Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet (24 page)

Out in the corridor, away from the entry, Thor looked around to see nobody was close to overhear. "Is it just me or are the Biters not very well liked?"

"I didn't see anybody buying them a round. But quite a few seemed
afraid
of them," Lee said. "They quickly turned their back and minded their own business. But most of them seemed comfortable to look at us, which is odd because I got the impression a lot of people haven't heard about us yet. They must not feature us on what passes for news."

"Or these guys in the bar might be like freight movers and vacuum rats back home. They work long hours and want a beer on the way home and don't
watch
the news for days at a time," Lee decided.

"That could be. And we have no reputation yet, but the Biters have a bad one," Gordon said.

"Oh you have a reputation
now
," Lee assured him. "There wasn't a one of them in that bar who needed to read the translation on your pad, to know you were ready to do to a little trim job on the Biter's butt," she said, making a chopping motion, "just like we did to their ship."

Ha-bob-bob-brie caught her eye in a bit when the others weren't looking. He made the same chopping motion down by his side. It really seemed to amuse him.

* * *

Back at the hotel Gordon inquired about placing a call to his ship. He was informed there were com connections to use at dock, but apparently they were not in use as that dock showed no response. He left a message with Talker to inform his ship they had com connections if they could get or make copies of the connectors and the signal protocols. The hotel offered a courier to run to dock and Gordon sent a message to bring the third Mother and the spox from Fargone in while they slept and they'd be back to the ship in the morning to meet with them.

The lights took some getting used to. They were hard to get dim without going completely dark. Eventually they gave up and turned them off setting a little flashlight Lee carried shining in a bare corner of the room with a ration bar over it as a shade. It gave just enough light to find the bath in the night.

There was no lock that they could see so Lee made a stack of self heating meals in front of the door and placed the half empty bottle of vodka on top. It should make a racket if somebody opened it in the night. She resolved to get a proper wedge like she'd seen her father use long ago, if she had to have one made on the ship. Ha-bob-bob-brie observed these preparations and cocked his head askance. "Little sister do not concern yourself with that. One place is as good as another to stand and sleep. I shall just stand in front of the door so that if it should swing in during the night I'll be awakened."

"But you might get hurt," Lee worried.

"Honest, I'm not nearly as
delicate
as you seem to think," Ha-bob-bob-brie assured her.

* * *

The next morning Gordon had the hotel call Talker and Trader. He suggested they bring breakfast and talk while they made their own breakfast. By the time all of them were showered and in fresh clothing the Badgers were at the door. It had a speaker that let them announce themselves rather than a bell or buzzer.

Talker was carrying a box with a handle that looked pretty much like a small ice chest. They adjusted the table in the common area to a better height, which the travelers hadn't known was possible and laid out their breakfast, both sitting on one side.

"Oh my, Gordon, Thor, you have to see this. The Badgers eat sushi," Lee said.

"Is not offensive?" Talker asked, worried.

"Not at all. It's an art form in the Japanese culture. It is visually attractive, it looks good, as well as being good to eat."

"The Biters would be offended it has vegetation in it," Trader told them.

"It wouldn't bother me if it had some Biter in it," Thor said, darkly.

That made the Badgers laugh so hard one rolled on his back.

"That is bad. So, so," Trader had to search his pad for human words. "Bad, nasty, uncivilized, hateful, unkind, vulgar. I wish I'd thought of it first."

"I'm sure it would make you sick early in the morning," Talker said. That started them laughing all over again.

Gordon was setting up to fix their own breakfast. "We have vegetation in our food too. This is scrambled eggs and has pepper and onions, both vegetables, in it." He showed them the foil package with a picture on it, mixing water in it.

"What are eggs? I see eggs in the biology section of our dictionary, but they are so tiny, they can't be practical for food."

"Birds lay huge eggs to reproduce. They gestate externally. These are chicken eggs, because they are cheap and have a mild flavor. They are about this big," he said, holding up his finger and thumb cocked apart.

