by Dietmar Wehr
Chapter Twelve
When Savannah arrived at and began its descent to Haven, Corso invited all three New Caledonians to the Bridge. If his intention was to impress them with Haven’s capital city, he succeeded. In addition to the usual concrete and steel skyscrapers that even New Caledon now had, there were beautifully slender metal spires supporting multi-story platforms that looked like they could fall over any second. That they didn’t was a testament to a combination of stronger metal alloys and contra-gravity. The platforms, which were big enough to house hundreds of people, were so high up that elevators were only used in emergencies, and people flew contra-gravity vehicles to the top of each platform, where the vehicle would be lowered into a sheltered garage. It was dark enough that the towers were lit up, and the lights from the steady stream of flying vehicles looked like arteries from some invisible monster.
Savannah landed in a huge spaceport that was many times larger than anything on New Caledon. Landing pads were actually circular depressions in the concrete, roughly the same size as the ships. Once on the ground, only the ship’s upper two-thirds was visible above ground. There was an opening in the center of the depression that allowed the ship’s personnel to walk down the ship’s ramp while remaining underground. Strider learned that each landing pad was connected to the central building by a levitating subway train.
When they arrived at the central building, Corso and his officers said their good-byes, which consisted of perfunctory handshakes with Ogilvy and Heppner and more enthusiastic handshakes with Strider. Corso had already explained that arrangements had been made for local personnel, who reported to the King’s Minister for Off-planet affairs, to assume responsibility for the three New Caledonians and make sure they were looked after. Their new hosts quickly took them and their luggage to a very nice hotel. Even though it wasn’t one of the tall spire structures, it still had an impressive view of the city in the foreground and of the spaceport in the background. The following morning after they had their breakfast, the three of them were taken to Ministry offices for a preliminary meeting with the Minister and, later on, an informal meeting with the King. Strider was glad he had brought his best uniform.
The meeting with the King was so low key that Strider was actually disappointed. The King had met for about 10 minutes with Ogilvy and Heppner first. Strider expected he would be given about the same amount of time when he was ushered into an office that was remarkable both for how small it was and for how comfortably it was furnished.
King Trevor was seated behind a desk of modest size, which was made from some type of polished stone that reminded Strider of marble. He stood up and came around the desk to greet Strider. Strider had been briefed by his new hosts that in public the correct way to greet the King was to bow slightly. If the meeting was in private, then the bow was not necessary. But when Strider saw that the King was wearing a military uniform, he decided to pay his respects by saluting him. The King was clearly caught off guard but seemed to like the gesture. He gave a quick salute in return and then offered his hand.
“Welcome, Captain Strider. You’re the first officer from another planet that I’ve had the good fortune to meet.”
Strider carefully shook his hand. “Thank you, Your Highness. I’m honored to be here on behalf of my planet.”
“Let’s get comfortable, shall we? Please, have a seat. I think I’m in the mood for a cigar and some brandy. Will you join me?”
“Yes, I would like that. Thank you, Your Highness.”
When they were both seated, the King touched the small display on his desk. “Manchester?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Please bring two cigars and two brandies.”
“Right away, Your Highness.”
“So, Captain Strider, what do you think of my private study?”
“It’s very…cozy, Your Highness.”
The King chuckled. “Yes, it is, isn’t it. Not very large, and that’s the way I like it. My official office is extremely large, and it does a good job of intimidating visitors, which is exactly what it was designed to do, but I’m not comfortable there. Here I can actually get work done without constantly being reminded by my surroundings that I’m ultimately responsible for the safety and welfare of over a hundred million people. That’s a heavy burden.”
Strider didn’t know how to respond and was saved from an awkward moment by the entrance of a servant carrying a tray with two glasses and two tubes with gold seals on them. He held the tray near the King who took one of each item. Strider took the other two and found that his chair had enough space beside the armrest for him to set them down there. When the King had taken his cigar out of the tube and snipped off the end, the servant produced a lighter and held the flame in position until the King was satisfied with the cigar’s condition. He then did the same for Strider.
Strider was glad that he had learned how to smoke a cigar without coughing his lungs out. He found this particular brand to have a quite pleasant smell.
“Tell me, Captain Strider, does New Caledon have tobacco or something similar?”
“We do. It’s not something that is widely consumed, perhaps because of the cost, but we do have cigars. Nothing as pleasing as this one, I’m embarrassed to say. It’s quite good.”
“I’m glad you think so. I’m going to propose a toast. Here’s to what I hope will be a deep friendship between Haven and New Caledon.”
“A deep friendship,” responded Strider. He took a sip and couldn’t help thinking that Haven made better brandy too.
“We don’t have brandy this good either, Your Highness.”
“Well then, I think Haven will be able to export at least two other items besides promethium to New Caledon. Perhaps I’ll buy some shares in the companies that make these items.” The King’s tone was friendly almost to the point of being playful.
