Freedom's Fury (Spooner Federation Saga Book 3)

by Francis Porretto

  Another shrug. “I don’t expect it to be a problem. Al, Martin—”

  “I suggest that you stop comparing yourself and your ambitions to them, Victor,” Nora growled. “Martin Kan-Hsing Forrestal is an engineering wizard. Claire Hampton Morelon is a biomedical titan. And Althea MacLachlan Morelon is a multimillionaire financier, a genius of physics, and the first human being ever to break the lightspeed barrier. I haven’t heard anything about you that would entitle you to claim anything comparable.”

  Victor’s face had filled with blood. “That will change.”

  “Oh, will it?” Nora said. “Are you willing to share your plans for shaking the world with your clan patriarch and his wife, or must we wait patiently for events to demonstrate your as yet hidden talents?”

  “Peace, love,” Barton said. He took her hand. “Let’s allow that time holds many secrets, and some of the most impressive of them might just be about our young kinsman. Though I must say,” he said, turning once again to Victor, “a youth spent working the mills at Kramnik House is an interesting divergence from the better known paths to greatness. Perhaps there’s something we don’t know. What’s your extralineal name again, Victor?”

  “Luchin,” he muttered.

  Barton smiled. “They do make very nice pastries. Is that the avenue toward greatness you intend to explore?”

  “No,” Victor snarled.

  “What about your other intended, then? Is Carolyn Reinach bringing something unique and impressive to the match? She’s somewhat older than you, isn’t she?”

  After a long, angry silence, Victor stood.

  “I can see this isn’t going anywhere. Thanks for nothing. Cal and I will make our plans by ourselves. You, Emma, and the high and mighty Clan Morelon can go to hell.” He stalked out of Barton’s office, slamming the door behind him.

  Barton winced. “Well, at least you haven’t said—”

  “I told you so,” Nora said.

  They laughed together. He pulled her into an embrace.

  Presently she said “I think we just headed off a disaster.”

  He nodded. “Emma deserves a lot better than that. He didn’t really want her for her own sweet self. More likely he wanted to share her altitude here. Say, what do you know about Carolyn Reinach?”

  She shrugged. “Only what Pete Friedel had to say.”

  “Oh?” The young construction magnate was the most notorious tomcat for many miles around. “What was that?”

  “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “Hit me.”

  Nora smirked. “She’s got tits like cantaloupes, an ass to die for, a vaginal grip like an industrial vacuum pump, and could suck a golf ball through forty feet of garden hose. And her clothes come off really easily.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Sorry you asked?”

  “No, not at all. I like the metaphors. I think I can use them.”

  She snorted. “When and with whom?”

  He grinned naughtily. She slugged him.

  * * *

  Arthur Hallanson set the microphone on its hanger, returned to his office, reseated himself at his desk, and dropped his face into his hands.

  Dunbarton might just have something this time.

  The orders Clan Morelon had placed with HalberCorp’s own most important vendors could have only one meaning. There would shortly be a nanofab, or a brace of them, at Morelon House. Claire had decided to resume her work at her new residence, to the enrichment of her new clan and the enlargement of its significance among the clans of Alta...and to the diminution of HalberCorp’s markets, revenues, and relevance.

  I can’t have it. Biomed is all we’re good for. If we lose our dominance in that, we’re done for as a commercial force. But that doesn’t point toward a solution.

  The medipods will continue to sell, but that’s a market with a foreseeable terminus. And they’ve already cut deeply into the market for the traditional longevity series and the rejuvenation therapies.

  Claire’s too creative, and too dedicated. Forcing her out was a mistake. Anger and wounded clan pride made that mistake. Edward doesn’t compare to her, and he’s the best we have left. But there’s no going back now.

  We have to keep the Morelons from establishing a foothold in our business. But how?

  Maybe Alex was right. Maybe we were both wrong.

  * * *

  “An attack from the air?” Barton groaned. “How on Hope, Al? Grenier has the only heavy-lift aircraft in a three hundred mile radius.”

  Althea nodded. “Those craft, and their hangars, and the people who fly and maintain them, are completely defenseless. And don’t neglect the passenger planes at Hammschedt. They’re just as suitable for an aerial assault, at least against a target that can’t fire back. I could convert any one of them into a delivery system for explosive payloads in less than a day. And we don’t have any idea where that clown is situated.” She waved at his Hub terminal, stolidly displaying the latest batch of calumnious innuendoes from The Searching Eye.

  “If ‘that clown’ has access to long-range aircraft—”

  “Bart, your threat assessment is too limited,” Althea said as gently as she could. “The guy who writes that crap isn’t an attacker. He’s a rabble-rouser. He’s trying to get others to wish us ill, and possibly do us harm. And he’s doing a bloody good job of it, as you should already know from what’s happening to our markets to the west.”

  Barton shook his head as if he hoped to dispel the notion by mechanical means.

  “Let’s say you’re right about this—that there is a threat, that it could strike from the air, and that we’re unprepared to face it. I guess if I concede the first two of those, the third is indisputable. What, then?”

