Rescue Branch (Kinsella Universe)

by Gina Marie Wylie

  “Out, all of you but Pops, out!” she demanded. Her mother and brothers looked confused, but left.

  Her father’s expression was severe. “At a guess I’m going to hear another state secret. Becks, I love you, but those are a huge PITA.”

  “I have no idea what’s been on the news lately. The Ceres colony deliberately didn’t tell anyone -- even visitors -- that they’d lost control of an infectious disease. The colony manager didn’t even tell his wife why he was getting her out of Dodge.”

  “That’s unconscionable.”

  “You have no idea. They gave cholera to the Aft Trojans; they killed a couple of dozen people there, including infants. The Trojans demanded the extradition of those responsible. India told them to go fly a kite. One of the dead was the six month old daughter of the colony managers. They bombed the Ceres colony.”

  “That didn’t make the news. What did they hit them with?”

  “You have to understand that space isn’t like what you’re used to. They hit them with a water balloon.”

  “I have to admit, that doesn’t sound all that bad.”

  “What’s the old saying? A pint is a pound the world around? A liter is roughly a couple of pints. They returned a million liters of water that Ceres had given them.”

  “Two million pounds of water? That would have hurt!” her father said.

  “Like I said, space is unique. You’re thinking of a snowball, they dropped water.”

  “Okay, water. So they made a big splash?”

  “Dad, space is uniquely different than you think. Nothing works as you imagine. It was liquid water at impact, and then it froze. It coated the colony with about a foot of ice. It became very hard to open the doors, particularly when by that time, nearly everyone was sick.”

  “And you went and rescued them?”

  “Dad, when the Southern Cross got there I was covered in so much yuck you’d have thrown me out. Trust me, I’m not the only member of the Fleet. Now and then I give everyone else a chance to be a hero.”

  “So, you’re not much of a hero this time.”

  “Not so much of a hero. There is one thing I left out of my story.”

  “What?”

  “India told the Jovians they’d nuke the colony if they bombed Ceres. That woman who lost her youngest child told them that if they detected anything coming up from Earth; they’d drop a thousand kilometer-sized rocks on India. That’s the equivalent of a thousand hundred megaton bombs.”

  He paled. “I don’t imagine that went over well.”

  “The Federation negotiated a settlement that satisfied everyone. I don’t know if you saw the films of how India greeted their colony managers after they were rescued.”

  “They shot them during the afternoon soaps; it was a shocker.”

  “Not as much of a shock as a thousand down bound rocks would have been.”

  “And this didn’t make the news?” her father said, stunned.

  “Dad, rocks don’t have the fallout of a nuke. But in their own way -- they aren’t a good thing. Ask the dinosaurs.”

  “Why on God’s green Earth are you telling me all this? If it wasn’t in the news it has to be top secret.”

  “Dad, space is important. More people that you might imagine understand that. This is, literally, for all of the marbles. There is a book on my nightstand, Colonial Economics, by someone named Kat. She’s my friend. She’s the person who had India under the gun. Let Mom read it first, then you, then you pick the smartest of my brothers. Make Kat’s day and buy a couple more copies. The Earth now has colonies -- both in the solar system and now on other planets under other suns. Those people understand what’s at stake; they aren’t going to take people who rock the boat lightly. In fact, the first time they feel even a little threatened, they are going to be pushing out all their chips and saying, ‘All in.’ People here on Earth have to recognize that those people aren’t bluffing. This is for not only for their future, but humanity’s future as well. And for a long time to come, it’s going to be ‘We’re all in.’”

  “I’m just a retired navy chief!”

  “And I’m a lousy lieutenant! What did you used to tell me about lieutenants?”

  “I forget,” he said and laughed.

  He left her and no one from her family came back. The nameless doctor returned. “My former government tried to kill you?”

  “Not very hard. Your cousin didn’t agree.”

  “Second cousin,” she said absently.

