Dillon felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. “I take it you see a similarity here.”
“Slightly,” he admitted. “Once, the tip off of a possible ambush was a moon miner’s camp that didn’t answer our calls. In this case, though, there was a real possibility of radio failure in such a small operation. I was the communications officer but I felt uneasy about the situation. We had to go in close and visually check out the camp’s condition. I passed along my hunch to the Captain. She was a wary Old Lady.
“She set up a ballistic approach toward the moon, about a one-hour coast, and then tuned both our primary and secondary Traps to the minimum Jump energy. We had both fields charged when we were still twenty minutes out. That tactic saved us from a swarm of two man Martyr ships. Skimming the airless surface of the moon just meters above the crater rims, they arched around from behind the moon fast enough and in enough numbers that our point defenses would have been overwhelmed.
“We did a preprogrammed minimum Jump using our primary field, then a few minutes later, using the secondary field’s energy, we reversed the computation and Jumped back. The Martyr ships had passed our position of course, and were exposed and confused. We picked off nine before the rest scattered out of range. On the moon the camp had been hit, but there were survivors holed up in the mines, staying quite to avoid detection by the Few, who were out to kill the infidels.”
Shrugging his shoulders, he summed it up. “In a nut shell Doctor, the radio silence similarity of the two situations stirred my sense of caution. There is no reason to assume an actual parallel.”
Dillon shook his head. “I don’t agree. In fact I believe you are pretty close to the mark.” Why couldn’t the Captain make the final connection?
“Captain the most virulent opposition to Midwife came from the organized religions. All of them, so far as I know. Several acts of violence were committed against some of our universities by religious fanatics. They must see this as a Holy Crusade to prevent another genetic war.”
Mirikami gave him an appraising look. “I suppose you might tend to see events in that light, given your particular science background. Moreover, I share a background that tends to make me sensitive to the motives of others as regards myself. However, believe me when I tell you that no private group could have organized a secret attack on Midwife, not on the scale implied to silence every radio in the system.
“Only a planetary government has the resources, but it would be far cheaper for them to scuttle your program through propaganda. Even if a small private mercenary fleet was assembled by some organization, it couldn’t be kept secret from the Planetary Union. No civilized person wants war or the Purges to return. I think your perspective is distorted by your closeness.”
As a scientist, Dillon normally considered himself objective. In retrospect, he saw he had perhaps allowed emotional and irrational feelings to distort his thinking. He was highly annoyed with himself. “I’m forced to concede to your argument Captain. But..., damn it! That leaves us without any viable theory.”
Throwing a puzzled look at Mirikami, he amended his last remark. “Correction, I’m the one without any theories. You apparently fear a surprise attack or you wouldn’t be diverting energy into the primary Trap for a Jump. An attack by whom?”
Spreading arms wide, palms up, Mirikami shrugged again. “No one that I can think of, and that’s my point about not alarming the other passengers with speculative theories.
“Incidentally, I’m not prepared for an emergency Jump. The low-level tachyons we have will only give us reserve power if we need it for a boost in propulsion, and for the plasma beams; the tachyons we have fall far short of even minimal Jump energy. The dual fields provide redundancy, and I didn’t want all our tachyons in one basket, so to speak. I did have Noreen heat up both beam plasmas for a possible defense from debris, but I see no obvious threat. I don’t think this situation requires further precaution until we learn more.”
“Then you really have drawn a blank?”
Mirikami pulled at his lower lip. “I’d have to say yes. The situation defies an easy explanation, and I feel slightly uncomfortable due to an unrelated previous experience. Those aren’t substantive enough reasons to justify the concern that revealing all this would provoke. I use your own reaction as a case in point.
“As long as we stay alert and remain in open space, well out from any large bodies that could conceal an ambush, there’s no way anyone can reach us before Jake detects them. The primary tachyon Trap can be retuned for Jump energy in a matter of minutes, and probability gives us twenty-five minutes average time before we trap a tunneling tachyon energetic enough to make a tenth light year Jump. Jake can detect the fastest and smallest missiles I’ve heard of at about forty to forty five minutes out. I intend to give a wide berth to any moon, comet, or asteroid that is large enough to shield a particle beam, laser cannon, or small ship. I’m not about to blunder blindly into orbit around Newborn until we learn what has gone wrong.”
Dillon looked down the half meter to meet Mirikami’s eyes. “You have me convinced Captain. Whatever has happened at Midwife, we have to go in and find out.”
In retrospect, everyone aboard would look back and agree that the Gene War would become the second worst calamity the human race had ever faced.
5. Tiger Lily
Doctor Margaret Fisher was a wiry diminutive bundle of energy. At age ninety-one, her seemingly frail grandmotherly appearance and quaint colonial mannerism frequently fooled opponents into underestimating her. They often found themselves skewered by rapier sharp logic, her words twisting the blade as she smiled sweetly.
Fisher's enemies called her “Tiger Lady”; her small circle of friends preferred “Tiger Lily.” Even her friends carefully avoided using the pet name anywhere within range of her legendary sharp hearing. This dainty looking “flower” had teeth, and she often enjoyed a playful nip at someone else's expense. Dillon considered himself one of her friends, and she nipped him often in their playful give and take.
