XD:317 (Fourth Fleet Irregulars)

by S J MacDonald

  There were exceptions, though, amongst the liners and the swarms of yachts out from Canelon. There were twenty three freighters currently in orbit, most of them explaining with some embarrassment that they were only there because they had kids aboard or had to pick up a cargo. Some of them had been at Karadon when the Fourth was there, calling mates on the frigate to catch up on the goss. In that, the first question from their side of the conversation was always some variant of ‘Where have you been?’

  That was what the media wanted to know, too. They had been told that the Fourth had set off for Penrys on the unusual route they had because they would be going off-route to test new systems on the ship, with the nature of those systems, naturally, classified.

  ‘Just crossing between routes,’ the Heron’s officers and crew said, all of them sticking to the same script, on that. ‘And no, we can’t talk about the systems we were testing, sorry.’

  There were plenty of other things to talk about, though. High on that agenda was the latest goss doing the rounds about the routes and drops the drug gangs on Dortmell were now using to move their deadly cargoes to other League worlds. There was the usual confusion of opinions, snippets of information and speculation, which analysts would have to sift through.

  Alex was also kept busy dealing with the ISiS Corps management. They had a ‘freedom of the station’ ceremony that afternoon. It was almost a copy of the ceremony on Karadon, with the only noticeable difference that the absurdly small child with the absurdly large bouquet had been dressed in a cutesy page-boy outfit. Then they had drinks and nibbles in one of Penrys’s hospitality suites, a room made to look like a Dark Age banqueting hall.

  When Alex went back aboard the ship, relieved that the ordeal of the ceremony was over, it was to find that a passenger had come aboard in his absence. He was sitting on the command deck, evidence in itself that he had the necessary clearance, though he did not look like someone who would be naturally at home on a warship. He was an elderly man with deeply wrinkled skin and shrewd eyes, dressed in a manner that suggested he hadn’t bought any new clothes for at least thirty years, and not fashionable ones, even then.

  ‘Jayforth Garaghty,’ he introduced himself, not waiting for Buzz to do so. ‘Professor of Anthropology, Canelon SU. I understand you asked for a cooperative historian.’

  Alex took in both his academic status and the combination of intelligence and humour in the old man’s eyes, and sent silent thanks to Dix Harangay.

  ‘We did indeed,’ he said, ‘and you are very welcome, Professor – thank you for coming. Have you been briefed as to the nature of the assistance we need?’

  ‘No – just ‘exodiplomacy’, maximum hush hush,’ something about the way that Professor Garaghty spoke made it apparent that this was not his first encounter with exodiplomacy matters. ‘They said you’d explain when I got here.’

  ‘All right – just give me five minutes,’ Alex requested, needing to shower and change, and to check out Jayforth Garaghty’s credentials, too, before bringing him up to speed on the Gide operation.

  Alex expected that to be a lengthy meeting. His experience of working with civilians was that they needed to have every detail explained and clarified, with a lot of time spent expressing their feelings and opinions, too. Jayforth Garaghty, though, wasn’t surprised by what Alex had to tell him about Novamas being ancient Alar, just nodded matter of factly.

  ‘I haven’t heard the name Alar,’ he said. ‘But ancient remains were found in a glacier, oh, a hundred and forty three years back, now. It was kept out of the media, obviously, since it was discovered that the remains were non-human in origin.’

  ‘They found a body?’ Alex was appalled.

  ‘Well, you know – after an estimated eight thousand years in a glacier, not so much a body as ‘remains’.’ The professor said, cheerfully. ‘It appears to have been in quite poor preservation even before it was frozen. But enough remained to recognise it as a humanoid form, post mortem confirmed non-human physiology and DNA. He was nicknamed the Ice Giant by the research team – he’d have stood a good 2.6 metres tall, though thin, in proportion. They learned quite a lot about the species, including that the Ice Giant himself had evidently been living on Novamas all his life – isotopes in the teeth, and all that – and that he’d died of an early variant of the Red Death. There’s good evidence there for a lost pre-Dark Age civilisation. Far from being the only one, of course.’ He looked alertly at Alex. ‘So, what do you need?’