  The doctor straightened up. “You are poorly nourished; you were over-fatigued. I am your doctor. Either you roll over and sleep or you’ll get a pill that will do the same thing.”

  “Funny you should ask,” Becky said. She was asleep about the time her eyes closed.

  For the next four days Becky spent a lot of time sleeping, and a lot of time talking to Anna saying whatever the spirit moved her to say; since she had a lot of free time, the spirit moved often and in great volumes. Becky considered it in light of her earlier output and counted it a great victory.

  Lieutenant Abbott had no trouble getting her another copy of Kat’s book, then a half dozen others Anna recommended she read. Hayek’s book on Serfdom was the most interesting. She’d never read a better description of the difference between the various forms of government before -- the rule of law and the rule of the bureaucrat. Her own experience with the bureaucracy had, she supposed, prejudiced her against them... but all things considered, she thought she’d have come down on the side she did anyway.

  More important, Hayek’s book descriptions of government and economics provided a great basis for understanding Kat’s work -- and what was clearly Stephanie Kinsella’s contribution.

  There were bureaucrats in the Federation, but they were isolated -- in other sorts of bureaucracies before, they’d been free to make common cause with others like themselves. In the Federation, only local sovereignties had bureaucracies, and they were all far removed from each other and had vastly differing authorities and responsibilities.

  Even though it was early days, Becky could see how that bureaucrats were balkanizing -- including only their “in groups.”

  The Fleet, so far as Becky could see, wasn’t going to need large bureaucracies to run, except in the Port Arm, and those officers had been deliberately, with malice aforethought, neutered. Fleet officers were out there, on the bleeding edge. Promotions among them were faster, and based more on ability than “standards.” Port positions were considered sinecures, with only professional risk. Instead of being hidden, the “glass ceiling” was explicit.

  One morning the doctor was there early, looking at Becky’s chart. “I’m not complaining, doctor, but no one has been in to see me for a couple of days. Have you been blocking my visitors?”

  The doctor shook her head. “My second cousin was most helpful. He told me that woman, Admiral Kinsella, had absolutely amazing influence. If I wanted something, I should talk to her. That she was a reasonable person and that a logical argument could sway her opinion. I told her your condition and she said she’d talked to you about it, but in the meantime, she would see that you weren’t bothered until I said you were well. You are well enough now for a few -- a very few -- visitors, Lieutenant.

  “When I was your age I felt I was invincible, too. My nemesis was malaria. I still have it, in fact. I worked too hard, too long when I was too sick -- I spent more than a month in hospital that I’d have avoided sensibly by reporting my illness. It is a mistake zealous people make. Once you’ve made it, you are hard on subordinates that make the same mistake. The first time you realize you have saved someone’s life, you redouble your efforts. Eventually, you reach a happy medium and people start talking to you again.”

  She walked over to Becky and took her pulse. “I understand the pressure you were under. For some it comes with the territory. I was an intern the first time I came face to face with my own mortality -- an Ebola outbreak in the Congo. My supervising physician never let me ou
t of his sight; he never stopped harping on proper procedure -- whether it was medical or getting enough sleep or eating enough. I was the only one of six interns in that hospital who survived, Lieutenant. Two of the other supervising physicians succumbed as well.

  “And as drastic a lesson as that was, I didn’t learn it. Such precautions were for others, and the first time I was on my own, I nearly died.

  “This wasn’t your fault, but your personal carelessness could have killed you. This is what I did wrong, Lieutenant. My first time in the field I survived handily where others sickened and died. So I felt I was above the usual rules. You thought what you were doing was important, and that you didn’t have time for the basics if you were to save people. You were wrong.

  “Now, a Captain Gilly wants to see you first.”

  Captain Gilly shook her hand, making Becky want to blush. Captains shouldn’t go around shaking the hands of first lieutenants.

