Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet

by Mackey Chandler

  He entered the Ward Room / conference room / reading room / and at least temporarily the translation room, as Luke and his assistants were set up against the back bulkhead. They didn't know where else to put them. They pulled the end section of table toward the wall so they could be gotten around easily. Gordon sat to the other end. He'd tried sitting right across the gap at the end of the near table before, so he could listen to their chatter, but they'd clammed up, started speaking by text between screens and looked worried. He figured his continued proximity would damage operations and stress them. They didn't seem to notice if his big triangular ears scanned them like a radar horn from the other end of the table. He had very good hearing.

  The second cook was the steward too, their crew was so limited. He took Gordon's order and vanished. He'd probably have to help cook it. He poured coffee for Gordon without asking, but he'd refill it himself. There was only so much two guys could do. There were already two of his shift eating.

  Thor stumbled in, poured his own coffee and sat opposite Gordon, stretching one shoulder and then the other, working his neck. He'd volunteered for the duty bunk, so Gordon was careful not to say anything humorous that might not be well received. He really was appreciative. He might even take it tonight.

  The ward room was Thor's traditional duty to regulate, though most big ships had three times the staff. He looked to the door squinty eyed, like he was ready for the steward.

  "He just took my order. I think he may have to start it cooking too. The other cook is probably cleaning up from off shift supper and trying to get lunch started too."

  "Yeah, deep space explorers aren't supposed to have double shifts, weapons techs and other extras. The idea was to have short crews, not extra. It's a good thing they are built to go out long with lots of storage."

  "On the plus side if anybody gets shot up and has to abandon ship it will probably be us, being slower and not as well armed. Then we can move over to a nice roomy war ship."

  "I love how you can always find the bright side of anything," Thor said. He didn't look sincere.

  "We have a video standard now," Thor informed him. The images are very interesting. I'd like to do a new transmission to send to them using it. We are getting some very good tutorials sent to us. Far better than what we could do with the Bunnies. Our old video would look fumbling and amateur."

  "I'm surprised you didn't wake me up to tell me."

  "Why? Would you have stumbled out half awake and sent off a reply? Bad enough they woke me up to little purpose. I wouldn't want you in a group reply before you were fed and caffeinated. You'd probably smile at them and when you do that before breakfast it sends entirely the wrong message. It looks more like, 'Feed me your young' than it does, 'Hello new friends'. Unless you want to scare the crap out of them before they ever get to meet you."

  "You..." He hesitated and swallowed the first word he thought of. "Exaggerate," he said instead.

  "A couple of them look like they might be herbivores or omnivores," Thor revealed. "I'm not sure but what they might bolt in your presence even without showing any teeth."

  "It's amazing Humans have the same reflex, isn't it?"

  "Indeed, at a glance you'd mistake them for prey." He wouldn't have said that but Lee wasn't on the bridge yet."When we finish breakfast I'll show you what we've found."

  * * *

  Gordon watched some of the video tutorials. They had avatars of their races that moved smoothly and looked detailed enough to do complex actions. They saw facial expressions, but didn't know what they meant. There was also plenty of live video of real people to compare.

  "These folks have met others recently. They wouldn't have such slick contact methods if they'd all known each other for ages and hadn't used these tools lately," Gordon decided.

  "Absolutely and the basic word lists are very well thought out and in a very good sequence to build on the previous words. We are building a response to the word lists, but waiting for you to transmit video before we respond to the pictorial lessons. Once we are feeding them those we'll dump the word lists on them at the same time," Thor said.

  "Let's get set up and do it then. Do you want to use the same people?"

  "Yes, but I got the Hinth group to agree to have their image sent as long as they can put their masks on while dealing with unrelated strangers. Ha-bob-bob-brie will let us send his image bare faced, so they will know what the Hinth look like beneath them. I'm sure they'll see the masks as a peculiar cultural affectation."

  "Can we make it happen in an hour?"