  Alex explained, with a feeling that he was running to keep up with the elderly professor rather than having to slow things down for him to understand. Jayforth Garaghty certainly had no difficulty understanding what Alex was asking for, and no hesitation in agreeing to it, too.

  ‘Stone, I think,’ he mused, taking a sip of the coffee Alex had provided. ‘Pottery is difficult to fake. If you’d given me a few months’ notice, hmmmn...’

  He lapsed into thought for a few moments, taking another drink of coffee. ‘This is very good,’ he commented, indicating the mug, and then, in just the same casual manner, ‘I can do you a ‘chance finding’ of a relic from a private collector. That’s the best way to go with this – we don’t have time to set up a fake dig and getting museums on side with discovering long-forgotten artefacts in their store rooms takes ages, too. Besides which, I’ve already pulled that one twice, it would barely be credible again. But we can go with a private collector offering a relic for sale, without knowing the value of what they had – the Diplomats can set that up, no problem.’ He took out a pocket comp as he spoke, and started to sketch. ‘Something like this?’

  Alex looked at the drawing. It was of a rough, broken stone tablet, showing a tall figure with its head and one arm missing, and some words in a script Alex didn’t recognise.

  ‘Ancient alobic,’ Professor Garaghty explained. ‘Obscure enough to make it credible that a collector might not realise what they had. I haven’t used all of the words – history is rarely so obliging as to leave us complete texts, and if it’s too easy people will just know that there’s something dodgy about it. So I’ve gone with ‘The petals are falling’ and ‘we go’, along with a partial inscription of ‘To the memory of the Alari.’ The partial diagram here is an ancient form of starchart, with just enough information to make it clever of me to identify it as modern Novamas.’ He gave Alex a smile, with that. ‘I wish I had more time. It’s better, really, to get things into the media by them picking up on publication in journals, gives the whole thing more credibility. But I understand, you can’t sit around for months while I get published, so we’ll just give it to the media as a ‘treasure found in attic’, if that’s satisfactory to you, skipper.’

  It was more than satisfactory. Jayforth Garaghty couldn’t have been any more cooperative, assuring Alex that it would be no trouble at all for him to get aboard a ship and head to Novamas, himself.

  ‘That is entirely plausible,’ he told him. ‘That’s what I would do if I found a relic on Canelon giving information about an ancient culture on Novamas. So I will, indeed, go rushing over there with it to show it to the university and museums. I’ll need to go back to Canelon to pick up some suitable rock and do the engraving, but I can be on my way there by the end of the week.’

  Alex thanked him wholeheartedly, shaking hands with him then and again a few minutes later when he showed him off the ship. He was, he felt, going to enjoy working with Professor Garaghty. More importantly, he felt he could rely on him to do what was needed, quickly and efficiently. It occurred to him as he returned to his daycabin from seeing the professor off the ship that this was, in fact, just the kind of massive government conspiracy that people like the First Contact society believed was going on. Alex felt no scruple about it, though. Given that they were not in a position to go public with how they knew about Alar, getting the truth out there by devious means was the best they could do.

  And, in the meantime, there was time for all of them to have a break. Shoreleav
e had been organised for the crew to go aboard the station in five batches over that day and the next, each getting a four hour pass. It wasn’t much, but it would enable them to stretch their legs, see different things and different people, and perhaps do some duty-free shopping. Few of the crew were thrilled about visiting Penrys, even with the VIP hospitality cards that ISiS Corps had insisted on providing for them. The cards gave free entry to all the leisure venues, and priority at those which required pre-booking, too. They were also given complimentary meal vouchers, redeemable at any of the cafes and restaurants. The only thing they would have to pay for themselves was any shopping they did and any alcoholic drinks purchased. And they wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, be buying any alcoholic drinks – the ship was still superlight, and going back aboard intoxicated would get them put on a charge. Buzz had told them all to be on their very best behaviour, particularly if they went onto the leisure decks. Penrys did have a Freight Club but it was tiny, tucked in amongst the offices administrating cargo, and even that had a Ye Olde theme.

