“I don’t know,” April said. “Derfhome, for example, might be delighted to have the shipbuilding capabilities of Home dropped in their lap. Fargone or New Japan already have that. And Lee was hot to get life-extension for Derfhome. We have three clinics, surely one would decide to go along.”
“I’d bet anything if we offered the option to leave to the Assembly, they might get enough volunteers to send one hab and the others would stay behind,” Jeff said.
“Well, that would make it easier,” April pointed out. “People could swap cubic.”
“If the Earthies managed to destroy any one of the three habs I can almost guarantee the other two would be eager to move to safety,” Heather said.
“I’ll quietly find a rock of equivalent mass and practice moving it using the same standoff distances and formation that moving Home would require,” Jeff decided. “It’s good to have contingency plans.”
“I’ve a thought about those ration bars,” April said. “Why not bid them out on the other Human worlds instead of Earth? It wouldn’t have the same impact as doing it here. Nobody would mistakenly think we are doing it to send a message. You can move them at need easier than the people. One trip in a bulk ore carrier would do it. You don’t even need to put frames and decking in the holds, just clean them out a little.”
Heather nodded. “Good idea, of course, it doesn’t have to be bars. They are just very handy and easy to store. Please start the ball rolling on that, Dear. As Jeff said, it’s good to have contingency plans in place before you suddenly need them.”
* * *
“That’s really odd,” Eileen Foy told her husband.
“OK, you have my attention,” Victor said, dropping his reader to his lap and giving her his full regard.
“In the latest dispatches, Lady April asks us to find a local source or sources for emergency rations and start negotiating to buy one hundred thousand meal equivalents and store them locally, with options to increase the order later.”
Vince replied with no hesitation. “They are hedging against the Earthies waging war with them. That could come over backing Derfhome or other things unknown to us.”
“That’s a lot of wild supposition from very little data,” Eileen objected.
“It’s what I do so well,” Vic said. But he didn’t go back to his reader. He knew Eileen wasn’t done with it. “Also, I don’t think you need to refer to April as her Ladyship now that you are her peer. It’s like coffee talk among people with doctorates, they only demand they be addressed as Doctor before the unwashed masses. Among their own, it’s just assumed unless it’s someone they hate.”
“You are evading the issue,” Eileen said. “Central is very secure. They have survived nuclear bombardment already. They are very close to being independent in food production if not there already. Why would they spend a large sum to buy emergency supplies here instead of Earth?”
“First of all, I doubt that they will spend a tenth of a percent of their current income to stockpile emergency rations. It’s the financial equivalent of buying a couple of extra cans of self-heating stew and a box of crackers to keep in the pantry for us.
“Second of all, they probably are doing this in response to signals from Earth that we’re not privy to, that they will push on the claims issue. It’s smart not to send signals to the Earthies that they are making physical provisions in case it does devolve to war. I think in this case it is futile though. All contracts on Derfhome are a matter of public record. I can’t imagine even the Earthie intelligence agencies don’t have a clerk somewhere in their depths assigned to watch those filings. Probably more for weapons purchases, but anything that could be an item of military logistics will be flagged.”
Vic frowned and looked off at an unseen horizon. “Central is very secure, though if they kept getting persistently bombarded to where they can’t come back to the surface and rebuild it would wear them down eventually. The Home constellation of habs, however, is much more susceptible to attack.”
“People resist change,” Eileen said. “If you are thinking of an evacuation I doubt you could get the Assembly to vote for one, just a limited number of individuals.”
“Nah, blow one hab to hell and the other two will have ninety-nine percent of the population lined up at the airlock willing to pay to leave,” Vic predicted.
“Ninety percent,” Eileen argued. “But your basic dark vision is correct.”
Vic figured that talked it out sufficiently to try to go back to his reader, but Eileen was still thinking on it and interrupted him again.
“I do take your point about the Derfhome custom on contracts, and operational security. I will pursue the acquisition but not let it out as a contract, just a standing offer. It may make us more susceptible to overruns and market fluctuations to do it that way, but I’ll keep it entirely private so the matter isn’t in the public record and carried off in ship mail,” Eileen said.
“Tell your supplier, so that your intent is understood that you are also buying privacy, or an innocent comment in the wrong ear will undo all your effort,” Vic said.
“And I won’t try to keep it from Lee or the Mothers,” Eileen decided. “Like the supplier, better to enlist their active aid in the matter as allies.”
“Not to mention the futility of keeping anything from Lee,” Vic added. “She will probably have a better inventory of our pantry than the kitchen help, when we get our embassy all sorted out and running.”
“You think the Mothers’ people will spy on us and share it?” Eileen asked.
“I think the Mothers will spy on us too,” Vic said. “I would.”