  "I'll page everyone to come," Thor told him. "The video of the Hinth is already done. Alex said he thought he should do it with just shorts on to let them see Human structure better. "

  "Makes sense to me. Once you have everything set in motion, come back here and explain to me what I'm looking at, please," Gordon said.

  * * *

  "That's a sweet production," Gordon said of the video when done, pleased. "Nothing to be embarrassed about like we're fumbling around and haven't done this before. Do you know by any chance... Did the Hinth change something on their masks?"

  "You are observant. They added that little black symbol. It's like a chevron with a revered one overlaid. Sort of an X with a box in the middle," Thor said, drawing it with a finger.

  "What's that mean?"

  "They invented it. It means the same as the black brassards and ribbons the crews started wearing. Showing they belong to the Little Fleet. When they get home there's a registry for mask symbols. The shape they will register as showing service on starships as crew. But the solid black is reserved to service with this group," Thor said.

  What Lee had noticed wasn't any new markings on the masks. She'd seen the three Hinth stayed away from Ha-bob-bob-brie when they'd been called to stand in a group. They'd managed to keep Thor and Lee between them and ignored Ha-bob-bob-brie like he wasn't there. It irritated her. She was sure they'd be happy to see other Hinth, but apparently not. She wanted to say something, but Gordon wasn't stupid, and Ha-bob-bob-brie himself hadn't complained, so how could she? Maybe they'd think it wasn't any of her business. Instead what she said was, "Now that they aren't under the Earth Human's thumb it's going to be interesting to see what the Hinth can do, isn't it?"

  "It is. The purser on the Retribution told me one of his juniors was sewing a name tag on his jacket by hand and one of the Hinth said he couldn't stand to watch him anymore and took it away. He had it sown on flat and neat in about as much time as the clerk took to thread the needle. So I suspect they may excel in anything requiring very good dexterity." Thor said.

  "Maintenance already figured that out. You should see one shoot," Lee told him. "They shoot like a robot. So fast it's scary. I wouldn't shoot skeet with one for money if he had to use a rifle."

  "They'd probably make good shuttle pilots then," Gordon decided. "If things go bad and you have to fly one manually those are the sort of reactions you need."

  "I'll ask Ha-bob-bob-brie if he can handle Human controls or what we'd have to do to accommodate them," Lee volunteered. "It's not like I have a whole lot of duties right now." She scrunched her nose up in thought. "I'll ask him if the Hinth would want to be shuttle pilots before I assume too much. He has other duties right now but I suspect we are wasting his talents in maintenance."

  "Even if they are flightless now, what do you want to bet they have a brain suited to three dimensional thinking?" Thor predicted.

  "He's a surface explorer," Gordon remembered. "For all I know he was qualified on Hinth shuttles. I'm at fault really because I never asked him to sit and write out all the skills that includes for Hinth. I'm afraid we just did a verbal interview. I was so intent on getting Hinth for crew so I could demonstrate we can work together I wasn't as thorough as I might have been for Derf or Humans."

  "Dear gods, whatever you do, don't tell Ha-bob-bob-brie he is a token Hinth," Lee said.

  * * *

  "Impressive isn't it?" Luke asked of the ret
urn video they were getting.

  "Yeah, they're slick. They just keep sending new stuff and not repeating. Even though I just gave them the one short audio transmission? They must assume we are not stupid. That's good."

  "Yes, after we send our images and we dump all the replies to their tutorials back to them, it will be interesting to see how fast they sort it all out and incorporate it."

  "Yeah, especially how fast they switch to using avatars of our races as well as theirs."

  "This race," Luke showed the avatar and then still pix cut from video, "we've taken to calling Sasquatch. That's a possibly mythological creature in Earth history. They fit the description because they are man-like, but just a bit larger and hairy. The head is unusually round and note the ears are small and the eyes large. We are not assuming that means they have good vision and poor hearing, it's just a matter of appearance. We have yet to see their teeth to try to guess if they are omnivores."

