Secrets in the Stars (Family Law)

by Mackey Chandler

  The poor Bill just stared at him uncomprehending. Did they understand sarcasm? That was interesting. They did have a narrow little tongue in there. He could tell because the fellow’s mouth was hanging wide open. Then it snapped shut.

  "Your people report back to their duties on time and ready to work again?" Twin asked.

  "Yes, we give them a day off and a day to recover. If they get so wasted they can't recover in a day they have a serious problem. If we had somebody so lacking in self discipline they can't drag their butt to work ready to go I might not hear about it. My captains don't bother me with every detail of their operations." Take a hint there, Gordon thought... "But I'm sure such a person would be disciplined."

  "The translation program said something weird," Twin said.

  "It's far from perfect yet," Gordon agreed.

  "It said discipline, but applied self as an adjective. Discipline is from without," Twin asserted.

  "Perhaps that is the problem," Gordon said, and he looked over at Talker. Yep, the Badger had those little dimples on his muzzle whiskers and the slight smile at the corners of his mouth. He was amused and about to bust himself holding it in.

  "We expect our people, at least our adults, to regulate themselves. We don't rouse them out in the morning or make them go lights out and sleep at a certain hour. We just expect them to be at duty stations ready to work when they are scheduled."

  "I see..." Twin looked different. Shocked? Maybe offended. "I thank you. I have one more question and then I'll consider how to apply all this, which is a change for us. How do you... apply discipline, when a crewman doesn't step up and do this self discipline you expect?"

  "With Humans and Derf I'd expect they'd have a stern talk if it was a minor infraction. Thor here can put the fear of Gordon in them with a sweet little talk that intimates they don't want a talk with me. We only have four Hinth, and only three work. I have no idea what motivates them. You have to tell them to stop working and go eat or take their off shift time. They are obsessive about work.

  Gordon shrugged. "If I had to deal with a miscreant directly I'd give them a month of filter duty or wiping down the corridors and work spaces by hand. That should focus their attention in the future. If they didn't learn or gave me any, uh, backtalk I'd fine them." He'd almost said lip, which wouldn't do talking to a Bill. He somehow doubted they said – Don't give me any bill.

  "Oh really?" Apparently that appealed to the Bill. "What sort of a fine?"

  "Oh, I'd probably nick them a million bucks Ceres from their shares and bonuses. Anything less this bunch wouldn't care about. We made some pretty good finds and claims on the way out to you folks, so they're too flush to notice a little fine. That's about twice your weight of silver," Gordon explained. "I don't know your customs well, nor the Badgers for that matter." He refrained from saying the Badgers didn't have any trouble taking a break. Indeed they seemed capable of some serious partying. "But you can adapt and apply your own standards to recreation and reporting back to duty from it."

  "I will," Captain Twin vowed. Thank you for the instruction," he said and dropped the call.

  Gordon looked over at Talker and gave him his best evil face, exaggerated in case the alien had trouble reading it. "Speak. I can tell you are about to bust a gut holding in your amusement."

  "It is entertaining, watching someone else have the joy of dealing with the Bills," Talker admitted.

  "I'm so pleased I could brighten your day. Now would you care to explain what that was all about and where Captain Twin and I are not understanding each other?" Gordon asked. He made missing motions with his true hands passing each other to make the point clear.

  "You will think me horribly prejudiced," Talker said, but was still smiling. "The Bills will drive you insane trying to get them to do anything on time. Or for that matter to follow the terms of a contract. If you try to do business on a Bill world you can tell them to show up at sunrise. They will start showing up about mid-morning and almost all of them will have reported by mid-day and lunch time. They have no concept of responsibility."

  "That's cultural, not racial," Gordon insisted.

