That got their attention.
"You both already have other duties and responsibilities, and income." Lee reminded them. "What would you consider an acceptable boost in your income for the personal time you'll be losing?"
The idea they had personal time was a new concept to Born and confusing to Musical, so neither replied quickly.
"Say, five hundred dollars Ceres a week? If you want to talk about it after a few months we can discuss it when I'm back" Lee offered.
"That works for me," Born said, trying to keep a straight face. Musical managed to nod yes.
"If I fund it and it has no practical application, well, I won't be broke. Talker already said Musical can work on the side for me. Can you hire on and regard it as a research job? Is that a problem with the University?" she asked Born.
He assured her it was not. In fact they encouraged that sort of liaison with business.
"Right now, this is thinking and talking about it. I believe the English expression is 'brain-storming'. I liked that when I heard it. One expects much thunder and hopes for a few bolts of lightning. However, even at this stage web searches can be very expensive. You'd probably be shocked how the school rations them out for their own research. How would you like to support our necessary searches at this early stage?" Born asked.
"You see my com code there. Make sure you put it in your addy folder, and charge any searches against it. Just copy them to me, so I have them to look at too," she requested. "Oh, here are couple names I know. They might have relevance. Jeff Singh, Nam-Kah Singh, James Weir, and any frequent second tier names associated with them."
"How should I limit the searches?" Born asked Lee respectfully.
"You know better than me. How much time do you have to look at the results? Do you need to go outside the English Earth web? Russian? German? Maybe New Japan? Does an Earth search include the Moon? Structure them any way you want. If you need help to go through them let me know, and eyes can be hired. In my experience, Artificial Stupids aren't worth a damn, and I wouldn't bother with them because they're too literal."
"Yes, but what should I set as a spending limit?" Born said, embarrassed to ask.
"It's data, what else is as worthy to buy?" Lee declared. "No reason to limit it."
When Lee left, Born looked at Musical still on his screen. He was more than a little stunned at the little Human's attitude. "Where did you find her?" he demanded.
"She's my boss' friend," Musical answered truthfully.
* * *
"Our private investigators report there have been multiple inquiries of the Earth web services under several names from both Fargone and Derfhome," April told Jeff. "They are requesting all the papers published by you, your mother, and James Weir as author or co-author in any rank. They are not aware Central has its own restricted web I'm sure. They also ordered a whole array of papers and publications, having to do with various aspects of Quantum Mechanics and gravitational theory. They ask for priority return ship routing, and the search service authorization form listed Lee Anderson as the responsible party to bill. The box asking for fee limits was filled out as unlimited." April rolled her eyes at the audacity of that, and sent the file to Jeff's pad. He scrolled down the list. She didn't ask him what he thought, but he volunteered it.
"Oh shit . . ."
* * *
The next morning Gordon was back, and had good news. "Thank goodness, we are rid of Timilo and his cloud of sycophants as soon as their escort arrives from New Japan."
"New Japan has armed vessels worthy of being escorts, and capable of doing so for such an extended voyage?" Lee was clearly surprised.
"Timilo says they do. I have no real idea what they own. When we visited New Japan during the war there was nothing that looked like a warship hanging around their main space station, but they tend to be both isolationist and secretive. No reason they'd want to flash what they have to impress me. Especially in the middle of a war, and the system scan can easily be edited for visitors. Timilo didn't even say what class of vessel would go back with them." Gordon thought about it a minute and frowned. "He didn't even say explicitly that it was one vessel and not more."
"I actually approve of that, over making regular 'show the flag' visits like North America does. I don't see that as anything but thinly veiled intimidation," Lee said.
"It does make me curious," Gordon admitted. "Perhaps we'll get a peek at what they bring through, if they don't form up a convoy far out system just to maintain their privacy. At least they have a relationship having sold them weapons. It isn't plain old mercenary service like I felt our escorting them would be."
