by Bob Mauldin
Simon took the conversation back up. “What I envision is that after we finish number four, which will be named Taurus, by the way, Galileo will be put into a permanent Earth-orbit. That way, she can use her transporter to bring up volunteers to be transshipped to other ships or bases.”
Sylvia Parker, poly-sci major, former pod jockey, and right now, adviser to the command staff, interrupted. “Captain, why not just build a space station in Earth-orbit? They’re doing that right now. That ISS, they call it. The International Space Station. It will only house ten or twelve people at best and requires constant maintenance and re-supply. We can build a bigger, better one, and do it faster and cheaper. Not only that, but it would have gravity, and if built big enough, it could have its own transporter. Give it some form of propulsion, and it could move to whichever base needed to upload volunteers or download returnees. And it would have the advantage of not having Galileo tied down to a purely static function. It just seems so wasteful.”
After several months of meetings while Libra Base was being completed, the subjects began to get rehashed and rethought to the point that it seemed that every eventuality had been explored and planned for. Simon decided that nothing more could be gained at the time from further meetings so he called a halt to them. “I would like you to stay aboard, though. Sooner or later, we’ll need to get back into this. Once I’ve gotten the first responses from the Vice-President and his advisers. He’s going to want to get all he can for a little bit of land and freedom for our people. All of our people, he thought silently. “I won’t work with this family thing over my head. I don’t want to give away too much at one time. We need to keep something in reserve. So, for now, people, I want to thank you for all your input. Feel free to come see me if anything occurs to you. Beyond that, we’ll see about finding you something to do on board to keep you busy. Yes, I’m afraid you’ll have to go back to work. But once we get back to Earth and start negotiations, I’m sure we’ll reactivate this committee.”
And so, Libra approached completion. The third daughter of the immense Galileo was about to begin her own journey.
Simon and Kitty found themselves alone in the observation bubble. Most people found reason to be elsewhere when the Captains Hawke showed up, knowing the fondness they had for the bubble and the paucity of time they had to spend doing nothing but enjoying each other’s company. Which was one reason their visits of late had been rather infrequent. It seemed that each group, the Captains and everybody else, was doing a dance to see that each group didn’t overstep the bounds of propriety by monopolizing the popular spot.
This night, though, would be a little different. Since Libra’s Sundiver had returned, her powered sections were ablaze. Normal construction techniques saw to it that a power core was fired up as soon as possible so that most off-vessel construction didn’t require the Galileo to provide power to anything but her own massive on-board factory complex.
Simon and Kitty stared out at the vast nearly completed base and watched the pod jockeys installing the final beams around the construction cage. Personnel staying behind had already been chosen and moved to the habitat section, lessening the crowding considerably. And first thing tomorrow, Galileo would head back to Earth and the next chapter in human history.
Kitty and Simon sat together on a bench that had been constructed around three-quarters of the inside of the observation dome. Kitty leaned into Simon’s side, at ease with the familiar weight of his arm around her shoulders. She gazed out into the darkness and watched the lights of Libra and the few remaining construction pods that were still moving about, and said, “You know, this a real strange position to be in, right here and right now, for me to bring this up, but you should know about it if you don’t already.” She felt Simon stiffen a little, patted him on the leg, and said, “Relax, lover. It’s nothing bad. Just odd. I heard something strange a few days ago and I went down to check it out. And you won’t believe what I found. You’ll have to go see for yourself.”
“And who or what are we talking about?” Simon asked, turning away from the infinite vista to look down into the face of the woman who had never steered him wrong in all the years he had known her.
“Our good friend Agent Daniels,” was the reply.
“Let me guess, planning a mutiny?”
“No, Dear. I said you wouldn’t believe it. That one is all too easy to believe. What he’s actually doing ... I believe the man has finished all of his interviews, because as far as I can tell, and from the people I’ve spoken to, he hasn’t conducted one single interview since talking to Marsha, Lucy, and me after our battle.” Simon started to pull away, but Kitty wouldn’t let him. She had already had both arms around his waist and just held tighter.
