Secrets in the Stars (Family Law)

by Mackey Chandler

  "No sir," Twin said quickly. Talker just shook his head no in the Human manner.

  "Fine, then I'm off shift and we are done," Gordon said closing the conference. "Thor you have the conn to dismiss the shift. I suggest you have the alternate shift set a short watch while we are orbiting. I'll be in my cabin." He left without looking at Talker.

  It was a bit past shift end, but Vigilant's crew was not hanging around the bridge entry waiting to chit-chat at the change-over. They had undoubtedly made the short retreat to the mess after hearing the exchange at the end. They wanted to be out of Gordon's sight and attention.

  Thor waited until Gordon was well away, and unlikely to pop back in. He looked at Lee, amused.

  "People think I'm a terror and Gordon is the easygoing one. I love it when they abuse his patience until he knocks heads together. I think that's the first time I've ever heard a Bill say 'sir'.

  "One will not forget the lesson," Talker promised, rattled. "I never want him to smile at me again."

  "Well yeah," Lee agreed. "I'm sure you'll find it easier to negotiate with the Bills than Gordon."

  "Is that what we were doing?" Talker asked in horror. "It didn't feel like it."

  * * *

  "Yes! They understand," Talker said.

  The square grid the Caterpillars sent back was bigger, and continued the series of numbers, skipping ahead to fifty and then each multiple of ten until it reached a hundred and then had a new symbol in that square.

  "Even without Arabic numbers they perceived we count in tens," Lee said.

  "I think now is it is appropriate to send the same series with Arabic symbols out to a hundred," Talker suggested.

  "Yes, I agree, and after that a series of hundreds and thousands," Lee said.

  "Once we have math we can do yes and no," Talker said. "We can do problems and mark the ones done correctly yes and the wrong answers no.”

  Lee laughed delighted. "Yes, and then we'll worry about 'maybe'. Of course when we get back all the experts are going to tell us we did everything wrong."

  "Do you think so? I still don't know your culture well enough to predict such things, but I've found a work-around until such a time as I do."

  "You have?" Lee asked suspiciously. Statements like that from Gordon or Thor were usually lead-ins to a zinger. Often to see if they could suck her into credulous statements. They justified it as a form of continuing instruction for her.

  "Yes," Talker said, seeming serious. "If I can't see if something is likely or not I simply pose it to a few Fargoers as a possible bet, and observe what kind of odds they offer me."

  "Don't they get upset if you don't actually go ahead and bet on it then?" Lee wondered.

  "Heavens no. Once they are engaged with the question they usually bet among themselves both ways with different odds. It shocked me at first to see a person without personal conviction on a matter would bet both ways at different odds. But I've come to understand it. I just sit back and observe what the consensus is."

  Lee thought about it awhile. The only drawback she could see was that it only sampled Fargoers. They might have strongly different opinions than Derf or Earth Humans. She kept that to herself.

  * * *

  The system was every bit as rich in minerals as the others they'd found, if different in minor ways. There were two moons of the brown dwarf large enough to have substantial atmospheres. One large moon was between the size of Earth and Mars, but had near Earth gravity on its surface.

  It had extremely high levels of heavier metals and a core kept roiled from gravitational interaction with the brown dwarf. Its active volcanoes spread radioactive materials both locally and as ash. Besides the solids this venting meant the atmosphere had levels of radon that would require constant positive pressure of any structures for mining, to avoid polonium contamination from the infiltrating noble gas.

  When the Dart and Sharp Claws left the system the Caterpillars hurried to accompany them, cutting off Talker and Lee's efforts to communicate. They worked ahead getting material ready, expecting they'd return. They were long gone by the time The Champion William left, so they didn't have to choose which to follow.

  The freighter Cash Only, with a mostly Badger crew volunteered to do some reconnaissance. They were along simply to carry supplies for the other ships since they weren't designed for such a long voyage. They had food for Bills and Badgers, medical supplies, and enough of everything for no more than six of the aliens to stay behind in Human dominated space if their ships went home.

