A Sudden Departure (April Book 9)

by Mackey Chandler

  Heather didn't say anything.

  "Sovereign nations take what they feel is needed for their survival," Jeff continued. "We couldn't sell the drive without opening up the possibility they will figure out the tech and duplicate the acceleration compensator and the lance. They might even get ahead of us in using it and figure out things we haven't. In my opinion we'd be risking Home's survival, risking the possibility of any independence from Earth within the Solar System."

  "May I remind you," April said, mostly for Heather's benefit. "We don't even have regular relations with North America. They say we are in a state of war. Not only are they not going to respect our intellectual property rights under any system of law right now, but they have demonstrated they will repudiate their solemn treaty without any provocation."

  "I just have a hard time thinking we'll have this and not share it," Heather admitted. "I know they have this other, similar tech. But from what you are saying it will take them a lot of time and effort to make it work. Maybe even lose people and ships while we have something better right now."

  "If they had the sort of character you are displaying, by worrying about the rest of humanity, I'd want to share it too," April said. "Instead, I just had to shoot back at them for basically no reason just a couple months ago. They wanted to kill Jeff when he was no threat to them, just because he's a spacer and a Homie. It's nice to be nice. . . if people will let you. If this was Central and Mo came to you with this tech on a platter, would you just give it away for the common good?"

  Heather looked shocked, her face hardened and then got angry.

  "You're right. I'm here taking a little vacation and in two days I've gone soft in the head. If I was sitting at my judgment table in my audience hall I'd have never thought to give the swine an advantage. The Earthies tried to kill Home, they bombarded Central and tried to enslave my landholders, they've tried to infiltrate my domain and I dreamed for an instant they wouldn't use anything they get to work against us? Well, I have my sovereign hat back on now."

  Jeff blinked at the transformation.

  "I think we're agreed then. We can reconsider the matter if circumstances change. The one factor we can't change right now is that my step-mum restricts the production of the quantum fluid. I find it hard to argue with her," Jeff allowed, "because she has indicated she does so for security considerations. Given everything China has done to try to steal her work and get her under their thumb again, who can blame her? She holds parts of the process strictly to herself and has no partners who know the whole thing."

  "Even your dad?" April asked.

  "She said he didn't want to know. But she assures us if something happens to her all the important details will be delivered to us. I have no idea how."

  "If it was Earth, I'd figure she had her attorneys holding it for her," April said.

  "If I can figure out how to make it, without snooping on her. I will," Jeff said. "I've been looking at everything she worked on before this last project, trying to see the progression of her work and thought to see what led up to it." He looked embarrassed. "Mostly at this point I think I've learned she's a lot smarter than me. But here's something to consider, if we get to the point we have a secure location we can offer her as a site to manufacture it, outside this solar system, she might be willing to expand and trust others with no access to Earth."

  "So you want to bring her in on the jump drive?" April asked.

  "I want you to think about it, as a way to get as much fluid as we need."

  "I couldn't give her any guarantees at Central," Heather admitted. "We found another spy just recently. There's still just too much business back and forth with Armstrong to ever think things are fully secure. So you are envisioning a very small outpost with very little traffic back and forth? At least not much personnel movement?"

  "Yes. I'm afraid anyone making quantum fluid would have to accept never going back to Earth. It'd too risky. I'd like to keep going until we find a place with liquid water and enough resources we aren't dependant on Earth for much of anything," Jeff said. "Far enough the Earthies won't trip over us the first week they get their drive working. "

  "If it's an oxygen atmosphere you'll have to find a living world," Heather pointed out.

  "Yes, and we may never find one," Jeff admitted. "But if we found a water world with carbon dioxide, we can easily make our own oxygen and get started on Terraforming it to eventually have a free oxygen atmosphere."

  "We need a complete bio-library to try something that complicated," Heather said.

  "We already planned on doing that even if we never went to the stars," Jeff said. "Just in case Earth does something incredibly stupid."

  "Point," Heather admitted. "And gathering bio stuff for the French put us a long way closer to it than if we were just doing it for ourselves."

  "And yet, with all we've sold them, we're still selling them cheese," Heather marveled. At their shocked look she added. "We don't call it that of course. They'd have a fit. It's soy enhanced, mock-dairy fungal loaf."

  "Yum," April said. "With marketing like that how could they resist?"

  * * *

  "I had the pads from the two creeps in the elevator cracked and examined in detail," Gunny said. "This is the CG program they used to spoof Jeff. I'm going to keep a copy for our security association, would you like a copy for your own use?"

  April looked at the offered memory card with suspicion.

  "It's been cleared thoroughly of having any bad stuff in it?" April asked.

  "Squeaky clean, and the computer guy accepted a copy of it as his fee. He said a big video studio might have proprietary stuff at this level, but it's better than any commercial stuff on the market. It's big, but I was told it can do better work than what we saw."

  "I can share it with Jeff and Heather?"

  "I always assume you share everything with Jeff and Heather."

  "Thank you, Gunny. Did you find anything to indicate where they were from on Earth?"

