“Oh, no, Ma’am. And that’s the other thing. He’d never accept it from me. Can you give it to him for me?” She studied her captain’s face. “Can you say that it belongs to the ship, or something? Say you’ll loan it to him, then give it to him when we leave next year?”
Everyone, Bettina decided as she studied her young charge, should have a friend like this.
“Very well, Ms Fulton, I’ll order the guitar, bring it up, and present it to Pilot Carson. I can’t however, guarantee that he’ll accept it. If he doesn’t you’ll just have bought yourself a...” Her voice trailed away as a thought came to her. Yes, yes, now there’s an idea.
“I understand, Captain, thank you. Uh, Captain?”
Bettina dragged her mind back. “Sorry, Ms Fulton. You just gave me an idea. Yes, I’ll bring up your guitar. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other duties to attend to.” She rose, and escorted Fulton out of the cabin.
She toggled on the InShip comm. “Bridge, this is the Captain.”
“Bridge. Ritter here, Captain.”
“Mr Ritter, who has shuttle duty?” she asked.
“Pilot Carson, Captain. Have you a trip for him?”
Carson? How appropriate. “Yes, Mr Ritter. Have him file a plan for Haida Gwaii. I’m going over. Then let Matt know I’m coming.”
“Yes, Captain. I’m sure he’ll be pleased to see you.”
Bettina laughed. She had her doubts about that.
CHAPTER 9
Haida Gwaii
Tuesday 08 June
Matt looked anything but pleased to see her.
“Well, what is it?” he asked after he closed his office door behind them. “You should be on Venture putting in orders. Don’t you think they’ll find it suspicious if you don’t?”
Bettina had had enough. Her frustration boiled over.
“Sit down!” she ordered. Matt took a step back. “Sit down, now. I’ve come to the end of my patience. You’ve been giving orders without reasons behind them, expecting us to obey them without question. That may have worked twenty years ago, Matthew, but in case you hadn’t noticed it, we’ve all grown up some since then. I said, sit down.”
Matt, clearly taken aback, sat.
“Now, what’s the great driving hurry, and what’s with the cloak and dagger games?” She sat opposite him.
“Don’t you see what’s going on down there?” he asked.
She smiled wearily. “Matt, I’m here maybe three weeks a year. Yes, I’ve seen changes both here and at all the colony worlds, but not enough for these games.”
Matt sighed. “I’m living with this every day, now. I forget that others aren’t. I’m sorry.”
That mollified her a bit. “OK, so give me some information, so I’ll understand.”
“They’re getting ready to hit the Families again, Bettina. The governments and the TPCs don’t like the virtual stranglehold we have on inter-planetary trade. Your pirate episode is just one more escalation.”
“They hit a TPC ship, not one of the Families’ ships.”
Matt waved off her objection, and ran his hand through his hair. “Getting thinner up there,” he commented. “No, I didn’t mean to say there’s a conspiracy. Each government acts on its own, and the same goes for the TPCs, but right now we’re standing in the way of everyone. Jaswinder’s discovery both saved us and put us in peril at the same time.”
Bettina relaxed back in her chair. At least she had him talking now, though she couldn’t make much sense of it.
“I don’t understand.”
“After she and Johannes showed us what they did, we modified Venture, remember?”
“Right.”
“And we kept the secret, let slip that we’d discovered a new route or three. While Jaswinder worked the bugs out of the system, increased the safety factor, we told no one. But Venture became the ‘go-to’ ship, if you needed to get something somewhere in a hurry. We made money, and bought Solar Night. It took only three years to have her free and clear.”
“I remember.”
Matt smiled at her. “Yes, I expect you do. You went to Solar Night as First Pilot. What you don’t remember, for we never told anyone, is that the whole Family system nearly went down during that time. Ellen and I, and Jaswinder and Johannes, worked hard to get the Families to band together. The best we could do was to get them to join in the FTL-1 venture, along with the Canadian breakaway states. They could see the benefit of having our own station. Lower moorage rates figured largely. The Yrdens put in every dollar we could spare. It almost took us down when we had the sabotage problem.”
