Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet

by Mackey Chandler

  "I'll have him up here tomorrow. Where will this take place?"

  "I'll rent another hotel room for the fellow and they can meet there or here in your bar. Whichever or both they like. Does that work for you?"

  "Sure, we'll have him here tomorrow and he'll stay with my family while he is on station. We have a big place and Badgers have family in and out all the time. It's our nature. In fact he will probably be family. We do business that way too. Lucky here is family."

  "That's interesting. Our whole expedition is basically a family business so I understand."

  "It is? How many members have ownerships?"

  "Why Lee here owns two thirds and I own a third. But everybody who came along gets paid shares from whatever profits we show. They are not liable for any losses however. If we don't make anything she and I would have had to bear the loss. We are already assured of gains however from claims we made before we ever got here."

  Lucky looked at Lee and looked at Gordon. He looked at Stubborn who looked away and refused his stare. "But Lee is Human and you are Derf, do I understand that correctly?"

  "Yes, but she's my adopted daughter, so she'd family. Do you not have adoption?" he asked.

  "We do, but not across species. I mean..." Lucky had a wide eyed look a little different from any they'd seen before. Gordon suspected it was confusion and maybe a little consternation. "I don't know of any law against it, but I've never heard of one happening before. I think many of our people would have a hard time understanding why you'd do so."

  "I grew up away from all other people on an exploration ship, but not in a fleet like we are doing now, just my parents and Gordon," Lee told him. "When my parents died he was the only adult I knew. The only other person I'd ever been around. Would it have been a kindness to give me away to strangers?" she asked.

  "Apparently not," Lucky said. "I will have to take some time to think on that to not feel uncomfortable with it. I ask your patience. It is a very hard new concept to absorb."

  "No problem," Lee said. "Some Humans had a hard time allowing it. Some Derf too."

  The owners pressed another bottle of vodka on them when they left.

  * * *

  "Do you want to rent a different room, since the negotiators are in ours, or go back to the ship?"

  "It was interesting, but I'd be happy to be back in my cabin," Lee told Gordon. "I don't care about the gravity and it was almost like camping out. I'll feel better being able to speak freely too."

  "Good, I'm happy to go back too. I wasn't comfortable being away from my command so long."

  When they got back to their lock some of the excitement over the new aliens had died down. There was a single Badger talking at length with both guards. As he suspected the Badger was a reporter when he asked. He thought the Bill standing off had equipment that looked more professional than the people had before. They begged off an interview claiming to be tired and hungry.

  As they walked along Lee decided to tell Gordon what she'd been thinking. "If you want Ha-bob-bob-brie to be available for others to see, I think you should train him to a bridge job. Running him up to the flight deck for a video and then right back to doing maintenance... It doesn't feel right to me. Also, when we get back are you going to try to recruit more Hinth for our ships?"

  "I don't know. I don't know what we are going to do with our ships when we get back."

  Lee looked like she was going to say something, and then changed her mind. "Well they'll be used for something. Starships are too valuable to sit idle." He didn't argue that.

  "Why? What does that have to do with Ha-bob-bob-brie's duties?" Gordon asked.

  "Well if you were going to send him to recruit among the Hinth it would look a lot better to have him say he had a more responsible position. Do you think their top people will get all excited at the possibility of doing suit maintenance? I can speak to the others on the Retribution. I haven't even asked what they are doing over there. In fact you haven't mentioned how they are doing, if they've fit in and adapted OK. I guess they might be possible recruiters too."

  "They might be the better ones to recruit," Gordon allowed, thoughtfully. "They seem to think Ha-bob-bob-brie is insane by their strictest standards, so maybe he wouldn't be the best recruiter. Triads like them would likely be turned off by a solitary Hinth."

  "But there must be other single Hinth," Lee guessed. "Maybe working with Humans and Derf would be a great opportunity for singleton Hinth, who don't fit in their own society."

  "That's an interesting idea. Ha-bob-bob-brie seems able to discuss his status without getting upset. Rather he seems amused at the other Hinth's discomfort. If he's insane I find insane Hinth much more adaptable. I'll just ask these things of him directly and see what he says. Maybe he doesn't want a command job or to recruit. I'll put it to him before I ask Captain Aristotle to quiz the other Hinth."

  "Good. I feel better about it already," Lee said.

  There were lots of messages and Thor waiting for them at the ship.

  "We have some people lobbying really hard to have some liberty. Trouble is I don't trust a number of them to have the sense to interact with strange new races. I was very careful in setting up who would go on the dock. That worked out really well. I don't need people going on station who were probably well known back home to the Bunko Squad. They'd set up a table and start playing Three Card Monte with the natives and make us a stink to them for a few coins."

  "How did we end up recruiting this bunch?" Gordon asked.

  "Well, we picked them for skills, I guess most of the people who wanted to come are naturally risk takers. And I didn't realize Fargoer's are as fanatical about gambling as humans are about football. But it isn't something I want to expose our new friends to this early. Maybe we can find some way to warn them about it and ease them into it."

  "I think it's the sort of problem that will fix itself," Lee said. "After a few Badgers loose the rent money and can't figure out how it is done so slick, word will get around."

