Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet (7 page)

"OK, the color is some sort of an indication of authority. Are the weapons authority emblems or are they functional? Or both? These people have radar and geostationary satellites. Am I to believe they don't have guns? Or at least bows and arrows? Something that acts at a distance?" Gordon asked them.

The com gave a ping. Jeremiah Ellis from engineering on the
Retribution
wanted to speak and was connected. "There are very few frames that show mechanized vehicles, but this one video shows orange wearing natives arriving in a motor vehicle. I'd guess from the smokestack at the rear it is a steam powered vehicle, but note the exhaust is quite clean as it arrives. It may be turbine powered. The thing appears to be damn near as big as a city bus and it has pneumatic tires. Notice the artwork near the front door," he manipulated the image to expand it.

"The shield shape suggests military origins for the symbol and note the two figures on each side. One has a spear held straight armed tilted away from him, which may be a parade pose. The other figure has a weapon held the same way, but it is shorter and has a distinct butt stock on the ground. He also has a pouch hung, which could be for ammunition and lacks the sword the spear carrier has. That's a musket or rifle or I'll admit Mrs. Ellis raised one very slow son," he challenged.

"What do you think the objects above the figures are?" Gordon asked.

"I've run it past my engineering section and we get some sort of fruit for the cluster of ovals, think something like grapes, the lines behind it being some sort of trellis or carrier and everybody agrees the arch of rectangular shapes between the solid irregular masses is a dam between rock masses. There are no openings or castellations to suggest it is a castle or fortification. We have consensus it's a dam."

"Thank you, has anybody else analyzed this art?" Gordon prompted.

"I would have never figured out the dam, because I've never seen one in real life," Thor allowed. "But I figured the words on the top edge are important. Three words would suggest a motto or unit identification, the first and last words I can't identify yet, but the center word is the 'teen' we see everybody bob their head when they say it. It matches up to the captioning."

Gordon got a request to speak and connected to Propitious Harrington on the
Murphy's Law
.

"Every video scene in which we see a street or road it is laid with brick. That sort of road is very enduring, cobbled roads on Old Earth are still in use that were built by the Roman Empire. But they are very labor intensive, some of them having bases laid down six or seven meters deep. There appear to be no utility poles even in town, so they either bury the common services for aesthetic reasons, don't have them, or their technology is deliberately restricted in how it is distributed. There are cultivated fields in quite a few videos, so they are an agricultural civilization, but we don't see anyone carrying anything you could take for a computer or phone. Also, the population level in a long static society suggests tight control of reproduction."

"Obviously they have video screens, or there would be no point in these broadcasts, but there is no scene in any of it
showing
a viewing screen. Either they are rare and communal, in a sort of theatre, or there is some dislike of showing a screen on a screen. There is no scene of a street busy with vehicles either, I'm starting to suspect they have a lot of the same technologies we have, but for some reason they aren't commercialized and widely distributed the way we do," he finished.

"Gordon, please note we have one statement, from one person, with a hundred percent handle. I think we should examine that. Nobody else had such certainty about anything," Thor explained. "I'd either like to know why or find out what duty this person is charged with. Such absolute certainty honestly frightens me. I'm rarely ever that certain about anything."

"Ming Lee?" Gordon read off the screen. "Would you like to explain your assessment for Thor and our benefit?"

"Yes, I'm the second cook on
The Champion William
. Despite what Mr. Thor seems to think, I am not a crank or disturbed person. I simply have experience, strongly reinforced in my family, as to what these broadcasts are. My great-grandfather and grandfather lived in an area of China on Earth which was populated by an ethnic minority. The government kept very tight control, suppressing even the slightest expression of dissidence. I have searched and highlighted a number of files of similar human video productions I will attach right now as references. I suggest you watch them silently, with no translation or captioning. The resemblance is uncanny. What you are seeing in these broadcasts is revolutionary theatre, or propaganda. Even the dark orange color of authority is a coincidental close match to the red of my homeland. I predict they will be authoritarian and very difficult with which to deal," he finished.

"Thank you Ming, Mr. Jefferson?" Gordon allowed next.

"Even before Mr. Ming's assessment of the
honesty
of what they portray in their broadcasts, we only have a view through their camera lens and never got close enough to see for ourselves what is on the surface of the planet from orbit. I'd suggest we need some direct observation, perhaps even some closer looks from atmospheric drones and try to establish some communications from orbit before risking physical contact."

"This seems the course of caution to me too," Gordon agreed. "If anyone disagrees and feels it is too stand-offish write out your thinking and submit it to these suggestions. I should warn you that if you are in favor of a landing and an immediate face to face meeting, we'll take it as volunteering for such duty."

Nobody seemed eager to be such a volunteer and Gordon closed out the all-crew session.

"We need to decide how we are going to approach this world and compose a greeting and initial contact video formatted for their receivers," Gordon said to the flight crews. "I'd like to do a few orbits and map the surface before we decide where we are going to direct our contact message. I find myself leery of transmitting it to the entire surface as we orbit. We'll announce this fleet wide again first shift tomorrow and consider any further analysis of their transmissions that wasn't considered today. Let's get some supper and let the B team carry the ball a bit," he told the bridge crew.

"This is the first time we have heard anyone but the captain speak from
The Champion William
," Gordon noted to Thor, "and not much from him."

"Well you invited anyone to speak. He would have been out of line to deny Ming Lee his opportunity. What is your point? Did you think he'd spaced them all and was flying her alone?"

"Just that we usually have some chatter from the other ships officers. We're a civilian group, not under strict military discipline. I consider it a strength that we get different inputs. I haven't seen any indication it weakens my command authority. Do you think perhaps Priceless is a bit too much of a disciplinarian? Will he need to be questioned or counseled about it?"

