Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet

by Mackey Chandler

  "How about ornamentals? People will pay a lot for pretty stuff," Gordon said.

  "Oh, we'll both have lots of those, but they are specialty items. They won't generate the income of the practical sort of things we're trading now, but we'll get to them."

  "I agree," Lee said. "First things first, because eventually we'll see other ships from our sector here, competing for these in trade. Let them get the leftovers after we go for the big stuff."

  "And last item for this trade, we get a plant that has a bunch of long spiky leaves. It's pretty and a lot of Badgers keep one growing in a pot. You grab a spike and pull it out, which is pretty easy with the ones on the outside edge and it bleeds a thick clear sap. You don't want to get it on your hands. I swear the stuff can glue just about anything. I want to try gluing stuff on Teflon. They glued a little cube of steel on a steel plate," he showed them with his fingers the size, "and invited me to get it off. I had to hit it with a big hammer so hard one end was mushroomed to get it off."

  "Why would a plant do that?" Lee asked.

  "It's an air plant, it propagates by the outside spines blowing away and they stick where they hit."

  "Hah! Sounds like the barnacles that grow on Earth ships," Gordon said. "All this sounds good, but I'd urge you to make as many trades as you can while we are here. Lee makes a good point we'll have competition eventually. I'd acquire some of their important food plants even if you are not sure we'll be able to eat them. If we can modify them they may have some use."

  "That's a point. They are very conservative about modifying their plants. They had a few unfortunate accidents early in their gene engineering programs and created an exotic that almost crowded the original out of existence. We can screen all of them for drugs too. Even if we synthesize them after we discover them, living systems always have completely new compounds."

  "Yeah, look at the money Thorn generates," Gordon agreed. "It way too inhospitable to colonize, but the pharmaceuticals are still coming out of the jungles twenty years since it was discovered."

  "All right. Thanks for your approvals. I'll do what you said and try to peddle off every organism we have for something. And we haven't even started on cultures of microorganisms or animals."

  * * *

  The Dart, Sharp Claws and Roadrunner all got in tight formation and went ballistic. Tight being relative. The Dart and Sharp Claws were bright dots like stars from the view port of the Roadrunner. They used the shuttle externally grappled on the Sharp Claws to take their people to the Dart. Chance kept his crew, they'd already had a station liberty, if cut short, and he still felt the circumstances too risky to want to leave his command again.

  The Badgers going back to the Sharp Claws were able to use the Human seats with little trouble. A minor matter of adjusting belts and they worked fine. The zero G toilet was a little harder, but with care it was useable too. Frost worried about everything and belatedly asked if the system could process Badger wastes for sure. The engineer seemed amused and informed him it could handle a whole Badger if you could fit one down the toilet. Thankfully their guests didn't hear that conversation.

  The Badgers were awkward in zero G. They were used to having the gravity plates and neither of them were of a specialty who went into weightlessness regularly for their work. They asked belatedly and were assured they not get ill from lack of gravity in the planned time frame.

  The Sharp Claws sent one Derf and three Humans to the Dart, mindful of the Derf being in cramped quarters, two of them would have a hard time passing in their corridors. More so because they had gravity plates in the flight deck, central corridor and for bunks. Squeezing past in zero G would be easier. The gravity in bunks was adjustable unlike what they'd seen in the stations.

  The Derf, Mozart, had full armor and weapons, not the ceremonial stuff, but modern. Two of the Humans had the only two sets of Human powered armor and heavy weapons the Sharp Claws carried. The extra Human got stuck in a cabin with the Derf, because his fellow's gear took up a full cabin. That still made a Badger hot bunk with an off shift crewman.

  If the Bills station saw them ease acceleration for a bit and then correct course and resume they didn't comment on it.

  The Badgers were invited to the flight deck of the Sharp Claws to occupy the two jump seats that could be pulled down for guests. They had a bit more of a tail than Derf, but it seemed to be more fluffy than substantial. They tucked it between their legs to sit or use a pressure suit.

