April 8: It's Always Something (29 page)

"How fast are you hoping to push these...things?" Havilland asked.

"Now that is an interesting question. There have been previous super-cavitating weapons, and at least one very small manned vessel of which several copies may have been made. The third Russian Republic had a torpedo that was supposed to do a hundred and fifty knots or so. But all of those used basically a rocket motor, not only for motivation, but to generate the gas envelope. We'll be using vacuum, actual water cavitation without gas, and much easier to turn on and off. And it can run for a much longer time. But if everything goes right I would be disappointed in anything less than two hundred knots," Billy told him.

Havilland looked like he wasn't sure it wasn't a joke. He decided not to ask any more. "We'll have them safely in the water tonight," he promised.

* * *

Muños called the assembly to order in the usual manner. He took a little more time to explain things because there were so many new people. Not only new citizens, but new arrivals observing their first Assembly and deciding whether they wanted to just be a resident or assume the obligation of citizenship. He mentioned the archive of previous Assemblies and encouraged people to examine them.

Robert Lewis had to explain the changes in corporate ownership that Mitsubishi had forced. It got fairly involved and ran near an hour before everybody was satisfied. That led to the fact North America considered itself at war with Home still.

Eduardo Muños cut that discussion short by pointing out nothing had really changed since the last special Assembly, and there was no point in reopening the discussion unless somebody could show there was a significant new point to ponder. Twenty seconds of silence established that there wasn't, and he insisted they move on. People were already weary over the long discussion of corporate ownership.

The proposal about a national currency finally came to the floor, authored by a young man named Patrick. The fellow proposing it seemed to think their own currency was necessary to a public identity. What horrified Jeff was that the fellow proposed to make Solars the official currency. What sort of idiot would bring such a thing to the floor of the assembly without speaking to the man who designed and made those Solars? Irwin spoke against it briefly but dispassionately, calling it unnecessary, and pointing out countries that got along just fine using other countries' currencies as their own.

Jeff let another fellow speak because he didn't want the two bankers speaking back to back. He was an older fellow, Macedonian by origin, and actually helped, recounting how he'd several times been the victim of sudden shifts in currency exchange rates under several different governments, and he wanted the freedom to hold whatever money he wanted.

Meanwhile Jeff leaned over and asked April quietly to find out who this Patrick fellow was bringing the motion. He didn't recognize him.

Jeff stood and was gratified Muños called on him because he had several others.

"Mr. Singh of the Solar Trade Bank," Muños said by way of explanation, to spare the feeling of any who might wonder why he was favored to speak.

"Mr. Muños," Jeff said, giving a respectful nod. "I agree with the previous speakers and would elaborate. We are getting along without a government that dictates every detail of our lives. That's why so many are coming from Earth, and even a few from the other habs. We have exactly five people employed by our taxes, eight if you count the clinic we partially employ. Contrast this with slightly more than half the population in North America being government workers. Closer to sixty percent if you count the contractors they dropped from their statistics recently.

"Once you start down this road it is never turned back. Eventually somebody will decide that since it is the official currency our taxes must be paid in Solars, there goes the freedom that Mr. Bojan said he wanted. He'll have to deal with exchange rates and availability to pay his taxes. Then we'll find the instability so inconvenient we have to have an official rate. The only way to make it stable is to
regulate
it, so we need a bureaucracy. I assure you any such official controls will quickly be a central bank, setting artificial interest rates and manipulating the markets. Such an organization will quickly be bigger than our entire current body of public servants. They will quickly be deciding budget matters instead of the line by line vote you have now," Jeff predicted.

"Perhaps you are lazy..." Jeff said, and gave a shaming look around at the crowd in the cafeteria. "This is not a little thing. It's a step back towards being slaves like all the Earthies. There's not a country there that has our freedoms, and if we lose them...where will you go?"

"The moon!" somebody called out from the audience.

"Perhaps," Jeff agreed. "Though you know it can't absorb us all in a short time. But I object. Why should we have to flee because we were too stupid to stop the usual incremental progression that seems to be the natural evolution of governments towards tyranny?

"All this leaves out my last reason. The design and the production of Solars, the
idea
, belongs to the Solar Trade Bank. If anyone tries to make it official in any political sense, we will stop making them. We do not have the services of a patent system. But I will challenge anyone who appropriates them. They are
private
and our firm have done the work to make them trusted. If you want a currency make your own. Call them Homies, or anything you want, but you won't be permitted to ride on our coattails to get the public to accept them, you can demonstrate they are reliable and gain your own trust."