  "Four fingers and a thumb like Humans," Gordon noticed.

  "They are seen in a lot of video behind consoles or doing things that look administrative. We saw some footage that we think is inside the space station, because they cut away to an exterior view and back inside. We know it's this station because the planet in the background is recognizable."

  "What is the inside like?"

  "It isn't curved and it doesn't rotate. So we have concluded they must have some form of gravity manipulation."

  "Oh-ho! Well we know what we'll be trying to trade for don't we? We're still pretty far out. Do you already have images of the planet that good, to know it's the one by the station?"

  "Yes, because the polar ice cap is very distinctive. It is tilted towards us a bit and as it rotates there is a big arch of ice that extends down into lower latitudes from the round portion."

  "What would cause that?"

  "Consensus is there must be a huge mountain range or plateau high enough to be cold."

  "That has to do some weird things to the climate in that hemisphere. Well, we know it's a water world at least, even if somebody else claimed it first."

  "These fellows with the pointy nose or muzzle maybe, some of the guys wanted to call Rats. I put a stop to that very quickly and insisted we call them Badgers. We're probably going to mingle with these folks and trade with them. They appear to have a slight majority in the videos. I can just see their reaction when they realized what a rat is and how our cultures regards them. Besides, they have a stripe or sometimes several and are black not grey and we have yet to see one from the rear. I'd bet if they have a tail it isn't naked."

  "What was anybody thinking, to open their mouth and let that fall out?" Gordon did a double face palm, shaking his head. He got over it and lifted his head. "We tried to recruit very carefully and we still get stuff like this."

  "I know. I'm also just about convinced somebody took one of our recruiting posters to a Gamblers Anonymous meeting. But in fairness, how many have seen a badger? I have because my dad used to take me to the zoo. But unfortunately just about everybody has seen a rat."

  "Yeah, those are one gift from Earth we could have done without. My Mothers give any kid who brings in a dead rat a tenth bit coin and he gets to pick the desserts for the next day."

  "The Badgers show up some of the same places as the Sasquatch, sitting behind consoles, looking like the supervisor in some scenes. I find their gaze very direct, but that might just be me."

  "Look at this one," Gordon pointed out a figure in the distance. "They do have a bit of a tail. Looks pretty solid too, not skinny. And this one has a sort of a tool belt. He looks like maybe a techie."

  "I bet they can go down on all four to move faster too. I haven't seen that yet, just guessing from their form. The bottom, or back, leg in particular. They have incisors too."

  "What do you call these?" Gordon asked of the next field.

  "Well the Humans wanted to call one a Platypus. There's an Australian animal that has a bill like that. The body is completely different. But the discussion devolved into such a heated argument about what the proper plural form is that I nixed that name too. We're going to refer to them as Bills if I have to break some folks of rank and put them on filter duty."

  "Ah, have you been talking to Thor?"

  "Not about the Bills, does he have some opinion about this race already?" Luke asked confused.

  "No, nothing about the Bills. It's just he'd approve of your administrative style."

  "Sometimes you need to knock some heads together," he agreed with a shrug.

  "Do they have fur or is that skin?" he asked, squinting at the monitor.

  "We're not sure. If it fur it's very fine and dense. It might be dark skin. There aren't as many of these guys as the other races. We see them sitting and watching a lot, not doing stuff like the Badgers. They do wear clothing more, so maybe it is skin. They seem to carry more things that might be com or cameras. And they almost all have some kind of weapons. If they have a knife they always have two."

  "Well when you have eight limbs... It looks like they have manipulative digits on all of them too."

  "Yeah, here let me show you video of one walking."

  "Wow. I bet they can really move when they want to. Why do I have this perverse desire to see what one looks like trying to walk drunk with eight legs?"

