* * *
"The New Japanese formed up with the Badgers pretty far out-system," Gordon told Lee. I can't blame them. Why share any information you don't have to with us? I thought it would be unfriendly to paint them with really high end radar, so I let it go. All we could see was they had two vessels we'd call destroyer sized. They are here to help our guests anyway, even if they were unwanted guests. I doubt the New Japanese are aware of all the internal Badger politics. All they care about basically is if they get paid OK. So we're down to a dozen Badgers and a handful of Bills in system."
"That's fine with me," Lee said. "I like the ones left and won't miss the daily drama of the others trying to find some reason they were important and needed that to be acknowledged."
* * *
"Well crap, once you know something is possible, the rest is just engineering," Lee said to herself aloud, reading Born and Musical's report. To these fellows, if you held out a rock and let go, it was just a theoretical possibility it would fall. It might fly off straight up this time. Although to give credit where due, if it did, they'd think on it and give you a plausible explanation why in a few years.
Why hadn't she seen that the Badger gravity plates would matter to drive tech first time she heard of them? Why hadn't Thor seen that if he understood the theory so well? It seemed obvious to her now that altering gravity would alter the drive parameters if it was a factor in the math. How much and what you needed for a lever to change it were the next questions. She didn't think like these two, and it just wasn't that they were Badger and Derf. They were more like each other than her. They were in a different fraternity that spoke a different language in which she wasn't very proficient. So she formulated her question back to them as carefully as she knew how.
Thank you. I'm aware of my own lack of depth in understanding this. As near as I can express it, does this gravitational quantity we now see as a variable have a vector? And if it is a variable, in what units does it vary? Does its quantity vary in any known relationship to other factors such as energy and velocity we have firmer knowledge about? Or is it still beyond our understanding?"
"I remember the Badgers said they don't use it in an accelerating ship, because the field created by an operating plate displays momentum, and resistance to acceleration. Does that mean it creates a pseudo-mass in proportion to its pseudo-gravitation? Or should I be dropping the pseudo label at all because real is real even if not in the form I'm used to thinking about? Please, do continue your studies and inform me.
Lee Anderson
"That's a fair amount of assumption," Born said, dismayed.
"But fairly coherent, even given she managed to state it without reference to a single mathematical expression," Musical said. "And it was completely hardware neutral."
"We can plug the right symbol in for the common word and make the questions mean something, to us" Born said. "It's amazing, it does translate. She must have an intuitive understanding of the math down somewhere under the conscious level, or this would just be gibberish."
"Well those were basically the questions we were going to ask anyway," Musical said. "Those are pretty nearly what everybody has wondered since the guy screwed up the mix. We have our day jobs, but also clearly our marching orders to pursue this, and she hasn't yanked our funding, so we should keep pursuing it, don't you think?"
"How could we not?" Born asked. "I'm just not sure how," he admitted.
"It never hurts to ask other smart people, and they might have insights," Musical said. "We have the names Lee mentioned, did you see if there are com codes associated?"
"I never thought to look," Born admitted. "We could shoot off an inquiry but it may already be buried in the data we bought." He looked down and entered the question manually since he had the audio open to Musical. Trying to talk and voice command the computer back and forth and keep them straight was awkward, and sometimes had hilarious unintended results.
"Oh . . . James Weir, the principal author of the seminal paper, is dead and has been for quite a long time. I didn't look at the date of the paper. I don't think in Human dates anyway. He was killed testing his theory. It seems like that was mentioned in passing somewhere, I just forgot about it." Musical did a Badger frown again.
"This totally doesn't make any sense. The Singh names are associated with Weir as contemporaries if you group the replies with all names by date, but no obituaries listed and some of the other references to the Singhs seem much later than is possible. Human years aren't that different. Should we ask Lee why she grouped them? Maybe the Singhs emigrated out of the Solar system and that's why they aren't mentioned later in the English web fraction?"
"I wouldn't bother her. I suspect this is one of those things that become obvious if you ask a few more questions. Humans sometimes keep a given name in the family, and neglect to tell you if they are a second or third generation using that name. It's needlessly confusing. Let's just include a request for the linage and date of death or immigration status in our next round of inquiries. Or it may be a name assumed in admiration, just as I style myself Born for Humans, and he's quite dead too."
"Very well, now, on a different tack, as to the nature of the exotic material that we know," Born continued, "the fact the proportions have strict ratios speaks to the alloy being a specific compound to me. You see the same thing in a number of superconductors. Are you familiar with X-ray crystallography?" He and Born went on for some time, and made a lot of plans . . .
* * *
"It still doesn't make any sense," Born said the next time a ship came in with their previous inquiries. "I do have a current com code for Jeffery Singh. The other Singh seems to have dropped from usage. Should we bother to ask the current user about the science?"
"What can it hurt?" Musical asked. "It may at least satisfy our own curiosity. Jeff Singh may reply that Grandfather made the family proud and he is honored to carry the name but his thing is massage therapy, and he'd be happy to discuss relieving back pain."