Bettina frowned. “I remember things got tight, but not that tight.”
“We kept it quiet. If the other Families thought we might go down, they’d have never agreed to join us in a trading league. And, to get that going, we had to agree to give them some of our new ‘routes’. Which meant we had to give up the secret Jaswinder gave to us.”
He paused, and opened his small cooler. “Would you like a water?”
“Please.”
He filled a glass for her, and one for himself. “To get the others to join the Family Trading League, we had to show them how to distort their hyperspace fields in order to achieve acceleration. However, we lied to them, as well.” When he smiled, it lacked all humour. “We helped them modify their ships as we had done with Venture and Solar Night, then we gave them a program which increased their efficiency. It allowed them to accelerate in hyperspace, but not to the degree that we could. We also planted a poison pill in the program, and let them know about it. If anyone tried to copy the program, examine or alter it in any way, it would self-destruct, leaving them as before.”
“That doesn’t sound like a lie,” Bettina said. She took a long drink.
“No, but we told them that if they tried to continue acceleration beyond the program’s limit, the fields would collapse, destroying their ships. We also told them it wouldn’t work for vessels above a certain size.”
“You what?” Bettina couldn’t believe it.
Matt rose, and began pacing. “You don’t understand. But you asked for this, and that means you’re now ready to hear it. We’ve waited a long time for you to become curious.”
Bettina stared at him, not believing. Did he mean to say they, those in the know, waited for her to grow up before they decided to tell her anything important? And that had only just happened? Anger rose once more. But Matt ignored the look on her face.
“Until about five years after that, the TPCs still threatened us. We’d just spread our only hope wide. If the TPCs got hold of it, they’d still finish us off. If anyone leaked any information, we hoped that they’d leak the lie as well.”
“Paxtons found out about it, didn’t they? That’s what caused the bad blood between us.”
“Almost right. They suspected that we kept an advantage. When we had the Family Trading League on firm footing, we updated the programs, allowing them greater acceleration. Fred Paxton blew a fuse. He almost left the League, but we’d also put a time limit on the program. Every year it needs an update.”
Bettina felt slightly sick. “No wonder some of them hate us.”
Matt turned on her. “Now listen. You can keep that sort of sentiment to yourself. You have no idea how difficult we’ve had it. And it could still all go down. We kept, and we still keep, some secrets. Jaswinder’s working on something that could see us in an altogether new level of hyperspace. We call it the ‘J-Channel’. No one ,outside certain Yrden Family members, knows about that. You just joined a very small club. You will mention this to no one. We do have an advantage over the others, and we will not give it up. Our survival depends on it. Get that through your head: our very survival depends on it.”
He waited until she nodded that she understood.
“The Family Heads understand this, even if they don’t like what we do. How do you think we’ve kept the secret for more than fifteen years? Why do you think we always do a normal acceleration from a
ny station or platform where others – non-Families – can record? We don’t need to use that fuel, but outside the few of us, no one believes that a distorted hyperspace field will yield anything other than destruction.”
He quit his pacing, sat down, and picked up a reader. He plugged in a datastick, and turned it on, but didn’t show her the screen.
“So, Captain, assuming that you wanted to put the Family Trading League out of business, and could gain allies to do it, what weaknesses could you exploit?”
Bettina stared at him. She’d never seen him quite so serious – which meant she’d never really seen him at all. Then she began to think. Her eyes widened.
“Repairs. Speaking of which, I’d like to get Venture’s jump engines upgraded. We sat around the AN-2 system praying that no pirates would attack while waiting for the engines to recharge. I lost a kilo in sweat.” She laughed without humour. “However, if they could deny us access to any repairs, they’d have us ... eventually.”
Matt gave her a cold smile. “True. And how can we avoid that?”
Her jaw dropped open. “Haida Gwaii!”
