Family Law 3: Secrets in the Stars (28 page)

"Give me another minute," Gordon said. "Then I can start back. Whatever you did bumping me knocked it loose."

Ha-bob-bob-brie didn't think so. There was nothing rough about how he'd turned Gordon.

"If you can walk back I'll press on, gain entry and take pix," Ha-bob-bob-brie offered. Hoping he wasn't stupid enough to try to finish himself.

"OK, but I'll unhook and leave the line on you," Gordon said.

"I'm not the one having difficulties," Ha-bob-bob-brie reasoned.

"Yeah, but I'm fine now and I'll watch my oxy readout all the way back. If it starts going down I'll call for pickup. They can do it if I'm even a little bit closer. You are going deeper into danger."

Ha-bob-bob-brie didn't agree, but he tended to take Gordon's requests as orders. It was part of his culture. It was hard to say no plainly.

"I shall rig it so we can both be accommodated," Ha-bob-bob-brie told him. He pulled on the line until he got the 'Y' connector, unfastened the carabiner and passed the main cable
through
it, clipped on Gordon's suit anchor instead of clipping
on
it. He doubled up the 'Y' by attaching both ends to himself.

"There, just return along the cable and take care not to get it tangled as it plays through your ring. If you get in trouble he can pull us in, and when the 'Y' connector gets to you it will drag you right along," Ha-bob-bob-brie said, pleased with himself.

"I'll be fine. But good thinking anyway."

"Thank you. Humor us please, and read off your blood oxygen numbers aloud as you walk back," Ha-bob-bob-brie requested. "If you fall silent or the numbers drop I
shall
turn around and try to keep up with the winch as it pulls the line in."

"I thought you'd just throw me over your shoulder," Gordon chuckled.

That was a good sign. His higher functions were returning if he could crack funny.

"I'll could send Ernie on his bicycle and you can ride back on the handlebars," Ha-bob-bob-brie quipped. That would be a vision. Video of Ernie on his bike had been widely shared on the fleet net.

"Here we go... " Gordon said, and got back to his feet. He held one arm across his chest to avoid binding the line and staggered off. Getting back to a normal gait in just a few steps.

"Ninety-five," Gordon said. That was a bit low. Derf ran higher than Humans but below Hinth. Ha-bob-bob-brie watched for a moment to be sure he didn't fall on his face, and then turned and continued. "Ninety-five still," Gordon said in Ha-bob-bob-brie's helmet speakers in a minute. It was reassuring.

Chapter 18

"That's it," the embarrassed suit technician said, and dropped a twelve millimeter ball into Gordon's palm. It was mirror finish, round to within a thousandth of a millimeter, and
magnetic
. "Facing the building the intense field wouldn't let it seat. It tripped an error condition and a system fail. Facing away from the building it was pulled to the seat in its normal state and was OK.

"It's part of the regulator assembly. A check valve in the circuit that switches between recycling and make-up supply. It's buried in a brass valve assembly and not called out in the materials list."

"Thank you. I know you've been up all night tearing it apart. Take a double shift break and get some rest. Do personal recreation if you've a mind to," Gordon said.

"I am ready for some bunk time. Thank you, sir." He looked almost like he wanted to salute and restrained himself and exited the bridge without delay. He was relieved the commander didn't dress him down for almost killing him. He didn't need to be chewed out. He felt terrible already.

* * *

"It looks to be a match to the other machine," Gordon agreed, looking at Ha-bob-bob-brie's pix.

"I hope it was worth almost killing yourself to find out what we'd already figured out?" Lee said.

"Absolutely," Gordon said with no remorse. "As much as I deride the ivory tower sorts, this thing is going to take some serious talent to figure out. We weren't able to find any plain garden variety academics to come along before, if they had to dirty their hands. We had nothing specific to offer them but a long ride into the unknown.