  "Because you've been close to Thor too long," Luke answered without hesitation. "The race we saw the least in the videos is this one," he displayed a still of two of the creatures. "That is the only pic of them except in the extreme distance in a few crowd scenes."

  "Ah, that should make the Humans happy. They've always wanted a cat race. It's a staple in their speculative fiction."

  "There's a superficial resemblance, but there's no telling how they act of course. I'm Human, but I'm not a cat person myself."

  "Do you like dogs then?"

  "It isn't an either – or thing. I was raised without pets. We lived in a twenty seventh floor condo in the city. I've seen people all my life who can't go on vacation because their dog goes nuts in the kennel and won't eat. Vacation? I've worked with people who can't even go to dinner after work, because they have to go home and give their cat its medicine. I think a lot of pets are just unhealthy substitutes for children. If you are a farmer and have to get up early every morning for the cows at least you get the benefit of some milk."

  "I have to admit Derf have no custom of keeping animals as a recreational thing. Have you seen any indication on the videos any of our new races here keep pets?"

  Brownie interrupted from her console, sounding irritated."It's species really, not races. Races are a variations in a species like blond or cinnamon Derf or short lemon crested or long red crested Hinth or black or white Humans."

  "I'm sure that's technically true if you are a biologist," Luke agreed."I'm not writing any scholarly papers, and I'm not going to bang my head against the bulkhead trying to change the common usage of our crews when everybody understands what they mean. They are lazy and will use a one syllable word over a two syllable word every time even if it is wrong. And no, I haven't seen any animals at all," Luke said going back to Thor's question. "I wouldn't have thought to look for them though. Come to think of it I haven't seen any indication they keep livestock either."

  "What do you want to bet they are censoring that, until they know what we look like? Just like you didn't want to hang the rat label on the Badgers, they probably don't want to upset or confuse us by showing any animals that look like us."

  "We may shock them a little when they see they are dealing with three new races, not one. It looks like they are feeding us instructions for one language. I wonder if it's like English? Perhaps the race it's native to is the dominant one," he speculated. "Ah, we're ready to shoot video."

  Chapter 8

  The video was sent, labels over each person lit up when they said their name and touched their chest. A bright box formed around each group as they declared themselves Hinth, Human, or Derf and the word f
or that race lit up. At the end a box formed around all of them and they were all declared people, which they said in turn. Gordon and Luke agreed it would be hard to make it any plainer. And then they waited for the aliens to digest that.

  "I'd like to send some video of scenes from Earth, Derfhome and Hin," Luke requested.

  "OK, but have several people look at each segment before you send it with an eye to potential problems."

  "Would you have time to look at them yourself?"

  "No, but I'll make time. This is probably more important than reviewing things my department heads are routinely handling fine. Put in a few shots of our home worlds without people, you know, like a resort ad with some impressive waterfalls and snow capped mountains. A big flock of water birds. Maybe a shot of a coral reef full of fish and a rugged coast with lots of surf breaking."

  "Are we fishing for tourists?" Luke asked, amused.

  "Why not? They may not be interested in buying toasters or beer mugs from us, but even the Hinth went nuts playing tourist after the war and they were free to travel. I bet they like to see new places and relax away from what they are accustomed to every day. If they didn't like to travel we wouldn't be seeing ships and a space station, they'd have stayed at home like the Elves and the Beavers."

  "Which brings up that question. Should we show them pix of the aboriginal races?"

  "I can't see any advantage to it yet. Why don't you hold off on that? It would just waste our time explaining they chose not to have much to do with us. I'll get back to you when we start getting some response to our pix."

  * * *

  "Gordon, about five minutes after our wave front hit the planet and station they started sending out video incorporating avatars of our three races. I consider that pretty snappy. The next interesting thing is that they clearly showed trade taking place between their races and linked it to the language they've been sending. In fact I'd label the language itself as Trade. I think it is a composite, maybe a pidgin or a creole. We've dumped a lot of language back to them. We'll see how quickly they can use English."