Quarus (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 6)

by S J MacDonald

  They all looked at the SEP, Ali with a certain superstitious caution and Zak surreptitiously touching the lucky charm he carried in his pocket.

  Alex stared at it too, not for one moment giving any credibility to the suggestion that it might be haunted or have become the sentient machine so beloved by movie-makers.

  ‘Sound?’ he said, and then almost immediately dismissed it. ‘No!’ Then again, doubt crept in. ‘But…’

  ‘I know,’ said Ali, with considerable feeling. ‘Too crazy, huh. But that’s what people are saying, skipper, laughing sets it off.’

  ‘I don’t see how it could,’ Alex admitted. ‘But let’s not ignore any possibility – we’ve exhausted all the sane ones, after all. Run up a graph of sound levels in the machine space and see if there’s any correlation with anomalous output, will you?’

  ‘Skipper.’ Ali looked pleased. That was the kind of task which might be given to a petty officer, a level of responsibility he was working his way back to after catastrophic brain damage had deprived him of all memory of his previous Fleet career and training. It was part of his rehab to give him rank-appropriate tasks where possible, and thoughtful of the skipper to leave that to him rather than passing it on to a Sub.

  Alex thought no more of it, going on with his walk-round and calling in to the artificer’s workshop. Going in there required suiting up and passing through an airlock, as the workshop was a clean-room, but Alex did that as routinely as he’d go through any door.

  It was quite crowded in the workshop, too. A couple of crew were doing artificer training on the equipment, there, producing and assembling complex parts. There was less space even than usual, though, since a new piece of equipment had been installed and three people were in there working on it.

  The piece of equipment was currently the most advanced bit of gear on the ship and certainly the most expensive. It was a nanotech unit, capable of manipulating sub-atomic particles into extraordinarily precise configurations. It was hard at work producing the Geminax communications pods which they were to trial during their crossing of the Gulf. They were engines so small it was almost impossible to comprehend, each machine installed within a single molecule of duralloy. They were then paired up within a microscopic bubble, linked by quantum entanglement, which was itself then encased in a blob of gel to make it easier to handle.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Alex enquired, and then laughed as all three of the people working on it gave him looks which made it very clear they didn’t want to answer that question. There had to be a specially trained officer handling the actual manufacture of the pods – right now that was Lt Weir, taking his turn on the rota. His reaction to the question was one of quick alarm. Production at this cutting-edge level could be temperamental, and as with any other endeavour which might go wrong at any moment, people tended not to want to tempt fate by saying that it was all going fine. The same reaction was evident on the face of the leading star who was assisting the Lt, and on that of the able star in training for a lab-tech qualification. ‘All right.’ Alex recognised the alarm and the reason for it, taking a look at the readouts for himself. It was going well today, a good long run of production without interruptions or glitches. There was only an 18.9% rejection rate, too, of pods which failed quality testing. Some days it could run up to more than fifty. Opinion amongst the crew, though, was that Lt Weir had the magic touch, as it generally seemed to work better when he was in charge. ‘Well done,’ Alex acknowledged all three of them. Operating this machine was a complex, challenging job requiring total focus and excellent teamwork, especially in the cramped conditions of the workshop. And they had, by then, produced nearly fifteen million of the pods, well on the way to that day’s target.

  ‘Thank you, skipper.’ Lt Weir said, trying to pretend not to be aware of Admiral Dafour squeezed in behind the skipper, but not making a very good job of it.

  As they left, Alex saw Admiral Dafour look over his shoulder at the nano-engineering gear with a flicker of wistful longing. It was apparent that he would have loved to ask questions about it, not as any part of inspection but simply because he was fascinated by the sight of the most sophisticated tech operating anywhere in the League right now. Alex would have been very happy to talk to him about it, too, but he didn’t. Inspection protocol required him to carry on entirely as normal and to ignore Admiral Dafour completely, so that was what he did.

  At the end of his walk-round Alex ended up, as he usually did, in engineering. There, he seated himself on metal-grid stairs leading down from the platform of the engine control area, overlooking the tightly nested mix-cores and the network of walkways and ladders between them. There were comfortable seats up on the platform, but the skipper always sat on the stairs, with a mug of engine room tea brewed the old fashioned way with a teapot and a steam-valve. With a slight smile, Admiral Dafour went up to the platform, where he leaned on the railing and gave a nod of thanks to the rigger who brought him a mug of tea, too.

  Nobody bothered either of them. Skippers had always gone to engineering when they wanted some time out – by tradition, they were handed a mug of tea and thereafter treated as if they were invisible, unless they themselves seemed inclined for a chat. Today, Alex was not. He was musing, listening to the music of the engines and feeling the subtle shifting of skin-tingling energies. It was, for Alex at least, deeply relaxing, better than music or ocean waves or any kind of relaxation therapy. While he sat there with that battered tin mug between his hands, surrounded by the sound of mix cores singing to one another, time seemed to slow and just come gently to a pause. Nothing was urgent or fretful here; there was just stillness in the presence of tremendous power. Only when he had finished his tea did he pull it together, firing time back into action as he got up, handed over his empty mug with a smile for the rigger who came to fetch it, then strolling on again.

