“Very well. Congratulations, Dame Regina.” Shiffeld was still frowning, but he turned to Frichette.
“My Lord, I don’t need to bestow any title on you, as you already outrank me socially. However, the table of organization for the naval part of the expedition has been totally gutted and must be restored. I am appointing you commodore and giving you operational command of all naval vessels.”
“What?” cried the young man. “Sir! You can’t be serious! I’m too young and I don’t have any experience and…and…”
“We are not talking about experience here, My Lord, we are talking about authority, the right to command. I can’t begin to count the number of fleets which were commanded—and successfully, I might add—by nobles with little experience. They had professional officers to advise them, of course, but the ultimate authority derived from them. That is what I need from you, sir: to provide the legal and moral anchor around which we can reconstruct the Rift Fleet. And in any case, for the task ahead of us, you have as much experience as anyone else left to us. Do you accept?”
“I… Well, I guess I don’t have much choice, do I, sir?”
“Not really, no. None of us do. But don’t worry, Commodore, I want to start you off on your new job a step at a time. As I’ve mentioned, we are sending an embassy to the locals’ base. Sir Charles will command the expedition, but I want you to command the ship they will use.”
“Ship, sir?”
“Yes. The locals have offered to take us there, but their ship cannot accelerate higher than about a tenth of a G and that would take well over a week to make the trip. We can’t waste that much time just traveling. So, we want to use one of our own ships—which would be far more appropriate anyway. Considering all the circumstances, I want to use one of the warships. Felicity is one of poor Admiral Maynard’s destroyers, and one of the very few we have the computer codes for. Time is critical and we can get her ready faster than any of the other ships.”
“A destroyer…” said Frichette, frowning.
“I’d like you to depart no later than the day after tomorrow. Can you do it?” Frichette’s blush turned into a blanche.
“Two days? But, sir, I don’t have a crew or…or…”
“They are being selected as we speak. And I realize that it will take longer than two days to get the ship fully operational. But initially, all we require is that you can get her moving and to that base ASAP. Transport the delegation and I’ll be happy. Can you do it?”
Regina looked at the young man and could see his intense interest. “Yes, sir. I can do it. We’ll boost in two days.”
“Excellent,” said Shiffeld. “Well, I will let all of you go and begin your preparations. I have full confidence in each of you.” The trio got to their feet and left Shiffeld’s huge office. Once into the corridor, Regina turned to face the others. Both still looked rather stunned.
“Well, gentlemen, do you feel as completely bought as I do?”
* * * * *
Brannon Gillard completed his morning rounds through the crèche on automatic pilot. He did the things he needed to do, talked to the people he needed to talk to, but his mind was millions of kilometers away. Two hundred million, more or less. Somewhere on the fringes of this solar system, a monster was lurking. With each passing day, Brannon was more convinced that the newcomers represented a terrible danger to the clans. It was a feeling he could not shake.
But feelings were not proof. He needed proof and he had none.
He returned to his office and saw that there was a message for him from Jaroo. He had asked the controller to keep him abreast of developments and he had done so. The Seyotah clan was falling all over itself to conclude a trade agreement with the intruders and many of the other clans were also lining up to try and get a piece of that trade. To Brannon’s mind, it was incredible that none of them seemed to be asking the basic question of what the intruders were really after? Had their greed totally blinded them to the potential danger? Even if these strangers were not the World Stealers as he feared, their immense power and wealth could still be a major disruption to the peace and security of Refuge. Death’s Grip, but he needed more information! Well, perhaps Jaroo had something for him. He punched in the code and waited. A moment later the administrator appeared on his screen.
“Hello, Father, how are you today?”
“Well enough, thank you. And yourself?”
“Oh busy, as usual. Busier than normal with all the excitement. But you had asked me to tell you of any new developments and there has been a fairly major one.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, it seems that the Seyotahs have invited some of the strangers back to their base at Panmunaptra to conclude their trade agreement. They will be setting out in the next day or two.”
“Interesting. Will they be traveling in the Seyotahs’ ship?”
“No, they will take a ship of the strangers. Apparently, that enormous vessel of theirs is really a whole lot of smaller ships all joined together. I say ‘smaller’ but only in comparison. They are still very large. Anyway, they are disassembling the big ship and one of the smaller ships will go to Panmunaptra.”
Brannon stared at the screen for a few moments and then thanked Jaroo and broke the connection. Then he sat and stared at the blank screen for quite a while longer. Disassembling their ship? That would only make sense if they were planning to stay. And that could mean…
He typed in another code on his communicator terminal and then waited. There were several more layers of underlings to get through this time than when he contacted Jaroo, but eventually he reached the man he was seeking. Herren Caspari, the leader of all the Clorinda Clan, stared out of the monitor at him. Brannon had not spoken with him in nearly a year, but the man had not changed to look at: a stout gray face with pale gray eyes, long braided hair nearly white with the years, tied with green and yellow ribbons. The large mouth drew back in an unaccustomed grin when he saw who was calling. “Father Brannon! It is good to see you again. It has been too long.”