“Precisely. When Haida Gwaii goes fully functional, we can do our own repairs – given we have the skilled workforce. Actually, with Haida Gwaii fully functional, we can build our own ships.” He smiled at her shock. “Yes, we haven’t made that public. And that’s one reason we’ve kept everyone away from the station who didn’t absolutely need to set foot on it. So, repairs is one weakness we have. What’s another?”
She had already come up with that answer while he had surprised her with his information. Build their own ships? They had dreamed of that for years.
“Fuel. If they cut off our fuel supply, we’ll eventually die. Our hyperspace acceleration means we need use only about 10% of what we used to. If we don’t care about others seeing us jump at a fraction of the old velocities, even less. But we still need it for manoeuvring, and acceleration away from stations.” She stopped. “So, that’s why you’ve had us siphoning off fuel and caching it.”
“Right.” He handed her the reader. She looked at it, scrolled through the pages, and gaped.
“That much? We have that much cached? We have that many caches?”
“And those are just Yrden caches. Other Families have their own.” He laughed at the expression on her face, which she resented. “We – the Family Heads – have studied this problem for years, Bettina. I’ll finish for you: access to food and trade goods. If they deny us the use of platforms at the colony worlds, we’d have to go down ourselves – which would cost in fuel they wouldn’t replace. If they stop the ag-stations from supplying us here, we’ll run out of food. We can get the raw stuff from the colonies, but they’re not set up to manufacture to our needs.”
“And Haida Gwaii can do that for us,” Bettina said with a nod. She had resented the percentage of her ship’s profits that had gone to Haida Gwaii. She resented them no longer. She suddenly shivered. “If I wanted to destroy the Families, I’d target Haida Gwaii – if I knew.” She suddenly felt sick. “Somebody knows.”
“We think that somebody suspects. We hope they don’t know that we’ve designed Haida Gwaii for hyperspace travel. We hope they believe that she’s just an updated version of FTL-1, a home base for the Families. However, events and information lead me to believe that someone at least suspects. The moment that suspicion turns into something anywhere near a certainty, Haida Gwaii becomes a target – in every sense of the word. And that’s why we have to get her out of the Sol system. That’s why I recalled Jaswinder.
“With her new gravetic engines, she can move about without using copious amounts of fuel – as long as she’s somewhere near a gravity well. She can’t accelerate quickly, but she can move. That, coupled with hyperspace ability, means we can locate her in any system in the galaxy for whatever period of time we want. She can move from system to system, from planet to planet within a system. Barring espionage, she’d be damn hard to find.”
Bettina let her breath out in a long sigh. “And you believe that the TPCs are about to cut us off from repairs, fuel, food, and trade goods.”
“As much as they can. And if they can arrange for an accident to take out FTL-1 and Haida Gwaii, they’ll do that, too.” He grinned again. “You may think I’m paranoid, but if so, it’s going around.”
A light went off in her head. “And that’s why Fred Paxton gave in so easily.” She nodded to herself. “So, when you said that you wanted me to think on what we’d fill our holds with if this were our last chance to get stuff from Earth, this is what you meant.”
“Exactly. I hope it won’t come to that, but it may.”
“Then why didn’t you just say so?”
He laughed, with humour this time. “Two reasons. I wanted you to come boiling over here. It’s time you took up your responsibilities to the full. Second, I don’t trust our communications, and I can’t allow a datastick to fall into hands that want us finished. Happy?”
Happy? She felt far from happy. However, she might get two things out of the way. “You said that when Haida Gwaii becomes fully functional, we can do our own repairs. I have a damaged lifeboat – 684’s. I’d like to get it out of our hold. Richardson gave us the option of doing what we want with it, including tossing it into a star. I think we should repair it. Can we do that?”
Matt nodded. “Yes. Bring it over. We have a repair bay that can take it whole. Anything else?”
“Yes. How about that upgrade to our jump engines. If we have only this limited period to get things done, we should do it. Besides saving us time, it could save our butts if we run into pirates. All our newer ships have the upgrade, I’d like to see Venture get it, too.”