"This kind of a mystery will pull in the sort who are the real deal. People who want to know what makes things tick because it drives them nuts not to know. Not the sort who think about tenure, coeds, insurance and a good parking spot before they care about what they will research. If we just
assumed
they were related, and hadn't looked, most of them would have wasted all their energy arguing whether the opposite buildings were even related instead of just coming to
see
. Having the proof it is a single-world sized system just baits the hook to get the level of talent this demands."

"And you won't demand that sort of person wash dishes and change filters for the ride?" Lee asked.

"I'd lease a luxury liner to bring anybody smart enough to hand me the principles of that machine out to look at it in comfort," Gordon assured her. "A trillion dollars Ceres for a liner and two armed escorts for a year would be a cheap investment for knowing whatever powers those things."

"We have a few billion to account by now." Lee thought about it a second. "Maybe a few hundred billion by now even," But the two of us together don't have a Trillion. Yet."

"We will after we file all the claims on this trip," Gordon said. "And a billion doesn't buy what it used to," he reminded her.

She couldn't argue with that.

"We found some more junk in the little building," Lee told him.

"I read that. But no organic remains?" Gordon asked.

"No, but Doc Ellis is going to try to recover some DNA from the suit interior. Assuming they use DNA or something close to it." Talker looked at her with that crease between his eyes he got when he was thinking too hard, but he didn't say anything.

"I know that look. What are you worried about," Lee demanded.

"Not worried. Just unaware and curious about human customs with names," Talker said.

"The Fargoers have some strange ones," Lee admitted.

"Their names that have meaning or express a hope resonate with Badgers very well. I was just wondering if Doctor Ellis and Mr. Ellis, Jeremiah, on the
Retribution
are family?"

"I never bothered to ask," Lee told him. "They might not know or particularly care if it was generations back. Humans with the same surname are very common. In some countries like China you might find a million people with the same family name."

"There's entirely too many of them," Thor complained to Talker.

"Ellises?" Talker asked.

"Humans."

"Didn't they get DNA from the leg?" Gordon asked, back on subject, and wanting to shut Thor up.

"Yeah, but like you said about assuming stuff, he wouldn't assume the obvious fact they were used by the same people if they had sequential serial numbers engraved on them!" Lee said.

"You
do
understand then," Gordon said, satisfied. "You wouldn't have understood those personality quirks a year ago."

"I understand them OK, but I don't
like
them. When you said I had to learn how to deal with people and Human societies you didn't tell me it was going to drive me nuts. They're infuriating. And the Derf aren't much better," she complained.

"It would have been kind of cruel to dump that on you when you had so much else with which to deal. Don't you think? Really, are the Badgers any better?" Gordon asked. "You spent some time with them and seem to have been charmed by them."

"Talker is OK," She thought about it and seemed surprised at her own conclusions. "His dad and his farm foreman were nice. Nobody treated me
bad
. Nothing like Earth. But Badger society? It needs some
tweaks
," she assured Gordon, making a little adjusting twist with her fingers. "But that's another project for later."

Thankfully Talker didn't hear that chilling assessment.

* * *

They left a claims marker around the world, unaware how that looked to the Badgers and Bills. To their mind the buildings and a running machine that could shield a whole world were a marker all their own. Maybe it was a natural disaster and not a hostile action that dropped an asteroid on the planet, but how would it
look
?

If it was a cosmic accident, might not a race that could build such a machine still lay claim to the planet? Even if it sat abandoned a few thousand years? Might not a race that could build such a machine plan on as grand a time scale? It worried them. As for the Caterpillars, who knew if they had any idea what the satellite left behind signified?

Talker broached the subject with Lee. "If the Centaurs should return to find their world marked by your claims satellite might they not take it poorly?"

"It would appear it has been ignored some thousands of years. Maybe
many
thousands of years. Let me tell you about when we presented our claim to Providence to the Commission on Earth. There was a lady at the hearing who asked if there wasn't some intelligence who might own the world. Apparently it is a regular occurrence for her to object to any expansion because of such a risk.