Jeff made a motion like he was going to sit down, but before he could the young man who had introduced the measure started a slow mocking clap. Every eye in the cafeteria turned to him. By the fifth clap he had everyone's attention.

"Such brave words from a killer of women and children. I don't believe you have the guts to challenge anybody you can't kill by remote control," Patrick said.

April was poking Jeff in the butt with her pad. She had the information on who the man Patrick was and where he was from, but Jeff was ignoring her. It didn't matter anymore.

Understanding dawned on Jeff's face. "You sir, have wasted all our time. This was a ruse from a provocateur. You could have simply spoken to me privately and challenged me without boring all these people with your private quarrel. May I assume you are Patriot Party scum?" Jeff asked.

"I did not credit you with the honor or the nerve to meet me without a public humiliation. But you insult me right there sufficiently to challenge," Patrick said. "I'm one of God's Warriors."

"No matter. All of you fanatics are pretty much the same to us. Shall we just dispense with this waste of the citizen's time or do you insist on bringing it to a vote?"

"As long as you are challenging me, let us just say our duel will decide the matter."

"No, I intend to kill you, but I won't leave Home with this foul legacy if I should die. Mr. Muños will you bring the vote?" Jeff requested.

"On the matter of making the Solar the official Home currency, how do you people say?" Muños said in very abbreviated form. Everybody understood the issue.

The tally only ran to a bit more than six hundred before it timed out with no new votes coming in. They were all against. Nobody wanted to vote yes. Jeff wasn't sure if it was because they really rejected the idea, or if they were afraid a yes vote would bring another challenge after he disposed of Mr. Patrick.

"0700 in the new ring industrial corridor," Jeff said. "Be there on time and I shall put a shot between your eyes," Jeff promised.

"I read this as your challenge," Patrick said. "I have the choice of weapons."

Jon Davis stood with a stormy face, and that was a scary thing to see. "This is ridiculous," he objected. "Mr. Patrick clearly instigated this entire thing. As Jeff said he is a provocateur. I only object because I want to stand second to my friend, Jeffery."

"Let's not quibble over it," Jeff said, dismissively. "I can send Mr. Patrick to hell by any route of his choosing."

"Sweet," Patrick said. "And all by your own filthy rules."

Chapter 21

The first submersible was floating somewhere below. Billy said he'd drop it to a hundred meters and let it just float with the current for a bit while he helped lower the other. He assured them he wouldn't lose it. Both could be controlled by his instruments. Captain Havilland gave him leave to put his controls on the bridge temporarily. The antenna he put out on the catwalk made Havilland suspect this temporary control was done remotely through a geostationary satellite. He had no idea how.

"Very nicely done," Billy said as Havilland's crew eased the second drone into the water. In reality they could have been dropped over the rail and probably survived, but why take the chance of doing some damage? Dave was a manufacturer of spaceships, and it stretched their ability and experience to create something to work in an opposite environment, under pressure instead of vacuum. Dave joked he simply had to build it reversed, but of course it wasn't that simple.

"Before I move either one of them I'm going to test the sonar," Billy said. "First the unit at the end of the spike." He activated that. It was pointed off approximately south.

* * *

Five hundred kilometers north a small USNA submarine was coming toward them, moving dead slow. That meant about three knots, at which speed they were effectively silent. They were in no hurry at all, because their target was station keeping. The captain suspected if they got close enough undetected the mission might change from surveillance to intercept.

The vessel had modern batteries and thermo electric generators with cores heated by radioactive material. The vessel not only had noise absorbing coating on the hull, it had noise deadening surfaces inside. It was carpeted, with shock absorbing tiles under the carpeting. There was not even a cooling fan or air circulating fan with a rotary element in the boat. In extreme silent mode the small crew would not even speak, communicating on screens in text. The chief sensor tech touched his screen to indicate a contact. That showed on the captain's screen and the helmsman's. They both waited for the follow up.

"Sharp very high frequency spike to the south. Could be biological or mechanical, of indefinite origin. Range uncertain, well over a hundred kilometers due to the space of time over which reflected pulses arrived," he typed on a keyboard that didn't even click.

