"What you thinking on so hard?"
"I'm trying to think how to tell you, not to be as open as I was with the lawyer. Maybe I set a bad example letting you see me do that. We're under Derf law here and I knew how to tangle the man in professional obligation, but Earth and Earth law are different, very different and we could be a target of people who would do anything to get a chunk of our wealth."
"We can hire some security can't we? And all the places like hotels have their own too."
"Yes, but I'm not thinking physical security, like being safe from robbers. Now, I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but you haven't been around people much except family. You're used to trusting people and you like to chat. A little girl your age who grew up around thousands of other people every day would be much more wary. I'm going to give you a couple plays to read about human nature and people being underhanded and treacherous. Not that Derf can't be treacherous too! We'll talk about them after you've read them. Shakespeare has a couple stories that are dandy and a couple crime novels, something about confidence men," he decided.
"You need to understand how people ask a series of questions that seem innocent," he said, making a repeating gesture with his hands. "Until they ask one that seems a natural progression of the conversation, but you'd never have answered it if they'd just blurted it out first thing. You've never experienced being manipulated by devious people."
Lee nodded, eyebrows bunched up, really taking it to heart.
"It's the sort of thing most parents don't even sit down and teach their children. They absorb it dealing with other kids, when they are all schooled together in a mob and dealing with teachers and administrators. Most kids are exposed to sneaky behavior early, when they are in a semi-protected environment. If they lose their lunch money to creeps and bullies learning about that sort of behavior, it's a cheap lesson. By the time they are adults who can form a contract, they are prepared for used ground-car salesmen and distant relatives with investment schemes."
"But when we go to Earth you need to know you can't tell people anything they ask, just to be polite. You're going to have to learn to be reserved very fast. For example, you think of security as working for us and friendly. But if we had problems with our hotel bill, or with some stranger out on the street, a policeman might not be on our side at all. And it might not be obvious. If there was trouble and afterward the police asked you questions about it, what would you do?"
"Well, try to answer them as honestly as possible. I'm not going to do anything criminal, so I don't have anything to hide. The more they know, the more it will be obvious I'm innocent."
"That's what I was afraid of. That's dead wrong. Don't do it."
"Really? But, why?" Lee asked incredulous.
"When you talk to the police, anything you say can be used against you. They used to have to tell you that when they arrested you. But they can ask you questions, as if they're trying to get information on the other guy and then trick you and use it against you."
"Well that's just, wrong," Lee protested.
"Uh-huh. And they might take you aside and two of them ask you questions. One will act friendly and the other make a big show of being angry and unreasonable. Pretty soon the one acting friendly asks a question and it seems like he's helping you over the other one, so you just want to answer. It's so common they have a name for it, Good Cop / Bad Cop, or some call it a Mutt and Jeff. Your people were probably doing that before they were building pyramids."
"They might lie and say, "Your uncle Gordon already told us all about it and we just need you to confirm it in order to let both of you go." They have all sorts of tricks without really threatening you. Even stupid little things like refusing to let you go use a bathroom, until you tell them what they want. You'd be surprised how city folk, who have never been in the wild country and never had to pee behind a bush, will do just anything to get to a proper toilet like they are used to using."
"So what am I supposed to do?"
"Don't say anything, call their bluff and pee in their chair. Nobody ever died from sitting in wet panties. They asked for it after all and it will bother them worse than you. That's the one bright spot of Earth law. They can't demand you answer. They might bluff, thinking this little girl from out in the boondocks can't know Earth law, but you can ask for a lawyer and firmly refuse to talk to them. They have to respect that and get you one. Earth law is so crazy and complex, that's the only smart thing to do if you have any contact with police."
"Let me tell you how crazy it is. If they suspect you of a crime and you go ahead and talk with them, they may find out you didn't do anything. You'd think if the original accusation didn't pan out, you'd be clear with them wouldn't you?"
"Sure, I'd expect them to let me go."
"They should. But what can happen is, if they have political reasons to want you in jail, or if they just don't want their office to look bad for arresting you, they may have questioned you without any recording. Now you may be clear of the crime, but they can say from their notes, or just from memory, that you answered something they asked with a lie. Just lying to an officer, even if it didn't affect the outcome of their investigation or harm anyone is a crime. And if it's your word against the police, the judges and the police are on the same team and they'll believe the cops every time. So, they got you."
"You're starting to scare me, Uncle Gordon."
"Good. You should remember it then. If you just thought I was being ridiculous and things like that don't happen in the real world, you wouldn't learn anything from it at all."
"I wouldn't do that. I'm sure you know a whole lot more than I do. I'll think on it a lot and ask other questions if I can think of them. One other I remember from talking to the lawyer, why did you mention we need to go to Luna? I thought we'd go all the way to Earth. I was looking forward to it. Now you mentioned Earth again. Are they so close you think of them as the same? Because they're not to me. I want to go down to the big world and see some things. It's like you said for here at Derfhome; who knows when we'll get back again?"
"I was being too picky precise. We certainly will go down to North America and some other places if you want. It's true, Earth and Luna as so close I do think of them as the same 'place'. We just can't take the ship in any further than Luna. Certainly not orbit like here,"
"Why not?"