"Or he may have inherited a treasure trove of grandfather's notes," Born said hopefully.
* * *
"This doesn't make any sense," Jeff Singh said of the latest search requests from Derfhome.
"Lee paid for these searches, so she is aware of them. She knows we aren't going to share our drive technology with them at this point. We told them that plainly. I can't find anything on this Badger. We don't have any data on the group that stopped at Derfhome, and most of them went home already. The Derf is an academic in their version of a university. At least that makes sense. He's a physicist, and of the sort that drive theory would be within his field of interest. She has to know we'd be aware of extra-Solar searches of the Earth web."
"No telling," Heather decided. "As Sovereign, sometimes I set things in motion and am shocked at the way they snowball and the directions they take before the results get back to me. I'm looking at how much money Lee has. Just the income from her claims on Providence is staggering. The girl may have more liquid funds in legal tenders than me. She could have told them to charge the data searches to her and never notice a few tens of millions of dollars Ceres as a line item. Maybe she made a general inquiry of these two and doesn't know we can follow who looks at what so closely."
"Well, if so, her guys zeroed in on the one area I hate to see them pursue. It's not like she just wanted to know about drive theory. She could take a standard class in that easily enough. These two are looking at exactly what everyone else has been happy to ignore for years. At least one of them has to be entirely too damn smart," Jeff complained.
"At least they haven't called you up on com and directly asked how to apply gravitationally exotic materials to enhancing jump ship technology," April said. "They know something isn't quite right, but how would they know what if they don't have any quantum fluid?"
"That's the key," Jeff agreed. "It seems pretty unlikely they can ever discover it, because my step-mum admitted it was one of those random mistakes that happen fr
om time to time. I've got samples of it and I can't reproduce it. I've used the same elements and produced some materials with very interesting electrical properties, but nothing that has any of the same gravitational properties."
Jeff looked even more unhappy. "Not that I want the Earthies to get their hands on any. Somebody might get lucky."
"I suppose," Heather allowed. "It's like the old thing about enough monkeys pounding on a keyboard. Eventually one might pound out Romeo and Juliet. There are only so many letters and similarly, there are only so many elements in so many valence states, and some fool could try random combinations of them endlessly. But what are the odds of hitting the jackpot before the end of time?"
"And this stuff is so fussy in preparation that it appears it would be like getting "Romeo and Juliet" with zero typos," Jeff said. "But I'm paranoid."
* * *
Clare had been isolating herself so much she found the bustle of Landing stimulating. It had a lively nature, especially at night, that just didn't happen on Derfhome. Not even in their biggest city. She was adjusted to being around Derf so much that she found it odd to see so many humans and only the rare Derf, the reverse of where she lived and went to school.
Lee's condo was really nice, and it made even more real how rich she was, because when she mentioned to the housekeepers that Lee must not use it much they'd laughed, and informed her Lee hadn't used it at all yet, but was very interested in furnishing it, and how the garden areas were established. Lee requested video updates of the progress and had suggestions. They were sure she intended to show up and enjoy it - when she was able.
The couple assigned to security for the condo served as Clare's personal security when she went out. It was a new experience and much less intrusive than she thought it would be. They might seem like friends meeting her at a restaurant to others, although they informed her other security would make them as pros by their actions.
Clare found them rather young to be high level security professionals, until she realized they had the same life extending treatments Gordon told her about. After she looked really closely at people in public, and them, she started seeing there were subtle differences between young people and people who were young again. Some was in the details around the eyes and the shape of the hands, but as much was in their public demeanor, and how they acted socially.
She hadn't been around many Humans her own age on Derfhome, and she thought the male security was pretty cute, but then she saw the little looks and occasional proprietary touch that told her they were a couple personally instead of just professionally. She was glad she saw that and figured it out before she'd made a fool of herself, and ruined their easy camaraderie with her when they went out.
Given the difficulty of meeting anybody with a security team guarding her, and her own reluctance to state her own desires and intentions frankly, she decided it was not the time or place to meet anyone new, especially not potential boyfriends. Bringing them back to Lee's place the team would likely want to do a deep background check on anyone. It took all the spontaneity right out of it. But it was something to keep in mind for back home, because she saw she needed to back off the prolonged intense level of study with no other life.
This was really fun and she was enjoying it, but she smiled at herself that it had only taken a week here before she thought in terms of when she'd be going back home.
* * *
Dear Mr. Singh,
We are Derf and Badger who go by the usual names of Born and Musical in our dealings with Humans. Born is an academic in the College of Physical Studies associated with what you would regard as the principal university in Derfhome City, on the planet of the same name. Musical is a technician associated with the Badger consulate recently established here. As is our custom, Born is a name assumed from my field of interest since he was a Human pioneer in my field and I'd honor him.
We are both reasonably capable in standard Human English to correspond without any translation between us. These are our direct thoughts.
