Secrets in the Stars (Family Law)

by Mackey Chandler

  Since there was no adverse reaction to the stings they were encouraged to have one Human and one Derf volunteer start testing to see if the honey was edible. They didn't carry the test animals most Deep Space Explorers took along as a matter of course, but it would take a month to work up to an amount that would indicate there was no danger.

  Thor pointed out the plants likely grew too slow for any significant harvest to be possible. Lee on the other hand suggested that if it was desirable then they could introduce it to other worlds where with a more hospitable environment it might grow better.

  Other plants were interesting, and some might prove to have medicinal value or something, but nothing was as complex and exciting as the inhabited cacti. It would take a serious survey a couple years to do either pole justice. They hadn't looked in the few ponds at all.

  Chapter 22

  The delay to finish a superficial survey of Janus was six days. The entire fleet was horribly spoiled. The discovery of a world with any free water or life would be a crowning achievement for most exploration companies. After their previous discoveries it was merely interesting.

  Gordon was happy to resume the trip home. The Caterpillars didn't drop with either shuttle to Janus. But then they didn't make a point of inviting them. They patiently waited, exchanging a few grids with Lee and Talker. They made slow progress. Not everything they understood was guaranteed a hundred percent. But that probably worked both ways.

  Another four systems and they needed refueling and Gordon allowed it was time for a break again.

  "We're getting back close enough we might run into an explorer," Lee mused, eating lunch with Thor and Gordon. Her idea of recreation was much different that the older crew. She spent time on reading that wasn't for her school work and watched some old videos. Alcohol was something she had no real taste for outside a rare treat with to celebrate something with other people, and poker or other games held no allure at all. Talker showed up to join them too.

  "I think word probably percolated back through Earth and to the opposite side of explored space that we went deep with a fleet," Thor said. "Not many companies have even sent out two ship teams. So if we run into them they may not be surprised to see us. But I suspect just about anybody will be surprised to see a small alien fleet accompanying us. That's surprise enough, but the Caterpillar is likely to unnerve the most unflappable. It certainly did us first time we saw something that big."

  "We're making progress talking to them," Lee said, frowning. "But by the time we get to Derfhome, or even Earth for that matter if they follow us there, we're still not going to be able to discuss anything complicated. Especially anything abstract. I can say hand, and we have open and closed now, as well as fist. But if I had to explain what shaking a fist means to us it would still be hopeless at this point. How are we going to explain the Caterpillars to Earthies with all their weird sensibilities?"

  Gordon made a snorting noise through his nose, something he'd picked up from Jon Burris. "I've never wasted a lot of time trying to make Earth Humans comfortable. We don't have to explain them to anybody. They followed us back and we hardly had any choice. I don't think they would advocate shooting them to keep them from knowing where our worlds are, at least not out loud in public.

  "That would be a really bad policy to follow. I mean, this time we still seem to have better weapons. Sooner or later we're going to find somebody who isn't impressed with X-head missiles and has their own or better. Better to practice tact and diplomacy before you find out the new fellow out-guns you. The Caterpillars treated us very well and they might have thought we were helpless with our little ships. Look how well that worked for them. We pulled their fat out of the fire when it mattered."

  "The Badgers and Bills aren't all coming to Earth with us are they?" Lee asked.

  "I am," Talker told her. "Some will go off to Fargone with much of the crew, and a few to New Japan to discuss buying weapons. I expect a couple will stay at Derfhome to study it. I shall go to Earth on the Dart, and require at least one assistant. There are three young people to choose from."

  "Then you'll be going over to the Dart when we go to Earth," Lee realized. "I'll miss you."

  "Thank you. I'm sure we'll be able to communicate, and perhaps even visit when we get to Earth. It might be awkward... It might give the wrong impression to be in your command vessel," Talker said.

  "They might think we're holding you hostage," Thor said.

  "Indeed, at the very least it brings our sovereignty into question," Talker agreed.

  "We may visit, maybe even do some stuff together, if we're on Luna," Lee said. "No way I'm going down to Earth itself. I had too bad an experience to want to repeat it. But you're a big wheel. They'll treat you OK."

  "I will make it clear their delegation is under our protection," Gordon said.

  "That should do it," Lee agreed. "Gordon beat the snot out of them recently enough the memory hasn't faded."

  "Yes, I remember some of what you told me from your side of the experience," Talker said. "The Fargoers have been most illuminating in describing his engaging North American forces in their home system. They described it in somewhat coarser terms, but it was interesting since they were a disinterested third party."

  Thor looked up sharply and laughed. "Disinterested? The Fargoer captains were baying for blood. The odds were, they would lose at least a cruiser, or their command would have turned them loose to finish the Earthies off. They really didn't appreciate somebody coming in hot and turning their system into a shooting gallery."

  "Baying?" Talker asked, looking at his pad. "Like hounds? Do I have that right? I'm surprised Derf would use a term having to do with Earth dogs."

  "Oh, we have dogs now too," Thor assured him. "We didn't have anything domesticated of a size and personality like dogs. The larger breeds make more sense for us, and they've done a lot of genetic repairs so the big ones don't have so many hip problems and chemical sensitivities like they used to. I bet there is an audio file if you want to check the web fraction for baying."

