Family Law 3: Secrets in the Stars (38 page)

Lee was caught unaware by Talker mentioning he'd taken her into a market town to trade in coins and shop for jewelry. He put her on the spot to relate the experience. Fortunately she had the necklace she'd bought under her blouse and brought it out and passed it to the Mothers to examine. Nothing she brought up seemed to offend, though Gordon was holding his breath. When she related how the farm supervisor from Talker's household had picked them up in a big farm truck with stinky boots and they rode in the cab the Mothers thought it was hilarious. Lee knew they didn't entirely approve of the expense of an aircar they'd been forced to use for lack of time. So they loved the story.

Lee noticed the new Champion, Garrett, was standing behind the Mothers, though without the formality of his full outfit. He did however have the ax of his office. She hadn't thought of him as being on duty, but apparently the Mothers had felt the need for a little formality with this foreign visitor. After seeing the very fine metalwork of the necklace the Mothers bade Garrett to fetch his helm and shield.

Talker oohed and awwed sincerely over the magnificent engraving and enamel work until he found the a panel ruined by a pistol shot with the enamel shattered and a groove in the bronze smeared with gilding metal and lead. "This is terrible to have damaged such artwork. Is there a contemporary artist that can repair it?" Talker asked.

The First Mother handed the armor back to Garrett to put away and dismissed him from duty. That marked a change to a different level of comfort with Talker.

"Oh, yes. We have artisans aplenty in the engraving and enamel overlay, but the damage is honestly come by in battle. We never erase such scars," the First Mother related.

"Might one ask the history?" Talker asked politely.

The First Mother gestured to the Second, tired of talking or to do her honor. She related how they had returned to the keep after the North Americans invaded, finding their Champion dead, and all the Humans dead at his hand too. It wasn't hard to reconstruct events from the scene. The ship's political officer lay dead with a bullet in him from his superior's pistol, and his own weapon under his body lacking one round from the magazine that matched the smear on their Champion's shield.

Two things about the story struck Talker hard. That even the Derf had weapons which would strike every living thing dead with minimal damage to property, and that the principal adversaries sat down and drank together awaiting their death. Both ideas were terrifying.

When Talker asked where one might buy examples of such fine work on more mundane objects the Mothers were surprised. Copper and bronze were money or weapons to their mind. The idea of using the art for personal jewelry or utilitarian objects seemed foreign. But as Talker described decorated bowls or goblets, fancy boxes and lockets for precious objects as well as bracelets and pendants, they warmed to the idea. Any way to convert abundant labor to cash was welcome. If aliens and foreigners were willing to honor their work with cash money why refuse it? The thought that Derf might adapt the custom never occurred to them, or their practical side might have made them hesitate. They thought much less what this would mean to the metal smiths.

Three days was plenty of time to spend at Red Tree as far as Lee was concerned. She had no objection when Gordon and Talker were eager to press on to Earth.

* * *

Lee and Talker composed a message they hoped said they were going on to Earth, using images of the
Dart
,
High Hopes
and the
Retribution
, as well as a star map and an image of the world. The Caterpillars didn't reply. Perhaps silence was assent.

When Gordon's full flight crew took the bridge, he announced to traffic control they would be leaving the Derfhome system on course for Earth in a bit more than an hour.

Captain Precious Roosevelt of the
Quantum Queer
called him in a private conference, concern written on the man's face. "Are you aware fully armed ships are very tightly regulated in the Earth system?"

"I've been to Earth with the
High Hopes
before," Gordon told him. "Once in command and a couple times not. We did have to follow quite a lengthy series of holds and follow traffic commands. And that was with just the limited range weapons a deep space explorer is limited to carrying if it is Earth flagged. But Earth orbit is full of armed ships from all different nations belonging to the Claims Commission members and forts and stations."

"Have you ever seen Fargone or New Japan armed vessel in Earth orbit?" Precious asked pointedly.

