by neetha Napew
“That was almost too easy,” he replied, “or have such diehards as Anne and Janet changed their tunes?”
Kris had not looked to see if those two conservative women who had such high and righteous morals and little compassion were in the audience. It took her a time to find them, sitting at the back. “They don’t look happy, do they?” she said, for she had been certain they’d have a negative response from that pair.
“Well, they do have family back on Earth, as I’m sure you’ve heard them tell.”
Kris nodded and then caught her breath as Janet got to her feet. “I raise the question of relatives being allowed here on Botany. I know that some folk are in terrible physical condition and could benefit by being here, away from the scenes of stress and destruction.” Dorothy raised her hand to Iri to be heard.
“We have, indeed, been addressing that problem in the Council, Janet. As you will have heard, Chuck has brought his cousins back, and we will certainly entertain other applications for refuge. But, as you all know, Botany works because we all do. We can, of course, admit a quantity of folk whose mental and physical state would improve by a change of scenery, but we must weigh our resources and staffing levels. If you would like, Dr. Hessian and I will set up interviews with those wishing to offer space available to relatives. Would that be acceptable, Janet?”
“What about those valleys? And the one we fixed up for the Catteni families?”
“It has limited occupancy but it certainly figures in our plans to accommodate affected folk.”
“Affected?” Janet retorted, incensed. “I’ll have you know” “Discuss what you know with me in the interview,” Dorothy said firmly, effectively cutting off Janet’s spiel before she could get started. “See me after this meeting and we’ll arrange a time, Janet.”
Kris would have liked to throttle Janetonce again. Botany was a sanctuary and should be available to those suffering from trauma, but not on a wholesale basis. The recovery of those victims who had suf fered from the effects of the mindmachine had proved that Botany’s serene beauty could eradicate stress and injury. Certainly there were people here trainedand availableto help. One more reason to have better communications between the two planets: to forestall a mass exodus from Earth to Botany. This planet could sustain the people already here but not a mass immigration from Earth. She liked Botany as it currently existed, with a good balance of people and skills. If it were to be overbalanced in one directionlike becoming
a vast hospitalit would founder under such weight. Still, it was the resilience of the community that had proved its strongest asset. Then she wondered about the feasibility of constantly running spaceships back and forth.
“Are there any more matters that need to come before the Council and the people?” Iri Bempechat asked, looking around the room. “Hearyez, hearyez,” Chuck said, using his paradeground voice to cut through the babble to be sure Iri’s message had been heard. “Any more business for the Council and the assembled?”
A long pause answered that query.
“We got schedules to keep then,” Leon Dane said, rising to his feet.
The judge gave one more bang of his gavel then, getting to his feeta little stiffer for having sat for so long in one position. Then he put his gavel back inside his official robe and walked off the dais.
The assembled broke up into small groups to discuss the meeting, and Janet was at the foot of the small flight of steps to intercept Dorothy Dwardie.
“Is this townmeeting approach how you’ve managed so much out of so little?” Captain Harvey asked Kris as she leaped down from the front of the dais.
“More or less,” she said and grinned when she saw some of the male Botanists whom she knew were still single homing in on the attractive communications officer.
“Look, don’t get yourself stuck with the shiftless corning in droves to live off the fat of the land here,” Captain Harvey added, discreetly shielding what she said from the approaching males.
“What do you mean, shiftless?”
“There are always losers who assume the mantle of vulnerability to take the easy way out. What would you do with those who won’t perform?”
“Don’t know yet. We’ll probably try to screen those who come and limit how long they can stay,” Kris said. “But staying on Botany will definitely require showing they can contribute.”
“That’s what old Earth is discovering right now. Who can contribute? Not all in the same degree, but there are many ways of contributing to a common good, aren’t there?”
“Yes, Captain, there are. Captain Harvey, may I introduce Bob Sterling, Ben Wately, and Ian Halstrip. You may have a lot in common since they man our communications.”
“Thanks, Kris,” Bob Sterling said in his unmistakable Aussie accent. “Appreciate the intro.”