  Talker did a search on his pad and activated it. When it played, his hair stood up from between his ears all the way down his spine.

  "There something disturbing about that, and I don't know why. We have a tracking and hunting animal, but it is mute, so I don't know how I could have an source for that primordial reflex. Nevertheless, it gave me chills."

  "That's interesting," Lee said. "Makes you wonder how long something persists in your hard wiring after all living memory of it has passed."

  "I find you often have a very different take on things than others," Talker told Lee. "I hope you can make yourself available at least on com when we go to talk with Earth officials. Sometimes you cut to the heart of the matter and I value that."

  "Of course you can," Lee said. "You already have top access on my com filters."

  * * *

  Another cycle of pushing ahead then stopping to fuel and take a rest break put them very close to their previous outbound track. The Fargoers had a problem with a disagreement about a poker game over the break. To the point two people were ordered to abstain from playing any game of chance until the cruise was over, and assigned one to a different department and duties. That was considered draconian measures in Fargone society.

  Lee and Talker made some progress nailing down 'therefore', but the Caterpillars refused to say eleven, twelve, thirteen, and so forth, stuck on ten-one, ten-two, ten-three. Gordon suggested they ignore it since their way of doing it was obvious in meaning and probably better than the customary usage. That horrified a few grammarians, but his recent tiff with the Badgers and Bills made them very reluctant to challenge their commander.

  Talker suggested they might eventually prevail and change the language if the was enough trade and exchange of ideas with the Caterpillars.

  Thor was frankly on the Caterpillars' side, and hoped they would rationalize some spellings too.

  The next system had a planet with water vapo
r in the atmosphere. The Sharp Claws diverted slightly to make a closer pass at speed, but there was no free standing liquid water. They decided without detectable oxygen it wasn't of interest and the fleet blasted on through the system. The Sharp Claws caught up and joined them at jump.

  The next star showed on their forward viewports and within a couple seconds Brownie said, "We have radio emissions, standard frequency, it looks to be a claims marker."

  "How old?" Gordon asked. It would be embedded in the transmission.

  "Twenty two days," Brownie said after a brief delay. " We just missed them."

  "Make a formal log entry about this," Gordon instructed. "Is it a system claim?"

  "Yeah, they note a water world however. It must be behind the star," Brownie said.

  "No point in looking at it, if it's claimed," Thor said.

  "Yes," Gordon agreed. "I'm glad we don't have to fuel up or we'd owe somebody for that."

  "That means we probably won't find anything between here and Derfhome worth claiming," Lee said. "That doesn't already have a marker on it, I mean."

  "If they came in off a Derfhome vector," Thor agreed. "And that seems most likely," he said before Lee could object.

  "Are we close enough to know the stars between here and home?" Lee asked.

  "We can see Survey System 2754 from here and get a positive ID from its spectra. That's the last charted system we passed through. I can see three different routes there from here. One of them through another surveyed system. Two routes are three jumps and the most likely way for us to find anything is a four system jump to 2754. Although it is an extra jump it is a shorter route with easier jumps."

  "Let's do the least likely way to get one last chance at finding something," Lee said. "No point in going back through a surveyed system until we have too."

  Brownie looked over at Gordon and got a slight nod.

  "OK, we are taking a side step a bit to our old line of departure, then turning toward Derfhome again" Brownie said. "I'm putting the spatial model on your screens and sending the data set to the fleet."

  "We weren't gone as long as we might have been," Thor noted. "We didn't get down to boring food and didn't have any real shortages of personal items like clothing. I know a few people who even have some personal rum left."

  "Yes, but I also know of one Fargoer who owes near two million dollars Ceres for poker losses," Jon Burris said. "They are insane about gambling."

  "The guys holding his markers better hope he doesn't disappear between when we register our claims and they start being paid," Lee worried.

  "The man was very philosophical about it," Jon said. "He said it was grand entertainment and with the sort of payout we'll see he can afford it."

  "He's right," Gordon said, "but the number of splits on the claim and how far away they are is going to mean it will take several times as long to get the sort of payout Lee and I saw. Providence was close enough they sent an expedition to start exploiting it right away, and the fast paying things like a spaceport and com sats and system fueling were only split two ways. It may take months, a year even, to cover his bet."

  "He could ship right out again," Lee suggested. "Nobody can bug him to pay up if he's deep in the beyond. When he comes home his income will have had a chance to get ahead of it. He could even appoint somebody to take care of it for him. I know our bank would do that without any problem."

  "You know, I think I'll suggest that to the fellow," Jon said. "He seemed sad for the trip to be ending anyway."

  "He'll have to find somebody else," Lee said. "It's going to take us months to sort out all these claims before we can think about going out again. But it is a nice bonus we have a lot of supplies left over. I hope we can leave some of them aboard, or at least use them for whatever we find to keep the ships busy until we form another fleet."

  Was that a sigh of relief Gordon let out, or despair? Jon wondered. It was hard to tell.