“I’ll authorize that. You’re stuck here until Haida Gwaii can move into hyperspace. We’ll take the chance of you being without jump engines for a few weeks. I’m pretty sure we have at least that much time. Get on it immediately; I’d like to think that we can evacuate at least some of the Families on board if things go sideways.” Matt marked something down in his reader, and Bettina felt a profound sense of relief.
“If that’s everything,” Matt said, “then you should get back to Venture. The next several weeks will try us all.”
Bettina stood up, then recalled Fulton’s guitar. “Oh, I have a product for you: musical instruments. My new cabin attendant gave me that idea.”
“Ms Fulton? How so?”
“She wants to order a very expensive guitar. That, along with your rather curt message, got me thinking about The Lottery.”
Mat leaned back in his chair. “The Lottery? I don’t see the connection.”
“I know that we’re in it now. The Families have used it to pick up some scientists to help us with Haida Gwaii – don’t look so surprised. The Lottery is extremely popular, and many of our passengers have won their trips through it. They love to talk, and information comes back to the captain.
“I propose that you collect a few instrument makers, a luthier, perhaps. Even if we have limited access to Earth-produced items, we could make our own for trade. Until then, it wouldn’t hurt to have a supply of good instruments. Colony worlds might appreciate them.”
“That’s a good idea. However, The Lottery is chance.”
“Sell that to the rubes, Captain Matt.”
He laughed at the old sobriquet they’d given him back on Venture. “And does Ms Fulton play so well she needs ‘a very expensive guitar’?”
A not-so-subtle change of subject, but she’d allow him that. “No, she wants it for someone else. She’s a good friend.”
“Someone else?”
“Someone who’s probably hungry about now.”
* * *
Wen Carson sat at a table near to the wall, his back to the room. He’d prefer that no one sat with him, and his back didn’t invite the way his face might. He cut into his pie, forked a piece, and chewed slowly.
The Yrden Family patches on his pilot’s jacket had allowed him to pass securi
ty into this lesser-used cafeteria. The other teemed with workmen, and it seemed that the Families didn’t really want their pilots and otherhires mixing with them. Just as well. He didn’t feel like talking with anyone anyway.
Voices behind him, heading his way, made him tense up. People had occupied many of the tables, and few remained vacant. He hoped these newcomers wouldn’t decide to join him. With relief, he heard them set their platters down on the table behind him.
“I’d like, just once, for the measured values to come close to the theoretical ones,” a familiar voice complained.
Carson froze. Jaswinder Damn-and-Blast-Her Saroya had taken one of the seats just behind him. That improved his mood not at all. He took a quick glance around, but found no empty tables to which he might move. He sighed.
“I do not think what we attempt is possible, Jaswinder,” a male voice said.
“Kevin, possible or impossible, we must find a way,” Jaswinder replied.
Kevin laughed at that. “Well, Tanner, do you think we shall achieve the impossible for Mr Yrden, and move this godforsaken asymmetrical beast into hyperspace as is?”
Carson stared at what remained of his pie. They wanted to move Haida Gwaii into hyperspace? She wasn’t just big, she massed more than any other station he’d ever seen or heard of. And those had never moved through hyperspace – except in pieces in the bellies of TPC cargo ships. He froze. Richardson had asked him to watch out for just this sort of information. If he got word to the man, his account would grow spectacularly. He paid closer attention. Tanner had taken the floor.
“Ms Yrden,” he said, “You have to get your brother-in-law to slow down. Even the low-power, momentary tests we do could damage the station. If we wait until the workmen have completed more of the outer hull, the chances of our success increase even as the chances for damage dwindle.”
“Mr Tanner, I’d love to do exactly what you suggest. However, Matt thinks we may not have the luxury of that amount of time. I know I’d rather be on Venture than here. I feel like I’m beating my head against a wall.”
Not With A Whimper: Survivors Page 9