"Can you show me a picture of a chicken, please?" Talker asked.

The picture Gordon brought up was a Rhode Island Red.

"How big?"

Gordon enclosed a volume with his hands. "Humans eat the bird too, but they are too much work in my opinion. Not enough meat on them for a Derf and all sorts of bones to deal with."

"The Hinth is a bird?" Talker asked, looking over both shoulders. Ha-bob-bob-brie was in the bath.

"Very bird-like, but not related to Earth birds at all. But I see where you are going. They do lay eggs. In fact they have three sexes, male, female and nest sitters. They aren't happy to discuss it though, it's something they get all stressed and unhappy to discuss."

"I wonder how he feels about you eating eggs?" Talker asked.

"That's a very good question. In fact I never considered it. I'm glad you asked. It might be upsetting to see us cooking shell eggs. One egg pretty much looks like another. He has to has seen these freeze-dried sort in the ship's mess before, so he either doesn't know the source or doesn't care. Please don't enlighten him."

That meant Gordon had to explain freeze-drying while he heated sausage patties from individual pouches, hash browns, coffee, biscuits and freeze-dried orange juice. It sounded like the freeze drying process was going to be something they could sell also. With everything made they all sat and ate. Nobody spoke for a little, too busy enjoying it. Trader noted their things smelled good, but they would have to have testing to be safe too.

"This is good time to tell you," Talker stopped. "This is
a
good time to tell you," he corrected. "After more talk, we are certain we do not have anything like patents, the Bills have something similar just for their world. They have an administrator who your people say is pretty much the same as a king, or in their case a queen. She can by ancient custom grant somebody an exclusive use of their invention for life, but it only applies to Bills on their own world."

"Not much good for us," Lee said.

"Yes, but all of our races have similar contract law and have agreed what parts to share. So your culture's idea of protecting a process can be done by what your people call a non-disclosure agreement."

"Oh? I didn't think of that because the law isn't as strongly defended everywhere as others," Gordon told him. "That and non-compete agreements are often attacked by Human lawyers as to restrictive and denying a person the right to make a living. Humans are big on rights. On Derfhome the Mother's word is law and you better not break it. I have no idea what the Hinth do. They have only recently started traveling and doing much business off their world, so a lot of their culture and law isn't common knowledge yet. It took a lot of effort to recruit and supply the few we have."

"Why did you make the effort then?" Trader asked. "Do they have some rare skill?"

"I hoped it would speak well of us that we could get along, if we met others, like you."

"It does, but the way you damaged the Biter vessel makes us worry. Tell us, with no evasion. I made sure that was the right word. Do you war with ships?" Talker demanded.

"Yes."

"Well that is clear enough. I don't know if I should be happy there is someone to counter the Biters or afraid you will fight with them."

"There is no profit in fighting. This is why we developed the claims system I told you about. It wasn't developed because we can't or won't fight. We do it because we are so
good
at fighting that it is much better not to."

When they didn't say anything for awhile Gordon said, "No evasion."

"That is a frightening self-evaluation. All three races?" Talker asked.

"It isn't strictly by race," Lee spoke quickly wanting to be the first to tell him, so she could soften it. "Gordon's clan just had a war with the Earth nation from which my parents came and with who they kept their ship registry. But I am a citizen of Red Tree Clan and most of the crew fighting in Red Tree ships were Derfhome or Fargone Humans. So we fought mixed for race, but united by culture and law. Red Tree hadn't fought a war in over a thousand years, so they are hardly war-like."

"That is very hard for us to understand."

"You will find a lot hard to understand. There are different human cultures I find stranger than Gordon's tribe. The Fargoer's are much different than any Earth culture and there is an entire world of Japanese. I could talk about how strange they are for
days
. There are several hundred nations on Earth and honestly some of them contain multiple cultures. The Swiss for example, even being a tiny nation, use four languages and have several regions with different ways of life. Are any of your worlds like that?"

"No, no evasion here either. We all seem to have made our way of life and language all the same, what is your word?"