  “Two days, Lieutenant Cooper, and you’ll be out of here. There are a few cases still being treated on Southern Cross, and Admiral Delgado wants you out there, ready to assume your new duties as soon as possible -- even if initially you’ll have a few more days of bed rest, then a light duty schedule.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Becky told him, happy beyond measure to be leaving the hospital. “Sir, how long has Southern Cross’s deployment been delayed?”

  “That’s been the subject of intense debate. There is a star, Gliese 581, that is about twenty light years from Earth. The Israelis have tried to explore it twice, since there are thought to be two or three planets within the habitable zone. None of those probes have returned, and the regular survey ships have bypassed the system as ‘possibly too dangerous.’

  “Captain Cook was tasked to explore the southern sky. Gliese is three weeks out of his way, and in the northern sky. His first target to the south is two weeks away from Earth.

  “Captain Cook has promised to stop well away from Gliese and survey it most carefully. The Southern Cross science team will only survey in the most general terms -- they are not to land on any planet with an atmosphere in the system. After the preliminary survey, they will fly past Earth, stop briefly to report their results, and then continue on to their next scheduled survey stop. This will put the Southern Cross’s arrival more than eight weeks late... a sufficiently long enough quarantine period, the MDs tell us, to find out if the disease is still present aboard the ship. If no cholera appears before their first scheduled stop, the survey will be conducted according to the SOP.”

  “And Anna Sanchez?”

  “There was considerable debate about whether or not to vaccinate the crew. The decision was made that everyone is going to be vaccinated against the disease. Miss Sanchez would have been vaccinated regardless, as a precaution anyway.”

  He held Becky’s eyes for a moment. “Miss Sanchez is a player in this, as are you.

  “She isn’t capable of a regular work schedule yet, but she should be by the time the Southern Cross was originally scheduled to return. The delays have pushed the return date well past when she is expected to be completely fit. Psyche has hired an ‘interim project manager’ for the duration. Miss Sanchez said part of the contract had to read that he’d be made the permanent project manager if he’d done well by her original scheduled return date.

  “What’s happened is that she’s been hired to consult on design improvements only. She’s already had a few good ideas, just in her hospital bed. Those ideas are all owned now by the Psyche habitat and will be licensed on reasonable terms, as will the fruits of this voyage.”

  “That sounds like Anna,” Becky agreed. “What’s happening with Ceres and India?”

  “Someone left the door open at the colony,” Captain Gilly explained. “They turned off the power and left the door open. If nothing else, the various infestations have been scotched in the bud.

  “As for India, it took a couple of days but the government is in a state of collapse. There will be a ‘no confidence’ vote in the next few days and someone else will be in charge there. It isn’t thought that their policies will change.

  “A day ago the current government announced it would take bids to scrap the colony. While it’s early days, I understand there are no takers -- that is, no one is volunteering to pay money to take it off their hands. There’s a group of Chinese businessmen who’ve expressed interest in it if the Indians were willing to pay to have it salvaged. That is a lot of steel, and with care, it can be rendered biologically inert.”

  “The bottom line is that I’ll be out of here in two days, sir?”

  “That’s a roger, Lieutenant. There will be a surprise waiting for you aboard Southern Cross. One you won’t be expecting,” he told her.

  It had been Becky’s first thought that the surprise would be Anna, but the odd caveat made that not very likely.

  * * *

  She was surprised how weak she was and how much she appreciated a wheelchair to the shuttle.

  Captain Cook and Commander Jacobsen met her when she boarded. “You’ll be a couple of more days on bed rest,” the captain told her. “You still have a private compartment and I’m assured you no longer need a bed pan. The doctor will look in on you shortly, and will be the final arbiter of your duty status.”

  “I learned my lesson back in the hospital in Hawaii, sir.”

  “And we are undertaking a study of how to monitor crew rest and nutrition; it turns out that you weren’t the only one skimping on sleep and food.” He grimaced. “In the RAN, it was more like a yacht club than a Navy; the problem was getting anyone to do anything at all.