"They don't seem aggressive, so it's none of my concern what they have to protect their own system," Lee decided.
"Most strategists would feel you are not nearly paranoid enough." Gordon told her.
"Yes, I know the mind set you are describing," Lee said. "The sort who couldn't sleep with you outfitting our ships in Fargone orbit."
"Exactly! Not that I couldn't contrive to bombard Fargone, and put a pretty big nick in their naval forces before they could figure out there was a problem and respond, but a person has to have a reason to do something like that. That's when you know it's pure paranoia, when there is no reasonable benefit to doing so, but they worry anyway. Fargone is a resource to us. Why would I damage the people we are using for staging and supply? It was crazy."
"I can kind of understand. It’s crazy, unless . . . the entire project of gathering the Little Fleet was a facade to gather a strike force in Fargone orbit," Lee said, cocked her head over with wild eyes, and smiled a deliberately crazed smile.
Gordon looked at her, horrified. "Don’t you go down the rabbit hole too!”
"Maybe it's a Human weakness," Lee mused.
"That's remarkably open minded of you," Gordon said, "but no, paranoia seems to be within the reach of any thinking creature. Talker and Ha-bob-bob-brie have both admitted it is present in their cultures. I've seen pretty strong evidence of it in the flood of messages Timilo sent me. Besides, it isn't really a weakness if people really are out to get you. Sometimes that is the reality."
"Is anybody out to get you right now?" Lee asked, playfully.
"I'm sure they are, somewhere, behind the scenes," Gordon said, and did a classic slow eye scan, side to side.
Lee laughed appreciating his drama.
"Something you should know," Gordon said, trying for nonchalance. "Sally at the bank said Clare seemed really down, so I visited while I was in town. I think she has been pushing herself too hard, close to burning herself out really. I suggested she take a break, a vacation even. I offered your condo on Fargone, if that's OK. You should tell your people there to expect her in case she shows up." He hoped belatedly that Lee wouldn't feel he'd presumed.
"Oh, sure, I'm not going to be using it. Does she need a ride?" Lee worried.
"I think it would be a good life lesson for her to have to deal with commercial transport," Gordon suggested. "She already has the bank here to help make reservations."
"You're right, and it's not Association business, so it would be expensive, and I'd have to charge it to my accounts," Lee decided. "But it's good to give my housekeeping and security something to do, so they don't think they're on a perpetual vacation."
Gordon nodded approval. She was getting command skills, little by little.
Chapter 17
"Why make such a fuss about a minor simplification in form?" Born protested. "If the gravitation constant cancels out in the equation, you know it is there. The sort of fellow who makes sure the ship actually jumps when the captain commands it doesn't care about the elegance of the full expression. It's probably less confusing to him to have two symbols less among what are already too many of the dreary things confusing him.
"It no longer describes reality," Musical objected. It was obviously an emotional issue for him. It offended him.
"OK, it no longer describes possible realities," Born allowed with an
offhand flip of his hand, as if he were throwing the point away. "It describes our reality that gravity is constant."
"No! It describes a special case. One that I'm not even sure it true outside limited locality. Gravity is certainly variable in at least one case. We temporarily alter gravity with mechanisms for our ships and space stations," Musical protested.
Born looked very skeptical. "A rotating frame of reference which accelerates a mass around a fixed point is not truly gravitational."
"Of course it's not. Do you think I'm an idiot? I'm not talking about spinning things. We have a mechanism that produces a pseudo-gravitational field. It has spinning parts, of exotic material, but it isn't a centrifuge. See? I know the proper word for that sort of machine."
"Well, we don't have such a thing," Born informed him.
"You do now," Musical insisted. "We sold gravity plates to the Little Fleet. I imagine they have torn a few apart and are figuring out the best way to produce and sell them. Here, if you don't believe me the easiest way is to show you. The Dart is in orbit. Somebody has to be on duty even if it isn't underway. If they don't have the deck plates activated they can turn them on for you."