  "How would you like to be addressed?" Frost asked the Badgers. "If your name is too complex you can use a translated English word. My English name Frost, is after a poet I admire. My full Derf name is a genealogy you wouldn't want to repeat over and over. My second here is Barbara."

  "I'm of rank over my fellow here, just so you know if the situation calls for orders. My name is a very simple short sound, I don't think you will have trouble forming, it is Sin. Can you handle that?"

  "Oh Sin is easy, Barbara said, grinning."

  "That seems to amuse you. Is it something inappropriate as a name in English?"

  "I don't think it inappropriate. It is amusing however. Sin in English means those behaviors that are often forbidden by religious conventions."

  "Ah, well there are not many in the space services heavily religious. I doubt that will be a problem then. Just because I am curious, what do your religious see as sins?"

  "Oh, there are different views among various Earth cultures, but there is a classic list of seven sins common to English speakers. They are Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride."

  The other Badger was cracking up and did a face stroking that seemed to calm it, even though it shed no tears like a Human might. "That will mostly do nicely for my commander," he allowed, after checking the translator. "Although I'd never accuse him of Sloth and if he has any Envy he's always hidden it well."

  "Well, what does Sin mean in Badger?" Barbara asked.

  "It's shiny or bright," Sin allowed, but I'll keep it. Having an amusing name doesn't bother me. I'm seeing your Fargoers have outrageous names, so I can too."

  "And what shall we call you," Frost asked the other Badger.

  "Ta-ta-ta doesn't seem natural to English, so call me Chipper or Frisky. It means having a natural good mood, not a bad thing, unless done to excess early in the morning before stimulants."

  "Ah yes, we also have morning people and not morning people," Frost agreed.

  "I wonder, would it be offensive to ask to feel what your fur is like? To touch you? If it isn't customary just tell me to forget it," Barbara asked.

  "Oh, Badgers aren't fussy about bumping or getting crammed in together. Go ahead if you'll do it as a trade," Chipper offered.

  Barbara felt around his ears and stroked one carefully flat with the natural lay of the hair like you would a cat.

  "Damn, you're hired. You'd pay good money to have somebody brush you like that at a vacation resort. Especially after a nice hot shampoo and air dry." He felt the back of her hand and then her hair briefly, moving on to her face, especially the ear and then pushed her nose over gently."

  "That doesn't hurt?" he asked cautiously.

  "No, there's bone up higher," she said, touching that part, "it gets broken a lot if we get smacked in the face, but the bottom part is very flexible. We like to get rubbed, but not brushed obviously. But a good hard rubbing, a massage, by somebody with strong hands is nice. They often use a little oil, because our hands are very grippy." She rolled her hand over. "See all the fine ridges?" she asked.

  "That's interesting. It keeps it from sliding?"

  "Yes and you can identify people from the pattern they leave behind if they touch things. We call them finger prints."

  "That's kind of creepy. I think I'd wear gloves for the privacy issues."

  "Oh it takes a little effort, but yeah, you don't leave prints at the scene of a crime."

  Barbara reached up barely touched his nose and stroked down the side of his muzzle flattening the
whiskers. His eyes got big and his commander laughed so hard he curled a little and held his middle like a Human.

  "Keep that up and Chipper will be inviting you to his cabin," he told her.

  "Oh, is that bad?" she asked jerking her hand back.

  "No, it's very, very good. But very strange that it feels so good from a non-Badger, but I guess I'm...I don't know how to say it," he said, checking his pad. "What do you say – having a set involuntary biological responses?" he asked.

  "Ah, we use a lot of electronics that can be programmed to do different things, so we've come to call biological systems that can only respond one way as "hard wired" like very simple electronics.

  "Yes and it doesn't help that you smell good."

  "How about us?" Frost asked. "Do Derf smell good too or bad?"