Strider knew nothing about business and said so. The King nodded.
“It’s refreshing to chat with someone who’s willing to admit what he doesn’t know. My ministers are always trying to impress me with how brilliant they are. Some of them come perilously close to lecturing me. Let’s switch to a topic that you do know something about. How would the information you collected on your way here affect your strategic outlook, Captain?”
Strider had given that very question considerable thought while on the Savannah. “Well, Your Highness, I find myself asking two questions. First, is the wolf head shoulder patch unique to one ship, or could it be the symbol of a larger organization that has more than one ship? Is it perhaps a planetary symbol? The second question that occurs to me is whether all the raiders come from the same planet. If the answer to that question is no, then are the two planets co-operating with each other, or are they maybe in competition with each other? If they’re from the same planet or are co-operating with each other, then the strategic situation is more challenging versus them being in competition with each other. In that case, we civilized planets may be able to deal with them one at a time.
“Finding where the raiders call home is clearly the key to their defeat. Commander Corso talked about visiting the hundreds of planets that were part of the Federation before the Collapse. To do that would take years. I wondered if there might be a quicker way. While I was on the Savannah, I took advantage of being able to read books from the ship’s library. I started out with history books of your planet for the period since the Collapse. It occurred to me that there could be clues to the raiders’ home planet or planets in the records that existed from before the Collapse. For example, perhaps a ship full of colonists stopped here on Haven on their way to searching for a habitable planet beyond the borders of the Federation, and perhaps they left records of what section of space they intended to search. Information like that could give us a clue where to look without having to visit every planet. After all, we might accomplish that task only to find out that the raider planet was never part of the Federation to begin with. And searching old records need not be l
imited to just Haven and New Caledon. What about sending research teams to planets like New Avalon and Tarawa?”
The King’s eyebrows rose. “Tarawa too? Perhaps I got the wrong impression from Commander Corso’s verbal report, but Tarawa sounded like they didn’t have any records at all.”
Strider smiled. “It’s no exaggeration to say that their current level of civilization is marginal at best. However, their city was right next to the ruins of a pre-Collapse city, and it might have records in salvageable condition. I would not be surprised if the process ends up being a giant jigsaw puzzle. Does your planet have jigsaw puzzles, Your Highness?”
“We certainly do, and I think I can guess what that analogy means. If we find a clue here and a clue there, then when we put all the clues together, they might reveal the picture we’re looking for.”
“Yes, exactly,” said Strider.
“An interesting idea. I’ll definitely insist that our own archives be searched. Sending teams to other planets will be a more involved undertaking, but I think it’s an idea that’s worth pursuing further. Any other suggestions?”
“Well, once we get more data from other planets about where and when the raiders struck, we may discover a pattern to their raids in terms of location of the targets. Other than that, I don’t have any other ideas at the moment.”
“I suspect my senior navy officers and the analysts on their staffs will certainly take a look to see if there are patterns like that. If you do think of something else, please make sure you share it with my people. I briefly talked with Assistant Deputy Minister Ogilvy and Professor Heppner about a promethium for uranium trade arrangement. When I asked them how soon New Caledon could build a jump-capable warship if sufficient promethium were available, both of them refused to give me a straight answer. Do you know why?”
“I think I can guess why, Your Highness. Our recently elected government ran on the platform of fiscal responsibility. They interpret that to include cutbacks to the Aerospace Force budget, and in order not to negatively affect operational readiness of our current force structure, the savings would have to come out of acquisition of new weapons and the means to deliver them. Our fleet of spacecraft will stop growing, and new ships will only be built to replace worn out ships. If we had promethium, we might build a small ship as a proof of concept but nothing like Savannah. I’m not happy about that, but I try to remember that governments come and go, and the next election might bring in a government that’s willing to spend what the planet needs for not only short-term defense but also long-term defense as well.”
The King nodded slowly. “Ah, I see. Even Haven’s government doesn’t always do what the King wishes. As King, I do have substantial authority, but I’m not an absolute ruler. I’m expected to respect the will of the people as expressed through the results of elections. Do you think your government would be willing to buy one of our ships if the terms were favorable enough?”
“I, ah…don’t know, Your Highness. But if the terms were right, yes, they well might be interested.”
The King gave a short laugh. “Oh, I’m sure they would if the terms were generous enough. The problem is that the terms would have to be acceptable to my government as well. But there’s no harm in exploring that possibility.