* * *

"Well nothing is in the water ahead of number two. The sonar is very narrow in emissions. It 'sees' about a ten degree cone very well but falls off rapidly on the edges. We got a little noise off bottom reflections, but nothing significant," Bobby said. "Most of this tech is obsolete, at least twenty years old, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work, it's just
mature
. The fact we have power out the wazoo to waste helps. We bought the specs and even some components from the Swedes and the Argentines."

"Didn't they wonder what use spacers would have for sonar tech?" Havilland asked.

"Europe is still a mess economically from the flu," Billy said. "We offered to pay in gold, but they decided to take their pay in fabrications our shop could do for them. They didn't make our intentions their concern. Neither did we inquire about the purpose of their parts."

"This front sonar lets the drone follow a target. That part of the software is ours, modified from missiles. Too bad there is nothing out there to reflect a signal. It would work off a whale or a surface craft just fine, to maybe a hundred kilometers. But we can run the drone out a ways and use ourselves as a target. The big question is if it will work with the cavitation running? That may take some tuning. We'll scan for a frequency that the cavitation doesn't produce strongly." Seeing Havilland's raised eyebrow he added. "Assuming there
is
one."

"Now, the panels that produce cavitation are driven by an oscillator. However if they aren't in use they can be used as active sonar by applying a short spike or square wave. We have a lot of power and a lot of panel area, so it helps make up for the fact our software to analyze the return is out of date. We may be able to see big ships and things like sea mounts and islands out to a thousand kilometers." He touched a screen and said, "On its way."

"Sir," the helmsman addressed the Captain, "The engineer asks if one of the drones has collided with the ship. He notes a loud bang that scared, uh, that alarmed them. He sent two crew along to check for leaks or damage."

Havilland looked askance at Billy and got a nod. "No Mr. Goodall, tell him that was a sonar pulse, but he is correct to have a damage team check out all spaces. Anything that loud may have popped a bad weld or plug."

"They may hear other noises," Billy warned.

"Relay that information too," Havilland told his helmsman.

* * *

The captain of the USNA
Silverfish
sat to the right beside the helmsman. The signals tech sat facing away to the side of them. The weapons officer sat to the left with his back to them, on the helm side.

The signals tech suddenly seemed to levitate in the edge of the captain's vision. He looked over and the man had both hands on his earphones. He slowly relaxed, but didn't take them off. Over the man's shoulder the captain could see an orange spike clear off the top of the screen, slowly scrolling to the left.

"What was that, and are you OK?" his captain put on his screen.

"I'm fine, just really startled, and thank God for good filters or I'd be deaf. I have no idea what that was unless a diver smacked our bare hull with a sledge hammer." That was unlikely at three hundred meters in motion.

"Can they see us?" the captain asked.

"We are nose on to the source. The possibility exists they will miss the return signal if they have fairly old sensors or software. With that kind of power, if they have outrider receivers and modern software, they can probably read the build plate riveted on our hull in the boat yard," the man admitted.

* * *

Billy had four screens set up in a cluster. One showed an overhead map of the ocean with them in the middle. The second showed a tactical map such as a weapons officer would want. Another showed the two superimposed on each other. The third showed a 3D representation of the sea floor with color coding where there were areas that gave no return, such as behind a ridge, or of uncertain validity. Billy was proud they'd spent the funds to buy enough computer power to draw the contours almost real time.

When the drones were operated from orbit the mapping would be integrated with chart data, and deep penetrating radar and lidar. The chart would also build up details from various angles as the ship intended to move around in the same area. Jeff and his partners were reluctant to leave the actual long term operation of the drones aboard the
Isle of
Hawaiki
for security reasons.

The sea floor image expanded from them in a circle, but slowed down as the computer lagged with the data. It was out at two hundred kilometers now and running about a thirty second lag drawing the contours. The detail, of necessity, got fuzzier at a distance. The near ocean floor showed some complex wrinkles and bumps. There was also what might be a shipwreck about sixty kilometers to the west north west of them. The targeting screen showed a couple schools of fish, and then to their delight a surface vessel crossing west to east a hundred ten kilometers south east. The labels on the screen were in English. No need to know Swedish.

"The software says the ship is about our size," Billy said, pointing at the boxed caption on the short dash. It even had its long dimension aligned.

At eleven minutes the tactical sonar screen drew a short arc on the screen like a parentheses, convex side pointed back at them. "What's that?" Havilland asked from his seat. He was too far away to read the text.

"It says possible bow shot of either a sperm whale or a submarine at shy of five hundred kilometers," Billy read off the screen.

"Really?" Havilland asked, laughing. "Male or female," he asked.