  ‘Remember the rules about responding to heckling, verbal abuse and aggression,’ Buzz told each of the parties, as they assembled at the airlock. ‘One-off heckles and abusive comments from members of the public are to be totally ignored. Sustained heckling or verbals from members of the public or activist groups should also be ignored but handled with common sense; go somewhere else if that will stop it, and if the situation is escalating, withdraw. That shouldn’t be a problem on Penrys – their staff will have an eye and will intervene if anyone is causing you nuisance. Where the media is concerned, keep your distance and your cool. Remember, at all times in public, in or out of uniform, you are known as members of the Fourth, so remain calm and cool at all times. If you’re finding it tough, do the penguin thing.’

  He meant a visualisation technique that Rangi had taught them all, used by many public figures in situations where they were facing hostile crowds. It was an adaptation of a classic technique. The Fleet would not approve of a crew being trained to imagine that people were wearing nothing but their underpants, so Rangi had taught them to imagine, instead, that they were walking on a rocky island surrounded by noisily indignant penguins, squawking and waddling about.

  ‘If anyone does attack you physically, defend yourself with minimum force and put the matter straight into the hands of the station authorities.’ Buzz continued. ‘And remember, not one drink, not one.’ He beamed at them paternally. ‘Have fun, kids.’

  Strangely, they did. Some few went and huddled in the Freight Club, but most of them decided to take Martine’s advice in this.

  ‘Embrace the kitsch,’ she said. ‘Let your inner five year old go play in the castle.’

  Once the first party came back aboard, laughing and eager to tell their shipmates how much fun they’d had, totally kitsch and beneath their dignity of course but hilarious, the rest of the crew followed their example.

  Shion, at least, had a great time. This was a very different experience from being taken around Karadon by the Diplomatic Corps in a major covert operation. Here, she was able to just go on shoreleave with her friends. The Diplomatic Corps were still around, of course, fully aware of her presence on the station and standing by to intervene if anything went wrong, but they were so discreet Shion did not even see them. She was with a party that included Hali Burdon and Martine herself. They’d agreed that they didn’t want to spend their shoreleave going shopping – anything they wanted could be bought via the Penrys on-line system and delivered to the ship. They were, Martine said, going to have fun.

  So they did. They went to the Perfect Princess makeover salon for new hairstyles, and to Ye Olde Tourney, one of the station’s most popular tourist events. There was no glitzy concourse, here, with the cathedral-like splendour of the Grand Atrium at Karadon. Here, the big open space on the leisure decks was a mock-up of a castle courtyard, with tiered seating around it and many little tented booths where refreshments and souvenirs could be bought. On the hour, every hour, a seventy five minute Tourney commenced. It was advertised as a colourful pageant bringing the history of Canelon alive. Any historian watching it would have disputed that vehemently, but it was certainly colourful and entertaining. There were knights and princesses, banners and even some robo-horses, so realistic that the crowd yelled at the sight of people riding such enormous beasts. There were swordfights and jousting, trumpets and crowd-rousing performers.

  After the Tourney, they went to the Dungeons of Doom. There was a warning on that that said it might not be suitable for very young children, but there were indeed kids of six or seven there, thoroughly enjoying it. Shion, however, was so genuinely frightened by the dark dungeons, cobwebs and sound effects that they skipped the Torture Chamber and went on somewhere more cheerful. They finished their shoreleave at Ye Olde Castle Kitchen, watching a living history demonstration of how food had been prepared in Dark Age times, and sampling some of it once they’d been assured that the carcase being roasted in the great fireplace wasn’t an actual cow, of course, but vat-grown meat.

  There were, inevitably, some ‘penguin incidents’, thought not many. Publicity about the Fourth had not had anything like the impact at Canelon as it had at Chartsey and on Therik. The original scandal had been in the news for a few days, as had coverage about their operations at Karadon, but less than half the population had accessed the story to read beyond the headlines. The people of Canelon were not really interested in much that happened beyond their own world. Reportage about the Fourth blowing up a moonbase at Sixships hadn’t even made the main headlines, here, but had been relegated to an insignificant item in special-interest news listings.