Musical called the ship and didn't even need his call to be transferred. It opened on a Badger lounging in a big powered chair that had to be an acceleration couch on the command deck. A panel behind him appeared to be the back of a com console. The fellow had a cup in his hand, probably the local coffee they were enjoying, while they could, where it was relatively cheap. He said something to Musical in Badger who replied, and then he considered the Derf he had on the slit screen with narrowed eyes.
"I don't speak Derf, but I have fair English," he offered Born. "Technician Musical informs me you really do wish to speak to me. He assures me he didn't connect here at random. Since I've only had one com call all shift, which was from a drunken Derf waving a coupon for a honey ham pizza, I welcome a call. I couldn't help him. Do you really speak the Human language too?"
"Yes, I can use English too," Born assured him. "No few Derf do now."
"In that case, Greetings," the Badger said, saluting him with his cup. "You've reached the Badger vessel Dart in Derfhome orbit. I'm Officer of the Day by English conventions, ship-sitter by Badger usage. So you may address me as Sitter if you have need. I know the technician here by reputation as a humorless fellow, so you must have business. How may I help you?"
"The techie, Musical," Born said, using the shortened name form, "tells me that you have devices which can create an artificial gravitational field. I wish to see that demonstrated."
Sitter blinked a couple times and then did a distinctive Badger smile. "What do you think is keeping my coffee in my cup?" he asked, doing another, somewhat half-hearted salute with it. "I set the plates to half Badger standard and it makes drinking it much simpler, but I'm still light enough my butt doesn't go numb sitting in this gods forsaken chair for hours."
"Could you show me by turning them off? I can't tell you are in orbit," Born insisted.
"You should have noticed the speed of light lag," Sitter insisted, "but fine." He put a cap on the coffee cup, set it out of sight somewhere, and fiddled with something on his board. Then he reached back and grabbed the arms of his couch. He didn't stand up, he pushed straight up and twisted his wrist, floating over the arm, in a pose impossible to hold under any weight, turning until he could grab his head rest.
He smoothly did a turn around the back of his coach in the horizontal plane, but pulled his legs and tail up to clear the console behind him. Zero G was obviously not any new experience for him. His moves were smooth and natural. He got reoriented to the seat without letting go and pulled himself back in the seat, but loosely floating.
Reaching out of the camera range he retrieved the coffee mug, positioned it in mid-air, and let go of it smoothly between him and the camera. He drew his hand back slowly straight away from the mug. The way it stayed floating in position with no tumble and almost no drift testified that he had a lot of experience handling things in zero G. He smiled at the camera, enjoying showing off, and grabbed the mug again. When he reached off camera with his free hand to touch some control again, he visibly settled in the seat, and his hand with the mug dipped as it acquired weight again.
"Satisfied?" he asked. "If this was to settle some sort of a bet you should tip me," Sitter said, shifting his gaze to Musical's side of the screen.
"You've been talking to the Fargoers too much," Musical said. "It never occurred to me to turn it into a bet. We're arguing about drive theory."
"Well, I've heard Humans will argue how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I had to have both those items explained to me, and I still think it's silly. Fargoers will bet on which bird will fly first of two sitting on a fence," Sitter said. "I'm not that 'fargone' yet," he quipped.
"He makes jokes in English," Born said, amazed. "Ones even I recognize."
"Thank you for your service," Musical said, much more formally than Sitter, and disconnected. Sitter was entirely too informal for him, and he felt vaguely disrespected. It never occurred to him Sitter might have been offended by Born's lack of trust.
"I'm just really upset nobody told us about this," Born said. "This is a major discovery in my field we need to understand. I want to hear your explanation of how and why this works."
Musical scrunched his muzzle up until it was all dimpled, and he looked upset. "That's a problem. We've had this for some time and nobody has a clue how the damn stuff works." He looked aside clearly embarrassed.