She had been the first scientist to recognize the importance of Newborn's discovery, and that its remoteness promised a means to circumvent the chokehold on biological research. Unfortunately, her home, Ramah, was a relatively new colony in the Human Sphere, established shortly before the first Clone Wars started.
The old Hub world schools dominated the Joint Academic Council that controlled the most lucrative research grants, so Fisher arranged for her research proposal to be “stolen” by the Biology Department of Earth’s Harvard, one of the oldest and most prestigious schools on the home world. Then she had to make certain that the project took the direction she intended.
When Fisher was named Chairfem of the fledgling project's Board of Directors, it was a highly controversial appointment. It was rumored to be a political compromise, forced on the Joint Academic Council by an unusually bitter struggle between several influential Hub Universities over project control. Having fomented the dispute in the first place, Fisher had seen to it that she was the highest placed, and most neutral, non-Hub university candidate available. As the only New Colonist on the project's Board, and a presumptive rube, she deftly played the Hub representatives against one another. She frequently got the votes she was after, and some of her defeats were actually calculated token concessions.
The meeting with the nine Board members began politely enough. Mirikami gave them a concise description of their situation, including the precautions he had already taken, and those he would employ if they continued to Newborn. When he finished, he stood waiting for questions.
Four members quickly reached similar conclusions as had Dillon, blaming militant religious zealots as having a hand in sabotage, invasion, or whatever had silenced Midwife. Vicechairfem Cahill, joined by her usual three-member bloc of votes, was the most strident advocate of this viewpoint, demanding an immediate Jump back to the Hub. Two of her group speculated that the Planetary Union itself, or one of the individual world govern
ments, might have intervened to shut them down.
Dillon felt his face flush with embarrassment, recalling moments earlier his own paranoid suspicions. Finding that he had aligned, however briefly, on the same side of an argument as that arrogant gasbag and her faction was acutely uncomfortable.
Fisher listened quietly, letting the diatribe and panic increase. When she decided Cahill's pit was deep enough, she pushed her over the edge.
The Chairfem's words cut through the caterwauling like a knife. “This is unacceptable Ladies! How can as distinguished a group of scientists as you, ignore logic and facts?”
Dillon cringed inwardly as he listened to Fisher rip into the theories Cahill and her toadies had offered. She skewered their arguments, making similar points as had Mirikami, but without any of his tact. Dillon decided then that males were truly the gentler sex, despite past wars to the contrary.
In a matter of moments, none of the other four neutral Board members would have admitted that they had ever seriously considered Vicechairfem Cahill's fears to have any rational basis what so ever. The inevitable and only possible conclusion, they agreed, was that it was impossible for a private militia to have mounted a system-wide attack on Midwife. They agreed with the Chairfem that the notion of secret government intervention was implausible and ridiculous.
Two of Cahill's weaker willed supporters changed sides and joined with those four neutral members. Neither of them considered themselves to have switched to Fisher's side at all, but rather they were helping build a united Hub university coalition, and the rustic Chairfem just happened to be on the same bandwagon.
Cahill, bitterly resentful of Fisher's appointment as Chairfem over her own candidacy, stung smartly from the seemingly irrefutable rebuttal. Unwilling to concede to someone she thought of as an uncultured and undereducated New Colony backwoods bitch, she played her vindictive trump card without hesitation.
“Well,” she sneered, “if our duplicitous Madam President and her Security Council wanted to keep a covert operation a secret, I doubt that the media or even Doctor Fisher's provincial Senator friends would have learned of a plan to terminate Midwife militarily.”
With a gentle smile, Fisher prepared to twist the blade. She began softly. “So, now we are to place our suspicions on Madam President?” She shook her head in wonderment. “Dear Lady, just where do you think the Academic Council found all the grant money to pay for our expensive little project? Perhaps out of the entire pitiful Bioscience budgets of all our collective universities?” she added with sweet sarcasm.
Not waiting for a reply, her smile became predatory. “The Joint Academic Council moved to support this project only after I personally and privately requested President Stanford to intercede, and she agreed to provide covert government funding. Politically, she can't openly back us, but the Lady is highly intelligent. She recognizes that regaining our lost biological knowledge is vital to the long-term survival of the New Colonies.”
Fisher was just warming up. “The President understands that alien worlds are inhospitable to our crops and animals” she went on, now tapping into an old speech she had once made. “Only genetic alteration of our crops and livestock can help them flourish in an alien ecology, and to modify them to produce safe food for local consumption and export. This is how every single one of the Old Colony worlds were settled hundreds of years ago. It was unregulated alteration of the human genome that hurt society. That made the Clone and Gene wars not only possible, but probably inevitable. If the New Colonies don't become self-sufficient food producers, and even food exporters, then they cannot help support our expanding populations and economy. The risk of hunger and eventual abandonment of these worlds would be an economic disaster for the Hub worlds and Old Colonies.”
She paused, looking at each member in turn.
