“Well we haven’t helped that,” Jeff admitted. “But I did make out like a bandit. They are still one future supply cycle from being in trouble.”
“Oh, crap…” April said suddenly.
Everybody, including Chen on the screen, looked a question at her.
“This new starship must have a lot more capacity to carry a bigger crew and heavier systems,” April said. “What do you want to bet that if this one isn’t armed, they’re eventually going to want to arm explorers going off into the unknown?”
“That would be a very difficult thing to verify,” Chen said. “Any sort of nukes they keep buried behind layers and layers of the best sort of security.”
“Maybe it would be better to buy some time by not bringing it up and making an issue of it unless they get blatant about it,” Heather said.
“I still want to know,” Jeff said. “I think I can make a small package,” he cupped both hands around an imaginary sphere. “If it is small enough not to occlude stars, black to light and radar absorbent, can fly by quite closely, and get a reading with passive sensors.”
“Just make sure you hold its manufacture just as tightly as the North Americans keep their nukes. You need plausible excuses for all the components and to severely limit how many people know about this or work on it, Chen suggested.
“That’s fine. We have one guy who can do it all,” Jeff told him. “Other than the four of us, he’ll be the only one I’ll read into this.”
Chen frowned at the phrase. “Have you been reading spy novels again?”
* * *
Ahead, Ken held up a hand for them to halt. There was a good ten-minute delay before they saw Mark come back to talk to him, turn around and go back to point. Ken came back to Eileen and Vic pulled forward to hear what he had to say.
“There’s a group of four ahead. Mark waved a white flag. There was a bit of a delay because they understood the message but had nothing white to wave until one of their guys took his shirt off and gave their point man his t-shirt to use. Then Mark went forward to parley. They are field hands on their way to work for a farmer. All armed but not as well as we are. They’ve agreed to pass strung out as we will also. Neither of us will bunch up to provide an easy target.”
It wasn’t stated as an option. Mark had already committed them and was in motion. Vic frankly couldn’t think of a better way to do it anyway. He just nodded he understood.
“You still go ahead,” he told Eileen when Ken turned away. “I’ll bring up the rear.”
The men passing looked pretty rough. They were the sort of thin build that was the new normal, and their hair and beards didn’t reflect care or skill in trimming. They each had a long gun but they were .22 rifles and one a shotgun carried broken open. One had shoes with wooden soles tied on the bottoms. Another had a pair of moccasins that were visibly hand made.
All of them carried a bag of personal possessions, though one had his rigged as a pack. They looked warily at the military weapons and obvious affluence of Foy’s group. Still, the danger was all to the richer group who had much more to lose if the others decided they could take it.
Vic, at the rear, kept a close watch behind him and didn’t relax until he was sure they weren’t being followed. His group maintained a pace he didn’t think the others could match to catch up. Vic was just grateful he hadn’t encountered them traveling alone.
Chapter 20
“Well, that didn’t take long. The Sandman with a reduced crew has departed Earth orbit to Mars.” Heather read from a news release. Chen informed her of the same.
“They were already past the optimum launch window,” Jeff said. “Every day of delay would mean a longer transit. They probably reduced the crew to stretch their food and environmental capacity.”
“And maybe to let them send back the last few scientists we didn’t move,” April said.
“It’s not making sense to me,” Jeff said. “This would indicate they were already loaded up and all they needed was to fuel them and transfer crew. There hasn’t been time to lift supplies to orbit since I paid them.”
“They must have had everything already delivered and imposed a hold when the money went away and they weren’t going to get paid,” April said.
“They didn’t demand full payment before delivery? From the Martians? Didn’t they know who they were dealing with?” Jeff asked. “How foolish.”
“The Earth economy runs on credit,” Heather reminded him. “Somebody had some serious pull to get that hold imposed. You put up with thirty days net, stretching that for your big customers to ninety days net without complaining, and hoping it doesn’t turn into forever, or you won’t have any customers pretty soon.”
When Jeff made a face, April said: “That’s why they think you are such a hard guy.”
“Because I expect to get paid?” Jeff asked, incredulous.
“Yep, filthy Capitalist, Spacer and a meanie. It’s a wonder they will talk to you at all.”
* * *
Ted Foster’s place was in a loose cluster of homes near a crossroads and a couple of businesses that were closed with no outside supply, but weren’t burned out and abandoned. The windows however were bricked or boarded up. Vic wondered what they were used for and if it made them a target for raiders. The roads crossed just this side of a concrete bridge over a decent stream. Ted’s house was across the bridge on the east side. It was clear all around and looked defensible.
Ted’s house was obvious. It was the one partway up the side of a big hill, with all the antennas. Another house upstream had horses and a guard shack on the uphill side overlooking the fenced pasture. Vic wondered if they were Arlo clients.
Vic and Eileen got off to walk the bikes up the steep driveway, and Mark and Ken came over unasked and pushed on their seats from the other side to help them up the grade.
“I’m tired,” Vic admitted. “I know I have a few years on you but I don’t know how you fellows kept up that pace all day long.”