  "Not a blessed thing, and I told Jon that. He asked again for the bags to do exotic stuff like look for grains of sand and pollen. I let him, but bad guys like this work all over, they move around. Even if he finds something, that doesn't definitively link them to any one region or boss, but it made him happy."

  "Nothing else on their pads?"

  "Nothing I'd want you to see. Just the sort of creepy stuff you'd expect lowlifes to have."

  * * *

  Karl was back before the lunch rush.

  "Can you work?" Cook asked, "I'm not saying a thing against you if you need a day off."

  "Nah, Medical said the same thing. What am I going to do? Lay in the empty barracks and try to play a game or something? Doing something is better."

  Cook nodded. "It's like trying not to think about the blue monkey. The harder you try not to think about something the less you can avoid it."

  "I think you really understand. I never saw a body before, and I don't think it makes it any easier that it was somebody I know," Karl said. "You weren't shocked. You've seem dead people before haven't you?"

  "I was a soldier. I've made a few," Cook said, and shrugged. "If you need to see he isn't in the freezer and everything is normal go look. Maybe it will help get the old image out of your head. Aaron said he thought the Armstrong people would get to him here. Heather didn't believe it, and I didn't think it was likely, but I never thought they'd get to him here in the kitchen where he worked. I changed all the door and storage codes. Of course if they have a fire and rescue card or an administrative card that won't help."

  "They were stupid to do this," Karl said, disgusted.

  "How so?" Cook asked, with lifted eyebrow.

  "Heather knew she still had one spy loose. When she caught Aaron they could have just laid low and let her think he was it. Now they've told her she still has at least one," Karl said.

  "You know, sometimes you're not as stupid as you look."

  * * *

  "This isn't anything lik
e I thought designing a starship would be," Jeff said. "I had all sorts of ideas saved up for a huge multi-deck ship with crew in shifts, science officers and dedicated medical staff, every sort of supply and equipment for any imaginable planetary surface, rovers and aircraft and multiple landing shuttles.

  "Now I'm trying to decide between a crew of three or four and a dozen hats for each of them. If we land anywhere it will be the main vessel at risk, so we'll need a really good reason to put down. Better to just do a flyby survey with one ship. The best chance to be able to refuel with minimal equipment is ice around gas giants. Comets take too much chasing and planetary surfaces use too much of it up lifting from them. So I find myself designing a harpoon to spear ice chunks and reel them in for processing. Not with a big barbed end, but big pads of nano-grippers.

  April smiled, and then snickered. "Have you named this ship yet?"

  "No, I'm open to suggestions."

  "How about the Pequod?" April asked.

  Jeff frowned. April's mirth made him distrustful.

  "I don't recognize that at all."

  "It's the ship in "Moby Dick", the book about the white whale."

  "I haven't read that. It was offered to me and it seemed impenetrably dense with old language, besides being dark and depressing. I read a few paragraphs and cracked it open a few places at random, read a few sentences and took a pass on it."

  "Cracked it open? You had an actual paper copy?" April asked.

  "My family did when I visited in India. It's been awhile."

  "You read more than me then. I just read the study notes," April admitted.

  "You don't seem the sort to buy study notes to me," Jeff said surprised.

  "Not for a class, no. But somebody alluded to the book and how it was classic literature and one of the items basic to cultural literacy and understanding of Western Civilization, blah, blah, blah. If that's true I'll have to pass on both of them," April said.

  "Propose a serious name, that doesn't connect to a story of pointless obsession full of weird religious references, and I'll consider it," Jeff promised. "With my luck we'd meet an alien race of whale-analogs, with who we'll get along just fine, until they research the ship's name-sake."

  "All right, I'll think on it. Do you have any thoughts for crew?" April asked.

  "One. I was very impressed with how Barak handled himself on the Yuki-onna. I haven't searched past that. A pilot will be very difficult. There is nobody star flight profile qualified."

  Well there was one, but April wasn't going to remind him.

  "Before you expend too much effort, Barak may have some thoughts on it himself."

  "That's a good idea," Jeff agreed. "I actually have him working on how we might change crew selection policies, but we haven't finalized that project."

  "Heather hated going home. She'd denied herself too long and really needed a vacation. So when you want to talk to Barak let me know and we'll go do it face to face and get another visit in with Heather. She'll appreciate it," April said.

  "That sounds good."

  Chapter 18

  "There's extra in my account this pay, somebody screwed up," Karl said staring at his pad.

  "You're the prep-cook now," Cook said. "Different rate."

  "I didn't know," Karl protested.

  "You've been doing the work haven't you?" Cook asked gruffly.

  "Some of it. We've sort of both been doing everything Aaron used to do."

  "And when we get a new helper you'll be doing all of it, and I'll be relieved to be done splitting it with you. We're short of personnel for everything. They can't just come up with another warm body like that," Cook said snapping his fingers. That was an unfortunate choice of words he immediately realized.

  Karl had an uncomfortable flash of emotion on his face, and then after a pause nodded an acknowledgement. "Thank you," he finally managed.

  * * *

  "I have a match for the tall guy you offed in the elevator," Chen said.

  "Have you been watching gangster movies again?" Gunny asked.