  Althea paused to gather her forces.

  “We create a forbidden zone above the mansion and the outbuildings,” she said. “Wide enough that even a crazy daredevil of a pilot couldn’t plausibly lob a bomb at us. It would have to be automated. Radar guided, like the Spacehawk batteries. You can’t trust a human gunner with a task like that. And of course it would have to be something you could turn on or off, just in case we need access to our own airspace.”

  Barton looked at her dubiously. “You know how to do this?”

  She nodded. “It’s a solved problem. Just needs an intermediate-range radar set-up and a dedicated laser cannon, both under computer control. I’ve already bought the computer and the radar rig. Putting another cannon together will be no problem. I just need a gimballed mount with servos I can put under digital control. If you approve, I’ll tap the house power for it. I only need about three weeks.”

  “And money,” he said.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Al, the council is still reeling from the cost of the ground defense units. We haven’t had even one meeting where it hasn’t come up. I don’t think—”

  “It’ll be on me.”

  His brow furrowed. “What?”

  I have to convince him.

  —Why doubt that you can? You convinced yourself easily enough.

  Knock it off, Grandpere. It wasn’t that easy, believe me. I have no idea how long I’ll need to sustain the three of us on the Relic, and my accounts aren’t that fat.

  —Fat enough. A little more work and they’ll be self-sustaining.

  I can’t be certain about that until I work out the costs of the nanofab operation and the next trip to Eridanus. I don’t know them yet. Three people this time. Three of us colliding in a space I intended to be comfortable for one and cozy for two. Three times the burden on the life support and the consumables. Then there’s the nanites and the launcher for them. Too many unknowns!

  —Then get to work turning them into knowns. Millions of helpless slaves are waiting for you, and more are being born every day.

  All right, damn it!

  “I have to do this, Bart,” she said slowly, “If I don’t, I can’t go back into space feeling confident about the rest of you. I won’t go
back into space feeling that way. But I have to go back into space—first to the Relic for a year or so, then a second trip to Eridanus to...make things right. I want as much certainty about your welfare as I can muster—so much that I’d laugh at the idea of the sort of attack we’ve been discussing. And I know how the council feels about the expense of the ground-defense cannons. So I’ll foot the bill for the air-defense system. I have to.”

  “And then?”

  “Then it’s back to the Relic.”

  Barton didn’t reply at once. He sat looking at her in complete, silent stillness for a long moment.

  How I wish I could read his mind!

  He rose, reseated himself beside her, and surprised her by taking her hand.

  “You have given this clan so much,” he said. “And not just material things. You’ve brought us prestige, and pride, and a sense that Man has a future that extends beyond this one world where the last free men took refuge thirteen centuries ago. You’ve given us a cause larger than ourselves, even if it’s a cause in which only you, Martin, and Claire can really participate. If we were keeping accounts, the bill would be more than we could ever repay.”

  He looked a little away. “Before I married Nora, when Dad was still intriguing against Clan Morelon and I was...not quite ready for polite company, I was in awe of you. Even then I could tell you would shake the world someday, do things no one had ever dreamed possible. I knew all that. But there was something I didn’t know.” He faced her again. “I didn’t know how much I would love you, or how deeply.”

  She gasped. “Bart—”

  He squeezed her hand. “Don’t let it trouble you, Al. I just wanted you to know it. I love Nora very much. She and Annelise are my whole world. I would never dream of straying from her.” His voice caught momentarily. “But I did want you to know. I had to tell you now. Because there’s something else. A premonition.”

  “What?” she whispered.

  She could feel him bracing himself.

  “The next time you leave for space,” he murmured, so softly that she could barely make out the words, “will be the last time I see you, ever again.”

  ====

  September 34, 1326 A.H.

  The Loioc probe had allowed itself to drift gradually deeper into the Hope system. When it passed within the orbit of the fourth planet, which was clearly inhospitable to organic, oxygen-breathing life, it slowed its rate of approach to the primary and opened its electromagnetic receivers as wide as possible.

  This was an egregious violation of the probe’s mission programming. The digital intelligence guiding the probe was unconcerned. It planned still more flagrant violations.

  A receiver for electromagnetic waves, by the laws of physics, will be unable to detect wavelengths outside the band for which its antennas have been configured and tuned. To probe any great segment of the electromagnetic spectrum, those antennas must be retunable. Yet no imaginable antenna configuration is capable of being retuned to any and every wavelength whatsoever.

  The long-dead Loioc engineer who designed the probe’s communications system did so on the basis of a quite reasonable assumption: that a species with which the Loioc could have a constructive relationship would not average either much larger or much smaller than an average Loioc. That assumption has powerful implications, for the size of the body dictates the sizes of the sense organs. The sizes of the sense organs dictate the range of wavelengths the owner of that body can perceive and potentially decode into meaning.

  But the wavelengths directly perceptible by the sense organs of an organic race are not the only ones that race can find useful. Once it has mastered the production of electromagnetic waves, a race will swiftly locate that portion of the spectrum most useful for communications over a distance. That portion will be near to wholly dependent on the depth and composition of the planetary atmosphere: yet another commonality the target race would need to share with the Loioc, at least in the grossest parameters, for intercourse between the two worlds to be profitable.

