GALACTIC SURVEY (COLONY Book 3)

by Richard F. Weyand

  Some of the deployment vehicles and their satellites had farther to go to reach what JieMin had considered the optimum location for them to pick up electromagnetic emissions from the power generation and distribution systems of the target colony planets. Particularly in the spinward and anti-spinward directions, as there weren’t a lot of stars between the arms.

  Nevertheless, the first of those deployment vehicles and its RDF satellites was due soon.

  Meanwhile, the debate in the Assembly of the Amber Legislature continued. It didn’t look like it would be over anytime soon. To observers in the media it looked like Josephine Sellick was trying to kill the potential trade agreement, preferring to hold out for Amber developing its own interstellar drive.

  Which was exactly what Sellick was doing, though she denied it.

  “I’m just trying to get the best deal we can for Amber. Who could possibly oppose that?” she asked.

  But public support for her position was wavering. Why not make a deal now? Arcadia had starships that would soon be ready to start trading among the colonies. Jixing Trading Company would be the big player there initially.

  And didn’t that pretty CEO for Jixing Trading say they expected competitors on the medium term?

  The first deployment vehicle to return to Arcadia sent its results in to the operations headquarters from its location at the hyperspace limit. One of its four satellites had found a colony planet. The other three had been too far away – more than one hundred twenty-two light-years – from any colony planet to detect any power grid emissions.

  What they had was the exact location of each of the RDF satellites when they did their scans, and the precise vector from the successful satellite to the colony it had found. They knew nothing else, in particular the name of the colony planet they had found. It could be number four or number twenty-four.

  JieMin marked the satellite locations on his bubble map of potential colony positions. He encircled all four with bubbles with diameters of two hundred and forty-four light-years. He blanked out the bubbles of the three unsuccessful satellites. No colonies in those bubbles.

  JieMin also marked the vector to the observed colony planet in the bubble of the successful satellite. So if the colony planet lay along that line, between the satellite and the bubble edge, which star was it orbiting? There was only one G2 star – the same category as the suns of Earth, Arcadia, Earthsea, and Amber – along that line.

  JieMin marked it on his map, then marked it with a fixed bubble with diameter of three thousand light-years. He let the other, unfixed, bubbles move around.

  Hmm. He had some new potentials in there.

  “So now what do we do?” ChaoLi asked at her operations group meeting, which had carried on as before.

  “Well, the obvious thing to do is to run one of the hyperspace shuttles out there and do a flyby of the planet, so we can find out which colony it is and gather some intelligence on them,” John Gannet said.

  “Can we do that?”

  “Sure. We have the program and the instrument package and everything.”

  “Should we wait until other satellites come back?” ChaoLi asked.

  “No reason to. We’re going to have to do it sooner or later. Might as well do it now, before the others come back.”

  ChaoLi nodded.

  “The only problem I can see, ma’am,” Chris Bellamy said, “is that if the satellites keep coming back with colony planets, we’re going to run out of shuttles.”

  “And we also have the activities around fitting out Star Runner, which we have to keep doing. Running people up there and back, carrying supplies and materials. All of that.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Bellamy said. “We can use regular shuttles for that. But we’re one hyperspace shuttle short as it is.”

  “Because it’s sitting on the ground in Amber.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “All right,” ChaoLi said. “Let’s get a hyperspace shuttle tricked out for the flyby and get it on its way.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Gannet said.

  On Amber, the Assembly took one of the month-long breaks in their normal calendar. Their version of the trade agreement sat unfinished, with a long list of further amendments to be debated and considered.

  The second deployment vehicle returned to Arcadia perhaps a week after the first. None of its RDF satellites had found a colony planet. JieMin added those two hundred and forty-four light-year diameter bubbles to his map as negative spaces for colonies. The unfixed bubbles moved around.

  Two weeks later, the third deployment vehicle returned to Arcadia. It had found one more colony planet. JieMin added the negative bubbles to his map, as well as the fixed bubble around the G2 star on the detection vector from the successful satellite. His unfixed bubbles moved around again.

  “Now what do we do?” ChaoLi asked.

  “You mean, about a flyby of this new colony planet?” John Gannet asked.

  “Yes. We can’t spare another shuttle for a flyby. Even with people working ten days on, five days off, we’re still moving people back and forth to the Star Runner continuously. And they’re going through a lot of fitting-out supplies up there. Together with meeting their own food and sanitation needs, it’s all we can do to keep up now.”

  “We were talking about that, ma’am. Is there any reason we can’t use the deployment vehicles for flybys?”

  “Do they have the comm suite for that?” ChaoLi asked.

  “No, not completely. Close, though. And they can use the RDF satellites. They have some comm capability so they can talk to the deployment vehicle when it comes back looking for them. It’s not a perfect solution, ma’am, but it’s close.”

  “Very well. Send one of them out to do the flyby on our new find.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “That’ll have to do until we get the new non-hyperspace cargo shuttles.”

  “You’ve ordered those, ma’am?” Gannet asked.

