Family Law 3: Secrets in the Stars (36 page)

Talker suggested they might eventually prevail and change the language if the was enough trade and exchange of ideas with the Caterpillars.

Thor was frankly on the Caterpillars' side, and hoped they would rationalize some spellings too.

The next system had a planet with water vapor in the atmosphere. The
Sharp Claws
diverted slightly to make a closer pass at speed, but there was no free standing liquid water. They decided without detectable oxygen it wasn't of interest and the fleet blasted on through the system. The
Sharp Claws
caught up and joined them at jump.

The next star showed on their forward viewports and within a couple seconds Brownie said, "We have radio emissions, standard frequency, it looks to be a claims marker."

"How old?" Gordon asked. It would be embedded in the transmission.

"Twenty two days," Brownie said after a brief delay. " We just missed them."

"Make a formal log entry about this," Gordon instructed. "Is it a system claim?"

"Yeah, they note a water world however. It must be behind the star," Brownie said.

"No point in looking at it, if it's claimed," Thor said.

"Yes," Gordon agreed. "I'm glad we don't have to fuel up or we'd owe somebody for that."

"That means we probably won't find anything between here and Derfhome worth claiming," Lee said. "That doesn't already have a marker on it, I mean."

"If they came in off a Derfhome vector," Thor agreed. "And that seems most likely," he said before Lee could object.

"Are we close enough to know the stars between here and home?" Lee asked.

"We can see Survey System 2754 from here and get a positive ID from its spectra. That's the last charted system we passed through. I can see three different routes there from here. One of them through another surveyed system. Two routes are three jumps and the most likely way for us to find anything is a four system jump to 2754. Although it is an extra jump it is a shorter route with easier jumps."

"Let's do the least likely way to get one last chance at finding something," Lee said. "No point in going back through a surveyed system until we have too."

Brownie looked over at Gordon and got a slight nod.

"OK, we are taking a side step a bit to our old line of departure, then turning toward Derfhome again" Brownie said. "I'm putting the spatial model on your screens and sending the data set to the fleet."

"We weren't gone as long as we might have been," Thor noted. "We didn't get down to boring food and didn't have any real shortages of personal items like clothing. I know a few people who even have some personal rum left."

"Yes, but I also know of one Fargoer who owes near two million dollars Ceres for poker losses," Jon Burris said. "They are insane about gambling."

"The guys holding his markers better hope he doesn't disappear between when we register our claims and they start being paid," Lee worried.

"The man was very philosophical about it," Jon said. "He said it was grand entertainment and with the sort of payout we'll see he can afford it."

"He's right," Gordon said, "but the number of splits on the claim and how far away they are is going to mean it will take several times as long to get the sort of payout Lee and I saw. Providence was close enough they sent an expedition to start exploiting it right away, and the fast paying things like a spaceport and com sats and system fueling were only split two ways. It may take months, a year even, to cover his bet."

"He could ship right out again," Lee suggested. "Nobody can bug him to pay up if he's deep in the beyond. When he comes home his income will have had a chance to get ahead of it. He could even appoint somebody to take care of it for him. I know our bank would do that without any problem."

"You know, I think I'll suggest that to the fellow," Jon said. "He seemed sad for the trip to be ending anyway."

"He'll have to find somebody else," Lee said. "It's going to take us
months
to sort out all these claims before we can think about going out again. But it is a nice bonus we have a lot of supplies left over. I hope we can leave some of them aboard, or at least use them for whatever we find to keep the ships busy until we form another fleet."

Was that a sigh of relief Gordon let out, or despair? Jon wondered. It was hard to tell.

* * *

The next system had no marker radiating a message of ownership, but it wasn't all that interesting of a system either. It had a couple gas giants and a couple airless rocky planets close to the star. There was a larger planet out further that had an atmosphere, but no free oxygen and no indications of life.

"I think we should drop a claim marker on this system," Lee said.

"Why?" Thor asked, always the skeptic. "A claim costs millions to process, and I don't see any special resources here worth the expense."

"Location. If I understand the chart Brownie put up, this system and the one already claimed are a bit of a bottle neck for anybody aimed at Far Away and all our claims in between. This is about as far as a freighter with limited legs will get from Derfhome before they are wanting to fuel up. And a freighter will take the easier jumps. You know the other system with the water world is going to set up for the gas mining business. Somebody is going to set up here too and split the business. It might as well be us," Lee said.

Thor studied the chart critically and rotated it to a different view. "I think you're right," he finally admitted. "It won't pay off right away either, but I bet we have our fees back in two years."

"I'll take it as a personal claim and finance it, if you guys think it's a bad
bet
," Lee said, sharply.

Thor was speechless for a second, but Gordon covered for him smoothly.

"No need, I'm sure the crews will be happy for every claim we make, fast or slow."

The
Sharp Claws
was diverted again to release a claims satellite on a trajectory that should put it in a stable stellar orbit for at least a few decades. They couldn't read the motions of all the local objects well enough to see past that, but it was plenty.

The systems beyond were plain vanilla, to everyone's disappointment. No water worlds, no living planets. Anything worth claiming would be all that much more valuable for being so close to home. When they got back to Survey System 2754 it was like pulling off the expressway exit back in your hometown. It was civilization even if it was empty. They made the jump back to System 2723 without incident, and took this last opportunity to fuel up for free. At Derfhome there were mining rights and they'd owe fees even if they scooped it themselves.

* * *

"Let's look sharp going home folks," Gordon requested. "I'd like the Little Fleet to transition tight. The rest of you can spread out as much as you wish, but come in right on our tick please. The Caterpillars have been doing that on their own, so we should look like we know what we're doing to traffic control and whoever happens to be insystem."

