by P F Walsh
Thomak went over to the navigation screen and began pointing to a spot.
“You must enter below the ecliptic and come up into the asteroid field here, as you get closer to the planet there is a collision free band about one hundred and fifty units wide above the planet surface. Our settlement cannot be seen from space. It is all underground. Once we are in orbit, I can show you where to hold station and shuttle down.” He recited.
“Allister, have you got all that?” Sean asked.
Yes, I see the path he has outlined. It’s not visible but I can see it on my scanners, shall I send this information to the Domak?” He asked.
“Yes, Allister, but ask the Domak to stay just outside the field in the event we need a rescue. Ask them to send a man over to help identify the ship in the video” Said Sean. Allister acknowledged and sent the message. The Domak immediately sent over a lieutenant Hark’m-Sed.
The Discovery followed the Mutus Colonium ship into the asteroid field with Allister at the helm mimicking each move the other ship made to avoid collisions with small rocks. They slowly came through the asteroid field into a clear zone and established a station keeping orbit where Thomak pointed out. The other ship parked further away but within sight and was preparing to discharge a shuttle. Sean called the crew together.
“Okay, Dr. Tak, Doris, Lt. Hark’m, and the two Sisters, you are all with me and Thomak, we’ll shuttle down. Hekt, warm up the defense systems, Wally, don’t start any maintenance that would deny full power to defense systems and our ability to make a hasty departure. Allister, you have the bridge.”
They all responded with “Aye, sir.”. Sean turned to Thomak and said,
“All standard procedure for approaching a new unknown world, no offense intended.” He said.
“None taken Captain. Prudent measures.” Thomak replied.
They all got into the shuttle and secured themselves for a flight down. Sean asked Thomak for descent expectations. He answered,
“Nothing unusual, the flight down should be relatively smooth, there is very little weather on this colony planet, heat thermals are all.” He said.
Chapter Twenty
Book Two
Millie Griggs the aid to the Cultural Attaché from Earth to the Council of Worlds based on Hhearn had been back two days and was generally rested up. She had wrestled with the U.S. bureaucracy a bit after the State Department instructed immigration to issue a green card for her and Maejel. After filling out all the forms and submitting to detailed questioning about her background, she was given her card.
She sat there looking at it and was surprised at how much it meant to her. This was a surprise she had not anticipated that another Country, especially the U.S. would accept her as a permanent resident if she chose to do so and could work for the IRO without employment hassles. She still needed her British Passport for travel but as yet, there was no protocol for interplanetary travel requirements. She was told her British Passport would suffice. She was tickled. This whole experience starting with Maejel’s call was the most exciting thing that had happened in her whole life. Her friends were positively green with envy that she had done all that had happened so far, and was getting paid for it.
Now came the work part as she spent the whole day on the telephone arguing and cajoling contacts to commit to the Hhearn Music Festival. Some thought she was mad until she mentioned the fee. Suddenly, interest elevated to a palpable hunger she could hear in the other party’s voice. No one was booking Forty’s tribute dance bands at those prices. Words streaked through the musical community and calls started coming in to her. By the end of the afternoon she was mentally exhausted.
“I am absolutely knackered.” She thought as she leaned back in her chair after booking another band and explaining all the connections, passports, money exchange rates, etc., etc.
The phone rang again. She decided not to answer it so she could go back to the apartment and get something to eat. The phone kept ringing. In exasperation she picked it up and said,
“Bloody hell, What?” There was a pause at the other end.
“Is this Millie Griggs?” The lady asked.
“Yes, sorry, I’ve had a day.” She answered more civilly.
“This is The White House switchboard; we’re sending a car to bring you over for dinner. It’s informal. Can you be ready at 6 PM?’ She asked
“Is this a joke?” Millie asked on the edge of getting snarly.
“Definitely not Ma’am. Here is the number, you can call back to confirm.” She gave Millie the number which she already knew.
“Thank you I will.” and hung up. She called the White House. The same operator answered,
“The White House.” the operator answered and now could now see the calling number and said,
“Is 6 PM OK, Ms. Griggs?”
Millie flew out of the office forgetting to lock the door and had to dash back to set the lock and alarm. Then she rushed outside and was blessed with an immediate cab to her apartment wherein she went into a panic on what to wear. “‘Informal’ is not exactly informal when you are at the White House.” She thought, “What will I wear? Ah, basic black cocktail dress with white pearls and black shoes, that’s it, keep it simple.” With that critical decision made, she stripped off, and headed for the shower, first stopping at the full-length mirror and checking to see if her breasts were sagging, a manic daily routine of female age abatement. After being reassured they were still pert, she put on her shower cap and thought, “I have to get my wardrobe shipped here ASAP.” The shower went on.
Five minutes before six she was out in front of her apartment building on 8th Street NW waiting. At exactly six o’clock a limo pulled up in front. A driver got out to open the door for her to get in. They drove the few minutes to the White House. The White House butler was waiting under the portico and opened the door for her to alight from the limo.
“This way Ms. Griggs.” He said.