“You, he, when you were still, that man is about to get his ass so kicked.”
Kitty spun on the bench to face her husband and placed a hand on his chest. “Simmer down, Darling. First thing he did was, he came to our quarters three days after I got back and was allowed visitors.”
“Well, yeah, I knew he was there.”
“Of course you knew he was there. Rukia told you about it. That was the job you gave her, to keep you informed about my condition and to see that I followed doctor’s orders and not overtax myself. The idea was to be my aide, since there was so much that I couldn’t do for myself.”
Simon pulled away from her adding a bit of distance for safety’s sake. “You knew about that?”
Kitty bestowed a withering look on her not-so-sly mate. “How long have we been married? Of course I knew about it. I suspected it from the beginning. You’ve always been protective. And here, where you have to be in three places at once, and have the ability to get someone to be there in your place. Well, the mistake you made was an obvious one. You assigned a woman to me. We bond easier than men do, Dear. So my suspicions were confirmed very shortly, and we told you what you needed to know and no more. Anyway, back to Agent Daniels. All he did at that time was to request an interview when I felt up to it. So stay off his case about that. He asked nicely, so when I was able, I gave him his interview.
“But what’s been going on is amazing. You know that he went down to report to his superiors when we were last at Earth. We made sure when he came back up that he didn’t bring any contraband with him. No guns, drugs, nothing any other crewman wasn’t allowed to have. We’ve allowed him to have a tape recorder and he’s used it for his interviews. A video camera, too, as long as he stayed away from sensitive areas. The thing is, we didn’t pay attention when we had his bags checked, to the other things he brought aboard. No one said a damn thing about him bringing reading material aboard. And he did.”
Confusion played across Simon’s face. “Reading material? Are we dealing with a pervert? Why would you think reading material worth bringing to my attention? Am I going to have to get involved after all?”
“No, Dear,” Kitty sighed. “The type of reading material he brought aboard, well he’s opened a school. He’s teaching some of our people down on the lower decks how to read. We’ve surrounded ourselves with the cream of the crop, up here, so to speak, and haven’t had time to get to know the rest of our people in detail. Some of those surveys we requested are what got my interest started. We don’t know most of our people, Simon, and it’s only going to get worse. We have another ship ready to be crewed now, Libra about ready to be commissioned, and two more ships slated to be finished within weeks of Libra’s completion. We are about to almost double our personnel and we don’t know the people we have right now.
“I talked to one of his roommates. A Crewman McNalley. I’m pretty sure that’s where Daniels got the idea. I don’t know if you remember McNalley or not. He came aboard with Chief Hargrove. That group of construction workers Marsha helped recruit at the first of this. Did you know he’s her uncle? That’s not for public consumption, Simon. For some reason, they don’t want their relationship to be common knowledge. I think Chief Hargrove doesn’t want to
appear to be using Marsha to get ahead. Why he would is beyond me. The man is a genius in his own right.”
Simon shook his head. “I really don’t know McNalley all that well. We met a time or two, I think.
“And there is no real reason you should, Dear. He’s a quiet man and the best pod jockey that we have. He’s a smart man, but he’s from a place where book smarts don’t go much past the seventh grade, if that far. Too many chores and crops to be tended to for a healthy teenage boy to waste time in school learning book stuff. He’s older than the average, too. A bit older than us. Hell, Marsha and Lucy are both twenty-four years old and commanding ships. And he gets embarrassed about how he speaks whenever he’s around our younger college-trained people. They make him feel inferior. Apparently this got to Daniels, and when he went down to report to his bosses, he came back with a copy of Hooked on Phonics and began to teach McNalley. It got around to some of McNalley’s friends, and for the last three months, Daniels has almost exclusively been teaching school to those men. Haven’t you noticed his absence?”