“Actually, we need the captain’s advice if she wouldn’t mind?” “Not at all,” the redhead replied, shaking hands in turn with each of them. “What have you in mind?”
“Well, if you’d like some refreshment,” and Ben managed to take her arm in a courteous fashion as he gestured toward the drinks and desserts that were being served at the main counter, “we thought we might settle a few technical problems.”
As the captain allowed herself to be led away, Kris grinned and looked around for Zainal. They still had a lot of details to sort out before the morning. To start with, where were they going first? Earth? The good Dr. Hessian, for all he could be a crashing bore, had turned up a tremendous amount of information on coffee, and if she couldn’t find what she needed in Brazil or Venezuela, there were always Zaire and Ethiopia or Java. And she had had several tons of grain released to the expeditionless than a skimming of two silos, so she didn’t feel she was plundering anything. It always paid to have more than one string to your bow, didn’t it? And if the shine of nuggets wouldn’t do it, maybe “black gold” would!
The KDM had its new ID painted on its bow and emblazoned along both sides: Bass1, for Botany Airforce Spaceship 1. Or Baker Alpha Sugar Sugar 1.
Kris thought it looked pretty smart before she became involved in organizing the food supplies on board into the cargo space or the refrigerated unit. Flats and flats of broiled rock squat and loaves of bread were boarded as well as convenient twentyfivepound sacks of wheat and a dozen of flour, enough for her to make bread on the journeys and at Barevi.
All the fluent Cattenispeakers were coming along as well as some specialists like Herb Bayes, an electrician who’d be needed on Barevi, plus Captain Kathy Harvey to complete her pilot training and Mpatane Cummings, who was a communications expert, Eric Sachs, Floss, Clune, Ferris, Ditsy, and Zainal’s two boys, who were very excited about going. Kris wondered if Zainal had warned the boys that he would be getting them a tutor on Barevi. Well, she wasn’t going to cloy their excitement with a detail that was, in some respects, not her business. Sally Stoffers was along as their bookkeeper and accountant. She was bunking with Floss, a situation neither woman liked but there was only so much cabin space on the KDM.
When they got close enough to Terra, looking much the same as Kris remembered it from NASA shuttle photos, they could also see some of the larger space junk.
“Let’s just see what is still operational,” Zainal said. “If it’s only the spare parts that are needed, maybe we can supply those.”
“We don’t have them ... yet,” Kris reminded him.
Jacqueline Kiznet, who preferred to be called Jax, brought up a screen image of the satellite distribution.
“Earth looks like a porcupine with all that junk,” she exclaimed. “‘Junk’ is probably accurate,” Kathy Harvey muttered. “As I heard it, the Catteni used the comm sats for target practice.”
“Some are obviously still working since the communications network is functioning, even with occasional gaps,” Mpatane remarked. “So not all are gone. Since I’m up here, I can get the working ones to respond to a code I happen to know”
Zainal drifted over to the neare
st units, some with three long solar panels and some with only two, and eased close to one whose solar panels on the nearest port side were gone. The same damage was vis ible on the next four they passed. Mpatane kept a record of their IDs.
“They don’t look damaged otherwise,” she murmured. “Still have their ears.”
“Ears?” Zainal asked, surprised.
“Those round objects are actually called ‘ears,’ and they catch the signals and bounce them on to their coded destinations.”
“No power, no work,” Gail Sullivan said, a sad tone to her voice. “We shall need to get as many solar sails as we can find, then,” Zainal said, as if that solved the whole problem.
Some did answer, feebly in a few cases, others more robustly, to Kathy’s signals, each new response raising the hopes of the entire crew. The suggestion of redistributing the operational ones was met with the remark that each satellite had a mission package that defined its parameters so that they were not interchangeable.
“And this next one,” Jax Kiznet said from her pilot’s chair, “is a loose cannon. See how it wobbles?”
“Looks to me as if it got its controls blasted,” Harvey said, peering at the twisted protuberances that would have provided guidance. “Its solar wings don’t seem to be damaged.”