  "I honestly can't smell you at all," Chipper said. "Maybe if I stick my nose right against you I'll get something, but I smelled the Humans as soon as I took my helmet off. I just wasn't sure what I was smelling until Barbara had her hand right by my nose and it was a strong scent."

  Barbara leaned close and sniffed by his ear. "I'm not getting much either," she said, "but most Humans don't have a terribly keen sense of smell. Can you smell them Frost?"

  "I can, but it's complex. It would be really hard to explain it to you. They don't have a strong odor like an Earth dog, but it's a little stronger than Human to me. Not to offend, but it's more pleasant."

  "That's OK," Barbara allowed. "When somebody messes up and feeds a Derf cheese, you'll have a whole new olfactory experience," she warned them.

  * * *

  "I've got some subordinates working at it, because you brought so many seeds. Next trip we need to bring a lot of cuttings of things that don't seed. We have two more sets of ten plants to trade and working on more. I'll try to have a match for every one you have. I don't think it is worth going over item by item like we did the first ten," Prosperity said.

  "You're right," Gordon agreed, waving away the opportunity to review the trades with a true hand. "You're doing a fine job and we're not experts in it anyway. But I appreciate hearing about the first set so we have an idea what sort of trades we're getting."

  "The Badgers are very interested in our advanced plastics. They have little in the way of very strong plastics. Some of the Bucky tech we offered them was for plastic matrixes, but they also were interested in sapphire and boron nitride reinforced and plastics with Bucky tubes and aligned Graphene. They don't have much of any plastic tech that works past two hundred, two hundred-fifty degrees max. And they don't have anything that works well for body armor. They never did much with plastic lenses either." "What are they offering?" Lee asked.

  "They have more ceramic tech. Not the flexible stuff we got already, but this stuff is very strong even if it has a failure mode more like what we are accustomed to. It can be formed to very complicated shapes and work at high temperature under tension. The other stuff we bought would creep in something like a turbine. They can make the neatest little gas turbines," he demonstrated with his hands a size like a two liter bottle, "suitable for ground cars and stationary power. They have very complex blade shapes and run at such a high temperature differential that they are very efficient. Hard to believe, but they make gun barrels from ceramic and trust them."

  "That's nice but it seems like we should get more than these little turbines and barrels for the whole huge spectrum of our plastic tech. Maybe trade for some of it?" Gordon suggested.

  "I agree. And that's what I told Talker, the other thing he offered was a system they have to grow diamond. Now I know we can grow gem quality and we can grow a diamond film on things, either polycrystalline or aligned. But they can grow sheets a meter across anywhere from a fraction of a millimeter thick to about fifteen millimeters thick. And at the high end both faces can be flat within about three atomic diameters. It isn't super fast or cheap, but we can't do it at all."

  "Is there that much use for it?" Lee wondered.

  "Our people seemed to think so. They started talking about doping it for semiconductors and optics. I believe it would be superior to some of the polycrystalline stuff on a substrate we are using for heat sinks right now.

  "All right, I guess every deal doesn't have to be to our advantage," Lee allowed. "We'll make it up on others I expect."

  "They also proposed we trade all our glass tech in an even swap, one for one. We each have certain things that are attractive to the other, but neither side has a clear lead."

  "If that's your judgment fine. I don't know enough about glass to have any idea," Gordon admitted.

  "They still grind very precision lenses and we cut them on a lath, we can make tremendously strong glasses by soaking them in molten salts, but they can form them that way without a secondary process. Things like that. It seems like a fair trade."

  Gordon just nodded agreement and Prosperity realized he was over selling and went on.

  "Trader wants a private deal to be provided a comprehensive list of all our games. Card games and casino games, as well as the older board games and even children's games like hop-scotch and jacks. He saw just enough on the partial web to want them all."

  "But not video games?" Gordon asked. "That could get complicated for us legally."