“As long as the computer’s proximity alarms didn’t go off, I didn’t care what he did as long as he stayed away from me. No love lost there, Hon,” Simon admitted.
Kitty went on. “Well, I went on a rambling inspection tour a few days ago, and I found him holding a class on deck seven in one of the crew rec rooms. With a slate and chalk, for God’s sake. Where he got those, I’m not sure, but I think he has an in with some of the manufacturing crew. And he’s teaching our people to read, write and speak better. He’s even teaching them grammar! I was totally stunned by what I saw. And trust me, it’s not something he set up overnight. These crewmen that I’ve spoken to are pretty adamant about that. He had to be cajoled into it, but once started, it seems to have snowballed. And this has apparently been going on for six months, off and on. Three months almost full time, now.
Simon gazed out onto the night. “Maybe I misread the man. How was I to know? He hounded us, stole our stuff, and made a general nuisance of himself. So I put him where he couldn’t hurt us. Right under our noses.” Simon shook his head. “And he still surprises me.”
Kitty slid back beside him. “I think you should have a talk with him. You two are a lot alike, you know. And I mean more than exterior plumbing. He was in the Army, too. Did you know that he served in Viet Nam? And he’s a prideful, stubborn man, just like you. Don’t look at me like that. You are and you know it. Anyway, I think he’s really a nice person. Just because he’s an FBI agent, and just because we got on the wrong side of each other is no reason to not make an effort. Go talk to him, Dear. Please. For me.”
“Well,” Simon said sullenly, “will you be satisfied if I say I’ll think about it?”
Kitty said, snuggling back into the crook of her man’s arm, “Yes, I’ll be satisfied, if you’ll say it again without that growl in your voice. And make me believe that you mean it.”
Kitty felt the muscles in Simon’s back relax and he said, “Okay. You’re right. I’ll have a talk with him. A civil talk. Are you happy now?”
“Yes, Dear. Let’s go to our quarters and leave the dome to someone else.”
The commissioning ceremony for Libra was becoming a standard thing for Simon as well as quite a few of the crew of Galileo. But it definitely was not for the crew who had built her. By this time, many the permanent crew of Galileo had been aboard for over a year and a half, a few since the very beginning, but the Libra personnel had only been out here for a little over six months. For them, the novelty hadn’t really worn off yet, and they were soon to make her their home as well as their workplace. So Simon went to great pains to sound sincere and make the ceremony as upbeat as possible. The last thing he wanted was for people to get the idea that they weren’t doing great things, and that was all too possible when great things became a part of everyday life and someone gave a speech that sounded like it had been rehearsed to death.
As he stood on Galileo’s Project Deck and stared out at the upturned faces, Kitty’s words came back to haunt him. He didn’t know most of those faces, and quite a few of them were older than the average, as she had said. His gaze slid over the crowd and he wondered for a moment which one was McNalley. Giving himself a mental shake, he started to speak. He praised the dedication of the individuals who were already moved into quarters on the station they had built. He praised the ability and perseverance of the pod jockeys, shuttle crews, and factory teams. And he extolled the virtues of the lives they were all about to embark on. As he spoke of the future he foresaw, Simon told them of the heights to which humans could aspire and painted a picture of them as the forerunners of that future. He reminded them of the folly, too, of thinking that just because they were first that they were better. “It’s like being a gunfighter in the Old West,” he said, shaking a finger back and forth. “There’s always somebody faster than you out there. What we do today and tomorrow will be ho-hum to those who follow even twenty years from now. Don’t let that stop you from striving though. Those who follow won’t be able to outdo us without the groundwork we lay. They won’t have anywhere to start if we don’t build it for them.”
