Dark Running (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 4)

by S J MacDonald

  ‘Nobody is asking,’ Jermane pointed out. ‘I’m offering. If you think it would be useful, something they might want, you can offer them my services.’ He blushed a little under Alex’s scrutiny, but lifted his chin with an air of determination. ‘I don’t think I’m being immodest, here – I know I’m not at all important in the scheme of things, not at all, just a backroom bod, me. But I am a linguist, and it seems to me that the Samartians stand in some need of assistance with developing linguistic skills. I know, we can give them the matrix and a pack of language files, but honestly, skipper, that’s like handing post-grad research to second graders and expecting them to figure it out. They have zero linguistic expertise – there is not one person on that planet who has so much as ever even attempted to learn another language. Most of them don’t even think it’s possible to speak any other language than their own. They’re going to need help, and with all due humility I do feel that I am the best candidate for that role. I have the linguistics expertise, and some experience of exodiplomacy role, and even the fact that I am a civilian may make me more acceptable in that role, no threat at all, no kind of alien invader.’

  Alex regarded the plump civil servant, managing not to hoot with mirth at the thought of anyone regarding him as an alien invader.

  ‘It’s just such an enormous undertaking,’ he said. ‘I have to tell you that I would not ask, or even allow, any of my officers to stay here, alone, like that. I’m finding it hard to understand how you could think that that’s, you know, a reasonable proposal.’

  Jermane gave an embarrassed little chuckle.

  ‘I know, it’s a bit out there,’ he admitted. ‘But if I’ve learned anything from the time I’ve spent with you – with the Fourth, I mean – it’s that being out there is what makes things happen. You have to do extraordinary things to achieve extraordinary things, right? And me, I want this, skipper, honestly, I see a job in front of me that I know I could do, and I really do think that I’m the best person to do it, so I’m asking that you consider the possibility, that’s all. And I honestly believe that we could not give the Samartians any greater gift than the ability to communicate with other worlds.’

  Alex didn’t argue with that, because he knew it was true. The Samartians were taking no part in the development of the translation matrix, which meant that they were entirely reliant on the Fourth to communicate with them. Quite apart from other issues, that relationship of dependence was just not a good basis for ongoing diplomacy with such a fierce, high-pride culture as the Samartians.

  ‘But you’d be here all by yourself,’ Alex pointed out. ‘Even if the Samartians do agree to a second phase mission coming out immediately, you know as well as I do that that will take months – it may easily be a year before another ship arrives, and you’d be stuck in a survival dome, all on your own.’

  ‘I don’t mind that,’ Jermane said, and turned a little pinker, still, remembering the near-hysterical state he’d been in when the Fourth had picked him up. ‘Honestly, I’d be fine – as long as I’ve got people to talk to. It was just not having anyone to talk to, before, and here, that wouldn’t be an issue, with active comms, holo-link, students to teach and the matrix to work on, I’d be absolutely fine, happy as Larry, whoever Larry is. The only thing I do ask is that I’m given enough supplies to keep me going till another ship gets here – really don’t fancy eating live fish and bug-burgers. But it is just a suggestion, skipper – something to offer them if you think it would be helpful.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it would be helpful,’ Alex said. ‘But I’m not so sure it would be right.’ He considered for a few seconds, then smiled. ‘Leave it with me,’ he requested. ‘I’ll think about it, and we’ll see how things go, all right?’

  ‘Thank you, skipper,’ Jermane said, looking pleased.

  The next mission proposal came from Davie, who strolled onto the command deck just before lunch, sauntering over to the table with his hands in his pockets.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he asked, though Alex didn’t need to answer, seeing that Davie glanced across all the screens open in front of him and had undoubtedly read them all even while he was asking the question. ‘Oh, I see,’ he flopped down into a chair, swept up a screen and used it to drop a file into Alex’s in-tray. ‘Ta daa!’

  Alex opened the file, looked at it, turned through several pages and then raised his eyes to look back at Davie, who giggled mischievously.

