A Hop, Skip and a Jump (Family Law Book 4)

by Mackey Chandler

  By the time she was born the Badgers and their allies would have been well within the Human sphere, certainly overrun not bypassed, because they went unarmed in ships. As much as she hated to admit it, Humans hadn't treated other races very well. The Derf were a happy aberration due to one decent Human who many saw as a traitor to his race. Lee originally thought the aboriginal races were treated well and their outer systems untouched due to common decency, but then she'd found out it was threats from Central that prevented the exploitation of their resources.

  Realistically, the Badgers, Bills, and other races in their group, as well as her friends Talker and his daughter Tish would be ruled right now by Human administrators if The Three hadn't retarded Human expansion. Their lives and choices would have been pushed aside by people just like Judge Morse, who had treated her and hers with such contempt. Lee suspected Humans would have treated her friends far worse than the Biters with which they were currently in conflict. Biters seemed to be raiders, not conquerors.

  That was April's contention, Lee remembered, that they wanted to slow down Human expansion until the character of Human civilization matured into something less full of strife. Rather than condemn April and her friends for arrogance, Lee found herself in the uncomfortable position of thinking them too optimistic that time alone would see Humanity grow into a gentler less aggressive culture. Lee just didn't see it realistically happening. Were there people in ancient times patiently waiting for Rome to become a gentler kinder empire?

  She needed more facts, but what pieces she had made Lee conclude The Three weren't stupid. Even informed by hind-sight, their desire to retard Human expansion looked reasonable. Looking at it cold-bloodedly and unemotionally, far fewer people would be harmed by withholding their drive tech than offering it. Especially if you counted the well being of non-Human people.

  So, why hadn't they tried to dissuade Lee from her desire to explore? The only conclusion Lee could come to was that her voyage wasn't as deep as it seemed to her. That while deep in the way Humans were exploring with the current jump drive, it wasn't a great enough leap in reach to upset them, compared to the capability The Three enjoyed with their drive. Lee was likely underestimating how far and how fast they could go based on her one trip with Gabriel. He didn't really brag he was showing her what the ship could do, did he?

  The actual amount of research Lee had read was tiny, but the analysis and soul-searching it provoked was significant and worthwhile. Looking at the clock in the corner of the screen she'd stayed up three hours after Gordon. She was tired and needed to go to bed, but she didn't trust herself to remember her conclusions in the morning. Lee forced herself to write a few notes about it before she closed her files and shut down the screen. Gordon would probably wonder why she slept in past him in the morning, but at least she had something worth discussing with him. She was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  * * *

  In the morning Lee took a bath. Derf washed over a drain and combed out their fur if very dirty, then rinsed in a common tub, much like Japanese. The Derf did not linger in the bath idly, even if they had no immediate assignment, it just looked bad, and the Mothers would find something to occupy anyone who appeared to have too much leisure time. So Lee had the entire bath house to herself. Sized for Derf, the pool was near big enough for her to do laps.

  Lee scrubbed clean and rinsed, but didn't soak, even though she thought it silly waste of the hot tub. A great deal of her work was thinking, and meditating in a warm bath was a good change of pace to let new thoughts flow. Insisting on visible activity just for appearance sake made people think up pointless make work, and stole time that might yield thoughtful contemplation. But then the Mothers didn't have a history of welcoming new thoughts from outside their ranks. That was changing now, just a little. They still didn't want every cook and carpenter constantly flooding them with new ideas. She put on clean clothes and ate a ration bar because she was too late for breakfast.

  Despite thinking the Mothers silly for wanting to see everybody busy, she was similarly worried about her fleet crew not having anything to do. Since Gordon told her about some of them wanting to sell voyage shares she wondered if they were having trouble finding work. It's true they were just hired crew for the most part. Most of the Fargoers would be returning home. Lee and Gordon would keep a basic crew for the High Hopes, but that was only three people. The clan members were clan for life, and if most of them weren't busy they were an economic drag on the whole clan. Even the clan members who came along on the Sharp Claws to train went back to other jobs in the clan until the Mothers needed their spacer skills again.

