"Oh, I'll take it," the man agreed quickly. "My passengers are not inconvenienced or endangered. I retain my command. The company even looks good for rescuing the other crews."
"Some free advice," William told him. "I've worked with military before. Don't be surprised if the Cruiser crew walks in and expects to take command. He may try to officially commander it and his interest will not be for your passengers or your company,"
"He can do that if war is declared," the Captain acknowledged.
"The funny thing," Gordon said, "we have declared war on North America, but North America seems reluctant to declare war on us. I leave it to you to decide where that leaves you."
"You do a sweet good-cop, bad-cop," Gordon told William walking out.
"Humpf…" William grunted suspiciously. "Which was I?"
Chapter 37
Michigan was one big city from the Detroit airport, which weirdly enough was not in Detroit, to north of Flint. She had never been in a commercial bus before and didn't understand why they didn't fly closer. Cousin Earl explained they could have flown a commuter flight to a Sawyer airport, but it was cheaper to have them take the bus.
"Be glad they didn't make us take the bus all the way to Michigan," he told her. Even worse, Earl explained this bus would take all day to take them to the terminal at what he referred to as 'The Soo' and another would take them west across most of another big peninsula to Ishpeming. He talked about Hansons and Andersons and Tolivers in Ishpeming and Escanaba and Marquette until she couldn't absorb any more.
The city had been depressing, lots of old buildings, some visibly empty. Commercial buildings were behind high fences with razor wire rolls on top. There were slogans and art painted on every flat surface. Even places that looked dangerous to climb, just to do graffiti.
Paper and junk was everywhere and the weeds were a tall jungle right up to the road.
Once they got north of Saginaw there were more fields of crops and trees, not weeds. She nudged Earl and pointed quickly once. "What is that?" about a brown animal standing stretched to look over the high grass. "Just a groundhog," he said, amused at her interest.
"I need to let my lawyer know what happened to me," Lee told Earl. "But I'm scared to use my phone and get a record of it on the system. I may need it later and they could deactivate it. I'm not sure what to do."
"If you are going to call, best do it now," Earl encouraged her. "They will see you logged on a rural tower out in the middle of nowhere, near Grayling. Phones aren't that hard to get or just borrow for a call." He didn't ask what she needed to tell her lawyer, which surprised her.
She composed it as a text to Stanley. "Fostered to cousin Earl Hanson's family, Ishpeming Michigan. Am well and safe and have funds and papers. Laying low. Thank you for your service. Love to Gordon, Lee." She showed it to Earl, in a spirit of trust.
"That's good your people know where you are. The judge and the agency, neither one thought to tell me you couldn't have contact. You get that a lot in domestic cases, but like you said, I don't think he was running on brains, it was all emotion. That's better for you it wasn't any fancy thought out plan."
"Now that he is all cooled off he shouldn't think about you and he's sent you out of his jurisdiction anyway. Marquette County people wouldn't appreciate him continuing to poke his nose into their turf now and he knows how that works. If we don't make any fuss the system may ignore you. The Hansons are pretty good at quietly getting along. Some of the folks on public assistance and negative tax complain about everything and create a fuss almost weekly. They think they are getting something more being a pain in the butt, but I think we do better asking politely and filling out all the forms neat and proper."
Lee turned the phone on, was happy to see she had plenty of charge on it, sent the text and shut just her phone function off. That felt odd. She couldn't look anything up on the web, but nobody could ping her location either. She still had all her videos to watch and all her books including stuff like her Japanese tutorial. There really wasn't any excuse not to keep at her lessons she realized.
* * *
The bus got into Ishpeming after midnight, what with stops at Newberry, Munising and Marquette. Earl had a card to use the local minibus service for negative tax folks, the elderly and disabled. However it only ran from 7am 'til 10pm. The bus depot was small and reasonably clean, but it had a security guard and a sign that announced: "Departing passengers in lounge must have a paid ticket for a scheduled bus. Arriving passengers must vacate the lounge within an hour of arrival. No loitering, littering, disorderly conduct or intoxicants." They'd just arrived and the security guard was already giving them the fish eye.
"I'm not sure how to handle this," Earl admitted. "If it was just me I'd walk. Nobody is going to bother me. But the neighborhood is not very nice. I can't ask a young lady to walk near four miles across downtown and into the projects at night."
"How about a cab?" Lee asked. "Do you have taxis?"
"Negative card isn't good for them. I think the company has one cab on overnight call, but I'm not sure he'd take us in the projects."
"I saw a hotel a block away when the bus came in. Could we stay there and get your regular ride in the morning?"
"Can't use Negative card for lodging in our home county. Not unless there is a natural disaster, or something like your place gets burned up and you have a letter."
"Doesn't seem like you can use that card for much of anything," Lee complained.
"You live on it a few years you learn the rules by heart. I hear what you are saying, but it don't do any good to complain. There are ways around it when it is worth the risk, but it beats the daylights outta being on the sidewalk, with nowhere to go and hungry," he explained.
"You mess up and have your qualifications withdrawn, well, you better start walking and trying to bum rides south, because come winter, which is might nasty around here, you are either going to freeze to death, or get jailed as a habitual vagrant."