They went into the White House and he took her up to the Residence Dining room and asked for her drink order. He left the room to get it and closed the door. The very first thing she noticed was that the table was set for two. She wandered around the room noticing that the design and furnishing were federalist but not unlike a nice dining room in a British estate. The butler returned with her drink, a gin and tonic, her favorite. She sipped and went to the window to look out.
“Bloody long way from Twickenham.” She thought with a smile.
She sipped her drink waiting for about 20 minutes, the door opened, and the President walked in with a drink already in his hand and then closing the door behind him.
“Ms. Griggs, two things, first I must apologize for the very short notice and making you wait, and secondly, thank you for being here tonight. Most people believe the President dines like a king every night surrounded by servants. It’s a lie, I usually dine alone and late. There is always one more telephone call I must take, like tonight, as I was coming to meet you.” He emphasized as he came close to her to shake her hand.
“Thank you, again.” He said more personally.
“Please sit down.” He said as he went to hold her chair for her to sit.
“Mr. President, thank you for the invitation, I am delighted to join you, and as always I am surprised at how fast you Americans make things happen. I’m a bit ‘swept’ shall we say? I mean, a rushed dinner at Buckingham would take at least 30 days to arrange, that is if you were favored with an invitation.” She said with a big smile wondering what this could all mean. Here she was in the President’s White House residence having sips and dinner. Whatever it was she decided this is as good as it gets, and resolved to enjoy his company. She said,
“I really enjoyed the State Dinner Mr. President and I did not get a chance to tell you that you are a very good dancer. Most men aren’t.”
“Yes, there is that, it’s why you are here tonight.”
“For Dancing?” She asked.
“Well not exactly. Let me share some insi
ght with you. I live in a world of instant happenings, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There is no day when something isn’t happening that needs my attention or some political windbag isn’t pulling my arm about his home district. There is so much a President gives up, I suspect the Queen too. No one realizes it until they step into the office and sit down. It’s like switch, all the lines light up, bad nations do bad things, bad people shoot other people, and so on. Every once in a while, in order to keep me sane, they let me pin a medal on someone that has done some extraordinarily good thing. That’s a good day. He said with a distant look on his face.
“But that’s all prattle. The reason I invited you to dinner is that you felt so damn good when I was holding you. I realized that I hadn’t held a woman that close in over ten years and it felt really good. Not only that, I find you an extraordinarily attractive woman” He was rushing his words trying to get it all out. She was amused, the most powerful man in the world was nervously hitting on her, and she liked it.
“So, I decided, being President and all, that I could invite you to a quiet dinner at the White House and get to know you.”
“Mr. President,” She started and he interrupted.
“If we are going to get to know each other we can start by having you call me James when we are alone, and I would like the permission to call you Millie.” He said. Millie smiled one of her blazing smiles and said,
“James, that’s a very fine name indeed. Thank you, and of course you may call me Millie, in fact I think you already have at one time or another. Let’s try it out... James, I do believe we could stand another drink, don’t you?” She asked with a twinkle in her eye holding up her almost empty glass.” The President pushed the call button for the butler.
Dinner went very well with each of them sharing life’s stories and thoroughly enjoying each other’s company. The President, of course, did not disclose he privately knew a great deal about Millie, the Secret service is thorough in protecting the President. They agreed to date from time to time when he had time and to keep it between the two of them as much as they could. As they parted for the evening, he took her hand and kissed it good night. While riding back to her apartment building feeling ‘quite over the moon’ she suddenly realized the burden that fell on her shoulders. Everyone will try to wile information from her, or into her, to influence what the President thought or did.
“Over my dead body.” She thought, she had come to the conclusion as a man he was worth her loyalty and resolved to shun all attempts to learn anything about their time together, if hopefully, there was more. The limo stopped at her apartment building and the driver let her out.
As she stepped out of the limo and got a mere two feet away, a man walked by her quickly, shoved an envelope in her hand and rushed off. She stood there nonplussed as she watched the man disappear into an alleyway. The driver ran over and took the envelope from her in his white gloved hands while handing her an extra pair of white gloves to put on.
“Put these on right now, and get back in the limo, don’t touch anything else.” As he urged her back into the limo. Once she was back inside, he closed the door and ran around to the driver’s side, got in, and hit the door locks.
“46 to base” He barked into his two-way handheld radio.
“Base here, go ahead.”
“46, package approached on exiting limo and an envelope was shoved into her hands by a passerby who fled. I’ve got the package and the envelope; both our hands are in gloves.” He spoke.
“Copy that, head to the cleaners, light it up!” Answered base.
“10-4" The driver said, started the car, swung out into traffic, activated the grille red flashers and siren. Despite his instruction not to touch anything, Millie grabbed for her seatbelt and buckled in as the limo surged into traffic heading for an unknown destination with her in it.
The shuttle settled down onto the arid, sandy soil of Mutus Colonium near the foot of a mountain range. Thomak told everyone to put on their face masks until they got inside, the air was hot, very thin, and often contained micro sand particles. Once everyone had their masks on, Sean opened the shuttle ramp and they all walked down onto the surface. Sean looked around and there was nothing to be seen, no base, buildings, or entrances. In the distance, a small dirt devil was churning from the heat thermals.