  The Mothers indicated the Sharp Claws would sit at dock most of the time, with a caretaker or two between assignments, once the political situation with Earth settled. There would be a rotation of crew up to be trained two or three at a time, and occasional cruises, so a few more able spacers would be furloughed soon.

  Most of their other crew were let go at the end of the voyage. Her responsibility for their livelihood ended once they were paid off, but she was still fretting about it even if it wasn't strictly her obligation. She somehow assumed they would be absorbed back into other ships or enterprises, but she didn't really know. She'd never had to look for a job or a lot of other common things normal people did day to day. The closest she'd come to that sort of life had been staying with her relatives in Northern Michigan. She had dealt with a public bus station and even went in a retail store and picked out made to size clothing.

  Now she was wondering about the actual effect of dozens of specialized spacers dumped on the economy of Derfhome. It wasn't like Fargone that had a planetary economy that could support an active full time military. Red Tree was the only clan owning several ships, and the only one owning an armed ship now. Most of the population still lived in the clan keeps, and you didn't go apply to belong to a clan like a job. There was very little exchange between clans or from trading towns if you didn't have a needed skill. Red Tree had absorbed some new people when Gordon started the war with North America. He'd found three clan Derf with both space and military experience who wanted to bring their families into Red Tree clan.

  Lee had never asked why they wanted to leave their old clan or if they came by way of trade towns having left their clan already. It seemed like something she should have asked Gordon, and she made a mental note to do so now. Did the other clans owning trade ships even hire outside crew? The sheer size of Derf meant a lot of Human ships probably wouldn't hire Derf crew, even if a ship could be configured to allow them access. It was an expense and a burden on life support to accommodate Derf. Of course their size and strength was an asset too, if you were lucky enough to find a new world worth exploring.

  Obviously her parents had felt that it was well worth moving partitions and making room for Gordon on their explorer, but they never told her about that. He had experience, more than them actually, having gone on other voyages of exploration. He had the prize rings in his ears to prove it. Yet Lee had never asked him about those previous trips, and he wasn't very good at volunteering things. Had he served in other mixed vessels or was there an all Derf explorer?

  It wasn't just the recent history between the Moon and Earth she needed to know, Lee realized. She had a whole long list of questions about Gordon's past she never thought to ask, on top of most of Human history, of which she had only the sketchiest outline of from her education. It was all more than a little bit overwhelming adding up everything she didn't know.

  Chapter 12

  "Did you sleep poorly?" Gordon asked with concern when Lee found him working back in his room. Perhaps he thought she had a recurrence of the nightmares she once suffered.

  "I stayed up and looked to see what my search gathered about the Lunar governments. I didn't get all that much read," Lee admitted, "but it provoked a lot of thought and questions."

  "For April, or her sovereign should we meet her?" Gordon asked.

  "I have a lot
of those, and I'm adding to them steadily, but I have questions for you and for the Mothers," Lee hesitated and frowned, "and Admiral Hawking most likely."

  "None surprise me but the Admiral," Gordon said. "What would you need him to answer?"

  "It occurred to me that one solution to having the Little Fleet stand down and letting all this expertise dissipate," Lee said, with a scattering gesture, "is to send them back out again. I didn't think of doing that because I want to go, but I shouldn't make it all about me. I was being a little silly about that. Better to keep them active and busy than to have to almost start from scratch later just because I had to take time to go to the Moon and to create a claims organization here. That way, when I can go out again, there will still be at least the core of our fleet preserved."

  "You don't need Admiral Hawking's permission to do that," Gordon said.

  "Not his permission, but his cooperation. He said if we went back into the deep unknown he'd want to send another armed vessel along for all the original reasons they went with us before," Lee said. "I'll have the Sharp Claws tied up using it, and you want the Retribution here guarding Derfhome, don't you?" Lee asked.