“Yes, it has been, K’sur. I trust you are well?”
“Well, enough, and drop the k’sur or I’ll start calling you ‘archpriest’.” The man’s eyes twinkled.
“As you wish, Herren.”
“So, what can I do for you?” Caspari’s expression grew more guarded. “Don’t tell me it’s about the newcomers. Please don’t.”
“Uh, I’m afraid it is. Is there some problem?”
“You might say so!” exclaimed Caspari, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “It’s all anyone is talking about. Our merchant and mining septs all want permission to trade with the newcomers—in spite of the fact they would have to acknowledge Seyotah dominance! And all the young warriors want to test their mettle against them! I’ve had a terrible time holding the young fools back!”
“They want to attack them?” asked Brannon carefully.
“Oh just a raid, of course. Feel them out and try to gain some glory and a bit of loot for themselves. You know how it is: youngsters trying to make a name for themselves.”
“But you’ve held them back?”
“I’m trying to! The fact that the strangers’ ship is about a million times bigger than theirs doesn’t seem to phase them a bit. But I’m not going to let them start something we might end up regretting. We need more information.”
“Yes, I agree with you completely, Herren. In fact, that is why I have called you. I need to ask you a favor.”
“Life! I certainly owe you one,” snorted Caspari. “Were it not for your surgical skills, I would not have my eldest son. Name what you want, my friend.”
“I have heard of the strangers’ upcoming envoy to the Seyotahs. Perhaps I can suggest a task more in balance with your warrior’s capabilities…”
Chapter Ten
“All hands, standby for acceleration,” commanded Petre Frichette. A chorus of acknowledgments came back to him from the personnel on the bridge. Charles Crawford watched the young man g
o through the procedures and was impressed with the show of confidence he was projecting to his crew. Surely he must have been very nervous, but no one would ever have suspected it.
“All stations report ready for acceleration, sir,” reported Lieutenant Chapman, the executive officer. He was nearly as new at his job as Frichette, but at least looked a bit older. Most of the crew seemed to be pretty good, in fact, although it was really too early to tell for sure. Shiffeld had made efforts to get the best personnel available, but considering the natural tendency of the merchant captains to want to hang onto their best people, it was inevitable that a few less-than-best would slip through.
As if in confirmation, one of the lights on the main status board, which had just turned from red to green, now blinked back to red. Chapman looked at Frichette in chagrin. “Correction, all stations are not ready for acceleration. Magazine Two is showing red, sir.”
“Very well, get it sorted out, please.”
“Right away, sir.”
Frichette seemed a little embarrassed and glanced at Crawford. He just smiled and nodded back. He was still slightly amazed the ship was as ready as it was after only two days. It had only been possible because they had the computer access codes for this ship—something they sadly did not have for the majority of warships in the fleet. The codes allowed them to use the main controls on the bridge, and with the computers’ help, they could get under way. Assuming the problem down in the magazine could be fixed, of course.
Eventually it was and the board all showed green again. “Engineering, reactor to seventy-five percent, activate the main drive. Helm come to the plotted course and take us ahead at one-point-five gravities.” The chief engineer and the helmsman acknowledged. Down in the power room, the control rods were retracted from the reactor a bit more and the uranium atoms in the fuel rods began to split more frequently. The temperature in the core built up rapidly, but the energy was siphoned off to heat the liquid hydrogen that was being pumped into the drive unit. The super-hot hydrogen, now a plasma, was seized by the drive unit and further accelerated. It shot out of the drive’s exhaust at high velocity and, in turn, pushed the ship in the opposite direction.
Crawford was not a ship’s engineer, but he understood what was going on well enough. The principle was ancient, and primitive people had discovered it using crude chemical propellants; even the current technology had changed little for centuries and it was unlikely that it ever would until someone finally discovered a practical controlled fusion system. But ancient or not, the drive worked and Felicity moved away from the fleet at a steady acceleration of fifteen meters per second per second. The one-point-five gravities of acceleration would not have bothered Crawford in any case, but, in fact, the ship’s artificial gravity system was able to completely nullify the extra Gs. For the first twenty minutes, the ship headed in a direction which had been picked, not to get it to its destination, but to avoid bathing any of the other ships of the Rift Fleet with its exhaust. In spite of the disassembly of the huge super-ship, which was being completed without him, damn it, the vicinity was still very crowded and they needed to be careful. But once they had reached a safe distance, the ship’s bow swung around and the journey began in earnest. This slight detour did not worry anyone, as the ship’s fuel tanks were full. The fleet, as a whole, was nearly dry, but there had been no trouble collecting enough from the other ships to provide tiny Felicity with a full load.
After a few more minutes, Crawford got up from his chair and went over to Frichette. His own position here was a bit awkward. He was in overall charge of this expedition, but it was Frichette’s ship. “How’s it going?”
“Okay so far, sir. But this is all fairly routine. The computers do most of the work.”
“Good thing we have them working for us. I must say I’m a little confused about why we don’t have the computer codes for most of the other warships. Why didn’t Shiffeld have them on file?”