  "Perhaps, but even if it is cultural it is so ingrained the Captain didn't find the phrase self discipline made any sense trying to translate it into Bill. The concept really is alien to him. I suspect he was hoping you'd tell him to discipline any laggards by turning the rest of the crew loose on him to inflict physical punishment. Public beating with a light stick is not unknown on their worlds. I'd love to know what would happen if a Bill was raised from infancy by Badgers. Or you folks for that matter. Would they be more civilized and understand regulating one's self, or is it a real genetic failing?"

  "Or a Badger raised by Bills," Gordon suggested.

  "Now that would define child abuse,” Talker insisted.

  * * *

  The stop came to an end with everyone refreshed. Gordon heard no more from the Bill captain about difficulties regulating his crew. Nobody was too hungover to work, at least on the High Hopes, and there were no injuries. Gordon took that for a win. They started a run for a new system. They'd switch shifts as usual and be back on the bridge for jump. When they came back on Lee and Talker had news.

  * * *

  "We have a break-through," Lee reported. "The Caterpillars are trying to tell us something in the form of a matrix message."

  "Well, I'd started to wonder if they would stay silent until one day they'd suddenly start to speak English perfectly, because they wouldn't accept anything less," Gordon said.

  "We sent two messages of our own," Lee reminded him. "They never acknowledged the first one, but they seem to have understood it well enough to go down to the Plate Builders' world with us. I really doubt they would have done so without the message. This message from them is definitely a reply though, because it incorporates things from our second message."

  "Do you understand it?" Thor asked. Showing an unusual level of interest.

  "Talker has some ideas... " Lee allowed. "Let him tell you."

  "Do you not agree with him then?" Thor pressed before they could explain.

  "I think he might have the right of it. I can't see any other meaning myself," Lee admitted.

  "Show us," Gordon invited Talker, meaning the bridge.

  "It is thirty-two squares to an edge. They seem to have picked up on our convention of starting from the top left and going clockwise. The start square shows the Little Fleet departing Derfhome. Then it's all blank squares across the top to the right corner.

  "The top right square has the Badgers' world, Far Away, and the expanded fleet and the Caterpillars. Then it's blank squares again, all the way down."

  "I thought it would be turtles, all the way down," Thor muttered. But he waved it away when Talker looked at him askance, rather than explain.

  "At the bottom right corner is our image of Derfhome with the Caterpillar still with us. Then the oddest thing. They put the image of Earth in the last corner. No ships in it either. What do you think of it?" Talker asked.

  "I thought you were going to tell us," Gordon said.

  "Lee knows my thoughts on it. So I can't change it based on what you say. I'd like to hear your opinions before I prejudice you," Talker requested.

  "Are we going to have to do a secret ballot thing?" Thor asked. He didn't sound happy about it.

  "Nah, just speak up," Gordon said. "None of us are afraid of contradicting each other." For some reason he seemed to be looking straight at Thor when he said that.

  "Then it's a question," Thor said confidently.

  "A precise numerical question," Ho-bib-bob-brie said, it being unusual for him to speak up.

  "And I'm looking up the answer," Brownie said, working the manual keyboard. Now that was confidence.

  "You're good," Lee told them. "We argued about it for a good half hour. You all seem to have it in seconds. I'm glad I don't have stupid friends."

  "From Derfhome to the star before Far Away was thirty seven ju
mps. We didn't go straight in. We took a round-about five jump offset to hide what direction we'd come from. But if we'd gone straight in it would have been thirty eight jumps. So you need to put a little star in thirty-seven boxes between Derfhome and Far Away to tell the Caterpillars how far we came. We're not sure how many we'll do going back. So I don't know what you'll want to tell them about that," Brownie admitted.

  "Better to leave them blank than guess," Thor said.

  "Yeah, I'm not sure how to say we're going a different route and don't know," Talker said. "That's a little complicated for us to express at this point."

  "If I may... " Ha-bob-bob-brie offered. "Put a star in two boxes running towards the center of the grid on a diagonal. Then a single star down. Leave the squares under that blank – indefinite – and terminate it with a single star in the same column and two more diagonal stars leading into the bottom right corner square that shows us back at Derfhome. It graphically depicts a loop of indefinite length."