  ‘Ta daa with bells on,’ Alex observed, frankly astounded. ‘I am seriously impressed!’

  ‘Well, me too, being honest,’ Davie admitted, with a rather abashed grin. ‘I’ve never worked so hard at anything, ever. There were moments there when I wasn’t even sure that I could do it, and that isn’t a sensation I’m familiar with. So do, by all means, feel free to give me a cookie.’

  Alex laughed, but looked over at the duty rigger, who raised a hand in acknowledgement and went off to fetch refreshments. Alex went back to the file, scanning through it with little exclamations of delight which made Davie giggle again.

  What he had put in front of the captain was a ship design. More than that, it was refit specs. He had created a minutely detailed technical specification of a Samartian ship, worked out from Tina Lucas’s observations. It identified key potential improvements. Top of that list was the replacing of all fluorocarbon plastics and unsafe conductive materials with siliplas. And that was not a vague suggestion – he had detailed every single part that would need to be replaced, and the engineering specifications, for more than twenty three thousand components. There were also improvements to their air recycling and atmospheric control systems.

  Alex could see, even on that first skim through of the file, that this would significantly improve the safety of Samartian ships, which was a valuable gift to put on the table. Even more importantly, though, it meant that they now had engineering specs of a Samartian ship, with enough understanding of it to build their own version. Davie had talked, casually, about having Vetrix build Samartian-type ships if he could get the specs, but that had seemed a very vague possibility for the future.

  Now, though, Alex was looking at a set of specs which could be handed to a shipyard to go into R&D right away. It would take some time, for sure – they would need to develop some pretty high powered nanotech production capacity, first, and it would certainly need a good deal of research and development. But that, after all, was what Vetrix did, as the most innovative ship designers in the League.

  Davie owned Vetrix, of course. It had been, Alex gathered, some kind of rite of passage for him, following the long Founding Family tradition of investing in the development of starships. Every generation of his family had done that since their ancestors had funded the first, pioneering flights from Chartsey. It was no small investment, either – Davie had put together the most talented ship designers he’d been able to recruit, and given them what amounted to an unlimited budget. Vetrix was now one of Mandram’s major shipyards, employing at least a hundred thousand people directly and who could guess how many more in supporting industries.

  ‘No,’ Davie said, correctly interpreting the thoughtful glance that Alex gave him, ‘I have not forgotten that all patents and intellectual rights arising from research on this ship are the property of the Second Irregulars. I have signed the paperwork, however outrageous I consider it to be that they are ripping off your work like that – okay!’ he held up a hand as Alex was about to explain, yet again, the basis on which the Admiralty had decided, centuries before, that the Second was entitled to all R&D outcomes from Fleet ships.

  ‘Let’s not go there again,’ Davie requested, with a long-suffering note. ‘The Second gets the specs, no argument. And whatever deal is made to allow Vetrix to develop it will be made through the proper channels by the appropriate people.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Alex said, knowing that Davie had every right to be offended at his even suspecting that he might make improper use of these specs for one of his own companies. He knew very well th
at Davie would certainly not be trying to make any profit out of it – on the contrary, he would undoubtedly give up everything he owned if he believed it was in the best interests of the League.

  ‘Nada,’ Davie said tolerantly, knowing how sensitive Alex was on the issue of commercial and military association. ‘But I will put this on the table, boss-man. It will take the Samartians some years to build up the necessary plant for siliplas production on a global scale – perhaps a decade, before they’re up and running with it. We could have a refinery out here in a couple of years, so I’m offering that, okay?’

  Alex raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Er?’ he said, expressively, making Davie laugh again.

  ‘Look, it’s no big deal,’ he assured him. ‘We invest in things like colonies and stuff, all the time – it’s no big thing for us to pump in a refinery or space station where it’s needed. It’s no effort for me. All I have to do is tell one of my execs to organise it, they’ll rustle it up and get it shipped out with an installation team. Working with the Dippies, obviously, and under their direction. It’s only thirty or forty million – petty cash, frankly, so whether the Dippies pick up the tab for it or I do, no big. The only issue with it I can see is that the Samartians might take offence either thinking it’s like charity or seeing it as economic imperialism, trying to make them dependent on us. You’re best placed to make that call, really, if we get to that level of negotiation, but I just want it on the table as a possible, okay?’

