“Thank you, but you can put me down now,” Musical said.
“Oh, sure,” Born agreed, flustered and embarrassed at his indecision. Despite the swift exit he still managed to pick up a fine dusting of concrete on his head.
“I suggest you lock the door so nobody can nose around in our absence if the noise disturbed them. Let’s go to your quarters to clean up, and then maybe go get some lunch to kill time and allow the dust to settle out before we go back in,” Musical suggested sensibly. He took his top garment off and used it to disperse the few tattle-tale lines of white dust by the closed door.
“We’ll get some of that rubbery stuff the custodians sprinkle on the floor to keep dust down when sweeping,” Born suggested.
“Yeah, sweeping compound, buy a big drum of it and some paper masks. I’ll have to go by my embassy to get a few for me,” Musical said. “Neither Derf nor human masks fit me worth a damn. You agree then we should keep this quiet if we can?”
“Certainly, I can’t imagine any way it would make us look good, even though we know it’s a major break-through. Let’s clean it up ourselves,” Born agreed.
When the two researchers came back there was a fine layer of white dust settled on everything and a small hole in the ceiling. It still wasn’t possible to get directly below it to see if it went through. They shuffled in slowly wearing the paper masks and shoe covers the salesman for the sweeping compound recommended to them. Spreading the crumbly compound moistened with aromatic oils, they tried not to stir the dust up. “We need to brush everything from the top down before we try to sweep it up,” Born said. “After we have the bulk of it bagged up we can get a vacuum in here for the last little bit, but it would just cake up and clog the filter trying to suck up this much before sweeping.”
“You have compressed air. After a good vacuuming, we need to blow off the tops of the lighting fixtures and cabinet tops to get what doesn’t brush off easily. Then blow it out the open windows and wet mop the whole place to finish. It’s going to take both of us a full day’s work to clean it thoroughly,” Musical decided.
“This looks so promising,” Musical said, seeing discovery in the wrecked equipment where others would have seen only disaster and expense. “We need to make a couple more samples of this material.”
“Yes, but it’s going to be a couple of weeks before we can get an upper bearing assembly and housing for the centrifuge from Fargone and install it. It wouldn’t surprise me if the bottom one is ruined too. I’m just glad we don’t have anybody occupying a floor above us,” Born said, looking up and imagining all sorts of possible disasters.
“We’ll improvise and get some more data before then. That’s weird,” Musical said, pointing. “There isn’t anything on the bottom end. You’d think whatever effect it was would propagate both ways. Do you have a key to the roof? I’d like to see if the hole goes all the way through.”
“I do, but let’s take some sealant to close it up at least temporarily,” Born said. “I believe it’s finished off with gravel up there and we can rake some over to cover up.”
“You won’t just let maintenance take care of that for you?”
“They would never just accept a hole needing to be plugged without demanding how it got there. I can’t even explain this one to them since I have no idea what did it, and I’m not very good at making up lies simple enough for them to understand. You’d think it was their own home paid for out of their purse when you bust something and ask for a repair. They act like we are renters. They’re liable to tell us our experiments are too dangerous to run in this building and cause all kinds of trouble with the administration. They just have no sense of humor if you catch the place on fire, blow out a wall or,” he said, looking up at the hole, “something.”
Chapter 8
Pamela Harvac wasn’t comfortable being a spy. That wasn’t what she signed up for when she was recruited to State. She blamed her discomfort on her mother’s strict upbringing and attending religious schools. All her life having a secret was presumed by both to be a sign of ill intent if not outright sin.
It was irritating too. They wouldn’t need to go snooping around if the agencies charged with spying would take direction to gather intelligence for them, or even share what they already had. To talk with any of them you’d think they were the enemy to even ask for data on commercial matters. Who were they serving after all?
Her boss Wilson sent the little toad Kirk along with her. He had no such scruples. In fact, Pamela wondered why he wasn’t employed by one of the secret agencies instead of State. He was good with numbers. In fact, if pressed she would admit he was very good, and able to apply those number to real-world analyses better than most.
She still certainly expected him to challenge her authority as soon as they were out of com range of Secretary Wilson and perhaps make an ass of himself in other ways. He wouldn’t be the first she’d met who thought himself God’s great gift to womankind.
Instead, he’d meekly kept his mouth shut when introduced to the ship’s officers and didn’t presume upon her privacy or personal space when they were assigned a two bunk room. Spacers had no sense of decency, and the purser had just blinked like it didn’t compute for a second when informed that she and Kirk were not partners and she asked if separate cabins were available.
“I’m sorry, we don’t have separate accommodations for your subordinate,” he said, missing the point that it wasn’t about class at all. “We are a freighter primarily with very limited space for both passengers and crew. The other cabin is occupied by a married couple who would reasonably object to being split up, and it is impractical to trade him off with any crew who need to work shifts that would disturb you. They are all working Spacers and I doubt you’d judge any of them your peers. I’m not available to bunk with you,” he said, with an amused little smile. He didn’t even specify female crew. It didn’t take long before she found out that of the five Spacers aboard none were female anyhow, and only the captain had a tiny private cabin.
