XD:317 (Fourth Fleet Irregulars)

by S J MacDonald

  The spacers cheered that, and the watchers on the Heron cheered it, too, though for different reasons. Alex grinned. One of the other ‘shoreleavers’ at the bar was filming this and broadcasting it back to them covertly. Ali knew that, but he had long since got over any slight embarrassment in talking so frankly about the skipper, knowing that the skipper himself was watching.

  ‘Well done, Mr Jezno,’ Alex commended, later that evening when Ali returned, slightly flushed with triumph but not with beer. He, like the others, had stuck to ‘dry billy’.

  ‘Thank you, skipper,’ Ali shook hands with him, a proud and happy moment, then went off to celebrate with his friends.

  Following on from that, though, as word spread through the system that the Fourth was going to fix the jinx somehow, Alex was not surprised to get an indignant call from Roby.

  ‘What’s this about you taking our freight trade off, bob?’ the director demanded. ‘You tryin’ to stop ships coming here?’

  ‘Yes,’ Alex said. ‘My orders are to try to get the freighters going to Novamas instead.’

  Roby Escalier expressed his opinions about that over several minutes, using several words Alex did not know the exact meaning of, though he could figure most of them out from context.

  The big issue from Roby’s point of view, representing that of the miners, was purely financial. Roby made no mention at all of losing the social contact with the spacers that brought the outside worlds to them here. Alex already knew that wasn’t really important to them – they were friendly enough, but it was significant that the spacer hangout and freight club were at a moonbase, not on the station that was the heart of the mining community. What the miners would miss out on was shares in the profits that they made from cargo handling, both within the system and in onward freightage to Novamas. All the miners here worked for shares, rather than on salary. They made a lot of money here, too, far more than they could ever make in equivalent work on their homeworld. And it was all about the money, at Tolmer’s – why else, as the miners themselves pointed out, would anyone come out to live in such a hole? Roby Escalier knew to the dollar how much he and other miners would miss out if freight stopped coming here, and told Alex, very bluntly indeed, how unfair he considered that to be.

  ‘You came in here pretending to be our mate,’ he complained, ‘and now you’re trying to rip us off.’

  Alex did not even attempt to point out that the miners had no right to the cargo-handling business, or that their exploiting of that situation was causing real damage to their own homeworld’s economy. He recognised a brick wall when he saw one and had no intention of beating his head against it. He just sat listening with an air of calm interest, to the point where Roby commanded that the Fourth leave the system. At least, that was Alex understood by, ‘Nark yourselves off into a black hole, you twanders.’

  Then Alex said the magic words.

  The rant stopped, mid-expletive.

  ‘Say that again?’ Roby demanded.

  ‘I am authorised,’ Alex repeated obligingly, ‘to discuss compensation.’

  Magic happened. Thunderous rage cleared instantly into optimistic beams.

  ‘Well, why didn’t you say so, bob?’

  Truthfully, because it had been instructive to see how fast, and how furiously, the mining director had turned on them the moment it appeared that the Fourth was trying to do something that the miners wouldn’t like.

  Alex, though, just gazed back implacably.

  ‘You hardly,’ he observed, ‘gave me a chance. Bob.’

  Compensation talks were held the following morning, at a board meeting on the Consortium Tower. Quite a number of miners crowded in to watch, too. It was a noisy meeting – the board members interrupted and talked over one another constantly and the watchers often joined in, too, with comments and vocal reaction. They were at it for more than two hours before the miners finally accepted that the offer Alex had put on the table to begin with was fair enough. He wouldn’t, as they observed, budge a micron.

  In fact, Alex could have budged quite a long way if he’d been minded to. His orders included capacity to negotiate centrally funded compensation to the miners for their loss of revenue. The proposal he made them fell well short of the maximum he was authorised to offer, but he felt that the deal he put on the table was absolutely fair. The miners would get ‘cargo bounty’ on every container and crate that was delivered to Novamas rather than here, equivalent to what they would have made if they’d handled and shipped it themselves. This meant, as he pointed out, that they would get the same money for not doing any work, a fair deal by any standards. And, as he also pointed out, if trade increased to Novamas they would get a cut of that, too, for no more effort than helping to encourage freighters to go there.

  They shook hands on that, and Alex left them going over the official paperwork while he headed back to the Heron. By the time he got there, spacers were already and understandably irate.

  ‘You’re making this deal with them, and you haven’t even talked to us,’ one of the skippers complained.

  ‘Please, accept my apologies,’ Alex said. ‘I just didn’t want to be trying to have that conversation with you with hundreds of miners yelling at us. Now they’re on side, we can talk without distractions.’

  All the spacers were invited to a meeting on the Heron, to be held later that afternoon. And that meant all the spacers, since Alex offered relief crews to all the ships in port. Starships remained superlight, here, since the system had no launch tunnel, and few spacers would leave their ships unattended while still superlight. They accepted Fourth’s watch teams ship-minding for them, though, and every single one of the spacers from the ore-carriers and freighters gathered in the Heron’s gym later that day.