  Alex did not ask him if he was serious. Davie spoke with the assurance of someone who took it entirely for granted that he could make something like that happen with one snap of his fingers. The sheer scale of the thing was jaw-dropping – not only would the refinery have to be manufactured, packed up, shipped out all the way to Samart and assembled, but it would have to be done entirely under the Official Secrets Act.

  ‘Er,’ said Alex again, and this time his manner was profoundly uneasy.

  ‘Look,’ Davie said, ‘I don’t know how many more times I have to say the words before you understand them. Clean and green, okay? Always, entirely, no exception, no compromise.’ He sighed as Alex looked a little apologetic, but unconvinced. ‘You have no idea how insulting you are being,’ Davie observed. ‘You’re worse than Papa on this issue, and that’s saying something.’

  He so rarely even mentioned his father that Alex betrayed some surprise, not least at being compared with him like that.

  ‘From the other direction, obviously,’ said Davie, obscurely, ‘but still.’ He saw Alex’s bewildered look and grinned. ‘Look,’ he said, with the air of setting the matter straight once and for all, ‘you just would not believe how difficult it is to run clean and green corporations. Oh, people say they want to do it, full commitment to the highest standard of business ethics, care for the environment and for the community, all that, but the next thing you know some slimeball has oozed onto the Board and they’re doing dodgy deals or dumping toxic waste. It takes a lot of effort and determination to keep a company firmly on the straight and narrow path, believe me. And then, see, there’s the cascade effect – if you’re going to do clean and green with any kind of credibility you can not source supplies or services from any other company unless they’re clean and green too, right? And since there are very few that make the grade, you soon find yourself having to buy out companies to turn them clean and green so you can do business with them, but then you have to be looking at their suppliers and contractors, too, so pretty soon you find yourself having to buy mines and refineries. Papa thinks it’s absolutely pointless even to try operating clean and green – he thinks that it’s a childish thing I’ll grow out of, see?’

  He grinned ruefully, and paused for a moment to nod thanks to the rigger who’d brought coffees and cookies.

  ‘Ta.’ He crunched a couple of cookies and washed them down with a gulp of coffee. ‘To be fair, I can see why he’d think that,’ Davie conceded. ‘The clean and green thing, see, was something I committed to as a kid, when I found out about Carpania. I cried, when I saw it.’

  Alex had no difficulty understanding that. Carpania was infamous as the League’s most heavily polluted world.

  ‘I mean, people dying, kids, from exposure to toxic smog,’ Davie said, shaking his head. ‘In the League. It’s horrific. And worse than that – I know, see, that the reason that Carpania is like that is because my family, amongst many others, decided that they were justified in developing a garbage world, somewhere to dump all the industries that people were starting to complain about having in their own systems. We’ve inherited that mess, and to our shame, we are still not doing anything about it, nothing effective. And Papa doesn’t get it, he really doesn’t. He owns things which have polluting plant there, and when I tried to persuade him to clean it up he said that Carpanians are the highest paid and lowest taxed workforce in the League, and if they don’t like it there, after all, they can always move.’ He grinned wryly.

  ‘He’s just clueless about the lives of ordinary people,’ he said. ‘Not that I’m any kind of expert myself, but I do know we have more of a responsibility than that to the environment and community where our companies operate. I was devastated by the state of that world, and made a commitment there and then that I would operate clean and green, always. But the thing is, see, I was only three at the time, and I was crying, so Papa had me cuddled on his knee, trying to comfort me, and when I said, ‘I’m going to be clean and green, Papa!’ he just kissed me on the head and said ‘Whatever you want to do, Davie-Boy.’ Which is Papa-speak, by the way, for ‘That’s a really dumb idea but I’ll let you find that out for yourself.’ And he’s been that way about it ever since, patronising, laughing at me, just won’t take me seriously on it, doesn’t even believe that it’s possible, practicable, to keep corporations to those standards. Me, though, I am committed to it, wholehearted, because those are principles I stand on, as important to me as your oath of service is to you. So whether I’m having to contend with Papa thinking I’m being childishly idealistic or you with all your prejudice believing that big business must at some level be unethical, exploitative and corrupt, I will continue to run all my businesses clean and green, okay?’