The cabin itself surprised her. It was compact of necessity but luxurious beyond her expectations. The bunk was not cramped and infinitely adjustable with its own temperature controls and adjustable vents. It had multimedia outlets and the ability to use an overhead screen if you wanted to read in bed or watch environmental scenes to music. The shared bath was tiny but entirely comfortable and not metered. Everything was of soft or textured surfaces and the lighting subtle and indirect.
In North America right now both of them could be charged with a felony for sharing a cabin unmarried. Pamela had never been outside the Solar System, but she could read people well enough to see that she would simply amuse the Captain if she cited North American law to him. She did know Spacers in her own Solar System openly mocked a lot of North American decency laws such as the prohibition on shorts and short sleeves. Despite her agency position, Pamela was not experienced enough to consider there might be a range of custom and law among Spacers beyond her home system. The media that bombarded her daily presented Spacers as a uniform bloc, and not at all nice people, so she had nothing to inform her differently. He would be perfectly justified in pointing out they were a Fargone ship and subject to both Fargoer law and custom underway so she dropped her objection.
It was an error and failure as head of mission that she hadn’t researched Fargone law before boarding a Fargone vessel. A measure of that simply reflected official contempt for other law. Finding it really did affect her was a first prod to pay attention to how others live. The ship must carry a web fraction that would enlighten her to some degree. She intended to study that as well as expand her knowledge of Derfhome while they were in transit from the slightly different perspective the Fargoer web fraction would paint things.
There was a self-serve galley with seating for six, but with armchair trays instead of a table. That meant the crew and passengers never could all sit to a common meal. It seemed to be more a lounge for socializing more than eating. In two shift
s she’d seen crew get food twice, and both times they took it away. It was nothing at all like the dramatic videos with a long table full of handsome officers and white clad stewards formally serving you over your shoulder.
All those images presumed you traveled on one of the few dedicated passenger ships. Pamela would never have the level of income to travel in that sort of luxury. Indeed, none of the crew on this vessel wore anything identifiable as a uniform. They all knew each other and their rank without emblems. The menu was all heat-and-eat, with one small fridge that was kept stocked with cold drinks, fruit, single-serve sandwich fixings, and a few desserts. Nobody cooked from scratch for themselves or passengers.
The frozen entrees weren’t big name commercial food items but seemed to have been prepared by a private kitchen in unbranded freezer packs. They lacked the required nutritional information and certifications she expected. Pamela was shocked to quickly find that they ate better than she was used to having at home. Not her father’s house of course, he had his own chef and staff, but her State Department job was not menial. The Vancouver neighborhood she lived in was gentrified and had nice restaurants.
The lasagna when she tried it was what you would expect from somebody’s Italian grandma, and the linguini with garlic butter shrimp was better than she’d had at a very well-regarded bayside restaurant. The shrimp were enormous and plentiful. It would easily be a five-hundred-dollar meal back home. They had Mexican, Thai, Japanese, and French dishes. How the processor properly cooked some of the items that required different temperatures and timing was a mystery to her. Her home kitchen couldn’t do anything so complex.
There were even a few selections of beer or wine for passengers. A little sign explained due to the need to respond to emergencies with a limited crew they did not partake underway. What was glaringly missing to her was the absence of warning labels about the dangers of alcohol to her health, some way to present proof of age, or even any additional charge for those beverages. The first morning out she found the same free and loose attitude for her coffee selections, being able to select from sweeteners, cream, chocolate, cinnamon, or five alcoholic additions to her coffee. That was scandalous to her to consider drinking so early in the morning. Decent people didn’t do that.
Kirk had no problem with that and may have ordered a double if the odor of it was any indication. He also was on his second waffle piled high with berries and whipped cream. Pamela didn’t say anything, grateful he was making the effort to get along and not wanting to spoil it over something she couldn’t find any way to tie to his job performance. She thought about it, but any scenario she imagined where it would matter sounded silly even to her. She’d never admit she just didn’t like him.
The web portions she examined were disturbing. The ship net offered a combined web fraction that included public selections from Earth-Moon, Fargone, Derfhome, and New Japan webs. Why would Fargone allow foreign material on a Fargoer vessel? The volume was limited by expense to a Zettabyte, refreshed anytime they had a hard connection at dock by a commercial service. It was heavily weighed to the last month of current events, then the previous year to a lesser extent. English language sources were favored and classic offerings in art, music, and history. There was no restriction on downloading anything she chose from this smorgasbord. Of course, if she got caught with a lot of the material she could lose social credit points or even her job. At worst, if she didn’t read it all and something really bad was embedded she might lose citizenship and be incarcerated.
When it came to uploading the rules were simple. Other than typed in messages or voice to other account holders on the ship nothing was to be uploaded and the system was set to police this. The port for memory chips didn’t allow data to flow that direction. It informed her that the critical ship’s systems were all air-gapped from the convenience functions such as wake up calls and entertainment, and trying to breach even those non-essential systems would result in expulsion from the nearest airlock sans suit.
