Family Law 3: Secrets in the Stars (39 page)

All the unknowns and changes made for a lot of little mental itches. The sort that bothered him. Gordon routed a message to Brownie rather than call over to him out loud. "Send a message back to Captain Roosevelt," Gordon ordered. "Please request him to send a messenger drone after us if the
Albuquerque
undocks and leaves the Derfhome system after we jump out. I'd like to know when and what star it is aimed at when it jumps out. If he is not free to expend a jump drone so lightly on his own discretion, ask my bank to send a commercial drone after us and request undelivered messages be forwarded until they catch up. Also send an encrypted message to my Mothers. Request they quietly raise the alert status of the
Sharp Claws
before we jump by sending a minimum sized team to keep a stand-by alert on the weapons as long as the USNA keeps a ship in the system. I'll pay the crew wages from the exploration company accounts if they wish. I suggest they be sent on the usual freight supply shuttle rather than a passenger shuttle."

"Aye," was all Brownie responded. Gordon felt much better.

"Movement on system scan," Brownie reported much later. "The Caterpillars decided to join us after all."

"That's not surprising, but in a way it just makes it more complicated at the other end," Gordon said.

"Yes, but people don't really believe what you tell them until they see it themselves," Lee insisted. "I'm glad they are along because it's one more thing like having the Badgers and Bills with us to corroborate our story."

"I didn't teach you that word," Gordon said, smiling.

"I
do
pick up a little here and there on my own," Lee said, irked. "All the reading I do I
have
to look up terms when new ones come up. But I agree with Talker that you never finish learning English. I'm just sorry Thor isn't on the bridge with us."

"Why's that?" Gordon asked.

"I'd love to rub his nose in the fact the Caterpillars are coming to Earth with us, like I always said. But I don't want to do it on com or bother an acting Captain on his bridge."

"Ahhh. You're learning tact too," Gordon said, amazed.

Chapter 24

Next shift for the primary bridge crew, they jumped. The Caterpillars had caught up and jumped with them. One the other side of jump it was one of three systems between Derfhome and Earth that had no permanent presence. The Caterpillars ran ahead but took off at near a ten degree angle from the course Gordon intended to take.

"Brownie, would you identify to what system they are going? They have a star map so I don't think they are making an error and anticipating we are going there," Gordon said.

"That's Survey System 2271," Brownie said, shortly. "It has a small scale mining operation that mines its own fuel, but it is listed as a fuel source for emergencies only."

"I imagine a kilometer long alien ship blasting through the system will create quite the stir," Gordon guessed. "Do you know if they are close enough to out next target star to join us there from 2271?"

"Yes, and it's a fairly easy jump. An empty freighter could do it easily. Which makes me realize we don't know the jump envelopes the Caterpillars consider safe. They don't have velocity charts to wring out that last decimal place of safety for the jump. You didn't include that with the star chart did you? Brownie asked Lee.

"No, and I don't want to assume they are as good as us or better. We've already seen we are ahead in some ways and behind in others. Including that data would be iffy right now for the state of our ability to be precise. I don't know if they could even use it if we did communicate it properly," Lee said.

"Well any other deficiency they can probably make up with sheer speed," Gordon noted.

"I'm glad they're fast. As we get closer to Earth I worry some idiot will shoot at them," Lee said.

"Well they know what Human weapons can do now," Gordon pointed out. "So they should be well warned to avoid close contact with strangers. Besides which the chances of running into an armed ship are almost zero outside of the three systems manufacturing their own arms."

"Isn't Bountiful making their own armed ships now?" Brownie asked.

"Yes, for themselves, but I doubt anybody is buying them from out-system. They're more for police cutters than serious warships," Gordon said.

"Maybe they'd have something cheap for the Badgers," Lee said. "That might be all the more that they'd need for the Biters."

"True, unless they all get into an arms race," Ha-bob-bob-brie spoke up making a rare statement.

"Crud... I never thought of that," Lee admitted.

