A12 Who Can Own the Stars?

by Mackey Chandler

  “This is aimed at collectors. I doubt Homies will use it much. Not many people would pay UPS two hundred dollars NA to bring their lunch to them when I didn’t have a courier covering the late shift. I have no idea what they charge now. I was thinking two hundred dollars Australian for a postcard, five hundred for a letter, and a thousand for a first day cover with a special cancellation.”

  “People will really pay that kind of money?” Diana wondered.

  “I think so, but if they won’t it’s still a lower risk than starting to build spaceships or make drugs where the equipment is hundreds of solars or millions of dollars Australian.”

  “You’ve convinced me, I’m in,” Diana said. “I’m going to see if Nick has heard anything about Hawaii starting mail service back up. He gets the inside stuff on a lot of what’s going on.”

  “That sounds good. Are you OK with me talking to my sister? Not making her an offer or bringing her in but seeing if she is interested in drawing for us?”

  “Of course. I’m surprised you didn’t ask her first,” Diana admitted.

  “I’d rather she just draw for us, rather than manage,” Eric said. “She’s awfully sweet, and that’s OK. It’s nice to be around people like that, but sometimes you have to be pushy and she has a really hard time deciding when nothing else works, and she needs to do that.”

  Chapter 23

  He knew Morton wouldn’t approve, but Meijer had wide discretion in how he used his budget. He paid a private investigator, not an agent, to hike through the nature preserve and plant a surveillance camera high in a tree overlooking the Hunter woman’s house. The area downhill of the Lewis house lacked a grand tree with its height but you could see the Spacer’s house as well, across the Hunter woman’s lower lot. The camera had a solar panel hung on the side away from the house that charged it for overnight and connected to the net through a commercial ultra-high-altitude drone offering data and photo service to the whole island.

  Their photo services were cheap but they looked down without much of a view from any angle. His camera could scan and zoom in real-time to look right in the kitchen window or under the lanai. Oddly the PI reported somebody had been up the tree before. There were bullet holes in the trunk on the house side, and knotted cords on some of the branches that were cut off. They had weathered long enough they showed no DNA traces. Also, on top of a massive branch, somebody had hand-carved symbols neither of them recognized.

  When Meijer saw Diana and Nick on camera throw shopping bags in their new vehicle and head to town, he saw his opportunity. They never called the security company out for such a brief absence, and never had gone down this late in the day without having dinner in town before returning. It was the perfect chance to peek in some of the windows his camera couldn’t see and even do a brief entry if the locks weren’t too sophisticated.

  Besides that, the house to the other side from the Lewis woman’s place was empty and for sale. If he pulled in their drive his car wouldn’t be easily visible from the Hunter drive and a strange car there wouldn’t raise questions with the house for sale. It might not be this easy again for a long time. Even if he set an alarm off, he could drive back down the ridge road. If he met the sheriff responding, his agency ID would keep the local police from arresting him.

  Meijer went past the junction of the main road and the side road leading up the ridge to the side away from the city. He turned around as far down the road as he could park and still see the intersection and watched with binoculars. When the couple turned and went into town, he let them get completely out of sight then rushed to turn up their road and drive like a mad man. He didn’t pass another car before he reached the end and pulled in the neighboring driveway. He used their turn around pad and parked pointed back out.

  If he couldn’t get in without breaking something, he’d skip it. He didn’t want to alert them they were being watched. He had an agency sensor pad to detect alarm systems, and countermeasures, an AI to neutralize them, and an automated lock picker with a selection of probes. That was in addition to his agency phone, personal phone, wallet, keys, and his pistol he certainly never wanted to use. He made sure everything was secure behind zippers or Velcro and left the car unlocked.

  Meijer followed the stone fence, ducking low, to the back area below Diana’s lanai. The stones in the middle looked different. They weren’t stacked quite as evenly as the rest of the fence. He took a picture of that to puzzle on later and secured his phone again. He put on gloves and got a grip on the far edge of the stones, lifted a leg to the top, and launched himself to roll over the fence low, presenting as little of a profile as briefly as possible to anyone watching. He fell loosely and easily on the grass, hitting on one shoulder, rolling over to his hands and knees.