Gordon seemed uncomfortable and didn't answer for awhile. "You know how badly the first meeting of Humans and Derf went?"
"Yes, I was listening when you told the story. The shuttle crew were idiots."
"Well, what if they weren't? You were saying almost anything that can happen will - eventually. What if there is an alien contact some day and they are just evil murderous people, who kill without thought, so we can't talk or trade at all? Not just a misunderstanding that can be corrected. What if they are like the dinos that overran us, but smarter?"
"We'd be in big trouble if we found anything like that."
"All of us. Not just the ship that found them, all the worlds too."
"OK."
"So, our ship has some weapons you never needed to know about, so we never talked about them. You can key in a code and the control consoles become weapons boards too. Just in case we find someone that can't be talked to and aren't safe to run from. There are three very short range, fail fused missiles with nukes, in the belly of the High Hopes."
"The idea is to keep us from being boarded and revealing information about our civilization, but they are designed to be pretty useless to commit aggression, especially against a world. Still, they don't want a civilian ship with that kind of stuff inside lunar orbit, even if it is short range. They keep talking about making them stop and orbit out at Mars, but it's never gotten passed. It's not a bad idea if you ask me. The Moon is too close if somebody really wanted to hit Earth."
"Is there anything else I don't know about on the ship?" Lee asked, suspiciously.
"Our radar is special, not just a search radar. It has a Vesl
ago lens built over each element of the array and we can steer the beam and focus the whole multi-petawatt output down to a very small spot. Down to about a wavelength size dot, out to an ungodly distance. Not as effective as real military beam weapons, but damn near."
"I think chances of needing any of it are slim, but when the humans met the first sentient race in their expansion it freaked them out; there were riots on Earth and all sorts of irrational reactions. That despite the fact the Hinth practically bowed down and worshipped them. They passed legislation making it a law, that ships exploring the Beyond go armed."
"I don't think it would mean anything if we stumbled on a really advanced race's home world. It's for the much likelier event of meeting another ship, or a frontier outpost, of such an unfriendly civilization. I had an Earthie hint to me once that if a hostile race does take a ship, then hopefully they'll think all we have are simple nukes and low-end beam weapons and they'd get a rude shock when they run into a real fighting ship."
"They give us just enough to keep from being boarded, but not enough to be aggressors, if we find a civilization a little behind us. We couldn't use them for planetary bombardment for example. If the beam and missiles don't work, we have the option to set off a nuke without launching it, rather than be captured. That would be sufficient to carry in my opinion."
"I don't know if I could do that," Lee said in a suddenly small voice.
"I wasn't planning on asking you," he admitted. They walked along silent for a ways.
"Here's what we need," Gordon said laying a lower arm on her shoulders and steering her in a tiny shop. There were a number of hazard symbols on the door and a notice: No sparks - No flames -- combustible gases and oxidizers present. Above it said, John W. Holden - Goldsmith - Custom Jewelry and Precious Stones - Specialists to the Space Trade.
Inside was a showcase down one side and a workbench on the other. A low swinging gate separated the way into the back between them. The jeweler was not only human; there wasn't room behind the counters for a Derf. Lee was fascinated at the rows of tools and fixtures, almost all of them unpowered, pliers, hammers, even manual saws. There was a bench for Gordon, which was unusual instead of just a mat. He sat facing the showcase instead of the work bench. The jeweler wiped his hands and walked around the end to the selling side.
"Can I offer you coffee or something?"
"No thanks, we just finished breakfast. I know what we need, so it won't take long. I need three plain voyage rings for the girl and we each need a ring with a gem."
"Indeed," the fellow seemingly agreed, checking out the line of rings in Gordon's ear. "The girl has really been there?" he asked skeptically.
"She has. Her mother just never wanted her ears pierced when she was little. If you want to check, I'm known as Gordon, of the Red Tree clan, New Master of the High Hopes out of Luna." He didn't seem offended at the man needing confirmation.
The man checked something in the computer and squinted a bit. "I show that hull to Jack and Myrtle Anderson, with you as third and a minor unnamed."
"This is Lee Anderson. Jack and Myrtle are dead and she's my daughter now. It's not in the registry because we're on our way in and have only been on station two days."
"I believe you," the smith said with a little apologetic tone. "Nobody would make up such a story with rings in his ears. Would you like me to pierce your ear Missy, or do you have somebody to do it?"
"What should I do, Uncle Gordon?"
"Well, the smith would use a laser against a graphite block. In our clan however the custom for ear piercing has been" - he held up a single four inch claw that he'd sharpened specially for the occasion that morning, in the privacy of the bathroom.
"I think there's something to be said for tradition," Lee said, far less afraid of his claws, than a strange jeweler.
"Here, let me get you a wooden block and a sani-wipe." The jeweler fetched them and a little plastic fixture through which he marked four ink dots on her ear. He handed the block to Gordon and wiped the claw with the antiseptic after checking it with his thumb for sharpness. "Damn, that's a real set of gut rippers you got there boy."
Each time he pushed the pressure built up to a certain point and then the claw popped through the cartilage. Lee jumped a little the first time and said, "It made a funny noise when it went through." She didn't cry out, or even jump for the next three.