They adjusted course around the star further out than the Caterpillars felt comfortable and at a modest boost. After the beta crew had a shift and they came back on they jumped again.

* * *

Survey System 2268 was called Angel for the water world with no explanation given for the name in the catalog. The water world was being actively seeded starting about sixty years ago, The atmosphere started with more carbon dioxide than usual since it had significant volcanism. Bacteria were spread at first and progressively complex organisms such as algae. People had learned unlikely candidates sometimes did better than the ones experts favored, so to some degree a shotgun approach was used now. Angel had surprised everybody by growing sugar cane very well and early for the unfavorable conditions. It was spreading along rivers and streams all over the world's temperate zones. That was very speedy progress for such projects. In just a few hundred years it might be possible to walk outdoors without a breathing mask.

The world had no population yet, just a research station with a half dozen workers aiding and monitoring the terraforming. The population of the system was a couple hundred miners working a sparse asteroid belt and one moon of a gas giant. When Gordon's group entered the mining activity was centered around the gas giant and the close portions of the belt well away from their entry. Close to ninety degrees around the orbit of the gas giant from them. System scan consisted of one repeating radio broadcast that informed them all miners carried transponders that responded to the agreed on common radar frequency. It painted a map of those actively responding, but given the range most of it was about five hours out of date. That didn't matter because nothing was anywhere near close enough to interfere with their course.

Gordon identified his group and indicated they were on the way to Earth, offered to relay data or news if it could catch up to he before he jumped out. He had no significant news from Derfhome or Fargone he wished to share. But he did warn them they had a large alien traveling companion who was peaceful dogging their route, and might pass through.

When they were past the halfway mark headed out of the system, well into the next shift the miners sent an encrypted message for their parent company. Other than the address header it was all code, but the header guaranteed fees to deliver it to Earth. Gordon had Brownie acknowledge next shift, but they'd be gone to the next system before the miners received it.

The Caterpillars emerged behind them as they transited the next system, undoubtedly giving the miners an eyeful. Perhaps their snail's pace bored them as they again rushed ahead and took an alternative route. That detour would take them through Lucky Strike which had a marginally habitable world. But there was a station and always a few stars ships as well as local craft in the system.

"You know, if they keep zigzagging like this, the Caterpillars are going to pass through several inhabited systems before Earth," Gordon realized. "Somebody is going to send a drone to Earth about them, and we aren't going to roll in with them as a surprise like we imagined."

"They must be about ready to fuel again too," Lee worried. "This region of space is so heavily settled most systems have claims on the gas giants for fueling rights. If they dip unawares somebody is going to have a complaint of fuel rustling."

"Do you think you could compose a grid statement to explain that?" Gordon asked.

"Not with any confidence," Lee decided. "It would be easier to just pay their bill for them."

"Well, at least you can afford it," Gordon said.

"I can't charge it off to the Fleet?" Lee asked.

"What share does the Fleet get to tap?" Gordon countered.

"Not a share, but it's an expense of the Fleet, deducted before the shares are tallied," Lee insisted.

"How does it profit the fleet to fuel up your pet aliens?" Gordon demanded.

"They'll get shares of whatever we learn from their refining machine. Maybe a great deal of money if it can be scaled up. There's the gravity plate we haven't started to analyze, and staying on good terms with them will pay off, I'm convinced. Even if we did expend a couple very expensive missiles to save their butts," Lee added herself, before Gordon could bring that up.

"I suppose it may show a profit in time," Gordon grudgingly allowed. "I wonder. How much will a rights holder charge for an unauthorized dip?"

"Gods only know. How much is a fill up for a deep space battleplate?" Lee wondered. "That's as big as Humans build. Right now," she added after a pause.

Gordon refused to be sidetracked into a discussion of why they needed kilometer long spaceships. Lee would undoubtedly make it sound reasonable to build on a couple kilometers long just to prove the fabbers could do it.

"I believe the number I heard at one time was a bit over a half million dollars Ceres," Brownie said.