"Well, no. But we didn't exactly do a survey. I didn't really read system scan either, it's busy at Earth. If it didn't have to do with us landing on Luna I was ignoring it. That complicated approach took my whole attention."

"I'd advise you to be frank with Lunar traffic control that the
High Hopes
is reflagged as a Derf vessel carrying long range weapons. My understanding from Fargone naval training is that Earth vessels are permitted inside L1, and upon asking traffic clearance may run to jump outside the Earth system, but they are not permitted to loiter or maneuver around the solar system. Outside armed vessels have never been welcome in the Human home system."

"Says who?" Gordon asked. "There's nothing in the Notes to Navigation in the Survey Catalog."

"It's an embarrassment. It's been imposed on them now since back in the last century."

"Imposed by who?" Gordon asked again.

"The Lunar Republic, The Kingdom of Central, and Home," Precious said.

"Do the Loonies even
have
any armed ships? I've never seen one in the registry. In fact, I don't remember ever seeing a jump capable ship registered to the Lunar Republic."

"Neither have I, but I can assure you if you check you will find the Republic has mutual defense treaties with both the Kingdom and Home.
They
do have armed ships I can assure you, but I don't believe they deign to register them with the Earth registry. The Lunar group control issues passage past L1 to go out-system. What happens inside L1 or outside the Solar system is not their concern. This was established clear back when Mars only had a few hundred people, there was no other permanent presence off Earth but Luna and Mars, and no jump ships even existed yet."

"Why haven't I heard of such a thing?" Gordon asked, skeptical.

"Why
would
you hear of such a thing?" Precious asked. "Derf have never had armed vessels before, and you've never tried to take them to Earth."

"We
have
actually," Gordon contradicted him. "We sent
Sharp Claws
on a raid and took out the North American naval shipyards. Remember?"

"And you didn't get any reproof or communication about that?" Precious asked, puzzled.

"Not a peep."

Precious got a faraway look, and was thinking. Something that Gordon was only going to tolerate so long while he was on count to boost. But he forced himself to be patient. Captain Roosevelt was an ally and no fool. Not someone with who you should get snippy.

"I am curious," Precious finally said. "Did all the action of that raid take place
inside
L1?"

"Uhhh... " Gordon tried hard to remember the after action report exactly. "They actually got
under
the orbit of the forts and shipyard to release weapons. Thor took the
Sharp Claws
so low he burned off some antennas and lost pressure on a couple compartments from damage hitting air. He cut it way too close," Gordon admitted. "But what difference?"

"And it was a declared war, I vividly remember that," Precious said. "You didn't do it that way inside L1as a legal nit-pick?"

"Not at all. We never heard of this L1 thing. We had no reason to do it that way. Except it was just the way Earth and Luna lined up at that time, that had a good route in and out to jump," Gordon admitted. "Even Thor, not given to modesty, will tell you he lucked out shaving it so close."

"Then I think you lucked out twice. It probably looked like you did it that way out of respect so you got a pass. It would matter a great deal to The Lunar powers if you make war in the greater Solar system. Mind you, I said the limits were imposed. The Earth powers have never agreed or signed a treaty. An attitude I can relate to as a Fargoer. When I say imposed, I mean Home and the Central Kingdom enforced it. They blew a bunch of Chinese and North American ships to hell and gone clear back in the 2080s. If you look it up I think you'll still find the history in public sources. And they can still enforce it. That's all I want to say about that because Fargone has its own agreements with the Lunar Association, and if you want to know any more about that you can talk to somebody way over my pay grade. I understand you and Missy Lee have the ear of the Fargone Admiralty – directly?" Precious asked.

"Yeah, you have to know that. The talks we had resulted in you and the
Road Runner
coming along with us. They were hot to have a spox with us."

"A spox? That's all? They didn't force the
Murphy's Law
and
Road Runner
on you as a condition of supply and support?" Precious asked.