“This KDM has a tractor beam, doesn’t it?” Mpatane asked Zainal, who nodded. “Could we capture it?”
“We could, but why?”
“Well, for one thing, it’s small enough to be hauled on board so we could examine it at our leisure. Work experience for when we need to repair other units,” she said.
Zainal enabled the tractor beam, which locked onto the spinning comet sat. The jerk of contact went through the scout ship, rocking several folks roughly about. But no one was injured.
Getting the comm sat on board was not as easy, although the cargo area could be sealed off from the rest of the ship so the outer hatch could be opened. Gravity on the KDM could also be turned off, to make maneuvering the unit easier. It was, Kathy Harvey remarked, rather like getting a whale onto a trawler.
“If we just had someone to give it a good push,” McColl remarked, smoothing his white brush mustache as if that action generated useful thought. He was the oldest of the pilots Chuck had seconded.
“Do we have any cargo nets left on board the ship?” Zainal asked thoughtfully.
“Yes,” Chuck Mitford replied. “Steel mesh, too. Are you going to do a cowboy act?”
Zainal merely widened his eyes at Chuck until Chuck gave a pantomime of a rope being thrown. Zainal snorted. “It is easier to match velocities and park in front of it.”
“Snare it in the hatch?” McColl asked, astonished. He whistled. “That will take some piloting.”
Zainal regarded him steadily. “I am accustomed to doing such things.”
“Wasn’t even suggesting you aren’t a topflight pilot, Zainal,” McColl replied quickly. “But I do want to see you play catch.” He grinned to mitigate any slur on his abilities.
“And so you shall,” Zainal said. “Chuck, bring that net up to Number One Hatch.” He settled himself down at the control panel to do the necessary placement and picked a comm sat that had had both “ears” blown off and much of its impressive span of solar panels cut off short. While he had said it was “merely” a job of matching velocities, it required very careful “puffs” of his thrusters to slow the KDM down and introduce a rate of closure with the satellite of about onequarter to onehalf meter per second.
“How are you going to intercept that much mass at that rate, Zainal?” Kathy asked.
“I do have to allow for momentum, velocity plus mass, but it shouldn’t be too high for the mesh to handle if it’s standard Catteni issue. As for the KDM, the winches are built much heavier than that. Chuck, have you got the net in the cargo hold?”
“Gimme a few, Zainal,” Chuck said, obviously puffing from physical exertion. “Had to stuff it on a lift platform. Unhandy thing.” “Steel mesh?”
“Yup, standard Catteni issue.”
“That’s what we need,” Zainal said, feeling more confident about all this. Kris gave him a look, implying that he was doing what she called “showing off” but what he called “proving” his skill as a pilot. “It’ll also discharge the static on the comm sat in space instead of in the cargo hold.”
“Zainal, got it in place against the hatch. We’re getting back to the lock. Ah, now, we’re all safe. Ready when you are. The net’s rigged to go.”
“Grab hold, crew. I’ve got to go weightless.” He snapped off the ship’s gravity, then opened the hatch and watched while first a bulge of the net cleared the starboard side of the KDM, and then the rest followed, ballooning into space but still tethered to the vessel. “Parking” the KDM in front of the object he wished to capture, he “puffed” the thrusters just enough to catch the rectangular comm sat in the mesh. There was an almighty flash as the steel mesh encountered the comm sat and discharged static.
Mpatane floated at a porthole, watching the mesh close around the satellite. Suddenly she was blinded by a burst of light, and she clenched her eyes shut.
“What was that? Looked almost like lightning,” she exclaimed. “What you saw was the voltage potential on the satellite equalizing. Visible here, too,” Chuck explained. “Those things can build up quite a charge sitting there, what with all those solar storms and relativistic electron flux bombarding them all the time. It’s a good thing we didn’t send someone out on EVA! That would have been nasty.” Zainal grunted, as if dismissing the prospect of danger.
“Wow!” Kathy exclaimed, blinking against the sudden bluewhite glare.