"But, usually something like this only works inside narrow parameters, and you form the theory and then with careful engineering, if it's even within your abilities, you create the physical thing that will express the theory," Born said.
"Wouldn't that be nice and neat?" Musical asked. "Truth is, some technician had actual printed sheets by the mixer in the metallurgy lab, because he wasn't very bright and needed explicit instructions. He still managed to get them out of order. He put a big batch of very expensive ingredients in the mixer to make the needed alloy. It was the wrong color when fused and far too brittle for what was expected. The sheet of the material also levitated when violently spun across the table in anger by the supervisor. If the supervisor had just flipped it over the other way when he tossed it, he'd have probably not noticed that it pushed itself down on the table. The whole thing would have been missed, the technician fired, and that would have been the end of the matter."
"I'm not even sure there is an English word for that," Born said.
"Oh there is, serendipity," Musical supplied. "Instead of being fired the idiot is rich and famous. I'm sure there is no adequate English word for that. Nor Badger word for that matter."
"Lucky," Born suggested.
"Lucky?" Musical scoffed. "Lucky is when you are walking along and find a half copper on the ground. This fellow would walk along blind to his surroundings, fall head first in the neighbor's cesspool, and come up with a gold chain around his neck!"
"Maybe we'll have to invent a new word for that level of the phenomena," Born admitted.
"The proper English expression is to coin a word," Musical said. "Appropriate, isn't it?"
"Like stamping a coin out between dies?" Born asked.
"Exactly," Musical agreed.
"Well friend," Born said, "We need to coin a theory to explain this thing. Since you make clear it is no secret, when can I get some details and a look at the actual device that works?"
Musical hesitated, and then decided the Derf didn't use friend the same way he did, and not to read too much into it. "I can send you some files that describe the mechanism, and the mixture, that fused, creates the important material. I'm not sure what I have to do to pry one loose from the supply officer."
"That's sufficient I'm sure," but Born frowned. "How did they ever figure out what he'd mixed wrong?"
"The sheets were still in the wrong order. Or the right new order I guess. They've tried to vary the r
atios and do substitutions to no end," Musical revealed. "It's particularly aggravating for those who think they understand how it works, and then their formula does nothing. Be warned, a lot of good minds have failed to explain it. Do not be disheartened if no sudden revelation bursts upon your understanding in any fullness."
"I'm no stranger to lengthy contemplation," Born said, unworried. "Perhaps it's good I don't know Badger theory well yet. A look from a fresh perspective, before I have my vision narrowed from previous assumptions may be useful."
"Let's make a short report to our benefactress on what we've established between us, and the direction we are going to pursue," Musical suggested.
"But we have no conclusions to present at all," Born objected.
"Very little," Musical agreed. "But we've established that the gravitational factor is not a constant in our universe, even if we don't have an expanded expression of its full nature."
Born tilted his head sharply to acknowledge that was so.
"We've spent a very large sum of her money already to gather research materials. She's young and may grow disheartened easily and even think to abandon the effort prematurely. It's worth keeping her support alive to know we have reached any conclusion at all," Musical said.
"Let us say this to her then," Born proposed. "The gravitational factor customarily dropped in the simplified form of drive mathematics may mislead those not familiar with the fullness of the theory. The creation of pseudo-gravitational fields with Badger technology, suggests there are real mechanisms possible in our universe that could, among other practical uses, alter the expression of jump technology outside the electromagnetic factors alone.
"Of course Lee will ultimately be interested in applications, and all we are looking at so far is theory. Do you think that is too hopeful a summary for her understanding?"
"Not at all, that's very well said. She's young for a Human female, but seems to hear what you are actually saying instead of what she wants to hear," Musical said, which was high praise for him. "If she were looking to an immediate application she'd be talking to engineers instead of us. I'm sure she won't jump ahead and make unfounded assumptions from mere possibility."
A Hop, Skip and a Jump (Family Law Book 4) Page 21