  "No, they don't commonly have computers that can run our games even if you rewrote them and I've refrained from pushing computer tech yet, because that gets into too many things that can be used in weapons systems."

  "Ah, yeah. That's going to be a problem eventually," Gordon acknowledged.

  Chapter 17

  "I'm nervous about that Biter ship," Chance admitted. "We'll guard the Dart at dock, but tell me your thoughts on it. If you were the Biter captain and wanted to sneak back here to catch us at station how would you do it?" he asked Fat.

  "I come around the gas giant retrograde. With the higher closing speed we'd have less time to react to them and they would have a better chance of deploying whatever weapons they have against us. It should be obvious to them we are not pushovers. They need every advantage they can get."

  "So you see them making a fast pass and releasing weapons. What if we all docked? I doubt they know we don't have docking collars, or chose not to grab on a mast."

  "I suspect they don't give a damn for the station and would fire on us at dock. At the rate they would pass I'd be shocked if their weapons were accurate enough to hit a ship cleanly and not the station."

  "All right, I can see that. I'm going to advise Fussy to demand a dock on the trailing edge of the station. That way if they come around the gas giant retro' anywhere near in the plane of rotation it will be hidden behind the station. So where should we be?" he demanded of the more experienced man.

  Fat Ortega pouted and his eyes narrowed. "Backing up just a minute, why do you think they might not be in the plane of rotation?"

  "It's a much more difficult maneuver, requiring accurate data on the orbit of the moon and movements of a moon in a system of many interacting moons like this can be complex. So it is one we'd be less likely to anticipate. Also it would negate my action of docking the Dart to the trailing edge. I believe we have much superior radar to theirs, but still our coverage isn't total. We have to orient our ship so we are covering the section where they are most likely to appear and that isn't going to be over either pole of the gas giant."

  "Do you really think they might do that?"

  "No, I'd give it a five percent probability or less, but I have to consider it. I don't think they are that subtle and I have my doubts they have the piloting skills or computer capacity to carry it off. But I wanted to bounce the idea off you."

  "I don't see it either. I'd put the Sharp Claws ahead of the moon, twenty or thirty degrees, in roughly the same orbit. That gives them a big lead seeing the Biters if they come back and a clear field of fire."

  "And if they approach in chase instead, or over one of the poles?"

  "We cover that by either trailing the moon in the Roadrun
ner and watching behind us, or assuming a tight, fast polar orbit on the gas giant so we can check the other side on a regular basis."

  "Now that's why I pick your brain, because I'd never have thought of that last option. As attractive as that is it would take so much fuel to assume that station and lift back from so deep against the big planet that I'd need to refuel before we left the system. No, we'll watch behind and mostly take our chances with the polar approaches. Just peek now and then."

  * * *

  "Talker and Trader had a fellow today from the Badger government," Prosperity said. "They asked if they could bring him in first. I asked if they were getting any blow-back from their government about our business. They swear that's not the case, that he had questions and wanted to meet us since we had some authority to speak for our governments. He had a lot of questions about Derfhome and how the Mothers govern and somewhat less about Fargone. He seemed to find the Derf stranger than Fargoers. Talker told us that just to be clear, he's technically a government worker too, but this guy is higher powered than him though not his direct boss."

  "He'll have a nervous breakdown if he tries to figure out Earth governments," Gordon said.

  "He indicated he'll be one of the Badgers going to New Japan. What I got is that the Badgers only had what we would call police until they ran into the Biters. They haven't had any military for some generations. Now they have recreated a sort of militia based on local police leadership because of the Biter threat. The government is not interested in owning space ships, they want ship owners to cover the cost of their own defense, but they realize after talking with us that other places like New Japan may demand a central authority to deal with for defense. The ship owners also have a sort of trade association. They will be sending their own spox along too and he'll have the real financial authority, not the government spox."

  "What about the other races? Are they sending anybody?" Lee asked.