  When he raised his head to look for any motion at the house, he was looking at a broad black face with reproachful eyes. On all four, Meijer was looking up at the dog and Ele’ele stood above him enough he had to dip his head to look down at Meijer.

  He didn’t bark but let out a snort that flooded Meijer’s face with strong doggie breath. As soon as Meijer jerked away Ele’ele was on him. He really meant to go for the neck but Meijer was so fast all he got was a huge mouth full of shoulder. They rolled over against the wall, Ele’ele only letting loose when they both crashed into the stones. Meijer knew what was coming and got his arm up, his hand gripping and protecting his neck. That was too much for Ele’ele to wrap his mouth around. He gave up after gnawing at the hand ineffectively a few seconds. Instead, he savaged the elbow sticking up. Meijer was scrambling with his left hand trying to draw his pistol but it was positioned to draw with his critically occupied right hand.

  Between bites, Meijer got his legs under him and leaped to clear the wall. Ele’ele bit him on the butt hard. It seemed he’d drag him back, but when he let loose briefly to take a different grip Meijer propelled himself across and rolled in the unmowed grass on the other side. He expected the dog to follow but when Meijer looked, he was just staring across the wall with seeming curiosity.

  It was a long crawl to the car since he couldn’t stand. That was just as well, Meijer thought. Standing might have provoked a chase response in the dog to make him leave his territory. Getting in the car was even less fun and he hated to think what he was doing to the upholstery. About half-way down the hill he fainted and plunged off a curve unaware.

  Coming back up the hill later Diana had her eyes looking up and to the inside of the curve, alert to meeting any car coming around it towards them on the narrow road. She never saw the faint tire tracks across the outside shoulder. The dense foliage swallowed the car without a trace.

  Later, near dark, Meijer regained consciousness and woke to a mass of leaves pressed against the outside of his windshield. Everything hurt and he felt sick to his stomach. The car emergency system didn’t alert anybody because it was built to use the North American system and that was one of the embargoed services. Fortunately, his agency phone had satellite connections and he managed to get it out and hit the HELP ME button on his home screen twice, then hold it pressed for the required three seconds to activate it.

  While Nick and Diana were having the takeaway dessert they’d brought home, the Sheriffs blocked the road above and below the wreck location. The rescue squad pulled their vehicle to the edge of the road and a pair of medics backed down the slope gripping a gurney that was lowered on their winch cable. Morton and two agency helpers stood on the edge of the slope to watch them work and didn’t interfere. A couple of minutes after they disappeared into the foliage their call came on the radio.

  “We have him and are loading him up.”

  “Do you want a wrecker to retrieve your agency car or wait for daylight?” the Sheriffs asked Meijer’s boss, Morton, after the rescue truck took Meijer away to the hospital. It was full dark now.

  “Now, but get a big one with a crane that can load it up without dragging a big obvious rut across the shoulder.” The car when pulled up looked dri
vable. It was stopped by thick brush, not a tree trunk or big rock, but it was loaded on the flatbed anyway.

  Once the car was headed downhill. Morton and his two assistants dismissed the Sheriffs, who looked at each other funny but left, wondering why the agency men were staying.

  After the cops were out of sight, Morton’s agents went over the area with bright lights, obliterating every tire track and footprint with a rake and broom.

  “They’ll never know anything happened,” his lead agent told Morton. He nodded and they loaded up their tools and went down the mountain too.

  “Where is Ele’ele?” Nick asked. It was unusual for him to be absent for so long.

  “Ele’?” Diana called but there was no response. They turned on the outside lights and he was sitting down at the fence looking into the dark.

  “Maybe he found something,” Nick guessed.

  “Hold a minute,” Diana said and retrieved a pistol and flashlight before they walked down. She’s been nervous ever since the guard bots April gave them killed some intrusive little bots.