  They had to be bored out of their minds orbiting in a far system with nothing to do. Once Brownie determined they had cameras and radar sufficient to be useful they were sent to map some minor moons.

  Luke, freed from duties as interpreter, was back at data processing, compiling data from different ships system, even alien systems, in a uniform format. Then the organized archives were distributed through the fleet so that the loss of a ship wouldn't include a catastrophic data loss.

  The computer gave him a ping to examine an anomaly on the airless moon the freighter mapped. That happened several times an hour when it was processing a lot of images. Luke usually glanced at them and knew in three or four seconds if the image in question was a natural phenomena or could possibly be an artifact.

  This one wasn't so easy. There was a dark circle that might be a crater, but it had no rim thrown up, and it was too small to have a center peak. Luke queried the computer to examine the radar image at the same location since even the depth was uncertain in visible light. It was shallow but the form was uneven. The bottom was too flat and there was a line which suggested a ramp spiraling around two turns from the bottom to the top. He attached his doubts and views to the images and forwarded it to the command queue.

  Gordon didn't concern himself with every detail. Thor examined and edited them ruthlessly, but Lee being short on duties often scanned the long list of messages that underlings felt merited the highest attention. When she read the short summary header it sounded like cover-your-butt by Luke, but the images spoke to her. There were small three bumps sticking up instead of down beside the pit. They were spaced with suspicious regularity. That could have been random, but the fact they were right where the possible ramp reached the top was too much of a coincidence. She showed Gordon

  "Mmmm... " Gordon grunted. "Send somebody who isn't super busy to look."

  There wasn't anything they couldn't supervise from that location, so Brownie made the shift to the moonlet of interest and they sent down Ha-bob-bob-brie and Ames from engineering.

  Chapter 21

  Ha-bob-bob-brie cautioned his assistant Ames to photograph ahead of them before he stepped on a soft surface. There wasn't a lot of loose soil on this airless moon. Nothing like the regolith on the Human moon for example, but enough he could already see tracks here and there that had to be from a surface transport of some kind. He wasn't sure if it had been wheeled or belt tracked yet. He'd have to find a place it turned or at least changed direction sharply to be sure.

  The three piles of gravel were the nexus of the tracks. It didn't take long to find a set of tracks that terminated abruptly without much repetition beside two depressions from landing pads from a spacecraft. It was easy to infer a third sat where it was hard rock. The pads were a good sixty meters apart, indicating it was no little craft. The tracks down into the pit were spaced wide enough it was obvious there wasn't more than one vehicle using the ramp at a time. There wasn't room to pass and no wider places to pull off. Ha-bob-bob-brie decided there had only been one vehicle.

  The pit was a bit less than six hundred meters across and less than two hundred deep. Ha-bob-bob-brie had no desire to walk the long ramp all the way to the bottom in his pressure suit. They had no motorized transport so he hoped nobody would ask them to do so. He'd much rather examine where most of the activity had obviously happened, up at the top.

  A quick analysis by laser vaporization showed the material being mined was elemental co
pper. It was alloyed with a little silver, a bit less gold and a couple tenths of a percent other material. The three piles of rubble were of discarded rocky material with little metal content. It would undoubtedly be considered rich ore somewhere else, but not on this site with so much native metal.

  "Why three piles?" Ames asked aloud. "They are all about the same size. Why not one?" They were about nine meters high, but the slope angle on them seemed shallow for the gravity.

  That was a good question. Ha-bob-bob-brie thought on it a bit but didn't volunteer a theory quickly. People remember when you are wrong more than right, he'd found, so he'd learned to keep his own counsel instead of advancing one idea after another. Some felt that worked to draw ideas from a group. Brainstorming they called it. However, Ha-bob-bob-brie didn't feel like diminishing his stature to enhance the group.

  "Let us examine carefully around each heap," Ha-bob-bob-brie said to Ames. He was in command so it wasn't a suggestion. It was in fact the first time he's had clear authority over a Human or Derf. If he had any doubt Gordon lacked species prejudice before, this eliminated such a thought.

