Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet (41 page)

 "Are they making any progress testing local foodstuffs for Humans?" Lee wondered. "If they had some local supply it would stretch what they have. It's too bad we don't have more seeds. If we had more than samples we could test having the Badgers grow our own crops for the crew of the
Murphy's Law."

"Well, beside vodka they have a pretty good rum now," Prosperity admitted."That should hold the Fargoers for a year. We have a few grains that look promising. They have starch, so they'll have calories, but we're not sure about trace nutrients. We can make a lot of that up with yeast cultures and synthetics."

"Have you some reasonable estimate how long they could stay?" Gordon asked.

"About a year and a half.  Maintenance issues will most likely become an issue before food. But now I have another question, since you revealed you'll be going back by a different route. Would the people who remain here share in the discoveries you might make on the way back? I'm not saying they have an entitlement, but human nature being what it is, they may resent it if they return to find their pay-out is half what the others get. They'll have spent as much time, more likely, and be in a position of some risk. Their duty here is not unrelated to your fundamental enterprise since it secures the new relationship with the Badgers. They won't be there for new claims on the way back, but it seems to me they are still supporting you."

"It's a personal matter too," Lee reminded him. "I assumed you'd remain with the
Murphy's Law."

"I'm hurt if you think I was angling for a bigger share," Prosperity said. "I actually thought I'd go back with the Badger and Bill delegation to work with them back home. I know them better than anyone else and they actually asked if I'd be available to help them in their dealings."

"Oh, I didn't know. You have to understand. I wouldn't think it a
bad
thing to want a full share."

"Thank you. Some would regard it as selfish I believe."

"No, I think we have found so much, it would be selfish to try to cut anybody out when we all went in with the idea of fully sharing. As you said, it's not like they would go home early or something. What they would be doing certainly supports the rest of us. How do you feel about it Gordon? Do you have any trouble giving them shares if we find something like another brown dwarf on the way back?"

"The crew of
Murphy's Law,
no
.
But just in case they get ideas, the Badgers and Bills are along for their own purposes. They're not part of the Little Fleet, and the route we'll take back falls in the cone of interest ceded to us. So their ships don't get shares," Gordon said.

"I don't think the idea ever occurred to them," Prosperity said. "Do you want me to tell them quite explicitly?" It seemed to make him uncomfortable.

"They might take offense, if it wasn't their expectation anyway," Lee worried.

"Handle it with a little finesse," Gordon decided. "Don't raise it as a separate issue, but weave it into telling them they have to follow fleet orders on the way back. You said the translation is getting good enough for fine nuances. Contrast that they are expected to follow fleet orders for maneuvers and course even though their mission is not ours and they aren't under the same contract. You should be able to make it plain without making it the point of the conversation or hitting them over the head with it."

"Indeed, I can see several ways to do that. I shall point out that while we are happy to escort them, they may need to patiently wait on occasion for us to do survey work and mark claims, even though it is of no benefit to them."

"See? I had every confidence you could handle it," Gordon said, pleased.

* * *

"What do you call this system or this world?" Lee asked Talker. "I'm tired of referring to it as system 80. Surely we have sufficient translation ability now we can find an approximate name, even if it is just a colloquial expression. Or do you really call it by the catalog number in casual conversation?"

"The Captain of the ship
Star Jitter
named the world Far Away. The star is just called the Star, on pretty much whatever world you are visiting. Well, the
Home
Star will be called that specifically."

"
Star Jitter
?" Lee asked, looking askance.

"See? We have translation troubles already. That's your doubting look I've learned." He consulted his pad. "I see, jitter is an electronics term, or a term in pseudochronoquantumstatistics... Whatever the hell
that
is," he said shaking his head. A gesture he'd picked up quickly. "What do you call it when you look at a star from a world and the atmosphere makes it move about or even disappear and reappear from turbulence?"

"Oh! It
twinkles
," Lee supplied.