  “Imagine our surprise that the people who’ve gone to space are the over-achievers, the ‘we try harder than anyone’ crowd. Captain Gilly sent me a few watch officers from the old US Navy; they’re just the right sort of men -- and women -- to leaven the ship’s complement.”

  “Captain Gilly said something about a surprise, sir. I don’t want special treatment.”

  Captain Cross put on a fierce face. “I’m not sure why you think the Fleet is all about you, Lieutenant! I was told that the surprise was for me as much as for you.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Becky hastily apologized.

  He glowered, but not at Becky. “I don’t like surprises; captains purely hate them. But when an admiral tells you that you are going to be surprised, you relax and try to keep your anticipation in check.”

  Becky found that her fellow crewmates stopped to talk to her when she was in the wardroom, the only place she was permitted outside of her quarters. They went out of their way to sit with her and strike up conversations. It was one of the most heartening things she’d ever experienced since the first few days at Annapolis when the plebes pulled together to support each other.

  There seemed to be no animosity towards someone who had a rather -- checkered -- duty schedule since she’d first boarded and none were upset about the Ceres visit, although they talked in hushed tones about how unpleasant the final trip from Ceres back to Earth had been. Since Becky’s only experience was emitting foul smelling fluids, she could only imagine what it had been like cleaning them up. Still, the crew was more upset by the continual presence of UV lamps in a variety of compartments.

  The lamps were set up and for a couple of days the compartment was off limits if it could be spared, and if not, you had to wear safety equipment.

  One morning the soft ride ended. “Lieutenant Cooper to the bridge,” came over the intercom. She’d had a number of visitors to her compartment but it wasn’t large enough for more than three people, including her, at a time. She would wake, shower and prepare for the day. She’d slept in very little when she’d been in high school, but at the Academy she’d learned to sleep in shorts and a t-shirt because you never knew when you’d be woken up from a sound sleep. It didn’t happen often after the first couple of months, but it did happen now and again.

  Space had changed that to duty slacks, a duty blouse and appropriate underthings. She no longer
cared that she slept in her clothes -- that was something for the ship’s laundry to take care of.

  So she was prompt reporting to the bridge. Captain Cook was brief, at first. “I hold here,” he waved a sheet of paper, “a report from the ship’s medical officer that you are fit to return to duty of no more than three hours a day, effective 2400 hours tonight.”

  “I’m ready, sir.”

  “Report to your boss, Commander Brown, tomorrow afternoon. He’s got a senior chief running your watch for now, with a very junior ensign there for form’s sake.”

  He cleared his throat. “Today however, is our surprise. I’ve been asked to send a shuttle to the Comsat Company’s habitat over the central Pacific. It turns out Fleet has rented some space there. It’s for use for people reporting to ships in Earth orbit or for transfer to Grissom. I’m told I have a half dozen additional crew arriving -- they are part of the science staff.”

  “And me, sir?”

  “Oh, a little something I arranged. I have a daughter a few years older than you; it was exciting getting all the plans for her wedding together. Drove my wife to distraction!

  “Your mother sent me a message saying, that so far as she knows, the extent of your and Miss Sanchez’s plans are -- in the very earliest stages of planning.”

  “I just thought we’d have a simple ceremony, sir, and that would suffice.”

  “Lieutenant, take it from the voice of experience: it’s never that simple. I’ve asked your mother to come up and the two of us, with your and Miss Sanchez’s input, will finalize the details.”

  “Anna is still on Psyche,” Becky said. At his grin, she felt a surge of emotion. Pure joy.

  “She’ll be coming on the shuttle as well. Psyche has established the first regularly scheduled commercial orbital shuttle service -- although at this point it’s more a town car service. There are three sites on Earth where they will pick up passengers, and three in orbit that they will offload at. The flight can take a while, since they only fly once a day, but I’m sure as traffic picks up, that will change.”