"I was hoping to hold off using my card, but I could rent us a room," she offered.
"Gotta be eighteen to rent a room," he said with a wry smile.
They sat quietly thinking for awhile.
"Any all night restaurants around where we could sit if we eat slow and keep ordering?"
"Not close. Down the state highway, again, further than I'm willing to walk.
"Would the cops give us a ride?" she asked in desperation.
"I'll ignore that, because you are not from around here and you don't know any better."
The ticket window was closed and the office dark. If you wanted a ticket there was an automated dispenser that would print one. There was one man sitting alone with a duffel bag in his lap on end. It was just long enough for him to cross his arms on it and rest his head. He might have been asleep or not. You couldn't move his bag without alerting him.
A couple sitting well away had their soft bags between their feet. The woman was twisted sideways a bit and leaning on the man's shoulder. He was alert and holding what must be his tickets in his hand in case the security guard challenged him.
How long were they going to sit like that? Lee wondered. The seats were hard plastic, molded to fit your butt, but still not like a soft upholstered chair and it was cool in the room. She looked up at the board for buses. There was a 2:35 in from Houghton, departing 2:50 to Marquette, Escanaba, Marinette and arriving Green Bay 5:30. Then a 4:50 in from Marquette, departing 5:10 to Manistique and St Ignace. A 6:15 from…
"Hey, Earl. If I buy us a pair of tickets on the 7:10 to Escanaba – Iron Mountain we can sit here until the minibus is running. I don't mind going up to a machine and using it. I don't have to worry about some nosey clerk not liking me being young."
Earl looked at the board closer. "Why sit here on plastic, when we could buy comfortable soft seats on the 2:50 for Green Bay? Let's check the touch screen up there and see what is coming back this way from Green Bay." There was a 6:10 from Green Bay, that would get back t
o Ishpeming 8:50. Was a night on a bus better than a night on hard plastic seats? Oh yes. She was anxious to stop riding from boredom before, but it was better than the terminal.
Lee went up, punched up two tickets to Green Bay and two returns, read the four lines that displayed on the screen and with an abundance of caution had Earl check it too. Earl stood blocking the view for the security guard and Lee made very sure her thumb was on the reader in case the machine had that ability and swiped it.
"Thank you for using MegaBus-North America, please remove your tickets," the screen said. They extended from a slot below and as soon as Lee tugged a little she felt them cut.
Gordon was right, dealing with a human society was complicated.
* * *
Despite sleeping on the bus, Earl and Lee were both exhausted when the Marquette county free bus dropped them at his home. She barely acknowledged an introduction to the family, wolfed down a breakfast sandwich and fell asleep on the bed to which she was led before a blanket was thrown over her.
She woke up in time for supper. She was worried she was a huge inconvenience, so their children Joe and Jerri would resent her. Both of them seemed a little shy of her at the table. "Thank you for letting me sleep. I don't want to kick anybody out of their bed tonight though. I'm used to sleeping on a foam pad, or a blanket on the floor. I'd be plenty happy with that," she offered.
"Really?" Jerri asked amazed. "Why'd you do that? If we didn't have our own room and bed, the housing authority would have a fit and call Family Services."
"Unless you are the Thompsons with three girls and two boys," Joey pointed out. "They have bunks with the boys in one room and the girls in another and one bathroom," he said rolling his eyes. "Dad says you grew up on a ship. Did you have your own room there?"
"Yes, but we'd call it a cabin and it was about a third of the size of the room I just slept in. The bed folded into the bulkhead, uh…wall and had some cabinets for my personal stuff. I didn't spend much time there. We had a common room that we shared most of the time."
"That's my room," Jerri told her. "I'm eight and Joey is eleven, so he got the room that's the same size but has a window."
"That's too bad," Lee sympathized. "I'm sure it's only until you catch up with him," she said straight faced. Jerri looked confused a second, then Joey started giggling.
"Oh, I'm going to get you for that," she promised, but she was smiling despite herself.
Dinner, she noted, was reheated not cooked. It wasn't bad in a bland cafeteria food sort of way. She'd eaten enough ration packs to know the difference. The coffee however was a shock. They made it with grounds Earl bragged he traded for and they had been used once by a local restaurant. It was made with about four times the amount of coffee you'd need if fresh and seeped all through the meal in something like a giant French press. It was still weaker than her dad made, but way better than no coffee at all, she decided.
"Tomorrow I'll go talk to Housing," Earl said. "The judge and agency lady in California said he'd instruct them to expand our base allowances. We shouldn't have to make do for long, but you should be OK for a couple nights on the couch Lee. Don't you think?"
"That's fine by me. I've slept in tents and on the metal deck of a shuttle hold."
* * *
Lee went with Earl to the Housing Authority offices in Marquette. She was amazed again when he walked different and looked different in his body language. The letter from California seemed to have a lot of authority. The clerk and Earl spoke as if she wasn't there at all. She wasn't introduced and the lady never acknowledged her.
She gave Earl a choice between a one bath, with four small bedrooms all the same, or a three bedroom with a large, medium and small bedrooms and a bath and a half. He took the three bedroom without hesitation. He got a voucher to have it painted and a furniture voucher. The painters would not be able to schedule them for a week. He asked for an inspection while waiting and she agreed easily.