Thomak said
“Follow me.” As he walked directly at a small hillock in front of the mountain. They walked around the hillock and Sean could now see a door set in the base of the mountain large enough for a shuttle hanger with a pedestrian portal in the center of it. This would be very hard, if not impossible, to see from the air. Thomak entered a code into a keypad and the portal door clicked as the lock released. He opened it and went through with the group following suit. Doris dropped a repeater near the door to keep in touch with Allister. The entire interior was painted white, lights were spaced far apart so there were short areas of darkness between.
The group walked further into what had originally been a cave or volcano vent to another large door like the first one. Once again, Thomak operated a keypad and the pedestrian portal lock clicked open. Inside, as they entered, was a much more spacious area with a very high ceiling. Two shuttles were set along the wall and a small group of people were assembled to greet the visitors. Doris dropped another repeater and got confirmation that communication with Allister was good.
Thomak indicated everyone could remove their masks and began to introduce each to Sean and his party.
“This is our Leader for this tri-period. His name is Eslmar-Pel. Our leadership is rotated every three lunars.” Eslmar-Pel held up his dye stained palm and Sean struck a greeting. Sean proceeded to introduce his party one by one.
“A doctor?” Eslmar queried. “That is fortuitous, we have three of our people who are sick. I would be grateful if you could examine them and offer some relief.” He said.
“Of course,” the doctor replied, “I would be happy to see if I can help.”
Eslmar turned to Sean and the Lieutenant and said,
“I expect both of you would like to see the video of the pirate event?”
“Yes, let’s start there and then we can discuss how we can assist.”
Doris, as usual, had been examining every person and doorway, and noticed one door was ajar and a person was peering out. She elbowed Sean and nodded to that door. Sean saw what she was concerned about and said,
“Leader Eslmar, you seem to have one more person that would like to join us.” As he pointed to the doorway.
“Heenka-Tol, please come out and join us.” The Leader said,
Heenka-Tol opened the door and came over to the group. He was at one time a rotund man, now Sean could see the layers of skin flaps from extreme weight loss as he moved to the group.
“This man is the man who owns the ships we recovered. I believe he wishes to plead with you to abate the belief at the Council that the ships were stolen.”
“I do, Captain, I am here because I am an honor breaker, but I am not a thief, nor have I ever stolen anything in all my years of business. What honor I have been able to recover here on Mutus Colonium requires me to try to clear my name and remove any threat the Council may be raising against me or our colony.” He said. He handed Sean a packet of papers.
“These are copies of my titles of ownership for the ships we have recovered. They were taken from me without pursuit of legal confiscation since there was no criminal charge to do so. I would like to have their ownership re-registered to our colony here. We live in common, and everyone here has learned the indelible lesson of sharing for the community. It is a small administrative adjustment, but important to us. Thank you for your efforts in this matter. Now, I have taken too much time, excuse me.” Heenka-Tol bowed slightly and walked away as Sean stood there with the packet he had been given. He turned and handed those to Doris to hold. She shifted them to her left hand, keeping her right hand free.
“Let us go inside to our co
mmon room where we can look at the vid.” Said Eslmar. They followed him into another area which had communal tables and chairs. There was a large vid screen on the wall. The screen was cracked but rendered a sharp picture of the outside of the colony entrance area. Sean could see the two shuttles parked on the flat area. Both had been draped with a camouflage net.
“They live in fear.” He thought.
The leader asked for the vid to be played and the screen changed to a view in space where two ships were alongside each other. One was clearly a long freighter, the other, a warship. Lt. Hark’m, gasped as he watched the vid.
“Freeze that frame. That’s a Lotma Corvette!” He exclaimed. “There is no mistaking that shape. Can you zoom in on the pirate ship?” He asked.
In a moment the player zoomed in on the ship.
“Move the display to the front of the ship.” He asked.
The display moved showing the front one third of the pirate ship.
“Now, zoom in really close.” He asked.
Once again, the vid screen zoomed in. Although there was a thin, black, plastic sheet panel on the ship‘s nose, the original ship’s numbers put there were not paint, but were press-apply letters, and their outline could be seen despite the covering.
“LC 87,... LC87.” The lieutenant kept repeating.
“By the Gods that’s the Noullk, she was reported lost in an explosion with all hands. There was nothing left. Only one dead crewman was found without any injuries except for suffocation from being in vacuum. There she is!” exclaimed the Lieutenant.
“So, she is not running under the Lotma flag?” Asked Sean.
“Definitely not Captain, she’s a renegade for sure. You can bet our Captain will want to seize her or destroy her.”
They all watched the boarding of the freighter. None of the boarders were wearing any identification on their EVA suits, but it could be seen in the vid that all were bringing weapons with them. After watching the vid, they all sat down at a table and one of the colony members brought fresh water and some cubed darkplant. Sean had schooled his group that water was a precious commodity in the colony, so they did not consume the water but Doris popped a few of the darkplant cubes into her mouth and smiled,