  "Perfectly," Lee said, awed.

  "And how many jumps from Derfhome to Earth?" Talker asked.

  "The fast way a courier might go is nine jumps, a few of which are a stretch for a slow ship. The way a freighter or a passenger liner usually goes is twelve jumps, and two refuelings. The few who do fourteen are doing it because they want the extra stops, not from any necessity. I'd split it and show ten stars straight along the edge to the Earth square. No need to confuse them trying to show alternate routes," Brownie suggested.

  "Ha-bob-bob-brie, I'm awarding you an extra crew share for that idea," Gordon said.

  "I thank you. May I gift a portion of it to another?" Ha-bob-bob-brie asked.

  "Of course. Your entire payout will be unencumbered and you can do as you please with all of it. Blow it all on an epic port celebration that will live in the history books or give it all to charity," Gordon said, with a wave of his hand. "None of our business what you spend it on."

  "Then I wish to give the half of my extra share to Talker. I feel he is undercompensated for the effort he has put in to our benefit, which is far beyond his duty to his government. I feel a decorative bowl no matter how unique and lovely is not enough reward. Besides, he'd never sell it."

  Gordon was relieved, because he had been thinking the same thing, but worried it could create a problem of jealousy in the other Badgers and Bills no matter how justified it was by his help. He felt just a twinge of guilt because he hadn't simply done the same out of his own rather generous share.

  "Are you sure?" Talker asked. "I mean, thank you, but don't want to leave you short years from now when you retire, and resenting me for accepting it."

  "Can somebody explain for Talker how much a crew share looks to be worth, in terms he'll understand?" Ha-bob-bob-brie asked. "Does anybody know Badger money or how much it is worth?"

  "I think I can," Lee said. "Talker, you know the Ceres dollars? The ones that weigh fifty grams of fine silver?"

  "Yes, I know those. That was one of the three coins you gave my father," Talker remembered.

  "Well a crewman's half share isn't really easy determined until we register all our finds and the Claims Commission solicits bids and starts to pay money into your account. But given the claims we have I'll give you a conservative estimate. Within a few weeks you will have several million dollars Ceres easily. In a year a hundred million or so. In the range of say, five to ten years you will be a billionaire," Lee assured him. "Ha-bob-bob-brie will never have to worry about the bare necessities of life if he only had a tenth share to his name, but he'll have at least a share and a half."

  "Indeed, I should add, I wasn't broke when I joined this voyage," Ha-bob-bob-brie said. "I served on several successful voyages of exploration before I retired. I had income. You do not impoverish me."

  That was interesting. He'd never spoken of his situation to Lee, just their mutual loss of shipmates.

  Talker looked shocked. "I can buy an estate," he said, flabbergasted. "While I am young even. Cash money is in short supply among Badgers and it will buy a great deal on the raw frontier."

  "If you want an estate," Lee said. "I have land if I want to build and develop it. But I'm going to make sure my estate doesn't tie me down and own me. Given my experience with planets I value owning a ship much more than land."

  "I can understand that, in the abstract, but the drive to own land has been held out as the ideal to me all my life. I feel it. It's a really basic drive of our whole culture. It would take a huge change to dull that desire at all," Talker admitted.

  "Well, give it a try," Ha-bob-bob-brie suggested. "Get it out of your system and if you get tired of it or it doesn't turn out to be everything you expected, I imagine you can always sell it."

  "You have no idea how Badgers think if you can imagine selling an estate. They'd probably declare me insane. I've never heard of it being done in modern times."

  "Not to break up this amusing love fest, but if everybody is happy with this reply to the Caterpillars can we send the damn thing," Thor grumbled.

  Lee and Talker looked at each other. There really wasn't anything to improve.

  "Do it," they said in unison.

  * * *

  "I'd never say it that way," Hoot-hoót- hº ºt said, not trying to hide his disapproval.