  "Ask Luke to do a high definition analysis of the shape of these mounds, please. Are they round or do they have a shape? And if they do, does it have a symmetry?" Ha-bob-bob-brie asked.

  Ames was a little irked he was asked to relay a question, but stifled it. Ha-bob-bob-brie spoke English well enough. Asking the same question twice just took twice as much time, and introduced another opportunity for error. The truth was Ha-bob-bob-brie was from a culture in which a leader never communicated directly if they had an underling to do it for them.

  It was both a status thing and to a Hin the proper way to signal everything was in control and he was happy with his workers. Ha-bob-bob-brie did it automatically, without needing to even think about it as a natural Hin style of command.

  The fact Gordon communicated through Brownie often also seemed perfectly natural to him. The fact Gordon spoke directly to the heads of the Badger and Bill delegations the other way was also to be expected. With the Hin when the big boss takes time to speak to you it's time to listen up, because it isn't routine. You may assume he is fixing something that displeases him. Those two seemed to get the message quite clearly. A Hin would have felt the same apprehension those two showed at the end, as soon as Gordon showed up on the screen.

  There were some lines and dents between the end of the tracks and the piles. The termination of the tracks had a turn around that indicated it was a wheeled vehicle to Ha-bob-bob-brie also. There might have been some sort of mill positioned there to remove the less desirable portions that were the mounds. They were standing right past the wheel tracks, looking at the near mound. The edge started about forty meters away and climbed to a peak of maybe ten or twelve meters, not as far away as the edge.

  Ha-bob-bob-brie stood patiently waiting for the report and looking around until Ames had the data.

  "Luke says the mounds all have the same shape," Ames reported. "The one in front of us has a little shallower slope and spreads, fanning out slightly on the back. The front is narrower, almost a perfect semi-circle and has a slightly steeper sloop. There is also a short ridge on top from front to back."

  "Very well. The machine that removed less productive material tossed the rejects away to get rid of them instead of using something like a conveyor belt," Ha-bob-bob-brie decided.

  "And three of them because that's as far as it could toss it, and they had to move before it got close enough to be a hazard if the front face collapsed?" Ames asked.

  "Probably not. We'll have to visit at least the next one before I'm sure," Ha-bob-bob-brie said, starting the walk to do that. It was a pretty good hike with the added burden of a pressure suit. Was that a sigh Ames let sneak out on his radio?

  Ha-bob-bob-brie just pointed. It was an another obvious landing pad depression. The only visible one by this mound so they were fortunate to have found it. Or at least Ames counted himself fortunate they wouldn't need to walk clear to the next mound.

  "Each mound is a trip for the ship," Ha-bob-bob-brie finally felt free to declare. "They came and took copper three times.

  Ames looked at the pit and the amount of material in the mounds. "That's one hell of a lot of metal to lift in three loads. I know the spread on the landing pads suggests a big ship, but I'm not sure even a Caterpillar ship could haul that much mass."

  "Look at the gravitational manipulation the Caterpillars do. And even the Badgers for that matter, although I understand their tech was serendipity instead of from theory. They might not have carried it internally." Ha-bob-bob-brie frowned and thought on it a moment. "Or this might have been their shuttle and carried it to a ship too big to land comfortably," he speculated against his custom.

  They both stood silent for a moment thinking about that. The Caterpillar ship might hangar a ship that big if it were not over long in proportion to the base. Neither expressed it.

  "I believe that is sufficient," Ha-bob-bob-brie decided. "Let's walk back along the wheel tracks to the top of the pit ramp and then return to our vessel.”

  Ames didn't argue.

  Ha-bob-bob-brie walked looking at the pattern of tread in the dusty soil. It struck him there was no wear to the pattern. Every piece of heavy machinery he's ever seen had little cuts and notches in the tread of their tires no matter how tough. You could tell the diameter of the tire by finding such an imperfection and watching for it to repeat. Not these tracks.

  In one of the blocky depressions there was a straight line. Ha-bob-bob-brie stopped and picked at it with a finger. Ames kept walking at first before he noticed Ha-bob-bob-brie was stopped.