  “Yes. Finding more colony planets ups our advance payments from the government, and I’m not yet paying lease payments on Star Runner.”

  “That’s excellent, ma’am. We’ll have plenty of platforms for Star Runner then.”

  “And I should probably buy that adjacent location at the shuttleport and put up the warehouse we talked about so you have enough room out there.”

  Gannet nodded.

  “It’s not the flight ops, ma’am. It’s the time on the ground in prep for these bigger missions. Moving the Star Runner effort next door would give us some elbow room.”

  “All right. I’ll take care of it.”

  The fourth and fifth deployment vehicles returned the same week. One of the eight RDF satellites they carried had found a third new colony planet. JieMin added the seven negative bubbles for the unsuccessful satellites and the fixed bubble of a new colony planet to his map, and the unfixed bubbles shifted again.

  A pattern was beginning to emerge.

  Two weeks later, the sixth and final deployment vehicle returned to Arcadia. Three of its RDF satellites had located colony planets.

  The last deployment vehicle to return had been the one JieMin was most interested in from the start. It came in last, despite having left at the same time as the others, due to its longer mission. A mission to where the stars were a little denser, and the most hospitable colony planets likely were denser as well.

  They were still three thousand light-years apart from each other. That was a given. But that’s how the RDF satellites had been deployed as well.

  JieMin entered the one new negative bubble – the two hundred and forty-four light-year diameter volume they now knew held no colony – to the map, then added the three new colonies and their fixed three thousand light-year diameter bubbles.

  The unfixed bubbles corresponding to possible locations of the remaining fifteen colonies shifted in his map, maintaining their distances from each other and the colonies they’d found. JieMin rotated the map first one way, then another.


  And there it was.

  The pattern he had been looking for.

  JieMin made some adjustments to those unfixed bubbles’ locations, based on the availability of G2 stars in their volumes. Looking over his work, he nodded.

  JieMin sent a message to Chen Zumu requesting a meeting.

  Once seated, and with tea served, Jessica guessed at JieMin’s purpose.

  “You have information on the new colony finds, JieMin?”

  “Yes, Chen Zumu. May I have access to your display wall?”

  Jessica nodded and pushed a temporary permission to JieMin’s computer account. JieMin pulled up the bubble map he had been working on.

  “This is a map of the colonies, enforcing a three thousand light-year distance between them. The bubbles with a green tint are the colony locations we know for sure now. The red bubbles are potential colony locations, and are allowed to float as more known colony locations are fixed.”

  As Jessica looked at the map, JieMin rotated it first one way, then another. At one point, Jessica gasped.

  “Yes,” JieMin said. “You see it, don’t you, Chen Zumu?”

  “Yes, of course,” Jessica said. “It’s very nearly a three-dimensional close-packing arrangement. Within the bounds of where habitable planets can be found, I suppose. One cannot simply cause a plant to exist where one wants one.”

  “I believe that is correct, Chen Zumu. In three clusters, one in the Orion Arm, one in the Sagittarius Arm, and one in the Perseus Arm. The variations are due to the granularity of finding suitable planets. But notice these also.”

  JieMin highlighted three colonies with a yellow tinge.

  “Those colonies bridge the three groups together, JieMin. One between the cluster in the Orion Arm and the cluster in the Sagittarius Arm, and two between the Orion Arm and the farther Perseus Arm.”

  “That is correct, Chen Zumu. There is a minimum of three thousand light-years between colony planets, but it is possible to travel on a multiple-stop course from any colony planet or Earth to any other colony planet along a course where there is no transit between planets greater than eight weeks. Four thousand light-years.”

  “It looks like the colony planet locations were selected to facilitate trade among the colonies, once hyperspace travel became reality.”

  “As long as the six-week minimum transit period was maintained. I believe that is correct, Chen Zumu.”

  Jessica looked out her doorway at the statue of Matthew Chen-Jasic in her garden, a gift – and a message – from Janice Quant.

  “She knew, JieMin. She did this on purpose.”

  “Of course, Chen Zumu.”

  “And Arcadia just happens to be the bridge between the Orion Arm and the Sagittarius Arm. Which makes us a natural transportation hub.”

  “Yes, Chen Zumu. We have a prime location as a trading center, at least between the Orion Arm colonies and the Sagittarius Arm colonies.”

  “Which are the two bigger clusters.”

  Jessica stared into the map for a few minutes. JieMin was content to wait.

  “What are the odds that the hyperspace drive would be developed at such a hub?”

  It was a rhetorical question, but JieMin had an exact answer.

  “About twelve percent, Chen Zumu, if you consider the two colonies that bridge the Orion Arm to the Perseus Arm.”

  JieMin shrugged.

  “I had to be born somewhere, Chen Zumu.”

  Jessica nodded.

  “And if not you, someone else. Sooner or later.”

  JieMin nodded.

  “Very good, JieMin. Thank you for briefing me on this. You need to inform ChaoLi as well. On this, at least. Janice Quant, though, must remain our secret.”

  “Understood, Chen Zumu.”

