She frowned and silently cursed the man for being so persuasive. What he said did make a certain amount of sense and a large part of her did, indeed, want to stay here and interact with the locals. So far she had been able to get frustratingly little information on their history and she was determined to discover when, how, and why they had made the great leap across the Rift. But that’s not your job, girl, you’re a terraformer, not an historian or an ambassador! But there weren’t any other historians with the fleet and she shuddered at the thought of the damage that might be done with some other ‘ambassador’ on the job. It was very tempting…
Still, she hesitated. Shiffeld was proposing that Bastet, the fleet’s terraforming ship, be sent on to the fourth planet to begin detailed surveys—without her. Ramsey would be in command while she was away. The local inhabitants had given permission, and the ship was due to leave in a few hours. If she accepted Shiffeld’s offer, she would remain behind on Starsong. She did not like that idea at all. On the other hand, all the activity on Bastet for the next several months would be strictly data collection, a completely routine activity which the people there could easily carry out without her. Doctor Ramsey was fully qualified, indeed overqualified, to supervise the operation. Her presence would not be needed until they began to model the possible course of action they could take.
“Dame Regina?” prompted Shiffeld. “Can I count on your help?”
“Very well, I accept.”
“Excellent! The first delegations will be arriving in three days. I leave all the arrangements in your hands.”
“All right. But I want it understood that I’m not taking this on as a permanent assignment. When we get to the next stages of the terraforming evaluation I intend to be back on the job.”
“Of course. I had assumed that.”
She looked at Ramsey. “I’ll be sending you a detailed set of instructions, Doctor. You will be in charge of all the surveys, but I want to be kept fully informed. Start with a chemical analysis of the soils and the ice caps, and then proceed with the seismic probes. Then…”
“I know how to conduct a planetary survey… Dame Regina,” interrupted Ramsey. They stared at each other for a moment before Regina dropped her eyes.
“Yes, of course you do, Doctor. I’m sorry, but this is coming as a bit of a surprise.” She and Ramsey had always had a rather awkward relationship. He was nearly twice her age but had never achieved a fraction of her fame—or notoriety—and she suspected that he resented it. Still, he was a solid professional and, like it or not, now she had to trust him.
“We both have full confidence in you, Doctor,” said Shiffeld. Regina nodded and then turned her attention back to the governor.
“I also want to know just what you hope for me to accomplish with the locals.”
“Oh, the same sort of thing you’ve already been doing: talk with them, exchange cultural information, you know, keep them happy.”
“In other words: keep them out of your hair.”
“Yes, quite,” said Shiffeld with a smile. “Well, I’m sure you have a lot of preparations to make, Dame Regina, so I’ll leave you to them.”
Which really meant: ‘you’ve given me what I want, so please get out of my office so I can get back to my work.’ Regina just nodded and got up from her chair.
“Oh, Doctor, would you mind staying for a moment?” said Shiffeld to Ramsey. Regina glanced at the two men for a moment and then shrugged and left the office.
Jeanine was waiting for her outside. The young woman looked at her with curiosity. “So, Reggie, are we going or staying?” Regina did not answer until they were well away from the governor’s headquarters.
“I am staying. You are going.” Regina winced at the look of dismay that washed over Jeanine’s face.
“What? What do you mean?”
“I’ve agreed to stay here and play ambassador to the locals—for a while. Ramsey will be in charge until I get back. But I need someone—someone I can really trust—to go along with Bastet and keep me informed about what’s going on there. I’m sorry Jeanine, but I need you to do this. It’s important.”
“But… but Doctor Ramsey will send you copies of all the reports…” protested her assistant.
“He’ll be sending me reports. I imagine he’ll be sending me mountains of reports, plus all the raw data as well. But I’m also quite sure there will be other reports coming out of Bastet that I won’t see; reports going straight to Shiffeld. I know you won’t be able to get hold of those, so don’t try. But I need you to be my eyes and ears there, Jeanine. Please?”
The young woman still looked hurt to be sent away, but her expression slowly became thoughtful, and eventually she nodded. “Okay.”
“Good. Now let’s get over to the ship, I need to get some of my stuff before they leave.”
* * * * *
“I am standing here with Sir Charles Crawford, chief engineer for the Gate Project, the man responsible for seeing that this colossal undertaking is finished on time. Mr. Crawford, it is over a month since the Rift Fleet arrived at Landfall, is the project on schedule?”
“Well, we…”
“As you know, the Gate Project has faced a number of unforeseen difficulties: the dastardly sabotage of the naval personnel’s cold-sleep capsules, the threatened arrival of a Venanci squadron, the unexpected presence of natives in the Landfall system. How have you been forced to adapt your operations to these new realities, sir?”
“Well, we…”
“And what about the natives? Has the trade with them been as big a boon as was hoped? Are the materials they are delivering satisfactory? Has this help been enough to offset your other difficulties?”