Mark looked surprised. “We’re on stim. Anybody in the service could tell right away from our eyes and how we move. When we were never rescued or recalled we carried away as much as we could, including every bit of ammo and stim we could get our hands on. The bulk of it is still buried back a couple of days travel to the west.
“We’re going to layover here and get a full night’s rest before moving on. It may even be too hard to sleep tonight if the boost lingers. If we need to sleep in tomorrow, we can stay an extra day. We’ve been moving two days on this stuff and starting to come down. Didn’t you notice we were slowing down the last couple hours?”
“Not so I could notice,” Vic admitted. “Why the big push to hurry?”
“It’s still dangerous to the west. Worse the closer you get to the coast. The ocean provides transportation and the roads are north-south. We traveled at night on old hiking trails, forestry roads, and power line right of ways. Once we got to where we weren’t scared of the roads we boosted up and came as fast as we could. There’s all kinds of gangs, bandits, and unidentified recon moving around. People like we passed on the way here aren’t a concern. You people have a reputation, you know.”
“No, I don’t know, what do you mean?”
“The small-town militias on the coast said anybody that went west into the hills never came back. The old vets said they saw the same thing in the Trans Arabic Protectorate. Nobody wanted to go up in the hills and pry out the tribesmen. They laughed and said it must be something in mountain water. About four days at a normal walk west of here when we decided to try the road, we came down a power line and started along a county road. The map said there was a little town ahead and when we got where the road followed a stream there were five skulls posted on pike shafts with a sign that identified them as raiders. We went back and took the long way around.”
They came to the house, and walked the bikes around to the backside away from the road, and started unhooking the trailers.
“They might have t
alked to you, might not,” Vic acknowledged. “Last year we went to our festival and the folks who sell us salt left right after. We went home a day late and some damn fools tried to ambush the salt merchants. The next day we found their heads on a stick like that along the road as a warning, ‘cept they were fresh. It upset my wife.”
“She carries that gun like she knows how to use it,” Mark said, implying he didn’t think she’d be overly sensitive.
“She does. She’s shot a man dead before. For that matter, so has that little girl who walked in behind you at our house. But my wife is too genteel to hack off your head to post. The little girl, I’m not so sure it would bother her much.”
“She scared the shit out of me,” Mark admitted. “She moves far too quietly.”
“She’s not kin, but she lives with us. Consider her emancipated. You ask Arlo about her and he’ll tell you stories. He knows her right well.”
Ted Foster came out and suggested they take the bikes in the barn. It wasn’t a farmer’s barn. It looked more like the sort of garage a long-distance trucker might have to keep his rig at home.
“Leave the tubing in your trailer and it’ll make it easier to take down the hill to my shop in the morning,” he suggested.
“The bricked-up building that looks like some kind of store?” Vic asked.
“Yes. It used to be a rock shop until the tourist trade dried up, and then it was an insurance agency. The building is company owned and the local agent was in LA on The Day and I’m occupying it. I intend to declare adverse possession in another three years. It’s my shop now and the community knows that.”
“Works for me,” Vic said at Ted’s inquiring gaze. “Are you prepared to pay back tax on it if a county government is restored?”
“Yep, I have that covered,” Ted assured him. “There’s a water tank with a spigot inside the garage door if you want to wash up. On a shelf are wash rags and a towel hanging if you want to do your face. I’m out of soup at the moment. We’ll have some supper before it gets too dark. I was waiting for you all to get here.”
“Thank you. Is the water safe to drink?” Vic asked.
“There’s a cup on a nail, but the water isn’t boiled. There’s nobody dumping stuff in the river upstream. We saw to that. Or you can wait and boil some on my grill if you are worried it may have some different germs your gut isn’t used to. I can fetch a big pot so you have enough for tomorrow and to refill your bottles. Folks here, drinking it all the time, don’t get sick, but you take your chances.”
“I’ll take that pot. If we get the runs going back home, will make it extra hard. We’ve had water most of the way so I can wait.”
“Sensible,” Ted declared, not taking offense. “I have a fire started. I’ll go add wood.”
* * *
“That’s for me. I have a package,” Jeff said when the corridor door alarm chimed. He went to accept it from the courier and returned with a foam board box with a strap and carry handle.
“This is six bottles of my latest batch of whiskey. I’m hoping it’s good enough to sell in the clubs neat or over ice. Last year’s batch the Fox and Hare and the Quiet Retreat bought but they would only use it for mix or sell it carry-out. That batch didn’t hold much promise of improving with age, but your cabbage mine techs all tell me this is better. We’ll see. I suspect they would praise just about anything. I may send a bottle down to that fellow I had visit to advise me a while back. He has some serious expertise and credentials, but wasn’t interested in living here at all. Even if Detwiler gives this batch his seal of approval, I’d like to know what the Earthie thinks.”
“He knows Earth whiskey of course,” Heather pointed out. “Are you trying to compete with them?”