  "Yes, I'm afraid that may be a permanent necessity," Gordon admitted. "I'm still thinking on how to break that to the Mothers. I fear they're not going to want to hear it."

  "Then we either need to buy some sort of armed vessel or persuade Hawking to loan us something again. If he doesn't want another cruiser tied up, what I'm seeing is a destroyer seems to be plenty of firepower for everything we've run into."

  "So far," Gordon agreed cautiously. He thought about it a little. "But two destroyers have almost as much weapons capability as a cruiser. They just lack radar as powerful."

  "Let that be our back-up position, negotiating," Lee said.

  "Do you want to run back to Fargone to persuade the Admiral?" Gordon asked.

  "I'm not sure I should take the time. When am I going to get the Claims Commission organized? And now the Mothers want me to run back to Earth and that's a big enough project all on its own, and how patient are the Mothers going to be if I don't get that show on the road?"

  "On the other hand, I'd also like to get some commitment from Hawking to lend naval support to our commission claims. There are lots of Fargoers who have claims from our voyage, maybe a majority, so it seems like he, they, would have an interest in protecting their claims. But he never actually said that, so maybe it will take a higher level of persuasion to get him . . ." Lee stopped this stressed monologue and just looked bewildered and exasperated.

  "What's the matter dear?" Gordon asked, gently.

  "It's too much. I can't do it all. Something will get short changed or done poorly, and it's all too important to mess up! What do I do? How did I get trapped like this?" Lee asked.

  "Hmmm, Dr. Ames doesn't offer cloning services yet does he?" Gordon asked.

  "Don't you dare be amused by me. This isn't just about me. This affects all our crew and the whole of Derfhome. It impacts your clan," Lee said, deliberately trying to touch a nerve with him, "even if you don't care about the others."

  "I multi-task," Gordon said, "although not to the degree you seem to think possible. I can be both amused and concerned at the same time. It impacts Fargone, the Badger civilization, and Earth too. I suspect ripples of these issues will touch New Japan and even Central and its allies too, though you may have a hard time convincing them of that, as isolationist as they both are." Gordon scrunched his nose up in thought. "It even affects the Biters for good or bad, and they may the only players in this who I can't find it in me to care about."

  "Alright, advise me Father," Lee said, with unusual formality.

  Gordon tilted his head to acknowledge her tone. "It would seem circumstances have come to a point where you are going to be forced to learn to delegate," He said, and let it at that.

  Lee sat, still as a statue, but blinking rapidly thinking about that. It obviously didn't make her happy and she took her time before she formulated her next question.

  "How can I possibly decide which one to hand off to somebody?" she finally asked.

  "You really know the answer to that, if you weren't so emotionally close to the issues, and so frazzled. If you slept on it I'm sure you'd sort it out and tell me in the morning," Gordon said. "But just to move things along. Which one can't you hand off under any circumstances?"

  "Oh, the Mother charged me personally to go to Central and speak for them," Lee decided. "I can't foist that off on anyone, because it's the only one imposed on me from without."

  "Got it in one," Gordon agreed, pleased.

  "The same argument the Mothers applied to me works for you," Lee said. "You know Admiral Hawking. As a first task will you go to Fargone and speak for us to get his support for both an escort for a new expedition, and support for his citizen's claims?"

  "It would be my pleasure. You are the majority partner and I'm second. Would you give me a letter that says I speak with your voice also for the High Hopes Exploratory Association?"

  "I will give you a letter, but I like how Heather did things with a physical token of authority. I want to start doing that. Remember how the Republic guard jumped back when Gabriel thrust her ring in his face? You'd have thought it was going to flash lightning and sear him." Lee stripped her fancy knife off her belt and offered it back to Gordon. "Strap that on your wrist and if you want to be dramatic lay it before them and announce you speak for me before you act as spox for the Association. I'll say in the letter it's the physical symbol of your authority."

