Family Law 2: The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet (45 page)

Talker looked sad and didn't answer right away.

"Or are you really saying
you
have befriended
her
? I'm much more certain what it means to you."

"Did you ever refuse to go to bed as a child, afraid of monsters?" Talker asked.

Trader looked at him strangely. "As a matter of fact my grandmother told me horrid folk stories about mythological beasts that terrified me. It irritated my father no end. He finger snapped me on the end of my nose and sternly told me to go to bed, right
now
. I think he told the old woman to stop the scary stories, because she didn't do it again."

"But did you
sleep
that night?" Talker asked with a smile.

"Not very soon, or well. But it forced me to understand that there weren't any monsters."

"But you see, Lee knows there
are
monsters." He related the story of the sleeping bag to Trader and Gordon's confirmation of it with added details, as well as her kidnapping on Earth. "Yet when something frightened and disturbed me and I asked how one could deal with bad dreams from it, She didn't tell me to get over it. She offered to sleep on my floor between me and the door. To put
herself
between me and the monsters. She didn't make fun of my fear or try to tell me there are no monsters. To her experience, the world is full of real monsters and it is perfectly rational to be terrified, but you
just
keep shooting
."

"You are most certainly obligated," Trader agreed. "I had no idea... "

"No offence taken. It's good you understand what we are dealing with in these people. It just seems to get bigger and more complicated all the time."

"The little one is brave," he paused, as if he thought to qualify it further, but decided not to.

"Indeed," Talker agreed.

* * *

"Clear sky," Einstein announced. "Report sent. However the station and world are behind the star for system 80 from us. Assuming our fleet is still sitting there. I'll retransmit as soon as we have a line of sight but somebody insystem should be listening on the station frequency and hear it, just for insurance and posterity."

"No need," Captain Fussy told him from the
Dart
. "You may assume in any of our well populated stellar systems with a living world we will have repeater buoys positioned about the plane of rotation to relay information to the system scan. You should be able to get a reasonably up to date scan by pinging one of them the same as you would the station. It isn't like system 67 that doesn't produce enough economically or see enough traffic to warrant the expense."

"Thank you, query sent. I'll bring up that scan available on our net as soon as I have a reply if anybody wants to study it. The furthest Badger activity on a dogleg to the opposite side should be about ten hours. The station will only be about six hours out of date now," Einstein commented.

"Overlay our scan data on my screen with our own initial wave front propagating forward with a green line please, Einstein. And add predicted vectors to real time with scaled arrows on each object in motion. It helps me visualize things in a system so crowded and busy. How close are you comfortable going around the star Captain Fussy?"

"I'd rather not go inside the orbit of that little rocky planet you show, if we are decelerating to intercept the station. If you want to volunteer to let us run tightly in your shadow, then as close as you please."

"Now that's an interesting idea. I haven't tried that," Chance admitted. "No need to do that today. Persistent is posting our course,  outside the planet's orbit as requested, to station rest right now. Sync please, gentlemen."

* * *

The Badger shuttle was comfortable for a Human, and not just a little one. Lee figured it would be usable for even the largest Human. Derf were another matter, unless it had a pressurized cargo hold. Lee was a bit surprised Gordon didn't insist on coming down with her, maybe a little disappointed too. He could still be in command and on top of things with a com pad on his belt. The light speed lag to his ships would never have been more than a few tenths of a second.

She'd have been upset and offended to have pointed out this was normal separation anxiety for a teenager not quite used to being on her own. Not voluntarily at least. Gordon thought it good for her to be away from him a bit on a nice safe, short trip. She'd only be gone a day or two. She'd only packed two changes of clothing.

Talker for all of his name wasn't a big talker on the shuttle. He was right there in the next seat but not as chatty as usual. Lee wondered if he was afraid of small craft? Some people were afraid of flying, whether airplanes or orbitals. Gordon once told her some people have to get blind drunk to trust themselves to a plane, and having a port to see how high they were made it worse, not better. She had a sudden insight and tapped a note in her pad to investigate if there were similarly people afraid to be on a spaceship. It seemed like after a certain distance, when the world was a ball and you couldn't see the terrain below, fear of heights shouldn't apply. To her brain at least it stopped being
down
and instead seemed more
over there
. She had over a thousand questions like that in the file to investigate, some day.

Talker looked so unhappy she put her hand on his and gave him a little pat. He looked startled and then happy enough even she could read it on his face. He rolled his hand over and held hers loosely on the armrests between them. He seemed to take comfort from it so she didn't pull her hand back even when she started to cramp up a bit.

They landed in rain which was still a wonder to behold for Lee. It didn't appear to bother the flight crew at all. She's seen rain a few times in northern Michigan on Earth, but it still amazed her to see it falling from the sky. She hadn't stayed long enough to see snow. Fortunately they walked into the terminal through a sealed walkway and avoided a soaking.

Quite a few Badgers raised their hands in greeting to her and she did it back, until she realized they were just holding a phone or camera up, taking pix of what was a strange sight to them. Talker mercifully didn't comment on her gaffe.

Nobody checked their luggage. Indeed nobody made them stop and provide ID or passports. There was no quarantine and no customs as far as she could tell. They walked to an airdoor with a downdraft strong enough to flutter her clothing and she expected from appearance of the grey sky and rain it would  be chilly outside. Instead it was warm and muggy.

A number of people, all Badgers, were getting on something that looked like pictures she'd seen of a trolley car. She watched for Talker to move forward and kept her mouth shut when he didn't. A couple really strange looking ground cars picked up some individual travelers until they were the only two left standing under the extended roof that sheltered the roadway from the rain.