  Alex did not attempt to deny that he did, indeed, find it difficult to believe that any big company could be as clean and green as Davie claimed his to be. He had, admittedly, seen something of the seedier aspects of corporate activity, as he’d discovered as a Sub-lt just how deep into the Admiralty corporate influence ran.

  ‘I don’t mean any offence to you,’ he said, with evident sincerity. ‘I know you do make every effort to ensure that the companies you own do run to high ethical standards. It’s just that that isn’t a world I know, at all, the complexities of it are beyond me. And I’ve had some bad experience of corporate integrity, too, so I can’t help but be cautious, all right?’

  ‘All right, yes, I know,’ Davie said, giving him a friendly grin and saluting him with a cookie. ‘I’m not going to fall out with you over it. I won’t even say ‘Try to trust me’ because I know you are trying, and you don’t mean it personally. So all I’m saying is that you can put the offer of providing a refinery on the table, okay? And I’ll guarantee that offer, whoever pays for it, all handled properly and above board, no strings. And don’t say, ‘that’s a generous offer,’ he added. ‘Generosity doesn’t come into it. What we all want, here, is to get an edge on the Marfikians, right? If providing a refinery can speed that up and help the Samartians develop a stronger fleet, offering it is no more than common sense.’

  Alex did not ask how Davie had known that he had indeed been about to say that it was a very generous offer. He had accepted right from their first meeting that Davie could read his thoughts and feelings with uncanny acuity.

  ‘All right,’ he said, and nodded. ‘I will take it under advisement.’

  Davie chortled, recognising at once that that actually meant ‘no’, and accepting it without surprise.

  ‘Yo
ur call,’ he acknowledged, and reached for another cookie.

  They were back in the exosuite, later that evening, as the Samartians had asked for another hololink.

  ‘We have come to an understanding,’ said Dakael Jurore, once due courtesies had been exchanged, ‘that you are a backwards people.’

  Alex kept his expression absolutely granite-faced while a frantic effort and debate was going on in the translation team.

  ‘Reversed.’ Jurore held up a hand, palm out, and turned it around. ‘As in a mirror.’

  ‘Ah.’ Alex could see Jermane Taerling’s triumph at this confirmation that the word the Samartian had used could not mean ‘primitive’ as Shion was suggesting, as it had link-roots with ‘refraction’ and probably meant ‘opposite’. Alex could see the discussion going on between them on a sub-screen, and noted, without reacting, Jermane’s note of opposite! and Shion’s acknowledging score to you.

  ‘Everything with you is reversed,’ Dakael Jurore told him, and it was impossible to tell, with that, whether it was merely an observation, or a judgement. ‘Your people, civilians tell the military what to do. You have civilians on-ship, even. And people who would be dismissed our service are honoured with the highest status in yours. Your society is backwards to ours. Some may say the wrong way, but this is, as you say, exodiplomacy, and we are prepared to learn, to respect the otherness of you, as you respect the otherness of us.’

  Alex gave the tiniest of smiles.

  ‘We could ask for no more,’ he said, at which the dakaelin both gave little nods, conveying some relief and satisfaction.

  ‘There is a word that is being used…’ Dakael Tell said. ‘A name for you which it is thought might help our people understand. It is Revellin.’

  Alex got both the word and the translation, with that, as Shion and Jermane slapped in Mirror People simultaneously.

  ‘It is thought that this might help to explain that you are like us, but not like us, the same, but different,’ Dakael Tell explained. ‘Is it a thing that you would find offensive, if we identified you to our people as the Revellin?’