  By the time he went off to bed, having seen the ship settle for the nightwatch, Alex had spent an entirely typical day, including attending that evening’s Mindful talk. The topic this evening was about terraforming, specifically, the history and current environment of the Serenity X-base.

  That was interesting. Serenity had been used as a base for more than a thousand years, primarily as a jumping-off point for exploration. There had been three significant terraforming efforts made during that history, at times when the League had been keen on that as an idea. Terraforming was currently out of fashion, at least as far as government funding was concerned. Serenity, though, had managed to retain an ongoing terraforming unit as part of the university research centre there.

  As a result, Serenity was a far richer environment than the usual kind of X-base. Most of them were on slimeworlds, and at best, might have a few kilometres of flora around the base itself. Serenity, though, was surprisingly green, with vast fern forests and mossy tundra covering much of the continental land mass. They had fauna, too. There were thousands of species of insect and an extraordinary range of exotic, highly coloured birds – the living flowers of Serenity, it was said, since flowering plants had not yet been developed there. The oceans, too, had been seeded. Kelp forests in the seas mirrored those upon land, and there was fauna there, too; a food web of plankton, jellyfish and corals, bestowed by one of the terraforming pushes which had seeded the oceans with primordial life. The talk showed how that had been done, with strategic seeding of locations where wind or water currents would expand from the primary sites, and the progress over even just a few centuries really was astonishing. Alex already knew all about it from Diplomatic Corps briefings and his own research, but it was still interesting to see the dry data brought to life with holos of the various environments.

  The next day, the nature of that talk was one of the questions Admiral Dafour had for him. Admiral Dafour and his team had spent all morning and the first part of the afternoon going through their findings before Alex was called to a meeting with the Admiral.

  ‘I don’t have many questions,’ Admiral Dafour said, surprising A
lex who’d imagined that his list would be enormous. ‘I have,’ Admiral Dafour explained, ‘had the benefit of briefing from Admiral Tennet, as well as access to previous inspection reports.’

  ‘Ah.’ That explained a great deal. In the complex ebb and flow of internal politics within the Fleet, Admiral ‘Terrible’ Tennet had risen as the voice of the majority. She would not give the Fourth the impassioned support of those who saw them as crusading against the reactionary Old School, but nor would she stand with the traditionalists in denouncing everything they did, on principle, as a disgrace to the Fleet. Admiral Dafour had just placed himself squarely in the middle ground, alongside Terrible Tennet, upholding the finest traditions of the Fleet with her high honour and professionalism, and open to new ideas, to progress. Alex had a very high regard for Admiral Tennet. She had carried out their first inspection on the Heron after they’d moved to Therik and upgraded to the frigate. And she had sent Jonas Sartin, too, a high ranking IA officer, to protect them when dirty tricks were in the offing.

  ‘Admiral Tennet,’ Admiral Dafour observed, ‘advised me to wear comfortable shoes and to bring a good supply of energy drinks in order to keep up with you.’ He smiled. ‘Fortunately for me, you appear to have moderated your levels of workload somewhat – good, captain. And not just for my comfort, I mean, it was a concern that the workload you were undertaking was not sustainable for you, long term. I am glad to be able to report that you are working within sensible limits, though still at a very high level. Dr Tekawa and Professor Penarth are, I understand, monitoring your workload, health and general wellbeing.’ As Alex nodded confirmation, the Admiral queried, ‘Including instructor-led exercise sessions?’

  Alex grinned, seeing the twinkle in the other man’s eyes.

  ‘They have so much fun with that,’ he admitted. ‘And to be fair, who wouldn’t, given the opportunity to run the boss through hell for an hour without any repercussions? And that’s the thing, you see – Simon, Professor Penarth, has put it in the briefing for anyone doing a personal training session for me that they are to make it as tough as possible and to be bossy with it. Apparently he feels that it isn’t good for me to spend all of my time in an environment where I’m always the one in charge, that it benefits me a couple of times a week to have a strenuous workout and be under someone else’s authority for a change.’

  ‘Is he right, do you think?’ The Admiral asked, curiously.

  ‘I don’t think so, no.’ Alex replied. ‘As far as I’m concerned I’m still the skipper, regardless of whether I’m going along with following gym instructions. If it crossed a line, I would say so. But Simon thinks it’s good for me, Simon feels strongly about it and I don’t. It isn’t a big deal really and may have benefits for the crew even if not for me, so I haven’t argued about it.’

  ‘All right – thank you.’ The Admiral made a note. ‘Just a query about your involvement with the Second Irregulars projects – you seem particularly involved with the Filarnex SEP research, and I gather that Professor Barnholdt’s conduct has been demanding and disruptive – just how much of your time and energy, do you think, goes into dealing with and supporting the Second’s projects, here?’

