Ecolitan Prime (Ecolitan Matter) (51 page)

“S
TAND BY FOR
jump. Mark…four, three, two, one…jump.”

As Nathaniel touched the jump stud, the big ship turned inside out, black becoming white, then, after that timeless and endless moment of jump, reverting to black.

Thirty percent of the power—gone from one jump, and not that long a jump. No wonder Hanoverian had gone bankrupt.

He scanned the screens. No EDI tracks, just the selectively compressed image of the representational screen showing the Sligo system—out of scale. With a slow release of his breath, he eased the
Smith
on course toward the long-abandoned asteroid metal processing facility in the Sligan belt.

“What are we doing?” asked Swersa.

“Heading in-system to the processing center.”

“They just left it? Half a system away from where it was used?” asked Sylvia. “I know you said they had, but…that’s a lot of equipment, and you look at a place like Artos, starving for fabricated metals and technology…”

Nathaniel went through the shipnets again, then rechecked the drives and board readouts. Except for a slow pressure loss in the aft cargo section and the exorbitant use of power, the ship seemed fine. The EDI screen was clear, and he hoped it remained that way.

“Economics again. You saw what we paid for this, and we probably got it for a third or less of what it cost to build. Relative energy costs always climb in a developed system, even if absolute costs drop. That increases the comparative disadvantage of high-cost, high-bulk transport, and transporting anything across stellar distances is costly. Smaller ships can do it cost-effectively if they carry extremely high-value cargoes. Iron or even carbon steel or specialty alloys are not that high value. Plus, carrying all that potentially magnetic material plays hell with jumpshift generators after just a few shifts, and that increases the maintenance costs. The
Smith
probably has the capacity to supply all Artos can afford for a year—six months anyway—in one trip. All of that factors into a cost spiral…multiple cost spirals really…the bottom line is that big ships don’t work, except when you’re planoforming and need everything—and some government foots the bill. It’s still not strictly economic, but provides the illusion that it is. Add to that the fact that there’s always someone out there who thinks big is better, generally who’s new to the industry…” Nathaniel broke off as he saw the glazed look begin to appear in the eyes of both the other Ecolitans. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to go on and on.”

“Just about the time I forget that you’re an economist,” said Sylvia with a small laugh, “you remind me.”

“For an economist…you are…” Swersa groped for a word or phrase.

“Terribly bloody-minded,” Nathaniel suggested as he rechecked the EDIs, which were still clear, thankfully.

“…you’re suggesting a pretty costly solution,” LuAn concluded.

“In war, all solutions are costly,” pointed out Nathaniel. “Especially losing. The real winner is the one who can get everyone else to pay. That’s what the Fuards have been trying, and we’re going to present the bill for collection.”

After a glance at the two, Whaler tried again. “Look. War is economic…whoever spends more generally wins, except our friends who’re going to receive their just desserts thought they had found a way around that law. And they probably have, and the Galaxy won’t be a better place for it if anyone thinks it will work again. We’re going to make sure that message is delivered.”

Another silence filled the bridge-cockpit.

“We’ve got time,” suggested Sylvia. “You never finished why the Sligans had a mining station so far from the planet.”

“I’ll try not to ramble on,” said Nathaniel. “There are effectively two ways to mine iron—you take it to where there’s power and smelt it or you take power to the iron. By using small miners—exploitation, if you will—most systems with metallic asteroids can keep costs the lowest by building a fusactor-based processing facility somewhere near the belt. It’s outside any major gravity well, and you can use low-acceleration barges on long declining orbits. One load of steel or iron is the same as any other. You just keep the pipeline full. And you keep a bunch handy in case the natives, the exploited miners, threaten to hold back.” He shrugged. “That’s what we’re after. The reserve inventory. No one’s touched it. There wasn’t any reason to…not until now.”

“Just a lot of iron? That’s going to make the difference? No weapons, no…planet-busters…” LuAn frowned slightly.