“Here’s a question that I did not ask Ogilvy or Heppner, because it’s strictly within the purview of military officers such as yourself. Our fleet of ships, like Savannah, spend half their time on the ground in order to give their crews some much needed rest. I’ve asked my admirals why the Navy can’t have two complete crews for each ship, with one crew standing down while the other takes the ship out on missions, and at regular intervals they would trade places. The answer I get is that our fleet of ships has expanded faster than officers can be trained and acquire the necessary experience. If my Navy offered you the opportunity to accept a temporary position on Savannah or another ship like her as a way of keeping those ships active all the time, would you be interested? Naturally if your Aerospace Force did build additional ships, you’d be free to return home to be assigned to one of them.”
“Would I have to wear a Haven Navy uniform, Your Highness?”
“Only if you were comfortable in doing that.”
“Then I would be interested, yes.”
“How do you think your service’s senior officers would feel about that idea?”
Strider hesitated. He wasn’t sure how the General would react. On the pro side, having four Savannahs operating all the time would be comparable to having eight ships available the usual half time. The increase in available strength was considerable. AF officers like himself would also get valuable experience that would improve his own planet’s defense capabilities when they came back to man future AF ships. On the con side, he’d be away from home for months at a time, and sending a dozen or more officers to Haven would impact the readiness of the AF’s own fleet in the short run.
“I think some would support the idea and others would oppose it, Your Highness. I can’t be more specific than that, I’m afraid.”
“Hm. I’m not surprised by that answer. All right, enough talk about weighty matters that can’t be decided tonight by either of us. Let’s talk about you, Captain. Tell me about yourself. What motivated you to join your planet’s Aerospace Force, and do you have a family?”
Strider told the King about his father and grandfather’s struggle against the Star Wolves as well as about his wife and son.
“Good for you, Captain. I have a daughter. She’ll be Queen one day, and a good one too. She’s intelligent, well-educated and level-headed, at least when it comes to matters of state, but for matters of the heart, she’s much too impulsive. She won’t just be picking a husband. She’ll also be picking a Prince-consort who’ll be expected to perform his own duties, duties that your average husband is not temperamentally suited for. We parents just have to try to do the best we can and hope we don’t make too many mistakes. If your wife and son ever come to Haven, I’d like to meet them.”
“I’m sure they both would be honored and thrilled to meet Your Highness,” said Strider with a grin.
The King looked at his now empty glass and sighed. “I limit myself to no more than one glass of brandy a day. And I see that my cigar is just about finished too. This has been a most pleasant visit, and I’m glad to have had the opportunity to meet with you, Captain. If we meet again, it’ll be in a formal setting, and I’ll have to act appropriately aloof. I hope you understand.”
Strider did indeed understand and not just about acting aloof in a formal setting. He also understood that the meeting was over, and it was time to leave.
“I do understand, Your Highness, and I thank you for being such a gracious host.” Strider finished off what was left of his brandy and stubbed out the cigar in the ashtray that the servant must have placed on the desk without him noticing.
The King stood up, as did Strider. They shook hands, and then Strider saluted again. The King saluted back, and Strider followed the servant who was waiting by the door to escort him out. When he got back to his hotel room, he made some notes while the meeting was still fresh in his mind and then turned on the video device to check out what kind of entertainment Havenites liked to watch. Hours later, he awoke and realized he had fallen asleep while watching the video.
In the days that followed, Strider was introduced to dozens of Haven Navy officers, government people, even a few of the elected members of the legislative body called the Quorum. Many of those contacts occurred during consultation sessions that included Ogilvy and Heppner, both of whom seemed far happier now that they were talking with like-minded bureaucrats and academics. The general tone of the meetings was positive. Yes, the Government of the Kingdom of Haven was interested in trading promethium for uranium in either its raw or enriched form, although the enriched form was preferred due to its much lower bulk and ease of transport. Yes, trade of other goods in both directions would be welcome. Would the Government of New Caledon be w
illing to build a star-freighter to facilitate that kind of trade? Questions led to more questions, which led to more meetings, all of which began to bore Strider. His interest perked up when a meeting that included officers from the Royal Navy brought up the idea of New Caledon Aerospace Force officers serving on Haven warships. A formal offer to that effect was made. Strider promised to make sure it reached the right people back home.
By the time that meeting ended, it was clear that discussions and negotiations had gone about as far as they could based on the limits with regard to what Ogilvy and Heppner could and could not commit to. The three of them were told that a light cruiser would return them to New Caledon and that it would leave in 48 hours. Strider took advantage of that time to take in as much of Havenite culture and the planet itself as he could cram in. Ogilvy and Heppner stayed in their hotel rooms.
The return trip, while direct to New Caledon and therefore shorter in duration, was less pleasant than the trip aboard Savannah. The light cruiser Ajax was far smaller than Savannah. Strider was lucky to have a cabin, albeit a smaller one, to himself. Ogilvy and Heppner had to share a cabin. And while the officers were friendly enough to Strider, he didn’t get to know any of them particularly well. He spent a lot of his waking time in his cabin, making notes and drafting his report.