  ‘Very little, generally,’ Alex said, considering. ‘It depends on the teams, of course, and where they’re at with their research. During the week that Professor Barnholdt had direction of the ship a good deal of my time was spent in working with him, but I’ve had very little involvement with him since. And while I do have concerns about the basis on which he obtained his placement and funding for his research, I wouldn’t say that his behaviour has been especially disruptive – immature, yes, I would readily grant you immature, but nothing that our normal pastoral care couldn’t manage. In fact, on balance, he’s actually been of benefit to us in providing valuable training opportunities for officers who needed experience in conflict resolution.’

  Admiral Dafour made another note. ‘Always looking for the positive,’ he observed. ‘But – the Filarnex research?’

  ‘Yes, I have become involved in that – it’s fascinating trying to figure out what’s going on with the SEP. It doesn’t take up much of my time, though – an occasional chat with the team to assure them that we haven’t forgotten about it. I called into the machine space yesterday because I could see they were all in there getting agitated, and four agitated civilians in the machine space is four too many.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said the Admiral. ‘But you wouldn’t say that having the Second’s lab aboard, then, even when there are problems as with Professor Barnholdt and an anxious team needing pastoral care, is significantly disruptive to the normal operations of the ship?’

  ‘No, really not,’ Alex said. ‘What time and care they may need is repaid tenfold by all the benefits having them here gives us, both in terms of the practical benefits of having access to the very latest tech and in the opportunities it provides for our people to get involved in all kinds of projects.’

  Admiral Dafour made a note.

  ‘As, for instance,’ he continued, ‘the Geminax project?’

  Alex nodded. ‘That’s an excellent example,’ he agreed. ‘The Parrot team…’ he pronounced it Par-roh, ‘developed Geminax from Samartian nano-tech.’ He didn’t mention that it had been the Fourth which had secured that tech during their mission to Samart, but then, he didn’t need to. Admiral Dafour was well aware of that. ‘We were fortunate to have the Parrot team working aboard and to be involved with that research throughout. And now we’ve been lent the production tech for an experiment, seeing how far we can lay Geminax into the Gulf.’

  Admiral Dafour looked frankly impressed. Geminax – named after twin gods – was so powerful it could transmit signals nearly four hundred times faster than the best speed superlight-comms the League had. It was also so tiny that it was, theoretically at least, practicable to lay streams of it even between worlds, enabling direct communications. The Fourth had already tested it by laying a stream between Carrearranis and its border station, reducing an eleven hour comms-transit to a matter of minutes. Questions remained, though, about how stable such a stream would be over longer distances, so they were now to lay a stream out into the Gulf and find out how far it would operate in those dead calm conditions. It was a technological advance with such immense possibilities that it was breathtaking. And yet it was, for the Fourth, just a side-project. Admiral Dafour would really have liked to ask about it in detail, but was obliged to stick to the matters he needed to establish for his inspection report.

  ‘I need to ask, too, about the Mindful Society,’ the Admiral said. ‘I know that you draw a distinction yourselves between lectures which are required study for operations, and those which are presented on a leisure basis, but I have to say that from an observer’s perspective it can be quite difficult to tell the difference. The talk that was given last evening, for instance, could easily have been considered a destination briefing for your visit to Serenity and on that basis, operational. And though it was presented as a leisure activity, I note that by lunchtime today take-up on the recording by those who didn’t attend the talk itself had reached a hundred per cent, just as if it had been required. This may be perceived as surreptitious, unrecorded workload, so I’d appreciate clarification on that point.’

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t operational,’ Alex assured him. ‘We are hot on that, if any talk is being given for training purposes it has to be factored into workload. But there is no operational need for us to be briefed about the environment and wildlife of Serenity – about Quarus, yes, but Serenity is only a brief stopover and any information given about it is purely for leisure purposes. I can tell you why it had a hundred per cent take-up, though – because everyone knows there will be shoreleave passes there and they are naturally interested to find out a little about where we are going.’

  ‘Hmmn,’ said the Admiral. ‘Membership of the Mindful Society is, I gather, also a hundred per cent.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ Alex agreed. ‘Everyone want
s in on it, when they join us. There’s something of a mythology in the regular Fleet, I gather, about some of the talks and articles in the Mindful journal. Mr North’s talk about butterflies is almost always the first one they go for.’ He saw the Admiral’s reaction to that and gave him an amused look. ‘It is very good, isn’t it?’

  Admiral Dafour nodded. Davie North’s talk on Lepidoptera had indeed achieved legendary status amongst spacers and throughout the diplomatic service. The idea that one of the wealthiest men in the League would give a talk about butterflies was odd enough in itself to capture attention, but when the butterflies in question were species the like of which humans had never seen, the talk was astounding. Davie had obtained the information and images by translating a tiny part of the data-bomb the Gider had dropped on them. There was an image in that which nobody who’d seen it would ever forget; thousands of Gider dancing with millions of gauzy, eight-winged butterflies each of which was more than a metre wide and shimmered like peacocks. Prior to coming out to the Fourth, Admiral Dafour, like most of the Fleet, had been on the redacted list for the Mindful Journal, meaning that he got a copy of all the talks which were not classified as exodiplomacy. One of the ways he and his team had been amusing themselves in their Lair had been going through back copies and watching all the good stuff now that they had access. And in that, the legendary talk on butterflies had been top of their own must-see list.