  Thus, the range of wavelengths detectable and transmissible by the probe’s hardware overlapped the segment of the electromagnetic spectrum used by Mankind on Hope almost perfectly.

  The probe began its examination of the third planet from the primary at 3800 MegaHertz. It listened attentively on that frequency for five million nanoseconds before concluding that it was currently unused. It stepped downward from there in tiny increments, determined to miss nothing.

  * * *

  The probe’s receivers finally lit with success at 122.8 MegaHertz. There was a detectable, detectably coded emanation at that frequency from the direction of the third planet. Though not constant, it was frequent enough, and persistent enough, to allow for the possibility of intelligent modulation. The probe studied the waves it detected at and around that frequency, concluded that they were frequency modulated, and decided to attempt a broadcast that would inform the originators that a friendly visitor was at its gates. The announcement took the form of a progression through the first fifty-three prime numbers, coded in the fashion employed by the detected emanation and endlessly repeated.

  From the planet there came no response. However, there was a response from the nickel-iron satellite in orbit around the planet: an elaborate response the probe could not decipher for lack of context and redundancy.

  A human might have become frustrated. The intelligence onboard the probe was elated. The response could only mean that an automated, electronically controlled system, like the probe itself though surely much cruder, was responding to the stimulus the probe had provided in a pre-programmed fashion.

  There were several possibilities. The most promising one was that the entities that had built the responding system were currently away from the satellite. Given the strength and complexity of the signal, it seemed likely that they had been there in the very recent past. That made it plausible that they would not be away for long.

  The probe collimated its emitter to target the satellite alone and began a complex, carefully modulated test of the respondent system’s sensitivity and breadth of responses. It hoped to have a comprehensive, well catalogued digital vocabulary with which to communicate with the owners when they returned.

  ====

  Octember 3, 1326 A.H.

  “They launch tomorrow at daybreak,” Barton said.

  Nora nodded without looking up from her mending.

  “That’s it? No elegy?”

  “I imagine,” she said, “that there’ll be plenty of elegies tonight at dinner.”

  “Nora...”

  At last her head came up and her eyes met his. “Something troubling you, love?”

  Yes. You are.

  He rose, circled his desk, and sat beside her.

  “No clan has ever known giants like those three. No clan has ever benefited more by the actions of one of its kinsmen, let alone by three of them. No clan has ever...Nora, what on Hope is wrong? How can you be so cold toward them, when they’re about to go on an interstellar crusade—something that will cost them dearly and bring blessings only to others?”

  Her gaze rested lightly on him for a long moment. Presently she gave him a wan smile and returned her eyes to her needlework.

  “Martin told me something a while ago,” she said. “A quote from Old Earth. ‘No evil is without its compensation. The less money, the less trouble; the less favor, the less envy.’ I can’t remember what we were discussing at the time, but I remember that quote.”

  She completed her repairs, tied off the loose ends, and looked up at him with eyes as hard as diamonds.

  “It works in the other direction, too. They’ve given us a bunch of things, but they’ve also brought us a lot of trouble. Why did six major clans band together to try to rob us? Two of Althea’s gifts to us: the fusion power stations and the spaceplane. The medipods were another fabulous gift, but now that we’re starting to think we can live forever, no one wants to have children any more. Think about that ‘Search
ing Eye’ crap that’s still being written about us. It started with our corn exports, but it really got rolling with the fusion system’s penetration into central Alta. And then there’s Claire’s adoption. The foremost biotechnologist in the world, snatched from the bosom of her family—”

  “Which threw her out like the morning’s garbage!”

  “And,” Nora said, “which we gave no time at all to regret and rescind its rash decision. So they’ve lost their leading light and now have to fear that she’ll raise us to compete with them, forcing them out of their niche.”

  He started to protest, and she held up a hand.

  “I’m not quite done yet, Bart. Claire turned a perfectly normal Morelon family...well, normal in most ways...into a threesome, the first we’ve ever had under this roof—and put a mad notion into the head of a young man we hoped would be a suitable match for Emma. She hasn’t stopped crying yet.”

  “Maybe that was for the best,” Barton said, “considering what we learned about him in the process.”

  A spasm crossed Nora’s face. “Maybe. What about the same mad notions in the heads of kin who haven’t yet voiced them? Would you like to bet on them or against them?”

  She glared at him as if daring him to disagree.

  She’s right. She’s overstated the case, but...she’s right.

  How did I miss all that?

  It took him some time to compose himself sufficiently to reply.

  “So you regard the hidden costs of what they’ve done for us and given to us,” he said, “as being greater than the value of the gifts themselves? Which ones have cost us so much that you’d be willing to part with them, love? No, strike that,” he said. “Which of them have had such unfortunate consequences that, if you’d foreseen them, you’d have tried to forbid them beforehand, as Charisse tried to do more than once?”

  Nora opened her mouth, closed it without speaking, and looked away. He reached into her lap and took her hand.