  It had been set up as if for a talk or lecture, with seats in semi-circles facing a podium with big back-screen and lectern. Refreshments were available at a table by the door, and there was some time for the spacers to mix and mingle over coffees, talking informally with members of the crew, before they were called to take their seats.

  Alex took his place at the podium. He was, indeed, no hand at public speaking and merely greeted them with a bland ‘good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen’ before giving them a brief speech making the points that the authorities wanted to be made. First was how important it was, for the economy and future growth of Novamas, to develop strong infrastructure links with other League worlds, which was currently not happening because of the very low numbers of ships going there.

  The spacers got restless at this. They were shifting in their seats, sighing, giving him reproachful looks, even muttering amongst themselves.

  ‘I understand your concerns,’ Alex said, and put up an image of the Alari Tablet on the screen behind him. That got their attention. ‘You all know, now, I believe...’ a brief glance towards Ali Jezno, who was helping with refreshments, and a little buzz of amusement from the spacers, ‘about the discovery of a relic that proves the existence of the Alari. Most of you know my views on superstition. For those of you who don’t, I will state, here and now, unequivocally, that I do not believe in jinxes, ghosts, or any other supernatural phenomenon. I do believe that there are strange phenomena experienced aboard ships in close proximity to Novamas but I firmly believe, firmly, that these have a rational scientific explanation.’ A slight pause. ‘Just not one that can be published in a science journal, yet.’

  That caused a sensation – several spacers got to their feet, amidst the buzz, and there were eager demands to be told what he meant by that, what the Fourth knew.

  ‘If I was in a position to tell you that, I would,’ Alex said, flatly. ‘All I can say, all any of us can say, is that we believe we do know what is causing the phenomena at Novamas and that it is not of supernatural origin, but that it is so highly classified, no public explanation can be given.’

  ‘They’re doing experiments there, aren’t they?’ One of the less superstitious demanded, immediately, since this had a
lso been a theory kicked about amongst the minority of spacers not inclined to believe in curses. ‘I knew it, they’re doing engine tests or something there that kicks out launch fields.’

  For answer, Alex put a dictionary definition of the word ‘classified’ up on the screen behind him – a habit of the First Lord’s at media conferences where journalists were line-crossing. It drove journalists berserk, but the spacers accepted it in good part, even with some laughter.

  ‘Okay okay okay,’ the skipper of the biggest ore carrier seemed to have become their spokeswoman, remaining on her feet as the rest of them sat down. ‘So, okay, you know what’s going on but you’re not going to tell us – what are you going to do about it?’

  She sat down amid a chorus of agreement noises from the others, and Alex put up an image of Novamas with a new parking orbit configuration.

  ‘Something like this,’ he said. As they saw at once that this would mean that no ship would go close to Novamas, the spacers looked cautiously pleased.

  ‘You’ll never get them to do that, though,’ said the ore-carrier skipper, in a tone of certainty. ‘We’ve tried – we have to go there five or six times a year, after all. We’ve tried talking sense to them again and again – I think my great grandmother tried, even – but they won’t have it, won’t even talk about the possibility of shifting orbits. They give you a lot of guff about increased cargo-handling costs but it’s really about them not giving into us – a government policy, like. One of them even said to me once that it’s the same as refusing to pay ransom to kidnappers, or bank robbers holding hostages. That’s how they see us, see, like we’re holding them to ransom with cargo.’

  Alex nodded, having gathered that from the documents and attitude of the port authority, too. Spacers, to the Novamasians, were the bad guys in this. Negotiating with them meant getting them under control and making no concessions whatsoever.

  ‘Trust me on this,’ Alex said. ‘I can get that orbit changed. And no ship will be asked to enter port until it is.’

  There were some cheers at that, but they were ironic, a Novamasian voice from the back giving him a, ‘Good luck with that one, bobbin.’

  ‘I don’t need luck,’ said Alex, ‘I’ve got operational authority.’

  More sensation, laughter and questions.

  ‘Authority to blow stuff up?’ one of the freighter crew asked, cheekily.

  ‘This is a warship,’ Alex responded, without emotion. ‘Authority to blow stuff up is in the definition.’ Then, as they started to cheer in earnest, he held up a hand. ‘Just accept,’ he requested, ‘that I have every confidence in being able to persuade the port authority to adapt the parking orbit, if not to this configuration then to another that will ensure no ship goes within a billion klicks of Novamas.’

  He did not ask how many of them would be willing to enter port on that basis. He could see on their faces, the ones who’d feel that made it safe and those who’d still fear that the jinx would get them. It was, he estimated, about half and half.

  ‘At the same time,’ he said, ‘I intend to see to it that the memory of the Alari is properly honoured.’

  He paused, and this time there was silence, everyone staring at him. Many expressions were wary, wondering if he was going to propose some jinx-laying thing that would be worse than insulting, given that he’d already declared he didn’t believe in it.