* * *
“I never expected her to buy a new machine,” Born said. He said it in a perfectly normal controlled voice, but his eyes were as big as saucers. Musical had to admit he was impressed. Neither did Lee bother to hide the cost from them. The machine having a manifest pocket glued to the crate, and another sticker declaring it was priority freight, not subject to bumping and bonded out by the carrier with triple indemnities due for damage, loss, or delay in transit. On opposite ends of the crate, they had bump tattlers mounted to document any rough handling. The bright orange instrument packages were prominent to act as a visible deterrent to dock hands more than simply reporting.
“I bet the Fargoers are much less likely to let the sales of specialized equipment leak out to the Earthies,” Musical said, “besides being closer. I just didn’t know if they made this sort of thing or if they bought it from Earth.”
“It was twenty-seven million, one hundred eleven thousand dollars Ceres to haul this from Fargone!” Born read aloud. “That’s actually about ten times what I would have guessed. But I’ve never had anything delivered interstellar over five hundred grams.”
The driver, who seemed to be the boss of the two delivery workers, looked at him funny. “You’d be about right, for just this case.”
“What do you mean?” Born said.
“That’s the price for the whole shipment,” the fellow explained. “You have six other big containers and ten smaller boxes. Everything in the truck is yours. It’s all the mixing mills, vacuum and power support equipment. A control console and all the cables and pipes and crap to make this work,” he said, patting the first crate safely on the cart.
“Where the heck am I going to put all that?” Born asked.
“I don’t know, but you already signed for it,” The driver said. “My responsibility for it ends when it is safely on your dock, or in this case, on the pavement outside your door since you guys have no real loading dock. I’m being a nice guy and helping you wheel it in, because this is a special handling order, and the only delivery I have to make today.”
Chapter 5
“The Lunatics have been doing some very strange things,” USNA Undersecretary of State Wilson said.
“Which ones?” Secretary Sepulveda asked. “Armstrong, the French, the Japanese, Central, that pseudo-independent former Chinese outpost Camelot, or
the two Brazilians and an Israeli who style themselves the International Colony?”
“The Centralists. They have hired several biologists to gather an unusual selection of specimens for an odd sort of bio-library. The Independent International Colony would be more likely to preserve a hundred exotic varieties of Cannabis from what I have seen of their web site.”
Sepulveda looked confused. “I thought there were enough gene trusts, seed vaults, and preservation societies who will sell to anyone as part of their nonprofit charter to satisfy any need. I remember there are three big ones dug in around the Arctic.”
“Yes, but we saw them acquiring a collection of valuable and useful plants several years ago,” Wilson said. “This time they are going for things nobody reasonably thought were in any danger, mosses, and weeds. Who really expects crabgrass and tumbleweed to be in any danger? They’re the sort of organisms that people are more likely to study how to eradicate.”
“But some of those hardy plants are useful for terraforming,” Sepulveda remembered.
“Yes, and those are readily available,” Wilson said.
“Shouldn’t the spies be on top of this?” Sepulveda asked.
“It’s not sexy enough,” Wilson insisted. “They would shrug and dismiss it because it isn’t strategic materials or weapons systems. Ask yourself, when in the last several decades have the spymasters ever predicted a major economic shift or change in governance? They can’t even see a revolution brewing a week ahead. I think they may be the least imaginative of any of the agencies.”
“You have a point there now that you mention it,” Sepulveda said, and lapsed into thoughtfulness again.
“They must expect a change of circumstances, where they may be cut off from the source biologicals. That would have to be a major shift such as a general economic upheaval or war. This looks like long-range planning to cover the less likely scenarios to me. I’m thinking they are probably taking these materials out of the system to remote places they regard as safe just like our arctic depositories.”
“War, upheaval, or a massive extinction event,” Wilson suggested.
There was another long silence while Sepulveda thought on the matter.
“The questions to my mind are, do they think we may decide to cut them off ourselves as a form of sanctions? Are they predicting economic upheaval or a war independent of their own actions, or are they planning to act themselves in such a way that this is their last chance to fill out a full biological library? One assumes they would warn the rest of humanity if they saw a serious alien threat to the homeworld.”
“Maybe the fuss over the Claims Commission worries them?” Wilson suggested. “They did announce some sort of treaty with Derfhome, taking them under their protection. Maybe they think the major members will oppose that arrangement.”
“All that’s internal to the commission members,” Sepulveda said, with a dismissive wave. “I can’t imagine why a trade association would care what arrangements they make off in some backward world that doesn’t concern us. That seems like a foolish concern. We can always find some accommodation for trade, but it’s policy that worries me.”
Wilson thought his boss’ view too narrow. Wars had been fought over trade when policy didn’t bend to it, but he wisely didn’t argue with his boss. “Well, our pushing back and forth with China could look dangerous to them. You might easily ask why it doesn’t make us more worried.”
“We discount it as normal,” Sepulveda said. “It follows unspoken rules. You notice nobody is playing chicken with Central or Home. If you light a Home ship up with targeting radar to see if he will react you know you’ll get a missile up your butt. We don’t expect the Chinese to respond like that. I think the Spacers view it through a lens of how they would respond.”
“Well, if they are planning an attack, it would have to be so severe they are worried about the survival of ragweed and bindweed,” Wilson said.