Lee still didn't understand why Gordon cared about that, but whatever made him happy…

When their home star appeared in the forward viewports it looked much the same as any of a dozen others they'd visited.

"We have the standard system scan transmission coming in. Lagging about seven hours behind local Derfhome time. I've already asked for our mail so we should have it in a bit less than fourteen hours. Later in the off shift if you want to get up to read it," Brownie told Gordon.

"I'll have Choi Eun-sook start sorting it by priority and she can wake me up if something is so hot it won't wait until we take the bridge again," Gordon said.

"Mmmm... Besides three freighters, none of which is
Red Metal
, I show a USNA heavy cruiser the
Albuquerque
, and
two
Fargone warships docked at Derfhome station and one in Derfhome orbit," Brownie said. "The heavy cruiser
Quantum Queer
and the destroyer
Straight Away
at dock, and the heavy cruiser
Bonus Points
in Derfhome polar orbit. That seems, unusual."

"Nothing early in the feed to indicate any trouble? No warning to merchant ships or declarations of navigational hazards?" Gordon asked.

"Not yet. As you implied, they'd tell us that first. Ah... Heavily encrypted radio traffic going out from the Fargoers," Brownie said. "Not any code they have shared with us. Talking with his countrymen I assume."

"We shall continue a normal approach and assume a trailing orbit on Derfhome station," Gordon decided. "Just to humor me, not because I perceive any particular problem, I'd like the
Sharp Claws
to man a full hot weapons board and stand crew to all weapons on final approach. Say from about two hours out if nothing changes."

"Aye, telling them now," Brownie said. "Privately," he added.

"That can't hurt. Thank you," Gordon agreed. "No reason to upset out new allies. We have a nice treaty after all with our North American friends. No reason to think they just didn't stop by for a little show the flag cruise. I may have our tubes hot and
The Champion William
as well if I get a bad feeling as we get closer."

Gordon looked over at Talker. "You can be discreet about this for a couple days can't you?"

"Indeed, I'm all in favor of avoiding unnecessary alarm," Talker agreed. "I'd be happy to be able to save the story for when I write my memoirs in retirement. I
am
going to live to do that, aren't I?"

"I think so," Gordon reassured him. "We really
do
have a treaty with them, but we didn't immediately become best buddies. There was no provision to trade visits. When we left they weren't sure we'd even trade
embassies
. So it would be presumptuous, at the very least an attempt at intimidation to send around armed ships uninvited. The more so when our armed ships are absent. But if they intended an actual hostile act they wouldn't be docked on the station."

"We're all alive because Gordon
says
, 'Oh, we have a treaty, and they've docked at the station'. But he
still
mans the missile tubes and suits everybody up," Thor explained.

Talker nodded, "An abundance of caution," he said.

"That's the polite form, yeah," Thor said.

"Oh, I've heard the Fargoers’ version," Talker admitted. "It started something like. 'Devious, cold blooded bastard'. And went downhill from there. I had to look up a lot of the words."

"I don't think whoever commands the
Albuquerque
is going to
give this many armed ships reason to open up on him," Lee told Talker. "If he was looking to intimidate Red Tree or any of the Derf because we were gone from Derfhome, then it was really bad timing."

* * *

When Gordon and the main crew returned for their next shift there were a lot of messages to go through. The one from the clan Mothers was on top of the queue. Gordon shared it with Thor and Lee.

"Clan son, we are glad to see your safe return. The USNA cruiser at Derfhome station is the second of their war vessels to sit there since your departure. The destroyer
Texarkana
arrived with timing suggesting it was dispatched as soon as commercial traffic to Earth carried word both of our armed ships were absent from the system. It arrived and docked within two days of normal transit time both ways after your departure. Then two weeks after its arrival the
Albuquerque
relieved it.

"Their intention seems to be not to actively seek any confrontation, but to let it hang over our heads as a reminder they are a larger better armed nation than us. That their visit is not a normal friendly visit is clear from the fact crew has not been granted leave to Derfhome. Indeed liberty to Derfhome station has been very limited and officers only.

"Perhaps they expected us to protest their presence from a position of weakness. We will not play these psychological games and
ask
for anything. If we protest it will be from a position of being able to enforce our requests.

"We sent the freighter
Red Metal
to the Fargone system with commercial cargo and gave the master letters and authorization to consult with the Fargone military. He was specifically authorized to invite them to have a presence in our system if they felt limiting the USNA influence so close to Fargone served their interests. As you see, they accepted.

"As we anticipated, they offered to make our system off limits to the USNA military vessels with an official announcement of exclusion, and to enforce that. Our spox was instructed to turn this offer down as it would make us a vassal system under Fargone protection. We had no way to prevent them doing so against our wishes, but they did not insist. Perhaps because as the Second Mother remarked, 'They realize Gordon will be returning'.

"That is an eventuality the North Americans seem to have not weighed carefully. We have no idea or intelligence what their orders are, if the Little Fleet returns. It is not our will that you quickly invite them to depart. To do so is to require us to permanently retain our armed vessels in system to enforce this at great expense. We do however intend to hold the destroyer
Sharp Claws
here at least temporarily.

"We have sent the
Red Metal
to occupy its previous wartime station, sending enough supplies that it can remain on station for an extended period. If word reaches them that the North Americans have reneged on their treaty, then we will resolve the matter permanently. They are instructed to start their run from much further out in the Solar Oort Cloud than we planned before, and rather than decapitate the North Americans with the loss of Vancouver and the surrounding region, they would impact the center of the continent with a higher energy strike, which would reduce their population and resources by an estimated eight tenths.

"If necessary we would act to further reduce that to zero before they could recover, as has been our custom of old when warring with other clans.