Secrets in the Stars (Family Law)

by Mackey Chandler

  "Certainly. Might I have the pleasure of taking you to dinner again? You seemed to enjoy the place we went before, or there are a lot of others to try."

  "I have things I'd rather not air in public, so why don't you come to our rooms? We're on Home right now, but we'll be back in Armstrong by supper time."

  "As you wish," Gabriel agreed. "Say, 1900?"

  "That should be safe. I haven't asked Gordon when our shuttle returns, but I know him. He won't want to sit around all day waiting on one."

  "Should I dress?" Gabriel asked.

  "No. This isn't a party. You're the only guest. I'll keep it informal unless you are itching to get dressed up," Lee said.

  "It can be fun," Gabriel said, which surprised her. She'd formed the idea men didn't care for fancy clothes. Where had she gotten that idea? "But we'll save it to wow a crowd," he agreed.

  "Later then," Lee concluded and disconnected. "Gordon, I have Gabriel coming for dinner at 1900. Is that OK? Will we be back in plenty of time?"

  "Sure, no problem," Gordon said, not even looking up from his screen.

  * * *

  The shuttle going back wasn't as nice. The seats weren't leather, but a fabric that was scratchy and made Lee wish she hadn't worn shorts. On top of that there was a faint smell to the cabin that was probably one of the other passengers’ body odor. The crew didn't allow the live feed on their screen to see them working. The way they jerked the vessel around, Lee wasn't surprised they didn't want anybody watching. From the look on Gordon's face he was glad to have the flight over too.

  Lee scrubbed thoroughly in the shower as soon as they got back on put on fresh clothes with long pants. Her single concession to Gabriel coming was she put on a favorite print blouse.

  The rough flight killed any desire to go out exploring mid-day. They holed up and both did research. They both wanted to use the full net access as long as they were in-system. They had a sandwich smorgasbord set up and made their own, distressing the fellow who delivered it and had expected to stay and make their sandwiches for them. A good tip from Gordon cheered him up.

  The things she found online to confirm what April told them made her want to resume her study of history. She'd do it in a linear fashion again, but from the present back.

  When it was coming up on 1700 Lee asked Gordon if he wanted a buffet or just to order individual meals from room service.

  "I haven't seen much of a sample of the young man's tastes," Gordon said. "Let's do orders."

  "He's not a young man," Lee reminded him.

  "You're right," Gordon said, getting a funny look on his face. "It's so easy to fall back on appearances. That's a hard habit to break. I suggest when we have dinner with him you don't spoil the relaxed mood of the meal too much. Ask your questions after, when he's full and relaxed."

  "That makes sense," Lee agreed. "And it's good hospitality too."

  Gabriel showed up punctually at 1900. Lee let him in and told Gordon he was here. Gordon begged just a minute for the material he had on screen. That wasn't unusual, so Lee took Gabriel to the main seating area and sat in one corner of a sofa facing him. He declined the offer of a drink, or rather put it off for a little bit.

  How he was dressed was interesting and she was about to ask about that when he inquired about their trip to Home, and Lee found herself recounting the whole thing from the shuttle ride over and comparing it to the one back. She went on about how she found Home, and how amused she was over Gordon's enthusiasm for the cafeteria food, which they never had managed to get back and try again.

  Lee's own life extension treatment Gabriel approved of with a terribly serious expression, and he nodded asking questions here and there, and explained a little about Indian culture when she described how interesting and lovely the receptionist was who welcomed them to Jelly's clinic. He explained how her appearance was very much a mix of styles and cultures, but not traditional Indian costume, describing a sari, and that the dagger was probably an Arabian adaptation.

  When they sat down Lee had had no idea what she could say for chit-chat to fill the time until when Gordon was ready, and now found almost an hour had passed and Gordon was suggesting he was starved and could they come and order some dinner?

  * * *

  Gordon asked if he'd like to review the hotel's menu to order, and Gabriel reminded him that Central had other guests in the suite, so he'd had dinner with people here on a number of occasions. Indeed he recommended several items that he particularly liked the way the hotel prepared.