  "Neither would I, yesterday," Hoót-hoöt-hôôt agreed. "But it's perfectly clear and precise, isn't it? They are going back a different unknown route and have no idea exactly how many stars they will visit. Tell me any other way to read it. It leaves no ambiguity and would be a good statement for a navigator. I've seen much worse technical writing. So elegant you had no idea what it was saying."

  "Yes, it has a certain unconventional elegance," Hoot-hoót- hº ºt agreed. "It just breaks, convention, so it is upsetting. It is so blunt it jars."

  "Ha! They don't know convention. Perhaps there strange folk will be good for us. Maybe a few people too set in their ways will benefit from being upset."

  "I wonder which of those strange races wrote this – thing?" Hoot-hoót- hº ºt said. "Do they have as much trouble speaking with each other? Surely not."

  "Well we know the affirmative sound. And they almost know how to build a word. We'll get there eventually. We need to acquire their negative sound and we need to get them to build a matrix from the opposite corner instead of like a brain damaged grub. Any suggestions how?"

  * * *

  "Oh my God... They are correcting our grammar," Lee wailed.

  "Well that's good," Talker insisted. I'd be happy to learn how to speak to them better. I didn't expect our first few efforts would be that good. Why so upset?"

  "I loved my mother," Lee said defensively.

  "I'm sure you did. I'm sure that is normal in most sapient species," Talker said, as kindly as possible, but it seemed a complete non sequitur to him.

  "She taught me so much," Lee said, "But sometimes she was more... diligent than seemed necessary to never allow any error of speech."

  "Ah, and you resented that?" Talker asked her.

  "On... occasion. We'd be sharing some thought or just working, happy with each other, and then she'd correct something I said and it ruined the moment. Sometimes I'd repeat things I heard my father say and she'd correct that. When I was older I pointed she didn't correct them when he said them. She just said you don't correct your mate if you want a happy marriage. It made me feel – slighted. I had a hard time with that."

  Talker nodded, a gesture he'd grown very comfortable using. "I understand a little. It's always a little harder in a non-consensual relationship. She had a choice to be with your father. You didn't have a choice to be with them."

  "That sounds so ungrateful," Lee said.

  "It's just a fact," Talker said. "It's not to say it was all bad, to allow that maybe bits here and there weren't perfect. I'm sure Tish has been unhappy with me on occasion. I don't have to guess. She's told me a time or two. But that doesn't mean we don't miss each other with me away so long."

 
"At least you have a big family," Lee said. "She wasn’t waiting alone for you."

  "You have a big family too," Talker said, and Lee cracked up laughing.

  "OK, I didn't mean that to be funny," Talker said, slightly confused.

  "Oh... My Derf relatives. I thought you were making a joke on Gordon's size," Lee admitted.

  "That's OK. I'm glad I could make you laugh. May I ask how they corrected our grammar without upsetting you all over again?" Talker asked.

  "Yes, I'm over it, but I do appreciate your talking to me. The big thing is they showed the same sequence we used but started in the opposite corner. They still go clockwise. They didn't change any of the images though. That surprises me," Lee said.

  "If I were them, I wouldn't confuse it at this stage by making more than one change,” Talker said. "The images may not be perfect, but by only making one change they made sure we got the point. It's encouraging really. We had nothing for so long."

  "And we still can't talk well enough to order a decent pizza," Thor grumped.

  "Oh Thor," Lee said, still a little giddy from unburdening herself. "You can only order squares."

  * * *

  The stars blinked and reconfigured late in their shift. Brownie listened and declared it quiet. They pinged it with radar. The new star was unremarkable. The system, however, was unusual. There were two frozen planets out where gas giants would usually be. Neither were big. They were more like typical inner system rocky planets. One was technically a water world, but they wouldn't be leaving a claim marker for it or celebrating it with a blue voyage ring. It was an ice world. There might be something behind the star but they didn't have much hope for anything exciting or profitable.