We have been requested to investigate various aspects of the theory behind jump ship technology, to make a report, and act as tutors as needed to a very generous local patron outside our principal employment. Our research found interesting variations in how Humans approached this area of study compared to our own cultures.
If you are still interested or conversant in the field as was the Jeffry Singh associated with the original Human discovery, we'd welcome a dialog. We find that a simplification of the original expressions defining the jump theory tends to narrow and obscure the impact of gravitational factors over the electromagnetic in practical application. More specifically the effects of exotic materials which generate gravitational flux, could prove out the aspects of jump theory normally ignored, and have practical application to jump ship mechanics.
We will keep these initial comments short unless you express some interest in the matter. Even if your answer is that it is of no further interest to you, feel free to charge an interstellar message to us as a recipient funded message so we may dismiss the matter from mind.
Your sincere associates of the mind, Born and Musical/ Derfhome. Codes attached.
"They pretty much have it figured out," Jeff said, in despair. "I should have realized anyone with Lee's resources wouldn't just go take a class. After all if I wanted to be schooled on something of complexity I'd hire a tutor, or tutors, to attend me at my convenience. And it looks like she picked a couple people who know their business."
"I wouldn't assume they have it all figured out," Heather counseled. "They have elements of it figured out. It's obvious Lee didn't confide a lot of things in them or they would have known to not write you. They aren't sure who they are talking to. It's obvious they think you may be a short lived descendent of the original researcher. I'd say they aren't talking with Lee every day or she'd have stopped them from inquiring of you."
"They're close," Jeff said.
"And if they do figure out a gravity jump drive, we always knew that was a possibility, or that we'd find another race out among the stars who'd done the same thing," April said.
"It makes me want to go much deeper. Across the Galactic core, or maybe even try the jump to a neighboring Galaxy," Jeff said.
"Around the core," April insisted. "It looks ugly in there."
"This doesn't mean they are going to publish and give this drive to everybody," Heather pointed out. "Lee is no friend of Earth, she had a chance to sample their hospitality. I doubt she wants them bursting forth upon the stars."
"But if the Badger sphere of influence has it, the Badgers and the Bills, because the others seem a side issue, can we let Earth not have it? Do we take a chance on Humanity becoming a secondary race?" Jeff asked.
"it's complicated," April insisted. "Look at the size of the claims their Little Fleet made along the route to the Badger frontier. That will take the Human sphere centuries to fully exploit."
"Except it's not going to be just Human," Jeff said. "There are a lot of Derf who have an interest and even a few Hin."
"Well isn't that what we wanted?" Heather said. "They are expanding and coexisting with the Derf and the Badgers with whom they came in contact. That's basically what our goal was, that Humans be held back until they didn't go blasting through the neighboring civilizations like Cortez through the Americas. If it's Fargone and Derfhome Humans it's still Humans having a part in a relatively peaceful expansion. If actual Earth Humans never get their act straightened out to engage in it, does that really matter? Aren't the Space Humans sufficient to our goals? I don't see any of these races shoving huge numbers of their core populations out in a mass migration. I'm not sure anybody has the will to build that many ships. Maybe we off Earth Humans are sufficient to carry Humanities' banner."
"I refuse to do evil to give Humans the stars over other species," April said, flatly.
"No, no, nobody is talking about that," Jeff insisted. "It's not like we're in danger of being bottled up in one
star system and surrounded now. The only place I see any potential for ugly conflict is the Biters. They were a surprise, and if they got loose with a really fast long range drive it might take some harsh action to keep them from harming not just us, but a lot of other races. I can't see the Badger group letting the Biters get hold of anything that would endanger their civilization. I hope they never put us in the position to deal with that."
"Read the letter again, and think," Heather said. "They invite dialog. I don't think they have the guile to be plain old fishing for information. They're academics, or the one is. Neither do Derf have the same urge to secrecy we have. Invite them to expand on their statement about having exotic materials. Ask how they prepare them. Best to reply quickly too, because they may say something at any time to tip off Lee what she has put in motion."
"Help me frame a reply then, right now," Jeff asked his women. "I doubt I can ask with what you would call a straight face, even in a written message my reluctance about the whole endeavor may bleed through."
Chapter 18
"I've got some good news," Born told Lee, "We found a descendant of Jeff Singh who is familiar with jump drive technology, and is willing to have a discourse about it. We may be able to gain some insights into the historic divide between the camps describing the seminal equations two ways. He replies he is familiar with that history and asks what exotic material the Badgers have created. He describes several similar preparations with which he is familiar that have quite unusual electromagnetic properties. It's interesting, they use the same basic materials, but in combinations we haven't used."
"Oh Dear God . . . Have you replied to him?" Lee asked.
"Not yet, we thought you'd like to know of our progress, and perhaps have some input in our reply," Born said.
A Hop, Skip and a Jump (Family Law Book 4) Page 22