Finally when everything else was gone a large flatbed truck eased forward from the rain and stopped in front of them. She wasn't prepared for something so utilitarian to be their ride, and Talker was three steps ahead of her before she woke up to what was happening and scurried to catch up. The cab was so high above the large knobby tires it took two corrugated metal steps to reach the cab. Two very large steps up for her with no hand hold. Her light bag she tossed up through the door, but her smaller but heavy bag had to be lifted to each step in turn and then slid into the cab.

The cab had plenty of room for three and luggage. A fourth rider wouldn't have been a hardship. It was slightly cooler, which Lee welcomed. She was starting to get sweaty already.

The driver looked very much like Talker, except he was dressed in a coarse vest,  floppy hat and a pair of molded mud boots that came up almost to his knees. She knew they were mud boots because they had a good coating of the stuff, minus the generous amount shed on the floor. It smelled - earthy.

"Do you speak anything I'd know little alien gal?" he inquired.

"I'm learning Trade, but I'm not very good at it yet," Lee admitted. "You can speak to me in trade and what I don't get the translator program in my pad will fill in. Well, mostly."

"Isn't that confusing hearing both conversations at once?"

"Oh no, if it's a word I know it skips translating it. If I tell it I know one it drops it too. Or if I use a word three times correctly it will drop it on its own without being told."

"Three times
correctly
?" he asked, looking surprised. "You have better computers than us then. I can't trust mine to correct basic grammar, much less trust it to judge usage."

"One more thing to sell you," Lee said sweetly. That seemed to be her answer an awful lot.

"Then you better tell His Excellency the Voice here to give me a raise if I'm to be buying star carried goods. I'm Amiable," he informed her.

"I'm sure you are," Lee agreed. "You been most pleasant so far and kind to pick us up in the rain."

"The translator should have capitalized that and noted it was a proper noun," Talker said.

"Oh, what a sweet name. I'm Lee. I'm afraid my particular group of Humans don't use a lot of names with meanings. Or they have lost their meanings over so many thousands of years that they are lost to common usage. We have quite a few Humans from Fargone in the fleet however, who have marvelous names rich in meaning and the hopes of the parents."

"Amiable's folks probably just wanted a quiet little fellow who wasn't constant trouble like his brother before him," Talker suggested.

"What is this 'His Excellency the Voice' stuff?" Lee asked.

"I've often wondered that myself," Amiable quipped.

"Consider Talker a convenient Trade abbreviation of my full title," he suggested. "Amiable has been with my father three times as long as I've been alive. If he had to address me by my official job title his head would explode. If you say my name with his eyes closed I'm sure he still pictures me as about eight years old. But tell me I'm not doing a decent job old fellow," he challenged.

"The Biters aren't raiding our ships and the strange new aliens haven't rained death and destruction on the planet. So who am I to complain? My concerns are more about the miserable damned burrowers who keep getting in the sweet root crop."

"Don't let him fool you. He has no hesitancy to advise me asked or unasked about matter of import far exceeding crop pests."

"And have I
ever
told you wrong, my lad?"

Talker turned and regarded him with a piercing gaze that didn't seem to affect him.

"No," he admitted.

"Given your experience, and wisdom of age, what do you make of us strange new aliens? Since you have such an excellent history of good advice I seek your council," Lee asked.

"Now see? Why can't you ask all sweet and fancy like that? Amiable asked Talker first.

"You are the only sample I've seen," he told Lee. "I understand there are two more species. From what I see you aren't put off by an old man in muddy boots and a farm truck instead of a fancy ground car, and you climbed up yourself without standing waiting for somebody to take your bag and hand you up. You were looking all around on the platform like somebody who doesn't like anybody sneaking up on them, and you keep one hand free and handy to your holster. I think you'll do just
fine
."

"She has befriended me," Talker said simply.

"You could do a lot worse," Amiable assured Lee.

"Where are we going?" Lee asked after a stretch of silence suggested the previous conversation had run its natural course.

"Why, to our home of course. Do you think I'd drop a friend off at a hotel?" Talker objected.

"I didn't know you had a place on this planet. Do you have family too? Do you have
room
?"

"Enough family you'll probably be confused. Some of us may look very similar to you. Don't be shy to say if you can't place a name with a face tomorrow."

"I have a public eye on," she said, touching a pin they'd taken as fine jewelry. "If it isn't offensive to record for my own use."

"Not for your fleet records?" Talker asked

"No, just for me, as a memento and like you mentioned, to help me remember."

"But once you've recorded it who's to say your superior or the head of your fleet won't demand it of you little gal?" Amiable asked cynically.

"There's something you should probably know," Talker told him, voice strained.

"Yeah?"

"Their voyage of exploration is a private undertaking for profit, not under control of any of their various governments. They hauled a couple government spox along, but just as a favor."

"Sounds expensive," Amiable immediately decided.

"Yes, very. Lee owns a two thirds share of the whole venture. She owns three of their six starships outright and financed her share proportionally. I doubt anyone is going to
demand
anything of her."

Amiable didn't take his eyes off the road. It was obvious the truck was under manual control not any traffic system. He did mutter something the pad couldn't translate at all.

"That wasn't Trade was it?" Lee asked.

"No, it was far more colorful colloquial Badger," Talker admitted. "I'm trying to... do the phrase justice," he said, working his pad. "About the best I can do is – 'Screaming little gods of the Hot Mamas' – but I can't really explain it without some history. I think you impressed Amiable. That isn't easy to do."

Chapter 22

"We have a relayed message from Chance. All three ships are safely returned. He forwards a short summary of actions and says they accomplished their objectives. He plans a leisurely return, wide of the star, at a moderate deceleration. They will be at rest in orbit trailing the station the day after tomorrow about 1000 hours Retribution ship time," Thor informed Gordon. "Sending it to your screen."

"That was brilliant of him to show a mosaic of our different races,
minus
the Biters," Thor said, after reading awhile. "It had to be done quickly too."