  "I just realized, we never thought to ask if you had other guests or plans for the rooms," Lee said. "We just sort of stayed on after our business with April was concluded, and never considered that maybe we should move on to our own suite."

  "It costs the same empty or occupied, and it probably gets used three or four times a year. Don't worry about it," Gabriel assured Lee. "April wouldn't have said anything if your dealings with the Claims Commission had gone better and you’d camped out here a couple months."

  Gordon got a whole ham. One of his favorite things almost any human kitchen prepared to his liking, and enough side dishes to feed a village in Ethiopia for a month.

  Lee got spaghetti because it came two ways, as a small serving or the deep dish version that was to share or for the hearty appetite. Her appetite was particularly hearty tonight, and she got meatballs, Italian sausage and an antipasto platter to go with it.

  "You got the boosted metabolism from Jelly, didn't you?" Gabriel asked, amused.

  "Yes!" Lee said, looking shocked. "All day long I've been thinking – I don't feel any different – I don't feel any different – every few minutes. Then when I did I didn't recognize it."

  Gabriel just nodded, and ordered mixed kabobs with Syrian rice, hummus, cucumber-garlic sauce and pita bread. The lemonade he ordered turned out to be a slush and Lee, remembering the drink at the clinic, ordered a Piña Colada. When it came she thought it was OK, but she liked it better without the rum.

  "I thought kabobs were on skewers?" Lee said when his kabobs came with the meats in a pile.

  "Ah, but a good kitchen will strip them off for you, just like they will crack a lobster or bone a fish, so you don't have to fight with it," Gabriel explained.

  The meal came with slices of vegetables, which Lee was sure he hadn't ordered, and little purple sticks of some julienned vegetable.

  "What's the purple stuff?" Lee wondered.

  "A very traditional garnish. Pickled turnips. They add a few beets to the mix to give it color. Otherwise it's rather unexciting looking, even if it has the same tart taste. It goes rather well with anything that tends to greasy, like the lamb. Here, take a bite of your sausage and then try the turnip," Gabriel instructed, leaning over and setting it on the edge of her antipasto.

  "Yes, that works," Lee agreed, after she tried the combination.

  Gordon smiled at him feeding her.

  "I should have got red wine," Lee said, "but I chose the Piña Colada poorly and red wine seemed a conflict after it."

  When they finished Gordon begged off to check his messages, and said he wanted to ask Talker about something. Lee and Gabriel went back to the sofa and had no trouble taking up where they left off. Lee had to remind herself she was going to bring the conversation around to her questions.

  From the com board Gordon broke forth with an angry exclamation in Derf. Lee hoped Gabriel didn't know the language. A few of the things Gordon said in a stage whisper were nasty, and the majority of other words he said in the same tone she suspected too, even if she didn't know them.

  Talker hurried in followed not far behind by Singer.

  "I better see what is going on," Lee decided. She went to the com console where Gordon had an actual sheet in his hand he'd printed out. She hadn't excluded him so Gabriel followed.

  "We got a drone message," Gordon said, flapping the sheet. "The Mothers inform us the Badgers sent a ship and support after us with spox from the Home World. The people we lef
t behind would neither give them explicit navigational data nor would they escort them, but they knew the vector pretty well from our talks about ceding a cone of territory.

  "They are upset because they don't consider Talker a grand enough pooh-bah to represent the race, so they jammed damn near a hundred mucky-mucks in a liner and a big freighter to support them and took off to find us. They lucked onto Derfhome. Them arriving got the USNA commander at Derfhome station all riled up, because they had our docking design from our visit and had an adaptor on the liner. The captain of the Albuquerque undocked because he wouldn't stay docked with an alien vessel on the same station."

  "I'd worry more about being docked with a strange ship loose in the system," Lee said. "Once they dock you know they aren't going to do anything nasty connected to the same station."

  "That's because you're not a flaming... " Whatever it was he thought to say, Gordon swallowed it.