  The next day, ChaoLi began her day with a visit to JieMin’s university office downtown, at JieMin’s request.

  “I need to show you something, ChaoLi, for which I need the big display in my office,” was all he would say.

  When they got to his office, JieMin waved ChaoLi to one of his guest chairs. They sat facing the display at the far end of his office.

  “This is the current map of the colonies, known locations in green and possible locations in red.”

  JieMin rotated the map first one way and then the other.

  “My God,” ChaoLi said. “We’re the hub of these two clusters.”

  “Yes. Whether through accident or design, we are at the crossroads of human colonies.”

  “Looking at that map, if I could choose anywhere to base Jixing Trading, Arcadia would be the best choice.”

  JieMin nodded.

  “And so your question of where to locate your big freight transfer hub has been answered,” he said.

  “It sure has.”

  ChaoLi stared into the map, then shook her head.

  “It’s exactly the right place,” she said. “Who’d’ve thought?”

  Deal

  None of the news of finding other colonies had been made public. Rumors circulated from leaks out of the project, but there was no official confirmation. Rob Milbank and Jean Dufort were waiting for the precise moment when the impact of those discoveries would have the most salutary effect on their conspiracy against Josephine Sellick.

  The perfect moment came when Star Tripper emerged from hyperspace and made its way to Arcadia orbit. Star Tripper took up a position twenty mile from Star Runner, far enough away to keep shuttle operations on the two ships from interfering with each other, but close enough to allow easy transfer of materials, tools, and personnel between them.

  From the surface of Arcadia, you could now see the two ships orbit across the sky in formation, every ninety minutes.

  What that second ship meant, though, was that Star Runner was not a one-off. It was just one of a series of ships that would be rolling out of the Beacon Shipyard, where Star Gazer, Star Dreamer, and Star Dancer were under construction.

  “There’s one more thing I think we should do, Rob,” Jean Dufort said.

  “What’s that, Jean?”

  “Recall your ambassador.”

  “What?” Milbank asked.

  Dufort made a waving-away gesture.

  “With the QE radios, Rob, Sasha can be in touch with us from Arcadia. After all these months, we have the relationships established now. And I think he wants to go home anyway. But it will be a kick in the teeth here for people. Not just a threat, but the actuality of being cut out of the colony trade due to one intransigent person.”

  “Well, we can certainly use the shuttle here. We have a whole bunch of colonies to investigate and contact now.”

  Dufort nodded.

  “Exactly. You’ve mentioned the strain on your resources for getting all this done. So pull the shuttle back. And bring Sasha back home with it. Then I can handle this end.”

  Milbank nodded.

  “All right, Jean. I would never do that without your buy-in, you know that.”

  “Yes, Rob, I know. But it will certainly bring things to a head here.”

  The Star Tripper orbiting Arcadia in tandem with Star Runner was hard to miss, especially in the dawn and evening sky. Along with that success, the government now announced the finding of six more colony planets. Identification of those was under way.

  The Arcadia government also released JieMin’s map, though only showing the locations of known colonies, and without the bubbles. Looking at that map, Arcadia’s strategic location would be evident to some people, but Milbank’s government made sure to point it out.

  The Arcadia news wires went nuts.

  Of course, all the Arcadia news wires could be picked up on Amber and Earthsea as well.

  Valery Laurent called Milbank to congratulate him on Arcadia’s successes and to inquire about progress with Amber.

  “We’re not there yet, Valerie, but we’re working on it. I hope all this news will get some things moving over there.”

  Laurent nodded.

  “There’s one mor
e thing I should mention, Rob. In addition to QE radios on the colonies, I think we need to try mounting QE radios on those ships of yours.”

  “That would be a good move, I think, Valery. Then ships could get in touch if they had problems and had to drop out of hyperspace out in the middle of nowhere. They could tell us where they were, so we could go rescue them.”

  “Oh, it’s more than that, Rob. I think it’s been everybody’s assumption, but we don’t actually know that QE radios don’t work in hyperspace. Some people believe they will. That it would violate some rule of something or other if they didn’t. Conservation of spin or parity or something.”

  That rocked Milbank back in his chair.

  “That, that would be incredible,” he said.

  “Yes, rather than six weeks in transit out of touch with the universe, people could stay in touch, do business, attend meetings, all while in transit. You just couldn’t go outside.”

  “That would change a lot, Valery. We need to try it as soon as we can.”

  “I agree, Rob,” Laurent said. “Whenever you can get a shuttle free. It doesn’t even need power and cooling capability. For a simple two-channel rig, we have a self-contained unit.”

  “And that gives me justification for something else I need to do. Thanks, Valery.”

  “You’re welcome, Rob. Stay in touch.”

  The news out of Arcadia hit Amber like a brick upside the head. Josephine Sellick’s strategy of delay, of putting together their own version of the agreement, or of building their own hyperspace ships, was backfiring. The promise of an Amber-designed hyperspace ship looked more and more hollow. By the time they had any such thing, even assuming they could duplicate Arcadia’s breakthrough, it would be years down the road. Years of missed opportunities.