"Star Twinkle?" Talker examined the translation program at some length. "I get the sense this word doesn't have an air of...somberness. It is used in jokes and to describe frivolous things. But glisten, glimmer, scintillate, flicker? No, twinkle it is I guess." He blinked and got an odd look himself. "Twinkle, twinkle little star?" he asked, amused.

"Oh, that's a child's song or poem. Pre-spaceflight I think. One also speaks of a person's eye twinkling when they are delighted or mischievous."

"How can your eye twinkle?" Talker asked.

"By making a quick movement or blinking. Oh, they sometimes say that you do something with a
sparkle
in your eye too," Lee remembered.

"Spark, sparks, sparkle,
Star Sparkle"
, he tried out. "It has more action and power. That has a much better sound. A ship's name should fall from your snout with authority," he declared.

"Star Sparkle it is then," Lee agreed. So, why did the Captain name the world Far Away?"

"Oh, I got side-tracked. Excuse me. He named it because it was an unusually long voyage from the Home World. The same I imagine as your Fargone. Right?"

"Yeah, at the time, although we go past it now. It's still closer to the frontier than Earth," Lee admitted.

"And so shall Far Away be in time I pray, if we can explore in safety again."

"I hope so too," Lee agreed. "But I have to tell you Talker, the sky is big. If you got away with going exploring unarmed until you met the Biters, well good for you, but now you should see that may not always work. Time to pull your big boy pants on and be ready to defend yourself. We're happy to help, but in the long run, you're going to have to do it yourself."

"I know. As distasteful as it is we have come to a similar consensus," Talker agreed.

* * *

The
Sharp Claws, Roadrunner
and
Dart
entered the next system, number 66,  headed back to their fleet. They spread out a little, jumping on the same mark, but not trying to hide their entry signature by proximity. If one was off a bit it still would have rattled them, the late entry badly, but not destroyed them.

This was a Bill system too, but without a significant station and only a small commercial presence. There was a gas giant but no fueling depot, the local mining operation just skimming the gas planet for their fuel needs with little storage. When asked, Fussy informed them there was a source of lithium being mined on one of the moons, an occasional find of boron and the gas giant was unusually rich in deuterium. A few Bills researchers came by now and then to do studies on the reasons for the abundance of light elements, since it was an anomaly.

Their exit from the neighboring station and system hadn't been on the best of terms, so they broadcasted a notice they had no mail or data dump to share. Their course was fast and across the opposite side of the star without a large change in vector, so they'd be gone before the station heard hem and could reply.

"Entry radiation behind us," Einstein on the
Sharp Claws
informed them calmly. Their sensor suite was the best of the three ships.

"One or could it be the pair we saw just now leaving?" Chance asked from the
Roadrunner
.

"Biters don't jump in sync as far as I know," Captain Fussy said from the
Dart
.

"And there is his friend right behind. Not close at all," Einstein confirmed.

"They had to turn and follow us as soon as our wave front hit them. That doesn't seem good. They couldn't have known what happened on station, they maneuvered before they could talk to each other," he sat and thought on it a bit, "that means they were coming specifically for us and they did
not
expect to see us leaving," Chance said, following the chain of logic aloud and frowning.

"Can't argue that," Lord Byron, XO on the
Sharp Claws
agreed after a very brief pause.

"So that bunch converging on Bob and Dauntless on station wasn't called in from randomly meeting  the Biter in the bar, nor was it a simple display of Biter temper," Chance concluded. "It was an
ambush
designed to keep us there on the station, and maybe to capture one of our ships."

"If I may comment," the Badger Captain Fussy said on the open channel, "it would surprise me,  after seeing all this, if the Biters were not arranging for you and a Human ship to be stuck on station. I'd wager they expected to kidnap you or get you stuck in the station lock-up and were counting on the fact that your ship would not leave without you. They'd never expect us to allow new aliens on one of our ships. I have to admit it has been uncommon for us to share up until now. The Cats as you call them have always had a hard time buying passage. People are not comfortable with them. I can say with certainty the Biters would never invite another race to pollute their decks."