  When Ames turned around he asked: "Got something?"

  "No," Ha-bob-bob-brie lied. He'd already got a pretty good look at it. He compounded his deception by poking at the dirt with the object like it was a tool and not a find. "A rock that had a bit of a straight line to it, until you see more of it and it's a chance shape."

  "Yeah, just like you can see shapes on the orbital pix that have lines or triangles or even polygons sometimes, but when you look from a different angle it disappears," Ames said, turning away to resume walking.

  Ha-bob-bob-brie slid the find in a pocket, itching to look at it closer but restraining himself. Ames might turn his head and catch him out for some reason. He wanted to make this part of his report privately. He wasn't going to trust it to the fleet net no matter what the restrictions on it.

  * * *

  Gordon and the bridge crew had the electronic version of his report before he returned. When he boarded the High Hopes again, it was the off shift for the main crew with most sleeping, and they were on short watches once they were in orbit again anyway. He was tired and acclimated to their shift, so he got some rest while he could. The was no urgency to his discovery.

  Ha-bob-bob-brie joined them in the mess the start of the next shift. Thor was doing the abbreviated watch with somebody pulled from crew. He hadn't bothered to check the duty postings to see who. Gordon, Lee, Brownie and Jon Burris were all there elbow to elbow, as well as Luke, who was not bridge crew. Luke was finished and just leaving, which was perfect.

  Ha-bob-bob-brie waited while the steward replaced the coffee and brought baskets of some items served in common. Once he left Ha-bob-bob-brie reached across and laid his discover on the table between Gordon and Lee.

  "I found that pressed into the soil in the tire tracks on site. I'm afraid I was rather duplicitous with Mr. Ames," Ha-bob-bob-brie admitted. "I wasn't sure this was something of which you'd want our new allies to be aware. Perhaps not even some of your old allies. So I didn't mention it in my formal report. We can edit it if that's not your will," Ha-bob-bob-brie offered.

  "No, I think that was wisdom," Gordon agreed. He was holding it, and he and Lee were both leaning heads together over it examining it. He let go for Lee to continue looking at it.

  "You did a fine job examining the site otherwise too," Gordon praised Ha-bob-bob-b
rie.

  Lee passed it to Brownie on her other side and he was waiting for his turn. The cylinder was about thirty millimeters in diameter and a hundred and fifty long plus an end cap. Comfortable for a Human wearing a suit, but a bit small for Derf. It was labeled 'Wright's Sure Vacuum Marker' in an slick embossed script. Below in smaller letters it said 'Bright Yellow – Armstrong L.R.' and was textured where the letters were not raised.

  "Why would anyone come this far, actually mine, and not leave a claims satellite?" Brownie asked.

  "They didn't think anybody would get here for years?" Lee guessed.

  "Or they went really, really deep years ago and are living outside the claims system," Gordon said.

  "You mean they are independent and don't have any commerce or contact with Earth or our associated worlds anymore?" Brownie asked.

  "It seems possible," Gordon said.

  "Are you going to leave a claims marker then?" Lee asked.

  "Yes," Gordon said, with little hesitation. "This isn't an alien species who know nothing about our law and system. All they would have to do is post a sign at the pit that it is owned and I'd refrain from trying to claim anything. Even aside from the Claims Commission and their rules and limits. But they show no interest in ownership at all. We have no indication they simply didn't take what they want and have moved on. Maybe they did this along the way and have gone so deep we'll never see or hear of them again."

  "That would be seriously anti-social," Jon Burris said. He finally was getting a turn to look at the marker. He scrunched up his face at a sudden thought and looked up at them. "This is an accident," he declared waving the marker. "Somebody dropped it and had no idea. Otherwise the site is cleaned up to remove any indication that Humans were here. That's not normal. Humans litter everywhere they go. That shouts to me that they aren't coming back. I agree with Gordon they have no interest in ownership. Even less than the Centaurs or whoever built the radar reflectors and then never returned. They at least thought they might want to find those rocks again, but I have formed the firm opinion that they will date out much older than we suspect."