“No Ladies, the Government, particularly President Stanford, needs and wants us to succeed in our out of the way research station. If they had changed their minds and decided to terminate Midwife, simply cutting the purse strings would do the job. Stanford is not about to commit political suicide to use the militarily to wipe out a project she privately supported. What utter nonsense.”
Cahill seemed to be trying to sink into her chair. She'd had no idea Fisher's influence ran so high. It surely explained how this little colonial witch had unfairly managed to steal the Chairfem seat from her. Politics instead of academic achievement, she grumbled to herself, wondering how her own political contacts had let her down. The irony of that thought was lost on her.
Seeing her main opponent thoroughly cowed, Fisher politely invited the other members to put any other questions they had to Captain Mirikami.
In response to concern of lurking ambushers, the Captain proposed to use one of the ship's two shuttles to investigate Midwife at close range once they closed with Newborn. Alternatively, they could make the long Jump directly back to Ramah if they would accept minimal water rationing.
Wrapping the discussion up quickly, the Chairfem sidestepped parliamentary procedure and made a motion herself. She moved to approve Mirikami's plan to approach Newborn slowly, and standoff at a distance while sending a shuttle to investigate. The vote was unanimous, since Cahill had decided to lick her wounds for now.
Mirikami's next recommendation, to keep the full situation secret from the rest of the passenger contingent sparked another hot debate. In a compromise, they voted seven to two to keep the matter confidential until the Board of Directors met again in an open session in twelve hours. Perhaps they would have more information by then.
Mirikami conceded that their slower progress should become obvious in a half day to many passengers anyway. If they had not established communications by then, a genuinely grave cause would have to be assumed. The meeting adjourned, to reconvene in open session in twelve hours.
As the other Board members left, Dillon remained, intending to accompany Mirikami back to the Bridge. However, Fisher, lagging behind the others, abruptly turned and approached Mirikami.
“Captain, I understand your reasons for asking us to keep all this confidential for now, but I want you to appreciate how difficult it was for us to grant even that twelve hour delay.”
Mirikami bowed politely. “My duty is to preserve order and avoid a possible panic aboard my ship Good Lady. You witnessed the initial reaction of some of the other Ladies. I feel there is no need to risk an overreaction among the full passenger complement at this time.”
Fisher gave him a motherly pat on the arm. “Oh, I'm not questioning your motives Gentle Sir. In fact, I completely agree with you in this instance. I was referring rather to the distaste we felt at withholding facts from our associates.”
She explained. “Free access to information is an issue that deeply concerns any scientist, but more so to those involved in biological research. From the time the government legalized biological research again, subject to massive restrictions and controls of course, we have experienced over eighty years of censorship, not to mention outright suppression of some work. I'm afraid we will have our ears soundly boxed at the public meeting for giving in to you.”
Mirikami bowed again. “I hadn't viewed my request from that standpoint Doctor. I apologize if it causes you any difficulty. Believe me, though, I have considerably more sympathy for your position than you might think.”
“Yes,” she nodded, “I thought that you might. I naturally conducted an extensive background check of Interworld before the contract was awarded, and of its active flight officers. You were my personal recommendation to be our Captain. I'm delighted you accepted.”
His bow was deeper this time. “Thank you for your confidence, kind Lady. I'm pleased I was granted the option. Now if you will excuse me My Lady, I should return to the Bridge. Doctor Martin, it was a pleasure to have you with us on the Bridge. Feel free to return as the official observer or my personal guest at any time.”
Dillon agreed that he would return to the Bridge, but then quickly added that it woul
d be a bit later. He was left standing alone with the tiny woman as Mirikami strode out the door. He had been on the verge of accepting the Captain's invitation and going with him now, but had felt a light restraining touch on his arm. Maggi Fisher apparently wanted to speak to him alone.
“Dillon, you were listening. Is there anything to add beyond what I've heard so far, that perhaps you considered too minor or sensitive to discuss with the Board?”
“Not much Maggi. The Captain was straightforward with you just now, but his first instinct was to conceal from me how jumpy this had made him, and to get me off the Bridge. On the way down here, I informed him that I knew he had practically declared an emergency, and hadn't wanted me to know. I was satisfied with his explanation, the same one he offered you by the way. I rather like him, and I think he can be trusted, apparently you think so too. Why is that?”
“He was born on New Honshu. The guilt of the Clone Wars weighs on him and his world, and the blame for causing the Gene War. We may carry a little of the same burden by our choice of profession; but his heavier load is inherited and can't be discarded. He's likely to be predisposed to accept us as fellow outcasts, and to be sympathetic. That doesn't mean I won't double-check what he tells us.”
“He’s from New Honshu,” mused Dillon. “I heard a few people speculate on his features before departure, but I doubt that any of them thought it likely a male from there would be able to rise to the rank of Captain. You heard him describe some naval service, and combat experience from years ago. He must be a very good officer or he could never have gotten his own civil command, even within a Rim transport company. They sometimes carry socially sensitive passenger traffic to and from the Hub. That implies a high level of confidence from his superiors.”
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