"So, when we showed up with three races on our flight deck to greet you in the video it surprised you?" Fat asked amused.

"At the time it seemed a huge thing," Fussy admitted. "Some of the revelations since and brushing the Biters aside with absolute contempt have made us forget what the fuss was about back then. It seems like that was a long time ago instead of weeks. You really got our attention when you vaporized the back off the Biter ship. We figured out pretty quickly that was on purpose, not poor marksmanship, and you could have reduced the whole thing to plasma." Nobody corrected him.

"Would the station normally arrest a Biter if he caused trouble?" Chance wondered.

"They have on rare occasion arrested a drunk Biter making trouble, but released him to the custody of his ship when they came for him. But that's Biters. They wouldn't expect the same of grass eaters. They certainly wouldn't expect you to fight or stand up to local security as they would."

"I suspect they may have laid plans to capture a human ship at dock before their ships returned," Fat Ortega said darkly, "They'd have been very upset and disappointed if they went to such extremes and it was only a Badger ship that docked."

"I don't like running from these scum," Fat Ortega growled.

"But fighting an action with a follower is much more difficult. Are they chasing us?" Chance asked thoughtfully.

"No, you missed a mail drop a few systems back and they are trying to catch up and deliver it."

"Now Fat, such sarcasm isn't like you. I'm thinking if we hold our present course and jump out as planned at a normal velocity and they attempt to intercept us before jump, then they will be forced to jump deep and have a lot of speed to dump. Seems to me they will be forced to overshoot us and reverse positions with us."

"I've pinged them six times since they entered. When I get a return on that I can give you a better approximation in about an hour twenty minutes. " Einstein promised. "We have enough lead on them we could increase our acceleration and get to jump well ahead of them, but then we'd be in the same relationship in the next system. Both of us having jumped deep and hot."

"No, maintain our present heading and acceleration. Fussy, if we do need to run later or in the next system, can you pull three G for several hours?"

"I can do three Human gravities after about a fifteen minute preparation period. I can do four G for about six of your hours with only a five percent probability of crew injury. At five G the probability rises to fifteen percent. At four or five G we can't deal with any emergency that requires us to leave our couch or bunk without cutting back, preferably to about two and a half G." They had never revealed their capacity before, but he didn't hesitate to answer under the circumstances.

"We'll try to stay out of their weapon range before jump. I'll accelerate at the last if it is a close thing and we'll go to Battle Stations on the
Sharp Claws
well before they are in weapons range."

"Time to catch a bite and move around a bit before the action." Frost suggested.

Chapter 20

"May I join you?" Talker asked Lee.

"Sure, pull up a chair. You don't mind if I eat?" she asked.

"No, indeed, I have something of my own," he informed her hefting a very ordinary paper bag to show her.

"That looks like any bag a Earth Deli would use for take-away. Isn't it interesting how many things we've come up with the same solutions? I'm glad you weren't a race of clams or spiders who are so weird we can't talk to you. I mean, we have Badgers and our people trading jokes! Although some of them seem to be as old as ours. Old as in, already old when they were hunting Mammoths."

"This is why I enjoy visiting with you," Talker said, looking at his pad. "I never would have heard of Mammoths. Just the portion of your English web we have is more than anyone can study in a lifetime. Is this
accurate
?" he asked turning the small computer around, showing her a picture of a group of fur clad Humans with spears using a very hairy Mammoth for a pin cushion.

"They are guessing a lot," Lee admitted, squirting mustard in her sandwich. "They're going from the stone points and junk left around camp fires such as the bones which have the marks on them from butchering. I know they have found whole Mammoths frozen, but not with spears stuck in them and Humans preserved too. I suspect the folks who drew that are academics and if they had to hunt a Mammoth you'd have a lot of
squashed
  academics before they figured out how to do it."