see you, did you enjoy your weekend off last week?” Wendy prodded. “C’mon, give.”

  “Need you ask?” Cally grinned at her, knowing she herself looked more relaxed than she had in a long time. She gave the plate she’d been drying a last wipe and set it on the stainless steel shelf.

  “Did you meet somebody? Ah, a blush! You met somebody. Cute?” Her friend was not going to give up this line of questioning easily.

  “All I’m going to say is I had at least one nice evening.” I’m never going to get her off this, am I? Not a chance. “So the grapevine says you and Tommy are trying again?”

  “Well… Hey! No fair! Illegal change of subject, fifteen yard penalty, loss of down. We were talking about your nice evening.” Wendy looked mildly outraged.

  “Later.” Cally glanced around the kitchen meaningfully.

  “Well, okay. But if you try to dodge me I’m giving Sinda a set of fingerpaints for her next birthday. And drums for Christmas, too!”

  “Uh… sneak off with a pair of chocolate bars after dinner?” Cally offered.

  “You’re on.”

  The hall the O’Neals had rented for the “Kelley” family reunion was a refurbished Asheville wilderness resort from prewar days. Mostly what the facility had to recommend it was huge stone fireplaces and an isolated location. It was not refurbished enough to have a stocked and staffed cafeteria, so they had had to bring their own food and crew the kitchen in shifts. Fortunately, they only filled half the rooms, since the others hadn’t been redone yet and had plumbing that was… unreliable. But the partially unfinished state had made renting the facilities for a long weekend cheap — which was the other prime requirement in a location. Still, with the postwar economy being what it was, the O’Neals were a lot better off than many. Earth’s governments, and particularly the U.S. government, had been hit hard by late fees for failure to provide colonists according to contract when colony ships had been lost in transit and had failed to reach their destinations. Protestations that humanity had no control over the maintenance or mishaps of the ships had cut no ice with the Galactics’ arbitration councils. If someone or several someones on Earth had failed to take proper notice of the provisions of the contract prior to signing it, that certainly didn’t excuse the Earth governments from living up to their contractual obligations. The councils upheld the fees in full; the taxes to pay for them had been difficult. Earth governments negotiated later contracts to remove the offending provision. However, the interest on the existing fines had done enough damage to set postwar economic recovery back decades.