Charles Crawford stared at the intense young man standing less than half a meter away and resisted the urge to grab his sound pick-up and stuff it up his nose. He was already regretting that he’d agree to give the twit ‘a few moments of his time’. But he was a distant relation of one of the major backers of the expedition and determined to make a name in media circles by documenting what happened here. Shiffeld had pleaded that everyone cooperate with the man as much as they could. He glanced over to where Sheila MacIntyrre was looking on in amusement and then back at his interviewer. Crawford continued to stare until a good five seconds had gone by without any further questions.
“You done?” he asked.
The man frowned, but it passed in an instant, no doubt he realized he could edit this part out. “Uh, yes, Sir Charles, can you answer any of my questions?”
“I can try. Currently we are about one week behind our planned schedule. This is due primarily to the difficulties you just named. Fortunately, we have not been falling any farther behind schedule and during the last few weeks actually managed to pick up a day or two. All of my people are responding very well to this emergency and putting in the extra effort to meet schedule. We are all confident in our ultimate success.”
“And the natives?” prompted the man.
“For the most part they have been a great help, although their primary assistance has been in providing us with raw materials—which is not my department; you should talk to Lu Karrigan and Jinsup Sowell about that. But as I understand it, they have supplied us with enough ice to crack for reaction mass that the fleet should have full fuel bunkers in another month or so. Of more importance to me, they’ve delivered enough of the various ores we need to begin laying the primary induction ring next month. Once Jin Sowell has his refineries online, we can get started.”
“Oh yes, quite a few people who I’ve talked with have mentioned the induction ring. It sounds very important. Could you tell us a little more about that?”
“It’s the heart of the gate,” replied Crawford. “The single most important component of the entire apparatus—and the most difficult and demanding item to fabricate. It cannot be assembled in pieces, it must be cast in place in one continuous ‘pour’ which will take nearly eighteen months. You’ve probably seen the two micro-laminat
ors that are being mounted on the support ring…”
“Yes! Enormous machines the size of apartment buildings!”
Crawford nodded, ignoring the interruption this time as he warmed to his subject. “The largest ever made. When everything is ready, these will start laying the ring. The actual material of the ring is a complex metallic crystal that is laid down literally molecule by molecule. The two laminators will start face to face and then work away from each other, moving only a couple of meters a day, building the ring until they meet again on the opposite side of the support structure. Once the process starts, it cannot be stopped until it is complete. Any interruption would ruin the inductor and we’d have to do it all over again—if we even could. The ring material is as near to indestructible as anything made by man. We’d have to replace all the supporting structure it was attached to, as well. And the tolerances! The final ring has to be perfectly circular—and I mean perfect! If it was off by as little as a micro-micron, it won’t work. So we’ve made the support ring as nearly circular as we can, but that’s still incredibly crude; we’re probably off by a few centimeters in spots. So the laminators compensate for that when laying the ring, making certain sections thicker or thinner as needed. And that also means keeping all parts of the ring at an even temperature to avoid thermal distortions. We do that by…”
Fifteen minutes later the young interviewer was fidgeting noticeably and finally managed to break in. “Well! Thank you, Mr. Crawford. You’ve certainly given us a great deal of information and I want to thank you. I’ll be sure to come by again when you start to lay this ring you’ve been telling us about. Thank you again, sir!” The man and his camera-holder backed away and then fled. Crawford looked over at Sheila and pouted.
“I was just getting to the interesting part.”
“For a man we can’t pry two consecutive sentences out of at a party, you sure can run at the mouth on engineering subjects, Chuck,” snickered Sheila.
“Well, I am an engineer, Sheila.”
“Yup, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, year in and year out.”
“And what exactly does that mean?” he asked, looking hard at Sheila.
“Oh, just that I worry about you sometimes. You never seem to relax, you never join in any of the fun and games during off hours…”
“What off hours?”
“Exactly. You never even notice when I flirt with you.”
“When have you ever flirted with me?”
“See?” Crawford jerked his head around and saw that she was grinning at him. For some reason the image of Regina Nassau kissing him flashed into his head and it made him feel… how? Guilty, maybe? “Well, anyway, you gave the man a nice interview, I’m sure he’ll manage to edit it down to about thirty seconds.”
Crawford snorted. “Yeah, probably.”
“Although I doubt he’ll edit out your little white lie, there.”
“What lie?”
“Oh, the one about morale being high and everyone being confident of success. Surely you don’t believe that, do you?”
Crawford frowned. “It’s not that bad, Sheila.”
“Maybe not now, but it’s getting worse day by day and you should know it. You haven’t been down in the trenches the way you’ve been on most jobs…”
“I can’t! Damn it, I want to, but this job is just so bloody big I can’t spend the time I want with the workers. And now this business of me commanding a naval squadron…”
“I know and I’m not criticizing, but the fact remains that you haven’t been able to. I see it a lot closer and what I see is scaring me: arguments, fights, drunkenness…”
“Drunkenness? Where are they getting enough booze to get drunk? It’s all strictly rationed.”
“I’m not sure, but I’m suspecting that the natives may be delivering more than ice and ore, Chuck.”
“Already?” he asked in surprise.
Sheila laughed. “Y’know: supply and demand. And however different these locals might be, they still have alcohol, and it wouldn’t take much in the way of communication skills for our people to make it clear what they wanted.”