"Nah, that was Lee's idea," Gordon said. "If they had tried to pressure us much more we'd have gone to New Japan for supply and told them to go pound sand. They wanted a spox, on his own ship it's true, but it was Lee's request it be the baddest heavy cruiser they had, with a volunteer crew. She very specifically asked you have your pick of crew, and we agreed to allow you shares. Otherwise they might have sent you for your usual pay. We didn't think that would work."

Precious sighed. "You're not the only one hearing new things. That's not at all the scuttlebutt we heard about what happened. Perhaps we were fed deliberate misinformation, because the story going around was much kinder to the Admiralty than that."

"You said the traffic rules were embarrassing to the Earth powers. Perhaps negotiating for a delegation with a teenage girl and a Derf was for embarrassing for your bosses," Gordon suggested.

"Sometimes I wonder if anything we've been told really happened," Precious admitted.

"Talker had that conversation with Ernie," Gordon said. "When they realized how well we could manipulate images, even video, the Badgers wondered if they could believe
anything
in our net. They saw all kinds of bizarre humor images and didn't find them funny at all."

"Ha! Did he flat out tell them you can't trust pix?" Precious asked.

"He left it to Lee to tell him that grown-up people in our societies are skeptical of everything and learn to not be fooled too easily. It was easier to take from her," Gordon said. "Now, I'm on count to go, and I thank you for the information, and we'll research it. I'll be polite to anyone who takes offense at our presence. But I need to go command this diminished Little Fleet I have."

"Yes sir. Be safe out there," Precious said and disconnected.

* * *

Gordon watched everything closely when leaving orbit. You might as well say Brownie flew the ship, but Gordon was not distracted with the details of doing so and very much in command. He watched their radars and system scan, listened to chatter from the other ships with him and nearby in the Derfhome system. Once they were on run to jump and away from any traffic he had time to think again.

"Lee, look at this conversation I had with Captain Roosevelt and tell me what you think about it," Gordon requested, sending the file to her board.

He then sat and thought on the whole picture. The USNA cruiser at Derfhome, the way he'd always viewed Human governments and his shift further to the negative when they had kidnapped Lee. The thousand little remarks Jack and Myrtle had made in their years together that showed their world view. But they were North American and of the current generation basically. The revelation the balance of power might not be what it appeared in the Earth system, and how the surprise of an entire complex alien civilization of multiple races might impact everything when they arrived at Earth.

Lee got far enough into the file to suggested she send a copy to Thor. Gordon readily agreed.

Gordon wished he
could
go have a chat with Admiral Serendipity Duvochek Hawking. If Precious had spoken to him much earlier, not in the last hour to a scheduled departure, he'd have hitched a ride to Fargone and had a little chat with the man. Bur Gordon wasn't going to tell their new friends he suddenly had to delay their departure to go talk politics with a Fargoer Admiral. The whole carefully timed and crafted deal could fall apart on them.

One of the few things of which he was sure was that Serendipity wouldn't evade his questions. With modern software blatant lying was impossible, but people could tell you only the portions of the truth that served their interests. Worse, the ability to identify lying with certainty meant underlings were often lied to so they would be a buffer against their superiors being measured by verifying software directly.

Gordon thought Serendipity was high enough in rank his own government officials wouldn't lie to him. To lie to your highest operational officers was to invite chaos and failure. First, people of that high a rank did not shrug it off when they found they'd been manipulated. Lying to your infantry sergeants was very different than lying to your generals. Sergeants don't have the resources to lead a coup.

Also, fighting based on lies usually meant the lies expanded to involve untruths about physical facts. A liar rarely could limit himself to lying about motives and policy. Lies always increase as one lie requires another lie to cover it. They never diminish. A lie about the events and origins of a conflict would expand to include the day to day prosecution of a war until defeats and weaknesses were denied, the reality of ship and troop numbers and capabilities hidden until hiding reality from those that needed to know it to fight and the supporting population was as important as misleading the enemy. That was in Human societies. The clan Mothers would never try that. Having a history and tradition of political change by assassination made for much more respect from the ruling class.