"Ow... They'll look at the size and demand two or three times that," Lee decided.

"Again, I'm happy to have our own scoops," Gordon said. "Even this close to Earth there are systems one can divert to along your general route and scoop your own. Can you imagine the bill for us both ways on this voyage if we had to buy fuel?"

"But anybody developing the brown dwarfs is going to need to buy fuel somewhere along the way," Lee said, looking concerned about that.

"If you haul a thousand TONS of platinum to Earth you can budget for that," Gordon said. "Of course you may drive the market price down a bit, but if it's cheaper people will use it more."

"In my opinion growth around the brown dwarfs will create a bigger market than long range transport. The population will shift," Brownie said.

"Providence is closer than Earth," Lee pointed out. "Pretty
and
a good location."

"And orbital habs in the brown dwarf system closer yet. There will have to be workers there anyway," Brownie insisted.

"Oh yeah,” Lee agreed. “But if you can afford to live there, people like a real sky with mountains and forests. For some reason I haven't figured out they love to look out over water too."

"Be glad, since you own an island," Gordon said.

"Now that interests me, because the Hinth share this water gazing fixation," Ha-bob-bob-brie said.

"I can't gift you a plot on the island, because except for personal use I have ceded most of it to the Red Tree clan to develop, but if you would be happy with a mountain stream or a river I'll gift you a place for a home and life tenancy on Providence," Lee offered.

"I shall accept," Ha-bob-bob-brie said quickly. "It is almost impossible to own land on Hin. The government owns almost all of it. The priesthood the rest."

"There's just too much to know," Lee complained. "I haven't read near enough
Human
history and haven't touched on Hin yet. I'm trying to track down all this stuff Precious told us about last century now, and not finding much."

"Look at news articles instead of history texts," Brownie suggested. "They take days to come up with plausible lies. The fresh news is better and they never hide it all."

When nobody contradicted him, Lee agreed she'd do that. It sounded so cynical she expected some objection, but instead she saw a couple nods of agreement. It bothered her.

* * *

They transited two more system. One almost empty and another fairly busy. The Caterpillars went on one more diversion and rejoined them. Lee followed Brownie's suggestion and started looking at archived news sources. She got engrossed in it and wasn't following the bridge chatter much. What really made a difference was the origin. The old web fraction they'd bought when her parents were alive and working the
High Hopes
exploring was from North America, and had almost nothing about space news from the last century.

The expanded web fraction that Gordon bought on Fargone was a different story. It was heavily space weighed and just comparing word counts Lee suspected the earlier cut was flat out censored. In the version purchased from Fargone there was a list of spacecraft destroyed or removed from service in a document comparing insured civilian and sovereign risks. They included both civilian craft for which claims were possible and military for which sovereign nations had to accept the risk.

Lee wanted very much to see the source documents, but all their partial web had was the summary. It was awfully suspicious that the list showed a big spike from 2083 to 2087 of vessels lost to military action.

The tack of the article was that in the early 2090s more owners were going naked to their risk, because insurance was prohibitively expensive. They were right. It got to be near universal for any vessel that didn't take off and land from the same political entity. Pretty much only orbital shuttles were insurable.

By the time the first jump ships were making actual voyages of exploration instead of test flights nobody would write a meaningful policy to cover the cargo, much less the vessel. There simply wasn't enough history for the actuaries to gauge the risk, and a new starship ran to hundreds of millions of USNA dollars despite the ten to one devaluation earlier in the century.

In the critical period she was interested in the list included the Chinese vessel
Pretty as Jade
and the USNA
James Kelly
listed as lost to the
Happy Lewis
in high orbit. The USNA
Cincinnati
and
Big 'Nuf
were destroyed days later with no cause given. It was some time before the first Home vessel was on the list. The
Home Boy
was listed as destroyed in Lunar orbit along with the USNA shuttle
Dallas
. But it didn't say if they had engaged each other or what. And when Lee checked for references the web fraction didn't have any more on either ship.