“Several years ago, you might recall that comet that hit Raisa, an ice and rock comet massing only a few hundred tonnes. The terminal velocity was somewhere around fifty klicks a second.”

“Fairly big mess, as I recall. It wiped out a few towns, created a killer storm, and sterilized part of one continent.”

“The mass of the
Smith
—empty—is well over one hundred times that. Do you have any idea what terminal velocity on drives is?”

“The atmosphere…it would be like hitting a barrier.”

“The Fuard Command is on Tempte. It’s a nickel-iron asteroid put in orbit around Tinhorn. It doesn’t have much atmosphere to speak of. The shields will last a while…until the ship gets lower…low enough, anyway.”

Swersa paled. “You wouldn’t…the collateral damage from that sort of orbital fragmentation…”

“The last war the Empire started left this…” Nathaniel gestured to the screens that showed the lifeless system and the slagged fragments that had been Sligo. “There are five fleets mustering to take on the Coordinate, because of what the Conglomerate has set up. Do you have any better suggestions?”

“But, no one’s declared war, nothing’s happened yet.”

Nathaniel took a deep breath. “Let me get this straight. If I wait until millions die, then it will be all right to unleash a terrible weapon. If I bring devastation on those who would create it, and who have already started a civil war on one planet and starved millions on others, then I’m history’s greatest villain.”

“Starvation?” asked LuAn.

“Oh, the synde bean plague,” answered Sylvia, her voice hard and falsely bright. “That was unleashed by the Fuards or the Fuards and the Federated Hegemony together. The last hard figures we had were over fifteen million dead.”

“But an entire planet?”

“The collateral damage won’t impact the entire planet, but the point still holds—if I don’t do something, millions more will die.” Whaler’s eyes flicked across the EDI screens.

“You’re holding a people responsible for the actions of a few leaders.”

“Exactly. Who else should be held responsible?” asked Nathaniel. “They allow the system to continue. No government can stand against its people, not if they really want to change it. So…any protests that they can’t do anything about it are really a statement that they don’t want to pay the price for changing it. Why should the rest of the Galaxy pay? Or have you forgotten our oath?”

“I haven’t faced a case where the price was this high,” Swersa said tiredly.

“Neither have I.” Nathaniel took a long, slow breath, and went back to the pilot’s board, hoping it wouldn’t be that long before they reached the Sligan belt and the long-abandoned processing center.

After a few units, he turned back to Swersa. “If you wouldn’t mind studying that cargo board…we’re going to need to do some loading once we reach the processing center. It would help if someone were familiar with the equipment.”

Swersa nodded. “I can do that.”

Nathaniel went back to the board, then, in between scans, began to call up the specs for the ship’s cargo boats.

Sylvia, with occasional glances toward Nathaniel, studied the procedures manual, while Swersa shifted to the cargo board.

Although time did not fly by, Nathaniel felt he still hadn’t worked out all he needed to do by the time the
Smith
neared the shielded Institute beacon that marked the abandoned processing facility.

“We’re about there.”

“Wherever there is,” murmured Swersa.

He ignored the comment and eased more power on the forward thrusters, watching the closure rates ever so carefully until the big cargo carrier floated opposite a flattened bricklike asteroid.

“That should do it.”

“There’s stuff piled all over that,” observed Sylvia.

“They just used a big laser to slice and flatten it,” he noted, “and then they stacked different products in different sections. Out there are tonnes of steel—or iron as the case may be—and we need to take a quick inventory and determine exactly what will fit where. In essence, we’re going to transfer all those lumps of metal onto the
Smith
, or into the boats, or both.”

“That’s all?” asked Swersa.

“Even with the heavy magtites and loading scooters, it’s likely to take a long time—several days, perhaps—for three of us to load all of it correctly. And we’ll have to be very careful, because, unlike most cargo vessels, we don’t have any backups.”

He didn’t feel the smile he offered.