Lee kept her mouth shut, but after they left she expressed surprise he hadn't volunteered to paint the place himself, instead of wait.
"No, no, you don't do that," he said horrified. "I'm glad you didn't say anything in there. They walked a bit and she waited because she could tell he was trying to compose an answer for her.
"If I did like you said, I'd have no idea whose toes I'm be stepping on. There is an art to getting along. The painter may be her son or nephew. If I complain I can't wait, I'm pushing her to use another contractor. She may be getting a few bucks back from each job, or a six pack of beer, or a free paint job for her home every few years. I don't know. It's not my concern. But as long as I don't rock the boat I'm an asset to her. She has clean reports to her boss, with few complaints. I'm a safe, known quality when I come into the office. Are you following this?" he asked.
"A little. Tell me more."
"The painting contract is a big deal. It is from Federal money, so it pays prevailing union wages for the state. That means what it would pay down in the city. That's three or four times what you could hire somebody to do it for if you paid cash locally. There's not much work north of the bridge. There are all kinds of contractors who service government housing. Plumbers, electricians, heating guys, roofers. They all have favors and agreements between them. They bring money in from out of town that stays here. If I volunteer to paint my own walls I'm hurting the whole area. Why do I want to make her painters unemployed like me? And do you think the other tenants are going to thank me, if they get asked to paint their own walls 'cause I did?"
"Uh, I guess not."
"Now some folks go in and bitch and moan and threaten to write letters of complaint and organize protest committees. I'm sure they think they are standing up for their rights and getting what they deserve. That sort, she wouldn't have given them a choice of which unit. And that sort might well have waited a month or two to get painted."
"Those three bedroom units are a commercial condos project. The government took the whole thing when there was a downturn and the builder went bust. They weren't built for government housing. You'll have to share a room with Jerri, but having a half bath will make it lots easier having five people in a unit. The condos don't even look like projects and they are on their own road. She doesn't offer those units to folks who complain and party and get police calls every few weeks and kick holes in the walls."
"Thank you. I'm learning how things work," Lee assured him. "I'll stay quiet."
"It doesn't hurt to talk to her like she's important too. Ask what she can do for you, instead of demand. Never seen anybody don't eat it up."
* * *
"What are you doing with the High Hopes?" William asked his son. "If the Americans raid here while you are away, they may seize or destroy her."
"I have a couple ferrying her to Fargone. She'll go into storage there, among enough others she won't stand out and I may have some systems installed before we take her out again."
* * *
The commander of the Cincinnati appeared at the hatch and asked to enter the bridge. The flight deck was extra spacious and fancy, for the benefit of passengers who requested a visit. "Come on in and have a seat," Captain Holden offered. "The third console there will display everything, and you can watch us run up to jump."
"I'll stand thank you. I want a seat, but the one you are in, not third. I need this vessel to go directly to the nearest USNA depot and staging area, which is not Earth. We need to muster the most vessels and force we can, in the shortest time."
"What for?" Holden asked, amused. "You don't have a declaration of war from Congress. Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself, to presume to direct a response? And what provisions will you make for my passengers on a forward military base?"
"I won't debate you on it. I need your ship and I'm commandeering it based on simple necessity. You will stand aside and my crew will take over."
"Leaving aside the two hundred some souls in the back I'm responsible for, you had a command and couldn't hold o
n to it. What makes you think some half assed, wet behind the ears, mutineer can take mine away from me, Son?" Holden's hair was gone to silver and he had more command experience than the three ranking Cincinnati officers put together.
The officer drew a pistol from inside his tunic, pointing it at the overhead by his shoulder.
"No more talk. Get out of the seat old man. You and your second go to your cabins and consider yourselves under arrest. I'll need the others to brief my crew on systems and assist."
When Holden just looked at him hard faced, he slipped his finger in the trigger guard and started a motion to lower it.
The shot was deafening in the flight deck. The mutineer staggered forward from the impact. The frangible bullet didn't come out his chest. He opened his mouth, but blood came out and poured down his white uniform instead of words. He collapsed on the deck, pistol clattering away.
"Get that pistol," Holden directed his second officer. He nodded thanks at the second officer from Fly Over Country. "You were right and I thank you for your assistance. Would you please go aft and search the rest of his crew, gentlemen? Confiscate any weapons including pocket knives. Also direct the galley crew to lock all the steak knives securely and keep anything that could be a weapon secured between prep times. If you encounter any resistance I am specifically ordering you to use lethal force, if there is the least chance failure will result in the loss of our vessel."
"Aye, aye," his second said. The freighter crewman just nodded grimly.
Two more rapid shots echoed through the hull before they came back.
"His XO tried to draw on us. We fired pretty much together. Sorry we wasted a round. What shall we do with them?"
"The freezers are topped up. We don't need the dead mass. Tell you what. Put them in the maintenance air lock and drop it slowly to vacuum. They will be mummies by the time we jump and the Navy can still have their remains for kin. They won't mass much dried out. They won't be happy with us no matter what we do with them now, will they?"
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