“Neat fireworks,” Ferris said, awed.
Watching carefully on his starboard screens, Zainal saw the net tighten around its catch and slowly be reeled back to the ship. With a deft hand on his thrusters, he edged the ship so that the netted comm satellite entered the hatch.
“Mitford, make sure you get the satellite on the floor of the hold as closely as you can,” Zainal said. “I don’t want it smashing our deck plates when I turn the gravity back on.”
“Will do. I’ll need a minute or two. Got to repressurize the hold and whatnot.”
“Take your time,” Zainal replied, the model of Catteni patience. After a few minutes of silence, Chuck said, “Zainal, this thing’s heavy as hell. Can you push the ship up so it will drift toward the floor?”
“Get clear, and make sure there’s nothing between it and the cargo flooring.”
After two quick puffs of the thrusters, a dull and satisfying thud echoed through the ship.
“We’ve got it now, Zainal, thanks,” was Chuck’s enthusiastic reply. “Wait one while we get it braced with something ... Okay ... good to go now”
“The KDM,” Zainal murmured to Kathy, “is a workhorse but you can get it to do more than just haul stuff from one planet to another.” “To be honest, Zai,” Gino Marrucci said, and he’d already flown KDMs between Earth and Botany, “I didn’t believe you could do that with this.”
“Can we see what we snared?” Mpatane asked. “I’ve only seen pictures of the comm sats before they were launched. Never one on site, so to speak.”
“Crew, gravity’s coming on. Three, two, one.” Zainal flicked the toggle to the “on” position. “Mitford, secure the hatch. Don’t want that thing rolling out on us.”
“Couldn’t roll if it wanted to, Zainal. It’s too heavy. And besides, it’s square blocks stuck together, not a ball.”
Those in the lock with Chuck were busy examining the catch before Zainal, Gino, and Kathy Harvey arrived.
“Hey, it’s a Boeing 601. We can mount just about anything on this baby. Some of the parts for these things are on that wish list,” Mpatane said with respectful delight.
“Can we service it then?”
“If we had the parts, we could,” Mpatane said, circling the unit, putting her fingers through the holes some target practice had made in the “ear” and s
ighing at the blatant vandalism. “I wonder how many more fell to some Catteni’s notion of fun. Ooops, sorry, Zainal.” “Not to worry, Mpatane. But it can be serviced?”
“If we can find the spare parts, sure. I don’t notice any holes in the mission package or the control units, but you did keep a record of its orbit, didn’t you, Zainal?”
“Yes, it’s logged. So all we need to do is repair it and put it back in space.”
“We’ll have our work cut out for us,” Mpatane said with a heavy sigh. “This one is one of many, you know. Do we get to do them all?” She cocked her head impudently at Zainal.
“As many as we have to to extend the working footprint needed to ensure worldwide communications. We’ll need some sort of conference with someone down there to figure out how many satellites will be required to make a big enough footprint.”
She exhaled over the enormity of the task.
“Well, it’s a job,” she said with such resignation that everyone chuckled in semiagreement, semisympathy.
“Check the unit over, will you, Mpat, and see what else has been damaged. I’m hoping we can just unscrew, detach, and/or replace faulty parts.”
“Plug in and go,” Gino said, pushing a triumphant fist in the air.
“Now, crew, lash it down so when we enter Earth’s atmosphere, it doesn’t buck its way about the hatch,” was Zainal’s final remark as he turned to go back to the cockpit.
Part of the inbound journey was then occupied by a full examination of the comm sat by the communications experts, with an emphasis on how to replace damaged solar vanes and restore power to the damaged equipment. They kept a list of the deployment of those that they thought they could repair. If they had the spare parts.
“I never imagined we had so much orbiting the planet,” Kris said that night in the mess hall as she served the assembled crew.
“Junk, a lot of it,” Harvey said with understandable contempt. “Too far out to be burned up in the atmosphere . . .”
“Raining hot metal down on unsuspecting folk,” Gail said. “It did happen, you know. Australia got quite irate over some instances.”