He looked out through the shimmering veil of the force field at the station beyond. “So. It seems to have become a tradition, in even this short amount of time, for a Commissioning Day ceremony to be followed by a party. Far be it from me to hold up tradition any more than I have to. Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to officially name our third base Libra Base, and name as her Base Commander, Commander Victor McCord.” Following the program that had become a tradition, Victor walked up onto the dais from one side, and, in a slight departure, Kitty from the other. The two reached Simon together and Simon turned to Kitty, opened the black velvet case she carried, and one at a time, pinned the twin, wreath-encircled gold stars of a Base Commander on Victor’s lapels. Turning to the crowd, he announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, Base Commander Victor McCord.” Once the cheering died down, he said, “Commander McCord, it is now my duty to relinquish command of Libra Base. Do you accept command?” At Victor’s acknowledgment, he pulled the dedication plaque from its hiding place. He handed it to Victor and said, as he had four times now, “Hang it in your reception area, Commander, and good luck.” It read:
LIBRA BASE
COMMISSIONED 6 NOVEMBER 2013
BASE COMMANDER VICTOR McCORD, COMMANDING
Turning back to the crowd below, he said, “Now, with the exception of the crew that must remain on duty, it’s time to party!” Cheers resounded throughout the bay until Simon held up his hand. “One of these days I’ll figure out whether those cheers are for the end of the speech or the start of the party. Those of you who have duty in the morning or next shift, hangovers are okay, just be able to do your jobs! Food processors on all decks have been unlocked to provide beer! Dismissed!”
Simon found Kitty and Stephen waiting at the foot of the dais. “Just like old times, huh?” he asked, thinking about the other two bases they had commissioned in the past year and a half.
“That’s true,” Stephen answered. “Especially when you consider ‘old times’ to have been just two years ago. And I heard you mention a party. I came from Communications just before the ceremony and both Heinlein and McCaffrey are on their way in. Lucy and Marsha wanted to be here, but it didn’t work out. Actually, McCaffrey will arrive first by about an hour according to scan,” he continued as the three officers walked toward the lift to deck three.
Kitty gibed, “I’m betting you can hardly wait for Heinlein to dock so you can see Gayle again, huh?”
Stephen stammered, “G-Gayle? Um, well, uh, yeah.” He seemed to get flustered every time her name was mentioned. “I, uh, we were, uh ...”
Simon began laughing so hard he had to hold on to the wall of the lift to stay on his feet. Kitty slapped him on the shoulder and said, “Don’t be such an insensitive clod, you, you, man, you.” Turning back to Stephen, she said, “Okay, look. We
know what you were just ‘uh.’ Everybody knows what you were just ‘uh.’ We’ve known forever. Actually, Stephen, there has been a pool going for I don’t know how long now.”
“A pool? What kind of pool?” Alarm was evident in his voice even as the question squeaked past bloodless lips.
Kitty grinned. “Why, when you two are going to get married, of course.”
The blood drained from the rest of Stephen’s face and his eyes went wide in shock. “Married? Us? I don’t know what to say.” He staggered back until his shoulders touched the wall of the lift.
Kitty stepped up beside him and put an arm around his waist. “Of course you don’t know, Dear. The man is always the last to know.” With her free arm she elbowed Simon. “Get on the other side and help me hold him up. We’ll get him to the Officers Mess, prop him up in a chair and leave him there until Gayle can get here to collect him.”
Parties proceeded as parties do. And in the Officers Mess, the table set up for the senior officers held Simon, Kitty, Victor and Stephen, who, after his third drink was heard talking to himself. Never in complete sentences, as was his normal manner, and the sounds issuing from his end of the table could actually be called muttering with an occasional intelligible word. Usually those words sounded like, “marriage?” And, “me?”
Trying to ignore the stricken Stephen, Simon turned the talk to other things. “I’ll tell you right now, people,” he said to the group gathered at the Captain’s Table. “Number four, Taurus Base, will take longer to build than any of the first three. She is going to be able to build the really big ships. Destroyers, large freighters, another Galileo. We’ve already got the plans laid out. Victor said the best part of a year not counting her power plant and Sundiver.”
Kitty spoke up. “I thought this was supposed to be a party. How about less shop talk and more beer?”