"He is ex-military, Gordon. And so are a lot of his crew. They may be perfectly comfortable with no chatter on the flight deck. At this stage I'd just consider it a different command style than yours and let it go. Now, if we start getting requests from his crew to transfer to another ship or formal complaints, then I'd start asking questions. We may run into things out here where quick obedience to commands and snappy action will save his butt. Maybe your easy going style wouldn't work for him. It works for you because of the odd mystique you hold with your crews."

"What's that?" Gordon asked.

"Same as the Fargone captains. They think you present up front as a pleasant fellow who will listen to them, nodding agreeably, all the while figuring out how to ruthlessly have your way by some hellaciously devious action they will never be able to predict."

"Oh, that... "

Chapter 4

The Small Fleet jumped into the alien system, all in a group, the
Roadrunner
carried by
Murphy's Law.
It ungrappled and braked hard, staying in the fringe of the system at first.
The Champion William
and
High Hopes
took up a safer orbit well near the geostationary level,
Murphy's Law
at guard trailing them.
Retribution
and
Sharp Claws
with better defenses took up a lower circular orbit, inclined enough to let them map two thirds of the planet's surface in detail and a side look at the polar regions sufficient to their needs, since the natives didn't seem to use them extensively.

The world had two large continents, one in each polar hemisphere and one significant island between them in a vast equatorial sea. There was no large land mass to interfere with cyclonic storms and one raged right now in the equatorial sea opposite the one island. The island must see some tremendous storms with nothing to impede their growth.

Both poles had sea ice, but neither had a polar continent such as Earth had. There was a iron core generating a fairly strong magnetic field and the noisy star generated impressive aurora, but rarely down to the latitudes of the continents.

Both warships kept crews on defense stations, ready to intercept missiles, or roll the ship for beam weapons. The natives had geostationary satellites, carrying quite a bit of traffic, but only a couple lower satellites and nothing that looked big enough to be manned. They still had the tech to loft weapons to the level at which the two fleet ships orbited, if they wanted. Neither Gordon  nor his captains assumed the natives lacked capabilities not yet demonstrated.

There were two large towns, of a size that would have a population of a million inhabitants or more, in any of their own cultures. One was fairly central to the bigger continent. The slightly smaller continent had a large city, centered on the larger western portion of the continent, the far east third of the landmass  was separated  by an impressive range of mountains. The island had the third largest city.

Both continental cities had large roads going east and west from them. The island geography made such a thing impossible there. The roadways went obsessively straight, refusing to deviate around a hill or mountain. Indeed the smaller continent had an artificial pass cut through the mountain range. Two approach roads on each end of the dig in progress showed that once the notch was dug to a new depth by the road builders, they laid a new road in it and switched to digging the route of the old road lower. If the the original pass was similar to the other natural passes to the north and south of it the natives had been switching back and forth, slowly opening the gap in the mountains deeper and wider for thousands years.

The current road on the south side of the gap had a high point of three thousand meters and a bit from the level of the western plain. The notch being cut below it on the north side was currently about five hundred meters lower. The fleet engineers had no idea at what difference in height they would switch over and the artificial pass was widened generously as it was lowered. There were no steps in the slopped side walls to give a clue. The engineers estimated that if the number of diggers remained the same as what they saw now, they had been digging the channel for four or five thousand years. It might continue another ten or twelve thousand years before it was level with the plain. The crew was large, much of the labor done by hand and the excavating equipment small for such an undertaking from a human viewpoint. The excavated dirt wasn't taken down to the plains level but instead north or south and dumped at the head of long valleys cutting into the mountains,

The gap in the mountains was already so large it had a fan of vegetation on the lee side where the rainfall was greater due to the air channeling through the notch. At times the winds must be impressive through the gap. The entire west side of the range was covered in dams, as the art work they'd studied had suggested was important to them. They appeared to be for water conservation and agriculture, there were no power distribution lines associated with them.

Apparently opening a level road was more important to the natives than the climate change cutting a full break in the range would create. If they hadn't known what it would do when they started digging they had to know by now, because the fan of greenery on the east side of the gap now was obvious even from orbit. The road continued on past the mountains, straight to the far sea and a port, but without the build-up of civilization along it, and secondary roads radiating off north and south that the west side of the continental road had.

The bigger continent had a similar road, but it was easy to see it didn't have any barriers to compare to the small continent. Nevertheless it cut straight through any hill or valley. They were cut or filled in with a stubborn single mindedness. The surface was still brick, no large slabs or seamless surfaces.

Both large cities showed lights at night, but nothing on the scale an Earth city would. There were electronic emissions that indicated they used electric motors. The sole city on the equatorial island showed some lights at night too, but less than the two grand cities. The rural areas were near as dark at night as wilderness. If the natives ventured forth at night it was without the help of traffic signals or street lighting. Though they did spot a very few vehicles at night using electric headlamps.

There didn't appear to be any satellites emitting navigational signals, but there were radio beacons in the few active harbors and the two big cities had airfields that appeared to light up for a specific aircraft coming in, not all night. They counted the airfields and large aircraft parked at them and concluded there were only about two hundred airplanes on the world. If any were for passenger use and not freight they didn't have the custom of windows. None appeared to be transonic. They used very efficient scimitar curved propellers allowing them to push the Mach number.

There were a few dozen very small aircraft that might carry six or eight passengers. All apparently of the exact same design. Most of them were parked near the two big cities and they only saw two at distant fields. One however was in a very rural area, without even farmed fields, beside a large building they suspected was a palace. There were about three dozen such elaborate buildings, most again near the cities.