  Ele’ele looked over his shoulder at them but turned his head back to the dark.

  Diana turned her light on and swept the beam across her neighbor’s yard clear down to their fence on the nature preserve. There was nothing there.

  “Come on Ele’,” Diana said. “If there was anything there it is gone. Come on, fellow.”

  Ele’ looked back in the night once, reluctant to leave, but stood to follow them.

  Nick saw a reflection in the grass and squinted.

  “What’s that?” he asked and pointed, but didn’t step any closer.

  Diana shone her flight where he was pointing and there was a very nice modern pistol lying in the grass.

  “Someone gifted you,” Nick joked.

  Diana looked at Ele’ele who didn’t look guilty at all.

  “Sometimes I wish the mutt could talk,” Diana said.

  Nick retrieved and tried to hand the pistol to Diana who waved it away.

  “No thanks. I’m happy with what I have. Finders keepers. Every boy should have a pistol.”

  “Thank you,” Nick said, but silently he wondered, “Boy?”

  * * *

  “This looks promising,” Jeff said. The rock was a hundred meters long and half that wide in a lumpy fashion. “We’ve dragged one near this big before between two ships instead of three.”

  “Look at your screen. We are going to do a short jump slaved together to the point listed as ‘A’. We’ll turn and from there we will test the approach and snatch program. That point through the snatch point will leave us aimed for a Jupiter suborbital insertion. We will acquire enough velocity falling around Jove to give us the solar orbit speed we want doing a trailing Mars approach. A couple micro-jumps to get us in the right plane and we should slide right up behind the rock pile we’re building in Mars orbit.”

  “Sounds good in theory,” Deloris agreed. “My board is slaved to yours. Show me what you got.”

  Deloris crossed her arms to help her resist the urge to leave her hands on the controls. Her ship turned with Jeff’s and the rock went out of sight behind them. There was no noticeable change from jumping and then they turned around and aimed back the way they’d come. The only prominent feature in the sky was the bright dot of Jupiter straight ahead, but still too far away to be sure you were seeing any disk behind the glare.

  Her display showed some autopilot lines as the ship moved slightly to point in exactly the right direction and position itself in relation to Jeff’s ship. The Chariot was visible out of her side port.

  “Activating in twenty seconds,” Jeff said as a courtesy and her screen showed it happening.

  Suddenly there were about twenty lines of code on her screen, all activated quicker than her brain could perceive them. The rock they captured was out her left port and Jupiter filled the sky out her right to overhead views.

  “How about that? It worked,” Jeff said amazed, talking through the drone around the rock.

  “A little nonchalance at the miracle would bolster confidence in you,” Deloris suggested.

  “I don’t have it in me,” Jeff admitted. “I hope it never feels routine.”

  “What can I do now?” Deloris asked, more teasing than serious. She knew the numbers.

  “Brew some coffee, read a book, take a nap, whatever you want. I’m going to stare at Jupiter. We’re getting a little more atmospheric drag than I expected, but it will only extend our partial orbit another two minutes. I won’t adjust our orientation around the rock until right before we jump for Mars orbit. You have a bit more than six hours to kill while we fall around Jupiter.

  “Coming up on reorientation and jump,” Jeff said hours later. “Heads up if you want to see it happen. Sorry if I interrupted your nap.”

  “Oh, the ship moving would have awakened me,” Deloris said, tongue in cheek.

  It did move a little, turning and aiming from a point on their low orbit aimed at a point behind Mars in its orbit. The rock wasn’t lined up the long ways between them now and Deloris wondered if that would matter. Jeff would be disappointed and they’d have left major cosmic litter behind them in Jupiter orbit if it didn’t come along. As low as they were it wouldn’t last long before it decayed and fell.

  A new line painted itself on her screen and Mars appeared well off-center ahead of them.