  ‘Not,’ Alex clarified calmly, ‘because I believe it will lift any curse or appease unquiet spirits, but because I believe it is the right thing to do. All of us, I am sure, tipped our hats to Abigale as we passed that memorial site. We would all, without a doubt, roll our ships at passing Van Damek’s Gate. And how many of us put bread on the table for absent friends? We do, in the Fleet. Honouring the lost is very important to us, we honour those lost in battles before our grandparents were born, and those lost to disasters, too. What disaster could be greater than the fall of a world, the death of its people, their civilisation and very existence almost lost to history? It is right, and due, that we honour that both with a suitable memorial and ceremony. The Diplomatic Corps has already arranged for a memorial to be made, on Novamas, and placed at a site where it will stand, undisturbed, in a place of peace and beauty. I and my crew will be honouring that memorial while we are there.’

  That got a definite and rising note of approval, though mixed with some notes of concern. A man at the back, after some muttering with his mates, got to his feet.

  ‘Look, bob,’ he said, with a manner that hovered between challenging and conciliatory, ‘we’re not stupid, right? It can’t be any kind of coincidence that just when you get sent to try to sort things out round here, this stone turns up about the Alari, and hey, right as you’re passing Canelon, too. Your guys swear it’s for real, but we need to hear it from you – is this Alar thing on the up and up?’

  Alex looked back at him steadily.

  ‘I swear to you,’ he said, ‘on my word of honour, that even if the Alari Tablet turns out to be made of siliplas with ‘made on Carpania’ stamped on the back, the words on it and what it stands for are absolutely true.’

  He would have stated that with certainty even on Shion’s word alone. The courier, however, had brought mail from the Diplomatic Corps that had confirmed it. A trio of Solarans was currently visiting Canelon, for no more diplomatic purpose than to see the historical exhibits. They had been asked if they could confirm that Novamas had once been known as Alar, and had done so readily. They had, however, expressed some confusion, since they believed that they had already told the humans this some time before – seventy or eighty years before, in fact.

  Diplomatic Corps research had unearthed a conversation that had taken place some seventy six years previously, during a Solaran visit to Cestus. They had supplied information in response to a Diplomatic Corps question about civilisations that had once existed on worlds now inhabited by humans. They had, indeed, indicated that there had been a people known as the Alari, on the world now known as Novamas.

  Typically, however, when they were asked if there was any more specific information they could give, they had thought about it for half an hour or so and then one of them had started to sing. ‘The Song of the Alari’ had lasted for nearly four hours. It consisted only of ten words, repeated three thousand, three hundred and thirty three times, but the lyric was so incomprehensible that no sense could be made of it at all. Petals fall, water sighs close, travel silent speed, brain always.

  The diplomats, with thousands of more important matters they were trying to find out about, had filed that ‘for future investigation’ which had just never happened. Alex had been sent a copy of the Song of the Alari and had put it on the notice board with a translation for anyone to try to make sense of. ‘Petals fall’, however, was just about the only bit they understood, and that because they knew it already. Quite what was meant by such phrases as ‘water sighs close’ or ‘travel silent speed’, was anybody’s guess.

  Alex’s declaration, cold and flat as it was, carried total conviction. He was not a man, they all knew, to give his word of honour either lightly or falsely. The hint of admission that the tablet was a fake only confirmed what many of the spacers already believed; that the Fourth had arranged for that tablet to be planted on Canelon in order to force the Novamasian authorities to acknowledge the true history of their world.

  ‘They told you, didn’t they?’ Another man asked, with ‘they’ in that question clearly understood by everyone to mean the Solarans. ‘You’ve had them on your ship, and they told you.’

  Alex didn’t answer for two or three seconds – two or three very significant seconds, which the spacers would know how to interpret.

  ‘I am not at liberty,’ he said, ‘to say anything more than that I believe the information on that tablet to be absolutely true, even to those being the last recorded words of the Alari.’ There was a murmur, lots of people nodding, and a strong sense of acceptance, now.

  ‘We believe we can honour t
heir memory appropriately with a brief ceremony based on their last recorded words,’ Alex told them. ‘It is, I feel, suitable and appropriate too to invite you, all of you, to join us in that honouring ceremony. I would like, in fact, to invite all of you to come with us, in convoy, so that we arrive together, and stand together, both in dealing with the port authorities and in honouring the Alari.’

  ‘You want us... all of us...’ the ore-carrier skipper got to her feet, slowly, under pressure from her colleagues to express the doubt and even fear on their faces, ‘to go to Novamas?’

  ‘No,’ Alex said. ‘I’m asking you to come to Alar.’

  It was, Buzz told him later, an extremely successful rebranding. Spacers were already calling the system ‘Alar’ and some had even crossed Novamas out on their charts and written Alar in, instead. They had all agreed to come with the Fourth, too, every single ship. Going to Alar, after all, was very different to going to Novamas.

  It was another three days before they actually departed. Alex had asked them to ‘do him a favour and bring the cargo along’, as if that was a trivial matter. It actually did need a solid two and a half days, though, even with all available cargo shuttles plying back and forth, to load up the ore-carriers and freighters with all the cargo at the Freight Yard. The miners supported this enthusiastically once it had been confirmed that they would get double money for this – the money they’d already been paid for handling and freightage, and the cargo-bounty that would be paid for it being delivered at Novamas by the freighters themselves.