  "That doesn't spread a lot of goodwill for the fleet though," Thor objected.

  "I'll think on it," Gordon told him. "I'm on good terms now with a couple bar owners. Maybe we can provide a destination sort of leave without letting them all run wild in the corridors."

  * * *

  Prosperity White and the Third Mother of Red Tree settled into the suite and invited the Badgers to call whenever they wished. They came very quickly and they found they could drink the vodka without any problem. They spend some time asking what Prosperity did on his ship and at home as well as Madonna, which was the Third Mum's human name.

  That led to the Talker and Trader explaining their personal life in some detail. Both sides felt better to try to understand the others personalities. They sat relaxed, holding hands.

  They finally arrived at lunch time for all of them without doing any real business. It was interesting everyone got hungry again in about five hours.

  The Human and Derf shared dishes, which was of some interest to the Badgers. They admitted the Bills had quite a few foods they could eat and Sasquatch just a few.

  "What about the Biters?" Prosperity asked. That got a dark look from the Badgers.

  "They would never think to share. Neither do we like to play with our food in making it dead."

  "Oh," was all Prosperity could say. It seemed a good subject to drop.

  The Badgers were set against making a border. At least one that was a plane they'd agree not to cross. It took a bit, but the idea formed in back and forth that they could enter Human Derf space for commerce, but agreed to avoid a cone aimed at the home worlds for exploration. Further refining defined the cone as sixty degrees. They'd come so far that easily defined everything in the present globe of exploration and then some. They didn't admit that to the Badgers, who seemed pleased with talking them down from a ninety degree cone of exclusion.

  Thor or Gordon would have balked at telling the Badgers what direction they'd come from, but what other
choice was there if they were going to define a border and encourage trade? They did however demand reciprocal information.

  When the dinner hour approached they agreed they had discussed enough business for the day and everyone was tired. The Little Fleet team said they didn't understand enough of the local language or culture to appreciate the video entertainment. They set up to make their supper from their supplies and urged the Badgers to stay if they wished and order in from the hotel.

  "I should have brought my blocks," Talker said, waiting for their food.

  "I have the mutual word for block," Prosperity said, looking at his pad. "But I think I'm lacking context for what specific form of block."

  "These blocks are square, but thinner the third dimension and have a number on both faces." Talker found a picture of them and showed them. "The square has a prime side above the number and a secondary side under it. There are several ways to play, but usually you play off a center line and block the other player from reaching a line closer to you. You can only block with a higher number, so there is much thought well ahead and constructing lines to go around is expensive and often futile."

  "Oh, it's a game," Prosperity exclaimed. "Much thought, well ahead, we'd call strategy."

  "We have a similar game, but the spaces are more numerous and defined for value and the pieces plain pebbles," Madonna said.

  "That sounds like the Human game of Go a little," Prosperity said. "I like card games, because a deck is so easy to carry in your pocket," he said, producing one himself.

  "Really? Is it a simple game or complex?" Trader wondered.

  "There are hundreds of possible games using just the one deck and some using combined decks. There are fifty two cards in four groups called suits. I'll show you the values," he said starting to sort them out on the table. "Fargoers play a lot of poker. There are a variety of poker games, but let me show you a simple one..."

  * * *

  The third Mum and Prosperity White called that they were coming back to the ship to report on their progress. They turned down the offer of an escort, saying they felt perfectly safe. They didn't say, but Gordon assumed they were returning to the ship so they could report in privacy. He'd suggested that to them but got no clear agreement, just a nod that wasn't the usual clear acknowledgement he got from crew, but then they weren't acting as his crew right now.

  Gordon, Lee and Thor went back to the ward room to speak with the government envoys. On the flight deck they couldn't sit facing each other, none of them were very good at ignoring it when any communication came in or the screens showed action. The control room was their place of authority too. It seemed a bad idea to talk with them where the setting reminded them there was a divide between their duties and missions that way and the coffee urn was there.

  "These are the stars and vectors of the stars inhabited and worked by these races," Prosperity told them. He laid a physical print on the table, some sort of plastic material or paper encapsulated in protective covering. The model was artfully drawn, like a representation of a molecule, with bars connecting spheres. The bars had lines of data and the spheres had symbols relating them to text on the side. The system they were in right now was number 80 and they had entered from number 81. Basic numbers of each star appeared beside the sphere representing it. The chart was pretty big, near a meter on the long side and viewed in landscape mode.

  "I don't know how it looks to anybody else," Lee said, "your color perception may be different, but it's pretty to my eyes, bright and they did the illusion of depth really well.

  "They didn't make it specially for us. Talker said this is a well known chart used in classrooms and little ones interested in space like to hang it in their private rooms."

  "Perhaps..." Thor allowed. "I'll believe they handed the location of all their worlds to us on a platter when I send a ship along some of these routes."

  "What advantage to lie about it?" Prosperity asked. "They obviously don't have any great military ability. Their only space military force seems to be the Biters and it isn't like they'd act on behalf of the others. At least not without a huge price for their service."