  While the vast majority of the people of Canelon could not have cared less about the Fourth, however, and most could not even have remembered Alex von Strada’s name, the same was not true of activist groups within the population. All the major activist players had League-wide membership, and they had all alerted their Canelonian branches to the fact that the Fourth was coming their way. All such groups had, therefore, sent representatives out to the station to protest against whatever it was that they believed the Fourth was doing. There were seventeen such groups represented at the station, there specifically to protest against the Fourth, ranging from a strong contingent of twenty Liberty League activists to a solitary animal rights protestor who was convinced that they were using animals aboard their ship for experimentation. This, clearly, was a confused misunderstanding of the fact that they had a license to keep animals aboard, that they kept a lizard in sickbay, and that they carried out R&D aboard the ship. The animal rights protestor was, indeed, the only protest that Shion’s party saw, as he suddenly emerged from the crowd, producing a poster that declared Vivisection on the Heron, with a graphic image of a lizard being cut open, and yelling through an amplifier, ‘Stop the torture!’

  Penrys security moved in fast and he was hustled away, still yelling. Other incidents were more along the lines of hostile looks and audible comments. These, though, were more about the perception of Fourth’s shoreleavers queue jumping than anything else, as Penrys staff ushered them past queues and through VIP gates.

  None of the shoreleavers took any notice of that, or of the occasional activist who got close enough to heckle them. Most of them were so used to that kind of thing now that it had become their normality, just background penguin squawk. It was, indeed, relatively quiet on Penrys, in that sense. The Fourth had learned to stay together in groups on short-leave passes like this, since people who would readily approach and harass one or two people spotted by themselves would back off from a bigger group. The Penrys staff were doing a good job, too, smoothing their path around the station and running interventions at the first hint of any trouble developing.

  ‘I had a wonderful time,’ Shion enthused, as she came back aboard. Her hair was now in a rather more youthful and stylish geometric crop and she was carrying a Ye Olde bag of Ye Olde souvenirs. When Alex asked if she was sorry she hadn’t g
one to Canelon after all, though, she hooted with laughter. ‘No, no, I’ve seen enough!’ she assured him.

  Canelon did, indeed, have a genuine and impressive legacy of castles and a rich cultural history, but even the most splendid castles had succumbed to the living-history entertainment and souvenirs that tourists demanded. It was often said that the entire planet had turned into a theme park of itself, real culture subsumed under touristification, and ISiS Penrys did give an authentic taste, at least, of tourism on Canelon.

  The group that went over to the station on passes the next morning had a good time, too. As with the other parties, they separated once they were aboard the station, though ensuring that they stayed in groups with at least six people. This particular party split into two, not on any rigid lines of hierarchy but with all the officers in one of the groups. Very Vergan was the most senior officer with that particular party, accompanied by two of their Subs, a couple of petty officers and Jace Higgs. Jace went with them because he and Very Vergan had become as good friends as Fleet protocols allowed an officer and rating to be, aboard ship. He also felt safer in the company of a senior officer. Media attention did tend to focus in on Jace, as the best known of the Cestus Three, and where media attention focussed, so do did activists.

  They had a good time, following a programme agreed beforehand; breakfast at a cafe, some manly grooming at the Perfect Prince, attending the Tourney and going to Ye Olde Fayre, where they played sideshow games and had a go at archery. It was hardly sophisticated entertainment, but they had fun. One of the highlights of the morning was when Petty Officer Ali Jezno turned out to be so good at archery that he won a prize every time he played. These were, of course, worthless fairground tat, but when Ali handed his first prize ticket to a kid who’d just failed to even hit the target, another kid asked at once if he’d get him one, too. Before long there was a clamour of excited kids cheering Ali along, and the stallholder, laughing, promised everyone a bottom-shelf prize if Ali would please, please go away.