"Homogenous."

"Thank you, homogenous, before we got star flight."

"New Japan is pretty homogenous. They like it that way." Lee said. "But that's how Japan is back on Earth. They have never welcomed foreigners in."

"But somebody said something about the Biters," Gordon said, "I can't remember exactly what, but indicating they fight among themselves."

"Yes, they do, but they are pretty much the same. They have one language and they have similar tech. They even pretty much have the same taste in food and music and how they build homes," Talker admitted, "but yes, they fight among themselves clan to clan."

"Why?" Lee asked.

"Talker looked at Trader for help. "I think they enjoy it. It might be as simple as they want to take what the other Biters have."

"They will find we don't fight for
fun
," Thor told him, sounding disgusted.

"We saw the Biter's ship. We don't understand how you did that at all," Trader revealed.

"Good. Maybe we won't have to do it again. We're not going to give lessons how."

"With us no, but the Biters I'm not so sure. They sent a message home that they were very badly damaged. I'm not sure what sort of a response they will get. If one ship comes to rescue them and see how bad the damage is we will be relieved. But if a fleet comes we are afraid they will fight you immediately, rather than try to talk at all. It seems likely."

"We'd say it is their nature. All I can promise is if we see a fleet we will withdraw from the station. We don't want to endanger you or your station," Gordon promised.

"You will not flee for your home regions" Trader asked.

"No evasion again. Is that Biter ship a war ship? Is it a real indication, is it a typical sample, of what they can do?"

The Badgers checked the words carefully. "Yes, it is armed like all of their ships. Some smaller, very few bigger, but we have seen them fight each other. They are all much the same."

"Then we have no
reason
to run. They might as well line up and try to whip Thor's butt with a wooden stick and an abundance of fearlessness," Lee said with a sweep of her hand to look at him.

They both looked, considering Thor thoughtfully. "Those poor Biters," Trader said.

A sudden horrible snuffling made then think Ha-bob-bob-brie was choking on something. Turned out that was Hinth uncontrolled laughter.

"We are going to our ship after eating," Gordon told them. "We are keeping the room, but we will send the third Mother and representative from Fargone to stay here. They have some authority to speak for their governments. You may have to ask them what the exact limits of their authority are as I don't know. I am going to encourage them to suggest you join in the Claims arrangement for the registration and exploitation of new worlds and resources. You'd have the full force of all the members to hold any claims of your own. That includes any problems you'd have with the Biters over claims."

That got a visible reaction. They even looked at each other.

"However, they speak for their governments, but not for our fleet. Just remember that please. They may have other suggestions or proposals, but that's between you."

Chapter 12

The dock looked the same as when they walked out, except there was a small easel with a screen on it to the left of the lock. It displayed -  The deep space explorer
High Hopes,
The Nation of Red Tree –  Derfhome registry,
in English. Below it had the same in the local trade language. Under all in small print it said, departure unscheduled. Beside the sign was a Cinnamon Derf in modern armor with a 20mm assault rifle and ax. He had gold earrings.

 On the other side of the lock was a Fargone Space Marine in full armor augmented with a light jump frame and what looked to be a grenade launcher with powered magazine. He had his gloves off and his ballistic face shield locked up to show his humanity. Like a lot of Fargoers he loved Tats and had a ribbon of color across his cheeks that went right over his nose, with bright geometric shapes inside the ribbon area.

As they approached they were amused there was an actual line of Badgers and Bills and even one of the exotic Cat like humanoids waiting to have their picture taken with one or both of the guards. As they watched a Badger couple stood on each side of the Derf and insisted he tuck their young one in the crook of his heavy middle arm while their friend took a picture. He had plenty of arms fortunately. One to hold the kid, one to hold his rifle and upper arms to spread behind the Badgers and put a true hand on their outside shoulders while they leaned in for the shot. They held hands across him under his middle arms. The Badgers seemed to hold hands a lot, whether walking or standing in line.