N
ATHANIEL SLUMPED ONTO
the couch. The rough blocks of iron and the shorter girders might have been weightless, but inertia and mass they had, and attempting to move them, even with magtites and the loading scooter, had used muscles he hadn’t exercised in a while—a long while.

After two days, everything ached, and while the
Smith
carried as much as Nathaniel dared pack into her, he still had more work to do before they could break orbit.

“You need to eat,” said Sylvia. “We all do.”

“Eat…I suppose so.” He dragged himself erect in the mingee and bounce-floated aft toward the crew room that doubled as mess and lounge.

Swersa had two mealpaks on the table stick-tights and was taking a third out of the heater. “If this is class one, I don’t ever want to see class two.”

“He didn’t say whose class one—probably…I don’t know…” Whaler eased himself onto the plastic chair that was locked into place, and sipped from the bulb—some lime-flavored concentrate drink with a vaguely metallic aftertaste. The stew goulash was better, but with too much pepper and a bitter edge. The biscuits were bland and totally tasteless, a definite improvement.

“What does economics say about food?” asked Sylvia.

“You don’t make stored food taste very good, because if it is, it gets pilfered.”

“You economists are such cynics,” said Swersa after finishing a mouthful of something.

“That’s because we quantify human behavior, and most of it’s not very uplifting.”

“I don’t get it…or maybe I do, and don’t want to face it,” said LuAn. “We’ve filled the ship to the edge of its tonnage.”

“Actually, somewhat over that…just short of its jump capacity.”

“That will drain the power,” pointed out the white-haired Ecolitan.

“That’s right. We’ll have to repower, but I’ve got that figured out.”

“Oh?”

“Basic economics again. We’re talking ten million credits or more of power. Most systems are perfectly willing to do that for an unarmed cargo boat, few or no questions asked.”

“You are pretty cynical about human nature,” said Sylvia quietly, lifting her drink bulb.

“I prefer the term realistic.” He laughed harshly. “That way I won’t be too disappointed.”

Sylvia reached out and squeezed his knee. “There are good people out there.”

“I know. That’s who we’re doing this for.” He looked down at the empty mealpak. “I guess I was hungry.” He eased out from the fixed chair and eased the mealpak off the stick-tight.

“We’re loaded,” said Swersa. “Now what?”

“If you wouldn’t mind, we need to make some alterations to the boats. You could help me a lot.” The pak went into the disposer.

“Fine.”

“What do you need from me?” asked Sylvia.

“You need to get those packages ready for the message torps. We need the word spread everywhere we can. Not that I expect many people to understand. Most people only understand what they want to, or what they’re forced to.”

She nodded.

“And after that…we’ll see.”

Nathaniel and LuAn made their way aft almost silently, all the way to boat bay ten. He had decided to start aft and work forward.

“What are we doing?”

“Reconfiguring the drives and shields.” He stepped into the bay and walked up to the boat, only twice his height, where he triggered the hatch. Once it opened, he reached inside and released the access cover over the drive section, then walked back to the drive thrusters. Swersa followed.

“That’s what we need to change.”

Just forward of the paired thrusters was what he needed—the control module. He glanced at the boat drive controls, calling up the images he had memorized so many weeks—had it only been weeks—before and comparing them to the controls.

Why had he ever thought he could convert a drive into what amounted to a large-scale message-torp drive?

Because you have the Ecolitan complex—we can do anything, convert any machinery at hand to the dirty job necessary
. The unspoken words sounded bitter, and they were. Who was he to determine which planets and people lived? Except…if he didn’t, then millions of others would continue to die as the Fuards set the Galaxy aflame. But why were politicians so stupid?

“They aren’t. They want to stay in power, and that means catering to popular prejudices will mean war between the Empire and Accord.”

“What?” asked Swersa.

“Sorry. I was muttering about politicians instead of getting to work.”

With a sigh, he picked up the long-handled miniature hex wrench and began to remove the cover to the drive controls. “Can you loosen the other side?”

“That I can do.”