“Not directly. The expert was clear that I would never exactly copy any Earth whiskey, but he indicated it had the potential to be good with its own distinct character. He wasn’t holding forth a lot of hope for great, but I’ll accomplish what I can. I don’t have centuries of distilling experience. Maybe I can learn though. It’s kind of a challenge because it’s nothing you can reduce to a formula. There are too many variables.”
“Crack one open for us,” April requested. “We’re not experts and I’m not a big drinker, but we’ll give you our opinions.”
“I have two extra. We can do that. Keep it to finish it off,” he told Heather.
“Well, what do you think?” he demanded after they sipped it over ice.
“This stuff all tastes the same to me,” Heather admitted.
He looked at April.
“Sorry, it still needs some Coke for me. But even the best of it does.”
“Oh well, the second one always tastes better,” Jeff said.
* * *
“You do realize when I go home, they are going to debrief me in detail and probably with a half dozen different interrogators asking the same questions in a different order while they monitor all my responses?” Nick asked Diana. “They can’t make me, but they will probably ask me to wear a cap. They will want to know every foreign person I had contact with and exactly what we spoke about and our relationship.”
“Well, I’m a Hawaiian citizen, resident, and property owner. Unless they want to fess up to ugly racial prejudice, they shouldn’t hold me against you. Jeff and April are awkward people to speak against since they need their continued goodwill. Besides, I’d be surprised if some of those interrogators aren’t Haole themselves.”
“Yes, but there are layers. It’s always somebody else who is a problem and prejudice always something the other person does. For one’s self, it is always discernment.”
“You mean like Homies versus Earthies?” Diana asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe after I meet a few more people and see if that attitude exists. I haven’t seen it but I’ve met what, a half-dozen people?” Nick said.
“Why do they need Jeff’s goodwill?” Nick asked after he thought about it a little.
“It seems to me Hawaii revolted when North America is in the economic crapper and fighting Texas. Sort of like how America revolted against England when they had a lot of troubles keeping them busy elsewhere,” Diana said, pointedly.
“And when they have all those problems sorted?” Nick asked.
“Exactly. You better have Home and a few other entities ready to say, “Hey, wait a minute. We are trading with these people and have an interest in them now, when they might consider leaning on you again.”
“Then you should continue to show me a broader sampling of Home so it doesn’t look like I was sequestered and managed to keep me from getting an accurate picture.”
“OK, you’ve been to the old cafeteria and the Quiet Retreat. Tomorrow I’ll take you to the Fox and Hare and invite some people for you to meet. Then the next day we can dine at the alternate cafeteria where all the contract workers and rowdy beam dogs eat. You need to visit at least one of the dark clubs they favor, that keep their existence quiet too.”
“There’s a dark underbelly to Home society?” Nick asked feigning shock.
“There a dark underbelly to humanity. I can’t believe a successful, surviving revolutionary doesn’t know that,” Diana said. That shut him up.
* * *
Public Announcements: USNA Space Force
The Space Force, in conjunction with private contractors and allies, has conducted a successful round-trip voyage to an interstellar objective evaluating new hardware capacities and furthering our defensive capabilities.
The vessel Constitution is the first star capable USNA spaceship.
While operational security limits the sharing of detailed information at this early date, the achievement will open new opportunities for scientific and commercial partners once the testing of our technology advances beyond these initial steps.
The identities of the crew members and destination will remain classified until a date to be determined. However, rest assured the crew have been appropriately awarded mission citations and will be able to
display such awards when rotated to other duties even if the mission details remain classified.
“Well that tells us exactly zip,” Jeff complained when Chen relayed that report.
“We can make some very sound assumptions,” Chen said. “Given the USNA obsession with their public image they don’t want a public failure. I’d bet anything this ship went out with a two-man crew and minimum load-out on everything but fuel. They will add mass and crew above the stripped-down version progressively. If it hadn’t made it back at all, there would have been no public announcement either. They are effectively at war, if not declared, so it’s not surprising they are secretive. It’s basic operational security.”
“With us or the Texans?” Chen asked.
“I was thinking of Texas, because that is ongoing and can turn hot any moment, but maybe I should have been thinking of us. They might be silly enough to think this makes them something of a peer to us. They may test us,” Jeff speculated.
“I’m not sure I understand what you are thinking,” Chen admitted.
“They may deploy sufficient sensors to determine where one of our ships goes and attempt to follow it to determine our capabilities. They know we are star capable even if there is no public acknowledgment of it, but I’d rather they not know how capable. I’m thinking that perhaps we should not use any gravity-assisted dragging maneuvers where they can be observed. That seems to be something valuable to retain hidden, to spring on them if it is needed. Especially if any of our crews find themselves shadowed or threatened in a distant system.”
“From what you told me it would be forgoing considerable income opportunity to hide that and not use it,” Chen said. “Given the difference in performance, I’d think it more likely you will follow them and spy on their activities at a distant star.”
Jeff had a sudden transformation, eyes widening and nostrils flaring. He wasn’t any good at hiding his smallest thoughts much less the big ones.
Chen said nothing. He just looked worried. He could hide his thoughts but he wanted Jeff to see his concern without voicing it, so he’d volunteer his thought.
A12 Who Can Own the Stars? Page 30