  "I like that," Gordon agreed. "They've all seen it and made a point of it on Bode's show."

  "So, that takes care of one problem," Lee said. "Now, who can you get to start organizing our Claims Commission? Somebody to get an office and recruit the sort of workers you need to keep records and communicate about business. Somebody to accept bids on developing those claims and resources, and to recruit banks, because we need to start getting pay-outs for our crew. I can't see how that is going to happen unless we encourage more banks to make a market in the shares. It makes sense to favor the Bank of Derfhome, but I doubt they have the assets to buy as many shares as will be offered."

  "Yes. If I may suggest," Gordon said, "banks often spread out loans and stock offerings between them to reduce risk. Perhaps one of the officers of the bank could accompany you to Central and offer some of the Earth banks a shot at buying Little Fleet shares. The banks are also in a better position to screen bidders for ability to perform in developing the claims on which they are bidding."

  "There was an older lady, Sally," Lee remembered. "She was Human, which would probably be a better fit with Earth bankers. I suspect otherwise we might be fighting against prejudices, and for right now I'd rather be getting their business than trying to educate them. She seemed very sharp. The bank is paying her, I'm not sure it would be good to offer her pay beyond that. Better to have clear who she represents, without possible conflicts of interest, but we could offer to buy her life extension therapy while in the Earth system. It seems to me that would be a powerful inducement to accompany us at her age."

  "Sally Goldstein-Singh," Gordon said. "Yes, I'll approach her on behalf of the Association to go with you. I'll have to explain exactly what we're offering. I do have a minor little picky request of my own. I don't mind offering claims shares to the parent office, if Sally wants to do so, but I'd rather not work through the particular branch that is The Discount Bank of Jerusalem and Credit Suisse - Ganymede at Derfhome."

  "I don't blame you," Lee agreed. "I'll leave you to remind Sally why we feel that way. That only leaves who to get to organize a second expedition with a reduced fleet."

  "Who is the most able executive to command you know?" Gordon asked.

  "You, but I already have you tied up here fleshing out a Claims Commission."

  "Bah! You are being kind, and flattering me, or you haven't been paying attention," Gordon insisted. "I'm a decent tactician, and I c
an knock heads together without any subtlety when idiots like the Badgers and Bills try to obstruct us from outside. But who put the fear in the crew day to day, to keep them sharp and everything running up to snuff?"

  "Oh, Thor scared the snot out of anybody who dare questioned him, or you for that matter," Lee added. "I remember he said you were too nice."

  "And he was right," Gordon admitted. "I actually find it harder to be tough about all the little issues and requests than the big ones. I like to accommodate my own people and make them happy. He really doesn't care if they hate his guts as long as they snap to orders."

  "Sometimes I have a hard time with Thor," Lee admitted.

  "Thor would actually be the logical one to go speak to Hawking as fleet commander," Gordon suggested.

  "No," Lee said, without hesitation. "I wouldn't trust him not to alienate the Admiral or other Fargoers. I've seen you get along with Hawking just fine."

  "As you will, but a word of advice. You can limit yourself to only recruiting people you like," Gordon counseled, "but it really limits the selection. From personal experience, it makes it much harder to fire them."

  "Mmm . . . that's similar to something Jesus once told me, that you limit your chances of success if you are scared to hire somebody smarter than you," Lee said.

  "Just those two principles of business management can put you way ahead of the rest of the pack," Gordon said.

  "I'll talk to Thor after supper and see if he's even interested," Lee promised.

  * * *

  "Yeah sure," Thor said quickly, far too easily for Lee's comfort. Lee expected a lot more argument and jockeying for advantage.

  "Is there anything more you want, in exchange for leading a reduced command?"

  "Four shares instead of two as commander. If you aren't sending along a business manager or bean counter I want the right to award bonus shares for special service just like Gordon did on our first voyage."