Frichette gave a little snort. “Tradition, I guess. Back in the old days the ships were the actual property of the petans and kadors who ruled the individual planets and systems. Their oaths might require them to supply ships and crews to their overlords, but they weren’t about to let the actual ownership of them slip out of their hands. Things are a little different today, but even with the squadrons theoretically nationalized, the old ways still persist and the captains guard their codes closely. Admiral Maynard probably had copies of all the codes, but I’m sure he guarded them just as well, and with him gone there’s no hope of retrieving them.”
“But we do have the ones for this ship.”
“Yes, a couple of the smaller ships were provided by some relative of the governor’s and he did have the access codes. Felicity just barely rates being called a destroyer. She’s actually more like the old merchant-corvettes—armed merchant ships—that were used to beat the Hebyrnians forty years ago. Not too many like her left. Fair cargo capacity, fair speed—and unfortunately—only a fair armament.”
“Hopefully we won’t have any need of the armament—at least on this trip.”
“I hope you are right, Sir Charles. But I’m not going to depend on wishful thinking.” He turned to the first officer. “Mr. Chapman, we will clear for action in fifteen minutes. Let’s see if everyone can remember where their battle stations are, shall we?”
* * * * *
Tadsen Farsvar stared at the woman sitting opposite him and tried to keep his mind on the conversation. It wasn’t easy. Regina Nassau was visiting him in his quarters aboard the Newcomers’ ship and the measures she’d taken to be even remotely comfortable in what was, for her, the very high heat, was making him very uncomfortable. Aside from the bubble helmet, which allowed her to breathe, she was wearing nothing but some very short shorts and a sleeveless shirt, which her sweat had plastered against her rather amazing figure. Women of the clans did not nurse their infants and were generally not this well… endowed.
“Tad? Did you understand my question?”
“What? Oh, y-yes, I did,” stammered Tad, forcing his eyes back up where they belonged. “I’m nineteen standards old. I’ve been a confirmed adult of my sept for nearly a standard. How-how old are you, Regina?”
She smiled when she saw his question appear on her small computer screen. Communications had been refined to a great degree in just a few days. Computers with voice-recognition software and automatic conversion routines had been provided by the Newcomers. They now had to just talk to one another and they could usually understand what the other was saying.
Usually.
“You want to know how big I am?” asked Regina. “Which particular dimension were you interested in, Tad?”
Tad’s people did not blush the way the Newcomers did, but a wave of embarrassment washed through him. Damn machine! He hadn’t really asked that, had he…? “Uh, no, I wanted to know how old, how long you have lived! The same question you just asked me!”
“Oh,” and now Regina laughed. “By your reckoning I’m thirty-seven standards.”
“That old?” he asked in amazement. “Y-you don’t look nearly so old. You’re so…so…”
“How delicious of you to say so, Tad.”
Delicious? He punched a button on the computer and got several alternate possible meanings. They all seemed to involve pleasing tastes. Well, it probably meant something good.
“Can you tell me more about this place we are going?” asked Regina. “This Panmunaptra? It sounds like an important gathering place.”
“Oh, it is. Very important. At least to my clan. The elders meet there and there are merchants and builders and the birthing crèches, of course.”
“Birthing crèches? That does not seem to translate very well, Tad.”
“Uh, it is the place where babies are made.”
“Made? You mean where they are born? Like a hospital? The place where women go to give birth to their babies?”
Tad puzzled over her questions for a few moments. She did not seem to und
erstand what he was talking about. But surely her people had similar things…
“Not exactly,” he said hesitantly. “Well, yes, in a way. The man and woman go there to donate their…genetic material. Fertilization is done there and the gestators grow the baby. When the baby is ready, the parents return to claim it. I guess I’m not being very clear. But you must know what I’m talking about. It’s the place babies come from.”
Regina had gotten a very odd look on her face. Tad asked awkwardly: “D-don’t your people do it that way?”
“Some people do,” she said, slowly. “Sometimes they don’t have any choice. But most women grow their own babies…here.” She pressed a hand to her abdomen.
“Inside you? L-like a-animals?” Tad clamped his mouth shut after the second question. Would she find that insulting? But was she really serious? He was somewhat relieved when she smiled and nodded.
“Yes, exactly like animals, Tad. But you say your people don’t do it that way?”
“No. We can’t. The Lifegiver d-designed us this way. Or so the priests say.”
“Really? So all of your babies come from these crèches? They must be very large—or there must be a lot of them.”
“They are not so large, but perhaps ten or twelve babies are born each day. And our clan’s only birthing crèche is on Panmunaptra.” Regina paused and the hair above her eyes drew close together and she seemed to be thinking.
“Ten or twelve a day. That rate could only support a population of a few hundred thousand—at most. How many clans are there here? Is yours one of the smaller ones?”
“We are not one of the bigger clans,” said Tad a bit defensively. “But we are not the smallest, either. There are fourteen clans here in Refuge. Of course, we have relatives in other systems, I don’t think anyone knows how many by this time. And I’ve heard that there are three other clans who did not leave anyone here, but who traveled elsewhere.”
Across the Great Rift Page 16