Sepulveda went into another of his long thoughtful silences. Wilson didn’t say anything, not only because the man was his boss, but because even if he took time to think things through, the conclusions he came to were often valuable.
“If we can’t determine their motives and intentions here, it might be worth intensifying our observation of them in other systems. Central has a long-standing relationship with Fargone, and now this new closer alliance with Derfhome. If there is anywhere these new activities might reveal themselves more clearly, it will be off in other systems, not here. I think we should divert assets to looking for any activities out there that might shed light on what is happening here,” Sepulveda decided.
“We’re effectively excluded from a military presence in both systems and have no embassy at either. That’s the usual means of inserting agents on foreign soil,” Wilson said. “Yet I find it hard to believe our intelligence services don’t have some assets there.”
“But if they do, they will be watching all the wrong things, and they wouldn’t share the information with us anyhow. They hoard it like we are the enemy,” Sepulveda said.
“Indeed, but we are not excluded from trade, which shows its relative importance. I have no idea offhand what trade exists with them. We can sponsor some commercial ventures to both worlds who will examine a wide swath of activity for us. We can fund it as research and get the results unfiltered, without the hassle we’d get by trying to tell our own spies how to go about their own business. They’d just resent that.”
“I’ll get my people started on it,” Wilson agreed.
* * *
“Leader Bacon, I really need to take you up on your offer to engage the College of Practical Applications on our project,” Born said. The Badger Musical was hovering to the side out of camera range, intensely interested too.
Bacon looked thoughtful. He was somewhat like a dean in a Human college, but with more authority and a freer hand in his Derf institution.
“You have some results that warrant testing by actual construction?” Bacon asked.
“We haven’t gotten that far,” Born admitted. “We have an interesting line of research to pursue. In all innocence, we asked our patron to procure a prototyping or low volume machine to create glassy metals. She had a new machine sent by interstellar priority freight from Fargone.”
That was sufficient to paint a surprised look on Bacon’s face.
“The actual machine is only about two cubic meters,” Born said, “but what was delivered filled an entire truck with support equipment. I’ve filled my entire office and have crates outside blocking the hallway. I don’t have room to store it much less assemble it or get the utilities it requires. I really don’t want to ask our patron to construct an entire building with heavy utilities to house the machine. So, I was hoping such a device would be of sufficient interest for the engineers to house in one of their facilities, in exchange for shares in using it.”
“Let me get the head of that college in a conference call,” Bacon suggested. “We’ll see what he thinks of the proposition.”
Bacon had the kind of power to call up the head of a college and expect he’d drop everything to speak with him. Born understood, he’d do the same.
The Derf who appeared on the screen did so quickly but didn’t look happy about it. That put Born off and worried him, but Bacon knew that was his normal appearance, so he ignored it and didn’t take offense.
“Leonardo, would you care to have the use of a prototyping machine for creating glassy-metals?” Bacon asked. He didn’t bother to introduce Born yet.
Leonardo’s eyes shifted, so he saw Born on the split screen, but didn’t ask who he was or what he had to do with this offer yet.
“Sure, I’d like a steel mill too for instructional purposes. If you have thirty or forty ounces Au in the budget you don’t know what to do with I’ll use it for a glassy-metal proto. It would be nice to not just teach theory about such important materials. Who do I have to kill to get this deal?” Leonardo looked again at Born’s half of his screen. Lik
ely it wouldn’t bother him at all if the answer to that was this young fellow.
“This is Born, who is active on the theoretical side of the Physics Department,” Bacon said, with a wave of his hand. “He is in possession of such a machine and wants to share secondary access to it in exchange for housing it.”
Born smiled at him.
Leonardo blinked slowly three times. Probably trying to figure out if this could be some kind of nasty prank.
“It’s nice for theorists to have a hobby,” he said warily. “Did you not have room for the glassy-metal maker after the research reactor took up so much space?”
“It’s occupying most of my office already and way too much of the hall outside. I have an associate and we are doing research on certain types of superconductors for a wealthy patron. When we asked about getting such a machine she just bought one new and had it sent from Fargone,” Born said.
“A brand new machine?” Leonardo asked.
Born nodded affirmatively.
“From Fargone?” Leonardo demanded.
“Indeed, she sent it interstellar as priority freight with delivery penalties,” Born said.
When Leonardo didn’t say anything Born expanded on it.
“We spoke with Leader Bacon about it some months ago, and he held out the possibility you could be called on to help support the project down the road. Well, we’re at a point now such aid would be very welcome. I know you have some fairly large facilities with machine tools and things. If you could spare the space to house the machine we won’t be keeping it going full time. Musical, my associate and I were hoping you’d house it in exchange for the opportunity to use it. I probably should have called right when it arrived on the truck without unloading it. They could have taken it on to your facility, but it didn’t occur to me.”
“That’s entirely OK,” Leonardo said. “I can send a mob of graduate students over to bear it to our lab on their sweaty backs.”
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