  "That's how it looks to me too," Thor admitted. "But I won't bet the future of my race and culture on my perceptions after such a limited encounter. We've only seen one of their systems."

  Gordon and Lee silently looked at each other and nodded silent agreement.

  "Then might I suggest we send the courier down one of these routes while we are here, double crewed and see if it matches the chart three or four populated planets into it?" Prosperity proposed.

  "Not alone," Lee said quickly, looking concerned.

  "You have reservations too?" Prosperity asked surprised.

  "The sky is wide; it holds surprises. I've seen it turn around and bite us on the ass when we were sure everything was as sweet as could be," she said.

  There was just a moment's pause, as everyone considered how expensive that lesson had been for her. It didn't leave much room to argue.

  "Send the Sharp Claws," Lee argued. "It can come close to keeping up with the Roadrunner and she has teeth. If the Biters ship is any indication it is sufficient. And call Chance right now and tell him and Fat Ortega to pick their alternate crew."

  "Agreed, we'll send the Sharp Claws, but designate the Roadrunner and Chance Ochocinco taskforce command. It removes the fellow with his finger on the trigger from making decisions for all of them. I know it slows the process a little, but it's worth the added safety to avoid any kind of a friendly fire accident."

  "Thor, call Talker on com and ask if there is any problem with doing that. If they want to send a ship along as escort that's fine, but make sure it can keep up. Make it happen pretty quickly, so they can't send word ahead and have a fleet waiting for them."

  "Aye, sir," Thor took 'make it happen' to mean now, starting things in motion from his seat.

  "And have them translate that chart to one with English notation," Gordon added.

  Thor just nodded, talking into his hand com low.

  "We need to reciprocate. They have agreed to make no claims in a sixty degree cone with its apex here and axis pointed at our worlds. Outside that cone it's first come first served. We've agreed to respect each other's claims markers," Prosperity said.

  "Do you agree with that?" Lee asked the third Mother.

  "Yes, with caution. I agree we should test this chart before creating a similar one for them."

  "So you didn't agree to any time line? They aren't waiting for our chart with a hard deadline to produce it?" Gordon asked.

  "No and I would avoid the issue. Just tell them we want to verify their chart before we give them a similar document. I think it will take our navigators a few days to produce it in an unfamiliar format anyway," the third Mum said. "I have confidence it will check out."

  "Why? What makes you so confidence?" Lee asked, frowning.

  "With all honor to my associate, I can tell when the Badgers are lying and he can't."

  "That's a pretty remarkable assertation. Is there some sort of rift that's happened between you two? Gordon wondered. "I need to know if there is."

  "Not at all. I enjoy working with Prosperity. In fact I'd say his government made a good choice in sending him. It's just that after our official talks were done for the day we socialized with the Badgers a bit after hours. Prosperity taught them to play poker and he owes Talker eighty six and seventeen hundredths grams of gold. He can't tell when they are bluffing."

  "And you can?"

  "I won twenty seven and three hundredths grams," she explained.

  Lee started giggling. She tried to say something and she couldn't. Finally she jumped up and ran in the head. Prosperity looked a little miffed.

  "Before you take offense too deeply, it isn't just your story that amused Lee so much." Gordon said, looking almost as unhappy as Prosperity.

  "Whatever else could it be?" Prosperity asked.

  "We had some discussion..." Thor said, look
ing down into his coffee mug. "We were concerned the Fargoers, having such affection for games of chance, would take advantage of the natives and possibly create some resentment among them."

  "Take advantage of the natives?" Prosperity asked, dismayed. "Let me tell you something about the natives. After a game is done, they can recite the order in which every card was shown and quote off the top of their head the odds of filling a hand at that point based on the previously played cards. And this is playing a new game to them."

  "Well then, I guess that isn't a concern for granting liberties," Gordon said.

  "I don't know if the Badgers or the rest of them have anything like a casino," Prosperity said. "But I'd suggest you make clear to them that the ship will not bail them out if they gamble on credit. I know some of them have gone a little nuts assuming they'll be rich when we go home and decided to take IOUs from each other. We have no idea what the local laws are and if they can't pay up their debts they might end up sitting in jail for all we know right now. Just because we have certain laws doesn't mean theirs will be anything similar. In their law the ship might be responsible for the crew's debts on station. You better find out for sure."

  "Tell the translating team to do that," Gordon instructed. "Find out the basic rules and laws of ship and crew responsibility, before we grant any leave. Also, they gave us a free dock this time. That's nice, but we need to know the rates for later."

  Lee came back from the head, under control.

  "I got the story," Prosperity told her.

  "Oh good. You don't hate me I hope?"

  "No and I won't hold it against Talker and Trader, but I'm never going to play poker with the Badgers again. I predict if they visit our worlds all the casinos will ban them. They're all natural card counters."

  "Eighty six grams was a cheap lesson," the third Mother told Prosperity. "I'd count it a friendly game. They could have set the stakes much higher."

  "Again, I think we can get along with these people," Lee said. "Well, maybe not the Biters. But the rest seem to have thought processes similar to our races. It wouldn't be hospitable to play your guest's game and take him for everything you can get. They do seem to have a sense of what is polite."