  "No, but I've been talking to Earth agents. I'm not sure where I picked that up. Since when do you mind a little euphemism?"

  "Some euphemisms tend soften the impact of an act, this is the other kind, that renders it even uglier by showing depraved indifference, making it common," Gunny said.

  "That's interesting," Chen said. "I never thought about it that way. I think I'm going to have a hard time deciding which group a lot of them fall into."

  "Don't waste too much effort on it. They tend to migrate with use as people recognize them for what they are and the softening effect first fails and then reverses."

  "Conversation with you is always interesting, almost as interesting as April, but with you I don't have to sit thinking after which of five ways you could have meant something."

  "With her, when in doubt, check your radar for incoming," Gunny said.

  Chen laughed, and said, "I'll add that to my list of cute sayings about her."

  "You have a list?"

  "Yes, I'm saving it for my biography."

  "Given your history, it may be worth your life to publish it," Gunny warned.

  "You don't think I'd release it while I'm alive do you? I'll arrange for it to be published posthumously," Chen assured him.

  "I'm probably in it," Gunny surmised. "One more reason to let you live, but I'm actually a little surprised you're calling me with his ID before April learned it. I'm starting to think we should just save money and farm intelligence out to her."

  "I have a guy, who has a guy, inside Turkish Intelligence. She only seems to have people everywhere off Earth. The taller fellow was one of theirs. No idea who his companion was. Probably just a hired minion."

  "Turkish? We used to just worry about North Americans and Chinese, now we have Turks, Bolivians, and. . . who knows what others?"

  That didn't sound like a 'what others?' pause to Chen. It sounded like an, Oops I almost said too much pause, but he let it go.

  "Thanks. This is going to change my attitude," Gunny admitted. "I used to figure anybody not North American or Chinese was probably a legitimate business person. Now we have to watch everybody. Jon said that before, but I just thought he was paranoid."

  "For sure he's paranoid," Chen agreed. "He's also right."

  * * *

  Jeff and April got Barak to talk with them when he had a day off duty. It was hard to find a place to do so with privacy, the cafeteria here was so small a whisper could carry across it. There wasn't any sort of real hotel yet, and April still hadn't acted on setting up an apartment near the administrative cubic. Heather had to go do some work and hold an audience before she was free to be with them however, so they had the use of her apartment. A place Barak hadn't seen but a handful of times despite being Heather's brother.

  "I'd be very interested in being the all around general space-hand and gopher on a long range mission," Barak agreed, "but you are going to have to be a great deal more specific about where and for how long. If I learned one thing on the iceball mission aboard the Yuki-onna it was that I need to know a lot more before I'll sign on for another. I wouldn't think of committing until I know the other crew and should one need replaced I need the option to drop out if I don't like the replacement. I'm not going to fly with a flaming jackass who will shirk his duty like last time. It's a wonder we survived."

  April didn't say anything. She wondered if Jeff understood how much Barak had grown up and changed? This was not a good start to recruiting him and Jeff needed to turn it around.

  "I'd have no problem letting you have a voice in the crew choices," Jeff said. He didn't mention Barak was supposed to be working on a crew selection process. The reality of it was Barak was too busy to finish it, and it wasn't his fault.

  "You already have an experienced crew, who've shown the ability to save a mission after it all turned to crap on them. Why don't you use them?" Barak asked.

  "They've got new responsible positions
here. If I read it right, in good circumstances. I'd never assume they'd just all drop their jobs and come over to a temporary position. It could turn out to be a long term thing, but I can't promise. I'm not presuming you will do so just on the basis of friendship or family. It's a business decision ultimately." Jeff said. "Though perhaps you could use your influence with them to at least get us a hearing?"

  "Quit generalizing and tell me what you are offering, or stop wasting my time," Barak said.

  "OK, this is confidential," Jeff said.

  April held her breath. . . if Jeff asked him to be formally sworn to secrecy Barak was going to be insulted, and rightly so. They had a much closer relationship than that. Or at least April thought they had.

  "We now have an effective star drive. There's a Brazilian team working on a drive and once we knew the principles and math involved I saw a workable variation on it and made a drive module. We want to sent a small ship on a voyage of exploration. I don't intend to delay until we can send more than one ship or a huge ship. So there will be risk and little chance of rescue if things go bad. It will require a great deal of caution and resourcefulness."

  "Wow. . . I'm not sure I'm up for testing a completely unknown drive. I'd love a star mission, but not a potential suicide ride. Just how fast does it go and is there a possibility you could test it in a robotic vessel first?" Barak asked.

  "April and I already took it to Alpha Centauri and back. It's not totally untested."

  Barak stared at him, shocked and confused.

  "Then why aren't you on all the news channels with everybody going nuts. You should be famous for. . . well, a very long time."

  "Fame is fleeting," Jeff said. "I had a similar conversation with April. Columbus discovered the New World, the Americas, right?"

  "Well, my history classes said the Scandinavians had sailed to the continent before, but Spain stayed and established colonies and remained in contact between there and Europe from then on, so yeah he got the credit, or to hear some tell it the blame," Barak said.