"Rings to match what ya got?" he asked.
"Yep, but four of them for her, fourteen millimeter hoop, twenty-two karat yellow gold, forged flat with a open tension catch in the back. No need to hallmark 'em unless you already have."
"If I might suggest, a straight row of the same size looks good in your ear. For you Missy I'd start small in the front, ten millimeter maybe and go up two millimeters in size each one as they climb up the back of the ear. It looks like a billion bucks graduated like that. If you don't want to add on the back you can inter-space new ones in half sizes."
"That sounds nice. That wouldn't offend any tradition, Uncle Gordon?"
"Nah. Some people wear hoops, some people wear studs. Only thing is spacers don't wear gems, unless they have the bragging rights. You do and get caught, you get shunned. Can't get a berth in a ship and nobody will drink with you."
"Oh yeah," That reminded the craftsman. "What color for the gem?"
"Green," Gordon told him with a big grin.
"Holy shit," the fellow breathed, big eyed and hurried to get them.
* * *
"Tourmaline is nice, but the Emerald is really beautiful. The prices kind of scare me though. Can we afford that before we go to the bank this afternoon?" Lee asked.
"If I may," the jeweler interrupted before Gordon could reassure her. "Your credit is fine here. You wear what you want out the door and you can pay me at your pleasure. I keep Tourmaline and Peridot and crap for the grounders. I don't want one of my customers wearing a Greenie and somebody saying it looks cheap."
"Thank you, your trust is appreciated. We're OK though," Gordon told him.
"Hey, it isn't anything your bank wouldn't do. They just have to look over everything from your school grades to your genotype, to know if they trust you. I meet a guy who can come in from the Beyond sole survivor and adopts his partner's kid, I know him well enough."
"Thank you then," Lee agreed. "I'd like the traditional cut emerald, the two carat one there, that seems plenty big. You are so much bigger, I think you should get something larger don't you Unc'?"
"No, I'd like an emerald too, but as close a match as for size and cut he has to my Sapphire, so they can both hang on the front ring." The smith nodded approval and went back to the workbench to fabricate it.
"What does blue mean? If green is something special, blue must be too." Lee asked.
"Blue is a water world. That's still a real significant discovery. I won that ring on a trip before I met your folks. But it was a dead world, just rocks and oceans. Water is valuable and the world might be terraformed someday, but green is really special, there were only ten crews who can wear one. Two can wear doubles and one impossibly lucky group of four spacers can wear triples. Green is a living world."
Chapter 6
"Are we going shopping or to the bank now?"
"Not quite yet, Lee. There's a certain ceremony to follow first." They went up several decks and the gravity got less and the neighborhood got seedier. Eventually there were cargo carts sharing the corridor with pedestrians. The overheads were open, with pipes and conduits and the smell of oil and plastic polluted the air. There were no tourists to be seen. Several people looked at Lee and Gordon together, like you'd look at a dog in church. They came to two spacer bars and Gordon hesitated, picking the one that if anything seemed seedier.
The bartender was Derf, standing before tiers of bottles, under a huge mirror and there were two humans at the bar. Both had rings in their ears. At the end was something Lee had never seen, except in books, a Hinth, very bird-like and the first sapient she'd seen that wasn'
t a Human or Derf. He was sitting as far as he could from the humans.
"Don't look at him directly," Gordon warned her. "He knows you don't mean anything by it, but he's hard wired to resent the hell out of it as a challenge. He already doesn't like Derf, so I'll avoid looking at all, but if you want to look at him, look through your fingers for a screen. It may seem silly to you, but it's a great kindness to him and he'll take it for politeness."
"What will you have," the bartender asked, "and is this going to be trouble for me?" he asked, indicating Lee.
"I'm her guardian, so no, no trouble. She normally wouldn't drink anything by her culture, I'm sure you know, but we have a service to perform. Just give her a half shot and we need something for her to eat so it isn't on an empty stomach."
"We have a corned beef sandwich out of a tin. Bread is local and it ain't half bad."
"Just one for her and whiskey neat, if that's real Earth whiskey up there?"
"In this place?" He seemed amused. "The bottle says that's what it is. I wouldn't trust it."
"Place next door any better?"
"Same guy owns them both. Same kitchen in the back services both. We don't make a lot of money on food. But there are different regulars in each place, who don't care for the other's company. It works better this way."
"And yet the Hinth is over here?"
"Shit, he doesn't like anybody, on either side. The vodka is an honest drink if you like. It shouldn't have any nasty crap in it."
"One for her," he said, making a slash with his hand like you'd tell an auctioneer you were bidding a half increment, "a Derf shot for me and whatever they're drinking," he jerked his head toward the others down the bar.
"Hinth too?" he asked.
"Hell yeah, he'd probably wear rings, if he had ears to hang them."
"Some of them do, on a chain around their neck," the bartender told them. He hadn't really looked at them until he said that, then he looked at Gordon harder. It was dark in the bar, but from two feet away he couldn't miss the glint of blue and green. Then he checked Lee and his manner changed.
Family Law Page 5