  * * *

  The next system had no marker radiating a message of ownership, but it wasn't all that interesting of a system either. It had a couple gas giants and a couple airless rocky planets close to the star. There was a larger planet out further that had an atmosphere, but no free oxygen and no indications of life.

  "I think we should drop a claim marker on this system," Lee said.

  "Why?" Thor asked, always the skeptic. "A claim costs millions to process, and I don't see any special resources here worth the expense."

  "Location. If I understand the chart Brownie put up, this system and the one already claimed are a bit of a bottle neck for anybody aimed at Far Away and all our claims in between. This is about as far as a freighter with limited legs will get from Derfhome before they are wanting to fuel up. And a freighter will take the easier jumps. You know the other system with the water world is going to set up for the gas mining business. Somebody is going to set up here too and split the business. It might as well be us," Lee said.

  Thor studied the chart critically and rotated it to a different view. "I think you're right," he finally admitted. "It won't pay off right away either, but I bet we have our fees back in two years."

  "I'll take it as a personal claim and finance it, if you guys think it's a bad bet," Lee said, sharply.

  Thor was speechless for a second, but Gordon covered for him smoothly.

  "No need, I'm sure the crews will be happy for every claim we make, fast or slow."

  The Sharp Claws was diverted again to release a claims satellite on a trajectory that should put it in a stable stellar orbit for at least a few decades. They couldn't read the motions of all the local objects well enough to see past that, but it was plenty.

  The systems beyond were plain vanilla, to everyone's disappointment. No water worlds, no living planets. Anything worth claiming would be all that much more valuable for being so close to home. When they got back to Survey System 2754 it was like pulling off the expressway exit back in your hometown. It was civilization even if it was empty. They made the jump back to System 2723 without incident, and took this last opportunity to fuel up for free. At Derfhome there were mining rights and they'd owe fees even if they scooped it themselves.

  * * *

  "Let's look sharp going home folks," Gordon requested. "I'd like the Little Fleet to transition tight. The rest of you can spread out as much as you wish, but come in right on our tick please. The Caterpillars have been doing that on their own, so we should look like we know what we're doing to traffic control and whoever happens to be insystem."

  Lee still didn't understand why Gordon cared about that, but whatever made him happy…

  When their home star appeared in the forward viewports it looked much the same as any of a dozen others they'd visited.

  "We have the standard system scan transmission coming in. Lagging about seven hours behind local Derfhome time. I've already asked for our mail so we should have it in a bit less than fourteen hours. Later in the off shift if you want to get up to read it," Brownie told Gordon.

  "I'll have Choi Eun-sook start sorting it by priority and she can wake me up if something is so hot it won't wait until we take the bridge again," Gordon said.

  "Mmmm... Besides three freighters, none of which is Red Metal, I show a USNA heavy cruiser the Albuquerque, and two Fargone warships docked at Derfhome station and one in Derfhome orbit," Brownie said. "The heavy cruiser Quantum Queer and the destroyer Straight Away at dock, and the heavy cruiser Bonus Points in Derfhome polar orbit. That seems, unusual."

  "Nothing early in the feed to indicate any trouble? No warning to merchant ships or declarations of navigational hazards?" Gordon asked.

  "Not yet. As you implied, they'd tell us that first. Ah... Heavily encrypted radio traffic going out from the Fargoers," Brownie said. "Not any code they have shared with us. Talking with his countrymen I assume."

  "We shall continue a normal approach and assume a trailing orbit on Derfhome station," Gordon decided. "Just to humor me, not because I perceive any particul
ar problem, I'd like the Sharp Claws to man a full hot weapons board and stand crew to all weapons on final approach. Say from about two hours out if nothing changes."

  "Aye, telling them now," Brownie said. "Privately," he added.

  "That can't hurt. Thank you," Gordon agreed. "No reason to upset out new allies. We have a nice treaty after all with our North American friends. No reason to think they just didn't stop by for a little show the flag cruise. I may have our tubes hot and The Champion William as well if I get a bad feeling as we get closer."

  Gordon looked over at Talker. "You can be discreet about this for a couple days can't you?"

  "Indeed, I'm all in favor of avoiding unnecessary alarm," Talker agreed. "I'd be happy to be able to save the story for when I write my memoirs in retirement. I am going to live to do that, aren't I?"

  "I think so," Gordon reassured him. "We really do have a treaty with them, but we didn't immediately become best buddies. There was no provision to trade visits. When we left they weren't sure we'd even trade embassies. So it would be presumptuous, at the very least an attempt at intimidation to send around armed ships uninvited. The more so when our armed ships are absent. But if they intended an actual hostile act they wouldn't be docked on the station."

  "We're all alive because Gordon says, 'Oh, we have a treaty, and they've docked at the station'. But he still mans the missile tubes and suits everybody up," Thor explained.

  Talker nodded, "An abundance of caution," he said.

  "That's the polite form, yeah," Thor said.

  "Oh, I've heard the Fargoers’ version," Talker admitted. "It started something like. 'Devious, cold blooded bastard'. And went downhill from there. I had to look up a lot of the words."