  "They orbited Derfhome and did a deep scan and radar survey of Red Tree. The Sharp Claws took up an aggressive position and painted them hard with targeting radar in response. The idiot Earthie threatened them, and the Fargone commander invited him to launch, and taunted him with the fact Fargone has had better missiles for the last decade. He promised the Albuquerque would eat missiles from four ships and there wouldn't be a trace of her to be found a millimeter long. That seems to have cooled his jets for awhile, because he knew it was the plain truth."

  "You haven't sent word by drone that we accepted your new Claims organization?" Talker asked.

  "I had no idea we need rush that message back to the Mothers," Gordon admitted. "If I had it might have made it worse, causing these bureaucrats to rush here all the faster to put their brand on the deals being made. As it is they tell me Talker’s dad is with them. Apparently they could not easily refuse him to come see to his son. He has taken Lee's invitation to visit the clan keep and is delaying there to keep them from leaving. The Mothers inform me they have arranged for Derfhome traffic to refuse clearance for the Badger vessels to undock and leave the system, but they have no idea how long that will work to detain them. They may have left already."

  "That will be a mess if we cross over in transit, and they come here contradicting arrangements we've made," Talker said.

  "Do they say anything about Bill officials?" Singer asked.

  "No, just Badgers," Gordon said.

  "Well thank the Gods for that small favor. I don't have to deal with my glorious ones, and you can use the leverage that we have mutual agreements," Singer suggested.

  "What would be your ideal action?" Gabriel asked.

  "To be there, now, with the Retribution and Talker and Singer aboard to help obstruct these idiots from coming to Earth ," Gordon said. "

  "Indeed if we were there we could insist they examine our new agreements with you. We could frame it as coming to Earth groveling, when they already rejected any interest in our region," Talker said. "They are most sensitive to any such accusation."

  "I have my own ship," Gabriel said. "I can transport you with your friends today if you wish."

  "I'm sure your ship is faster than ours," Gordon admitted. "You guys have some awesome tech. But we all need to be there in the Retribution, with its fire-power, to not keep depending on Fargoer intervention. I meant we need to be there today, not start out today."

  "I can have your ship there today. If you don't stand around arguing until it is tomorrow," Gabriel said pointedly.

  "You can take the Retribution inboard?" Gordon asked, incredulous. "Or are you talking about grappling a heavy cruiser?"

  "Neither. I can jump with you in my... Let's call it sphere of influence. That's as much as you need to know," Gabriel said. The maddening part was how calm and matter of fact he was.

  "Won't you get in trouble with your queen?" Lee asked.

  "My sovereign has never been one to manage our every little move. In any case, following the principle that forgiveness is easier to ask than permission, I didn't intend to ask."

  "You'd do that for us?" Lee asked.

  "Perhaps not," Gabriel admitted, and shrugged. "But I'll do it for you," he said to Lee.

  That was a visceral jolt to Lee. Her mouth hung open, which helped save her from saying anything stupid. She shut her mouth, swallowed, and said. "Please, I'd appreciate that."

  Gabriel nodded like he'd just offered her a favor like an after-dinner mint. "If you will board, and take the Retribution on a run for jump to the Derfhome course, I'll match vectors with you in about an hour. That'll be far enough out to keep it from too many eyes in the Earth system. If you hurry a bit to give us more distance it would be appreciated. Would you care to ride with me?" he asked Lee.

  "That sounds like fun," Lee said, in as steady a voice as she could manage.

  "Then we'll be off," Gabriel told Gordon and the shell shocked aliens. "See you outbound."

  "I need to grab some things," Lee said. She flew in her room and stuffed her things in her bag. She was back out the door in three minutes. She gave a little wave to Gordon who looked almost as rattled as the aliens seeing her leaving. "See you at Derfhome," she called and didn't look back.

  * * *

  "We'll go straight to my ship," Gabriel informed her.

  "Don't you need to pack anything?" Lee asked.

  "I always have a few things in my ship. Any civilized world can provide some socks and a toothbrush. I try not to get to attached to an accumulation of things, but I admit I'm rather fond of my ship," Gabriel said, with a whimsical little smile.