Removing the override governors was simple enough—at least in theory and comparatively, since the boats were meant to be foolproof, and the governors were hardware with circuit blocs. He had to lay and bond a strip of silver between the contacts, probably overly wide, but it didn’t matter that much, not for the remaining single flight of the boat.

Still, his hands were trembling after that effort, even with Swersa’s help, and they had to sit on the boat hatch ramp in the clammy boat bay and rest for a moment before they went back and replaced the drive control cover. Next came disabling the power lines to the grav-field generators and the habitability module. That would allow the firin cells’ power to be concentrated where it counted—drives and shields, mostly shields.

“Four adjustments…nearly a standard hour.”

“That doesn’t seem bad.”

“With eight more to go?” he asked. “Hope we can do better.”

They did do better. It only took half that for the next boat.

He tried not to think about the program changes to the guidance systems, so that the boats would home on a signal besides that of the
Smith
and hold course, even if the signal were eliminated.

Between drive and power reconfigurations, and the slight modifications to the homers, it was nearly a full day later, including much needed sleep, before the three settled themselves back in the bridge-cockpit.

“Everyone ready?” asked Nathaniel.

“Stet,” offered Sylvia.

“Stet.”

Nathaniel began to ease power to the thrusters, very, very gently. Even so, the big ship shivered, and he kept scanning the boards and the systems until he had the
Smith
on a clear outbound corridor.

Then he took a deep breath.

“I still wonder. This is insane.” Swersa shook her head. “Attacking the center of the Conglomerate.”

“No. That’s what everyone says when you break the rules. But there’s never been a good defense against attack from space—except lots of ships—and that’s expensive. And if you put all your ships around your home system, then that leaves others unprotected, and you can’t maintain a large multi-system government without projecting force.”

“But, why hasn’t this come up before?” asked Sylvia.

Swersa just winced.

“Who said it hasn’t?” Nathaniel shook his head. “Both sides tried it in the Secession, except the Coordinate was more successful. It’s been four centuries, and people forget because they’d rather not understand how high the stakes are and how vulnerable populations are. And no military figure or politician is about to remind them.”

With that, he went back to checking the
Smith
and all the systems, conscious of just how close he’d loaded the ship to its margins. While he trusted everything was braced and solid, or more than that, there wasn’t any point in not being cautious.

They reached the Sligo outsystem jump point without incident—and without any stray EDI traces.

“Ready for jump…mark, four, three, two, one…jump.”

The universe turned inside out once more, black to white, and back again, for the endless and instantaneous transition between congruency points.

“We’re at less than thirty percent, thanks to all that mass,” pointed out LuAn.

“That’s why we’re headed in system here. It’s as short a jump as possible from a non-Conglomerate system. We might have seventy percent when we emerge beyond Tinhorn.” Nathaniel frowned, then added, “LuAn, Sylvia…can you two get out the power cables and make sure every one of the boats is fully charged? And the courier.”

“You want that done before we repower.”

“Every margin possible,” he admitted.

The two dragged themselves aft, not to return until they were approaching their interim destination.

“A couple—three and seven—are bleeding power,” announced Swersa.

“How much?”

“Two, three percent. That’s in just three days.”

“We can handle that. Thank you both.”

He waited until they were back in position, not that it mattered, before transmitting.

“Galatea one, this is Coordinate ship
Adam Smith
, inbound station this time.”

“Where did you come up with that name?” asked Sylvia as they waited for the Frankan outpost’s response.

“He was an ancient economist who believed in the invisible hand of economics, or something like that. It’s better than calling us
The Invisible Hand
, I thought.”

“Coordinate vessel
Smith
, interrogative intentions. Interrogative intentions.”

“Intentions are repowering and transit. I say again, repowering and transit.”

“Thank you,
Smith
. Cleared to beacon one three. One three.”

“We’re reaching the end of the easy part,” he announced.

“If this has been the easy part, can I get off?” asked Sylvia, straight-faced.

“Of course. As soon as we finish the hard part.”

“Somehow, I was afraid you’d say that.”