"I don't think a nose on view tell us that," Billy joked.

"Well you wanted to move these around anyway. Why don't you run one off a ways, stop, and take a look at it from a different angle," Havilland suggested.

"I want to test the first drone with the mechanical cavitation first, but in the slow mode. It has an electric drive that uses the electrically conductive sea water like a linear electric motor. I'll set it moving toward that target at about four knots. Then I'll try out the second drone. It's not made to be so silent. It will be interesting to hear the difference. Then I'll try them in fast mode."

Havilland gave a nod. He was just making a suggestion, but he was the master at sea. He didn't want the young man to forget that, so he gave his assent.

* * *

Jon and April, Chen and Irwin all jammed into April's living room. Even Tetsuo, more commonly known as Papa-san had arrived looking concerned. Tetsuo bluntly offered to go "Make the fellow disappear," and Chen had nodded a clear agreement to that. They were both ex-spies, well, mostly
ex
, except they obviously still retained a fairly loose and pragmatic view of disappearing people. The one that bothered him was Jon. He considered Jon a pillar of moral rectitude, and Jon looked thoughtful at the idea rather than outraged. He didn't even want to turn his head and look at April beside him. She was probably checking the charge on her pistol...

"I'm disappointed in you, all of you," Jeff said. None of them bothered to look abashed.

"He's an agent of the government that just rejected their solemn treaty with us," April said. "He basically admitted he was just here to use our own laws and customs to do an assassination under color of law. Crying out loud, they are at
war
with us still by their own declaration. I should have followed my instincts and burned him down where he stood!"

"You are right," Jon declared, "But it's so hard to weigh all the moral issues and come to a decision on the spot. After thinking it all through you make a good case, but it would look really, really bad to people to do so after such a delay. I applaud your restraint, because you can do something like that and come to regret it, but I have to admit your gut feelings were spot on, this time."

"He's the sort an agent will do in the field as a freebie, just because he's a jackass," Chen said.

"You aren't taking my meaning," Jeff told them all. "I'm hurt nobody has the least shred of confidence in me. I'm faster than him and stronger than him. He's God's Warrior and they are death, literally, on gene mod. More than that I'm
smarter
than him. You've all been sheltering me from risk for
years
. Believe it or not, I'm not a helpless little kid!"

"Well, obviously he's not going to pick pistols since you indicated you expected them," Jon said.

"It doesn't matter," Jeff said. "I have never been a wonderful shot with a pistol. That's no great loss. You aren't going to teach me the use of any exotic weapons between now and the morning even if we did know. We have all the Wednesday night sparring sessions that we've done together for unarmed combat and sword," Jeff told Jon. "I doubt he knows about that. I'm glad April has her grandfather's swords, because there is a world of difference between a dummy practice sword and a real weapon. I know what the proper sort feel like. I can't imagine the fellow will show up with bows and arrows or throwing stars. I'd be happy with pipes even, like Dakota had to face."

"We value you," Jon said. "Without you I don't think we would have won our revolution, and without you our future is much more uncertain."

"Thank you, but you can't count on me," Jeff insisted. "I could slip in the shower tomorrow and break my neck. You'd have to carry on."

"Is there
anything
we can do?" Jon asked.

"Have a medic there, take video, and bring me back to a nice breakfast here afterward. Everybody invited," he said, just to make it clear. He didn't think to ask April if he could invite a crowd to her apartment, and under the circumstances she didn't even think about it.

* * *

"I'm moving the first drone off now," Billy announced. "Might as well send it to meet that target too, but directly at it, not offset like the spiked version." He watched his instruments and was pleased. "I'm at five percent power, making about four and a half knots. I can't pick up a thing on my passive sensors."

"That's stern to us?" Havilland asked. Then he frowned. "Or maybe without props it doesn't matter."

"No, I think that's a good point actually. I'll have it make a slow circle and see if it is noisy from another quarter." Billy did so with a touch of the screen.

"Not a whisper. Let's speed it up until we get something," Billy said.

"There...getting some low frequency noise at almost eight knots," he said, pointing at the bottom of the one screen. "I don't think anybody could hear that unless they are right on top of us."

* * *

Ten minutes later he was proved wrong. "Very low frequency rumble," the sensor tech on the
Silverfish
reported. "From the south and likely coming our way. Definitely not a current induced noise. Picking up! May be a hydrodynamic drive," he decided. "It has similarities to known drives."