Pamela took that for very sick and inappropriate humor when she read it, but researched then and there to find out just what the limits of the Captain’s authority really were between the stars. It left her very sober. If you said or did anything to threaten his command the Master of the vessel was within his authority to summarily execute you the way the web warning said or any other way he chose. The forms of humor and hyperbole most Earth courts winked at all the time could get you dead out here. She had to mention it to Kirk, but it rattled her so badly she needed to calm down and digest the facts before she could relate it to him calmly.
The ship’s web portion was disturbing other ways. They showed a lot of official Earth content, but also completely unfiltered content on the same issues from the Moon and other worlds. It was obvious that not only the paid commentators but the general public didn’t find the official North American positions on things much above the ravings of insane people. After all the content of that sort she’d help create, it was hard for her to see the unfiltered replies people made to that sort of commentary. How could governments like Fargone let just anybody say the insulting contradictory things they did right out in public? Weren’t the people posting such inflammatory stuff afraid of being fired or have a knock in the night by police and be disappeared?
The next day when she mentioned it to Kirk, he seemed surprised she didn’t know. “Yeah, space law beyond L1 is very much like Admiralty Law used to be. It deals with reality better than the mess they made of space law back around the turn of the century. They tried to reconcile national laws from different legal systems there was simply no way to make compatible. They tried to apply all those layers and layers of regulation to the Spacers from afar. The UN even sent a big fleet of Chinese flagged ships to evict the Homies from their halo orbit out past the Moon. They hadn’t filled out all the proper forms to beg leave to occupy that space or genuflect to their betters.”
“That’s obviously before my time. What did they do?” Pamela asked.
“They blew those ships all to hell and bombarded the UN out of existence,” Kirk said. “Do you hear anything about the UN now? Did you think they achieved world peace and just voted to disband one day? That was when Home and Central set up the L1 limit for armed ships. If you want to invite a continent killing bombardment, just try to bring up that sort of doctrine with the Spacers again.”
“They didn’t teach me that in school,” Pamela said. “I find it hard to believe the Spacers would do anything to seriously irritate us when they depend on us for just about everything they need to live.”
“You have an uncensored web at your fingertips,” Kirk said, “Look up the L1 doctrine, the bombardment of Central, the bombardment of China by Jeff Singh, and the destruction of the UN.
He hesitated, looking a little upset, but decided to expand on that. “I can’t believe the Department is sending you off to deal with foreign powers without briefing you on this stuff. It’s almost like they have been spewing this crap so long they forget that being official doesn’t make it true. I grew up hearing the same stuff as you, but my father lived through it all and told me the real history. If you start parroting it to the Fargoers or the Derf, much less the Homies, they’ll think you a fool. You have to know what really happened to deal with other people who do. You aren’t talking down to negative tax proles. None of the older experienced diplomats or ambassadors would try to sell the official line to Spacers.”
“That’s quite enough to cost you your job and most of your social credit, if not your freedom back home,” Pamela warned him.
“We aren’t back home. And if you recount what I said accurately to Secretary Wilson he’s going to be in the ugly position of needing to take you to a secure room and destroy your faith in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus. I really doubt that will enhance your career, because he seems to have paid you the compliment of assuming you knew the difference between propaganda and reality without a formal read in. Even if you don’t have a father like mine it’s
ridiculously easy to get around the web censors and read the real history from Swiss or Russian sources.”
“That’s illegal, to work around net limits,” Pamela said.
“Oh my goodness, you really are an honest-to-God little hall monitor,” he said, covering his eyes with one hand, dismayed. “I thought that was a façade. A prim little public persona you wanted to project. It was already a big turn-off for me, but to find out you really are a prig just horrifies me. You better read some more and decide who to believe, your public schooling or all these multiple open accounts from unrelated sources.”
“I’m not a public-school clod. I went to a private religious school,” Pamela said.
“Worse!” Kirk exclaimed. “They daren’t say anything off the official party line because the government is watching for any excuse to shut them down. And the idea the Spacers need almost everything from Earth is a good twenty or more years out of date. Didn’t you see the list of imports when we had it on the screen? There wasn’t anything essential on that list. The few things like electronics they don’t make they would just buy from Fargone or New Japan if we cut them off. We had to look for luxury items to have something to work with. The habitats and the Moon aren’t any different from the exo-Solar planets now.
“Do you think the meals we’ve enjoyed the last couple of days came from Earth? I can assure you they didn’t, maybe some of the spices in them at most. They are such a minor expense they don’t even bother to nickel and dime you for premium service. It’s just rolled into the price of your ticket. If you take passage on an Earth flagged vessel it won’t be as clean and comfortable as this one. Mull that all over and decide what you will. You are in charge of this mission and if you make silly assumptions in dealing with the Spacers, they will notice. It can easily harm your mission.”
Friends in the Stars Page 12