“But what are our people trading for it? The big technology exchange deals aren’t going to work with local bootleggers.”
“No, but little technology exchanges probably work just fine. Music and vid players, hand-comps… tools.”
“Damnation! If I catch anyone doing that I’ll…”
“What? Fire them? You can’t do that here and everyone knows it. The worst you can do is fine them and that isn’t much of a threat under the circumstances. Chuck, discipline is getting pretty bad. My supervisors have complaint lists as long as your arm for every shift.”
“Hell, I didn’t realize… Why haven’t I been getting reports about this?”
“You are. From me. Right now.”
“I mean through normal channels!” Crawford was surprised and embarrassed by what Sheila was telling him and getting angry—at himself.
She shrugged. “Everyone knows how busy you are and how much pressure you’re under. They’re trying to deal with it themselves and not bother you.”
“Well, you let them know that from now on I want to be bothered! I’ll want full reports from every shift, every day!”
“Oh, and I suppose you’ll cut your sleep from four to three hours a day so you can look at them?”
Crawford frowned at her. “How am I supposed to notice your flirtations if you keep acting like my mother?”
“You had a mother? Wow, everyone here thinks you were just assembled out of spare fabricator parts. Wait ‘til I spread the news—not that anyone will believe it, of course.”
“All right, Mom, just what do you suggest I do about this mess?”
Now Sheila frowned. “I’m not sure. Everyone’s afraid, Chuck. They’re thinking that staying here was a real bad idea. Yes, I know about the problems of relocating, but most of them don’t care that much about the Gov’s grand plans or schedules. The Venanci scare them—a lot.”
“If we had relocated it would have been at least six years before we could open the gate—and the Venanci might have still found us. It’s too late now anyway.”
“They know all that. Of course, it will all be resolved in a few months—one way or another. Either the danger will be passed, or we’ll all be working to build a gate for the Venanci.”
“They’ll have a hell of a time making this lot work for them,” growled Crawford.
“Don’t be so sure, Chuck. If they capture the family transports, they’ll have hostages. The people with families will work—and they’ll convince the others to work for their sake.”
“Shit. Well, it sounds to me that our best bet, in the short term, is to be as upbeat as we can about our chances of defeating the Venanci when they arrive. Try to restore some confidence in them.”
“Good luck. They have enough contact with Lu Karrigan’s and Jinsup’s people who have been transferred to know what a mess the navy ships are. And the fact that a lot of them will be starting damage control training in a few days is also disturbing them.”
“They’ll all improve. And once our folks are involved themselves…”
“I sure hope so. But I’m still worried, Chuck; the business of keeping the families in cold-sleep is really wearing on some people.”
“I know, Beshar was bending my ear on that a few weeks ago.”
Sheila nodded. “One of my girls, Ginny Lansdor, was sitting in the lounge just crying and crying the other day. Her little boy is in cold-sleep and she’s been begging me to get him thawed out. Nothing I can do, of course, but it breaks your heart to say no.”
“It will only be another few months…”
“Yes, but until what? Victory? Defeat? Will Ginny have to watch her boy used as a hostage while she slaves away for the Venanci? Or just see the family ships hyper out to escape and not know if she’ll ever see her child again? The uncertainty is killing people.”
“Damn it,
Sheila, what am I supposed to do?”
“Fix everything and make it better, of course. I know you can’t, but everyone expects you to—which is highly unfair, I know. But the gang trusts you and depends on you, Chuck. You’ve always done right by them in the past but now they’re worried; really worried.”
“Well, thanks for letting me know the real score, Sheila. There’s not much I can do, but at least I won’t be blindsided.” Sheila reached out and gave his hand a squeeze. He looked at her. “You flirting with me?”
“Sorry, not this time. We have to get down to the boat bay for the ceremony.”
“What…? Oh, that’s right. I nearly forgot.” He snorted. “Whose idea was this? If we are worrying about peoples’ morale, this is just the thing to buck them up!”
* * * * *
Carlina Citrone sat up on her bunk at the noise outside her cell. Again? So soon? She shuddered in fear of another session in the interrogation room. She wasn’t sure what was worse, being interrogated by ruthless experts or by the batch of fumble-fingered amateurs they had here. The newly recruited police had found some interrogation drugs among the gear of their predecessors and had been trying them out on her over the past weeks. She was a little amazed that they had not accidentally killed her. They’d come close a couple of times and she’d been left dangerously ill on two occasions. She had no clue how much they had found out from her. They still wanted information on the relief squadron which she didn’t have. They’d also started grilling her on the people who had sent her on this mission and about any additional agents here with the Rift Fleet. She’d done her best to conceal information about her handlers and at the same time fabricate information about non-existent confederates. Let them become as paranoid as possible! When they started rooting out additional ‘traitors’ from among their fellows, it could only serve to further disrupt their operations. But she didn’t know if she was having any success or not. The thought suddenly struck her that perhaps there really were additional agents here with the fleet. She would not have been informed about them and they might well exist. Not that it would do her the slightest bit of good. She was caught and of no further use. She would be left to her captors’ attempts at interrogation.
Across the Great Rift Page 26