  "Is your ship at the Commission Field?" Lee wondered.

  "No, it's at Central. Well, it was at Central. I called on my spex and instructed it to meet us at the Armstrong public field," Gabriel explained.

  "They accept robotic vehicles?" Lee asked, surprised. Unmanned shuttles were common for orbital delivery, but not accepted for landings mixed with manned traffic.

  "No, but they won't know it's unmanned. The Cricket has its own voice, and a perfectly clean set of bona fides. It will speak with Lunar control and tell them it needs to sit down on a hot pad to pick up passengers. If they want to chat about the flutterball championships or the baseball season down on Earth, it's quite capable of carrying on a conversation at that level."

  Gabriel looked over and saw Lee looked somewhere between horrified and fascinated.

  "It's a very versatile AI. It might falter to discuss theology or higher mathematics, but it's perfectly capable of carrying on an informal Turing test. It would take some time with an expert to expose her. The Republic hasn't kept up, so there's no point in arguing with them about antiquated laws," he assured her. "Trying to change them would require revealing too much."

  Lee had a deeply ingrained spacer reverence for safety regulations. She said nothing.

  They took the private elevator up, got a taxi and went into Armstrong. Stopped and switched to a much different van shaped taxi that had a docking collar at one end. When they got near the public field Gabriel informed her the ship was down and waiting for them. The taxi exited through a vehicle lock and went down a line of ships turning to the sixth in line and mated to the ship's airlock without any intervention on Gabriel's part. Unless he’d done it with his spex, but Lee didn't think so. He was too relaxed.

  "I'm following traffic control and system scan in my spex," Gabriel told Lee. “I've had the Cricket ask for clearance and we're in count to lift. Your father and friends already have clearance to lift to the Retribution, and they should break orbit not too far behind us."

  The hatch opened and they passed through what looked like a pretty normal airlock, except it had a bench on one side; that was more common on bigger locks.

  There was a very short corridor, perhaps a little over three meters, and then they entered a small circular space Lee assumed to be on the centerline of the ship. There were two hatches and a bunch of sealed storage on the perimeter. Gabriel walked to a central pole piercing the deck and overhead and grabbed a take-hold on th
e pole.

  "Lift," he said clearly, and was tugged off the deck. "Come along," he called down to Lee. When another handle appeared ascending she grabbed it. It was an easy lift in the lunar gravity. She hadn't realized they had entered the ship on the level under the control spaces. The view out of the taxi had been very limited and she hadn't seen how high the ship towered above them.

  Gabriel waved an invitation for her to take the right seat, and started strapping in his own couch. The seat was powered and had bulky bands that went across it folded out of the way at the moment. She strapped in and looked over at Gabriel.

  "Just let the seat position itself," he instructed. "Leave the manual controls down by your hands alone. I don't have a lock-out here. I've never needed one."

  Another voice startled her. It did a very credible imitation of a man clearing his throat, and spoke.

  "Lunar Control, Cricket of the Central Kingdom on short count to lift requests immediate partial orbit insertion at Level 20 and equatorial tangent exit to Derfhome jump vector with final adjustments in uncontrolled space. Data file follows voice. Master Dilbert Hathaway sitting the board."

  "Cricket on count. Verified per your count. Be careful out there."

  "Thank you, Simon."

  "Safe mic?" Lee asked.

  "Yes, dead mic, unless you ask for it," Gabriel confirmed.

  "That's spooky," Lee said. "He sounds real. He knows the controllers?"

  The loops folded down and locked over her couch and it flattened out.

  Gabriel smiled. "He knows their voices. Dilbert, meet Lee. If my life signs should fail before we finish this flight please accept instruction from Lee and discuss your capabilities and her options. Try to accommodate her please." Gabriel scrunched up his eyebrows in thought. "Additional instructions. If I die this voyage also consider her your new owner and convey appropriate documentation."

  "You can't do that!" Lee said. "I'm not sworn to your Lady, so I'm not privy to the tech in Cricket."