"The fellow doing the announcement detailed that there was no sign of a sapient. No agriculture. No vessels on the seas, much less the air or heavens. No smoke or structures. There wasn't even as much as a road that wasn't a game trail from wild animals, but he assured her that every claimant and those that paid to have land and other assets did so at the risk of losing it all if such a owner should appear.

"If somebody shows up and says they built the machines and it's their world by right of improvement then we'd yield it to them without argument."

"That's reassuring," Talker said. "If that happens I hope they take the time to talk and allow you to withdraw."

"Why wouldn't they?" Lee asked.

"They might assume you are the ones who dropped the asteroid," Talker said.

That disturbed Lee enough she discussed it with Gordon, but as Lee had already told Talker, you'd have to stay home and never risk claiming anything to avoid such a risk.

* * *

The next system to which they jumped had no unusual radar returns. In fact it had a scarcity of asteroids. It had a rocky planet very close to the sun and a hothouse planet just like Venus. As unlikely as the inner planet was, they sent the
Sharp Claws
to make a close pass just because it was one jump from the system with mining and the world shielding machine. It was a baked bare rock.

The gas giants were far out and small. Which fit with the general lack of a lot of material in the system. Gordon had Brownie pick a target star beyond and they were accelerating at their usual easy pace for jump even before the last radar echoes from the far fringes of the system returned.

* * *

"Doc Ellis says there are bits and pieces of the same proteins in the empty suit as he found in the leg samples," Lee read off the screen to Gordon. He limited how much he got into the net when he was sitting in command mode.

"So they
are
the same species of aliens," Gordon said. He didn't make it a question.

"He admitted it's
probable
," Lee said.

"He wouldn't admit Thor and I are related without running a genotype," Gordon said.

"Neither would I," Thor said, giving him a squinty eyed look.

"I
was
out of your sight a few times. A couple
days
on New Japan. I might be a shape-shifting monster that ate Gordon and absorbed all his memories," Gordon theorized, playing along.

"You have shapeshifter legends on Derfhome?" Jon Burris asked from the master com console.

"Not really," Gordon said, embarrassed. "I got that reading trashy Earth books."

"If the monster knows and remembers everything Gordon did, what is the difference to me if you have different genes now, but treat me exactly the same?" Lee asked.

"None at all, until some night it decides to
slither
in your bunk and absorb you too," Gordon said, in a really creepy voice.

"That's terrible. You gave me goose bumps all over," Lee protested, rubbing her arms.

Ha-bob-bob-brie leaned closer and observed. "Interesting. But feathers would be much nicer."

They jumped out without further incident.

* * *

"Clean sky. Everybody is here. Ping the system?" Brownie asked Gordon.

"Yeah, looks like nobody is home. Do it."

After a moment Brownie spoke again. "I doubt it is coincidence, but the Caterpillars jumped with us. That would mean they've deciphered enough of our chatter to understand time units and numbers."

"How close?" Gordon asked.

"To the second within fourteen places. Tight enough to jump in close formation with us."

"I hope they don't take up doing that uninvited," Gordon said.

"Jumping out of sync would be as dangerous for them as us," Brownie pointed out. "They aren't stupid and I wouldn't be surprised if their clocks are a digit or two better than ours."

"So they must know our numbers, spoken and binary, and 'yes'. Why aren't they talking to us or at least trying harder to so?" Thor asked.

"We are trying," Talker assured him. He seemed upset. He was still on the
High Hopes
just for the purpose of pushing forward translation with the Caterpillars. The bridge was crowded in fact with two riding in jump seats.

"No criticism implied," Thor said. "Or at least them, not you." Talker just nodded at that.

"Maybe they have a
thing
about error," Ha-bob-bob-brie said in a rare suggestion.

"What kind of a
thing
?" Thor asked.

"It's an occasional mental illness among my people to have an abhorrence of any error. They fear it so much they are locked in indecision and can't function. It usually shows up very early in an individual when they are first learning to count. They count over and over, never confident of their answer."