  “We need a minute to read our distance, closing rate, and check the position of the Martian moons and our flying rockpile to see we are aiming correctly, Jeff said. “We’ll be reorienting and jumping a couple of times.”

  Mars grew closer with another jump then offset sharply in another.

  “We’re just a little too slow,” Jeff said. “If we match orbit with our project now it will take days to drift together. I’m going to let it pass over us and get ahead then we cut under its orbit to pick up some speed and then jump in behind it. That will take another half hour.”

  “We aren’t going inside the moons’ orbits?” Deloris worried.

  “One, but it’s not in the way. I checked,” Jeff assured her.

  “Coming up on our jump,” Jeff said near a half-hour later. You should be able to see our satellite by eyeball, moving against the starfield.”

  “I figured that moving point of light was it,” Deloris said.

  No sooner had she said that than it was a lumpy shape in the far distance. She didn’t know how big it was to estimate how far away it was.

  “Got it ranged on radar,” Jeff said.

  Almost immediately they jumped again and it filled most of her forward port. Suddenly showing a lot more surface detail.

  “Damn, you cut it close,” Deloris complained.

  “A hundred meters,” Jeff said. “Closing at a little more than a quarter of a meter a second. I’ll back us off to watch. Their gravity would pull them together now without any closing velocity, but I didn’t want to watch all day to see it happen. Backing us off,” Jeff said again, and did so with just the thrusters. He then killed that motion after a couple of minutes.

  “See that smoothly curved area on the end? I think we may have shaved a little off by it being too far outside our field of influence when we jumped.”

  The exact time and point of contact were hidden from them, but Jeff called out the expected contact time and the shape stopped visibly receding.

  “Nothing big enough broke off to show on radar. We’re done,” Jeff said. “Let’s go home.”

  “My board is still slaved to yours,” Deloris said. “Go ahead and take us home.”

  * * *

  “I’m alive?” Meijer croaked before his eyes even opened, dry throat cracking.

  “Not your fault,” Morton said from his chair. “It took the efforts of a great many professionals to thwart you offing yourself. You made a valiant effort.

  He forced his eyes open. They were sticky. “I called, didn’t I? I seem to remember that. Crap, everything hurts,” he complained.

 
; “Yeah, you called on your agency phone, from your agency car,” Morton didn’t actually say he wished Meijer hadn’t linked the agency to his actions, but it hung there in the air unsaid. “You scared the crap out of the medical tech. He asked the Sheriffs to get their rifles from their cars because he’s never seen anybody torn up as badly as you but a victim of a bear mauling when he worked on the mainland.”

  “It was the dog,” Meijer remembered, and shuddered all over. “I got all of a meter inside the fence and he hit me. Damned if I know why he didn’t follow me back across and finish me.”

  “Because then you weren’t in HIS yard,” Morton said.

  “I did get away,” Meijer said. “They shouldn’t know I tried to toss their place.”

  Morton just looked at the floor between his knees and didn’t say anything.

  “No?” Meijer guessed from his silence.

  “Did you leave your gun anywhere?” his boss asked. “It wasn’t on you and it wasn’t in your car. We went through your condo and it wasn’t there.”

  “I… I think I tried to draw on the dog,” Meijer said. “I mean, I tried. I was using my wrong hand and he was biting the crap out of me. I don’t think I ever got a good grip on it.”

  “Well, I think you got it out of the holster. We sent a car up the hill the next night and he systematically searched the next-door yard with night vision and never found it.”

  “Crud.”

  “Since it has no serial number or agency markings, we can hardly run a lost add,” Morton said.

  “I screwed up so bad. Do you want to just fire me?” Meijer asked, resigned.

  “Fire you? You have fifteen years in this work. If I hire a twenty-something greenie to replace you, I get to watch him make all the stupid mistakes you’ve made over those years. You’ve moved on to learning from really colossal screw-ups. Surely you are within a decade or two of being a genuine expert who has made every mistake possible known to the trade.”

  “That’s an interesting take on it,” Meijer allowed. It would be stupid to refute it.