I Work On A Starship

Frothup: Tourist!

2011-11-10T18:54:00.000-08:00

Not to impugn the Edger tendency to be...cryptic...this is one of the doors to a bookstore across from my autotel and down a ways:At least I'm pretty sure it's a bookstore, based on the window displays and other signage. So far, it hasn't been open when I've been around.

Edgers!

Frothup: Dropping In Part 13

2011-11-08T20:55:00.000-08:00

[TO THE BEGINNING]

Focused on the immediate threat, I forgot all about the approaching car until it squealed up to curb next to us, a bright orange VW Beetle with plenty of years on it. The boys all jumped back and I stepped the other way. The driver's door popped open and Rannie Wu followed it like she was on springs.

She was in full USSF Reserve uniform, with sidearm. She faced my confronters, five and a half feet of stern fury, hand on the Beretta, not quite drawing it. "Gentlemen! So nice of you to entertain my shipmate. But it's time to go now, don't you think?"

They didn't stop to discuss it; they faded back, avoiding her glare.

I've never been happier to see the impatient Lieutenant. She hissed at me, "Don't just stand there, you idiot, get in the car!"

I complied with alacrity. The door groaned shut and I pushed the lock button down. Then, my phone rang. Y'know, Tim might have a point.

Lt. Wu glanced my way. Her phone was ringing, too. "General alert. Ignore it." She looked back at the departing locals, who were far enough away to feel safe shouting "Fascists!" at us.

"Idiots," Rannie remarked. "Thugs." She turned, sat down and had her door shut and the car in gear and moving all in one swiftly fluid sweep. "At least you're not missing. One of your clever little friends has put himself in serious trouble. I might as well get you up to speed."

The gist of her update was simple enough: Of course things had been falling apart while I had been, as The Chief later put it in his usual sensitive way, "frittering away the afternoon on shoptalk." I'd been his last call in search of Handsome Dave. When it turned out I had no idea where he was, either, The Chief had notified Lupine's Security Director, Mike Mathis that we had a crewman missing. Mike had redirected his forces on the ground, which meant interrupting Rannie Wu's intel contacts and rousting T away from her book. They'd both been dispatched to Aberstwyth Admin: City Hall, close enough, and seat of the planetary government; also "police" (Public Safety) HQ, consisting a set of dingy offices, a server for "Peace Alerts" and a cell stacked with paperwork. It wasn't a third the size of Aberstwyth Port Security.

It was more than big enough for Aberstwyth's Director of Public Saftey, his assistant, T, and — by phone from the ship — Lupine Security Director Mathis. It was Rannie Wu who made it crowded, despite being the smallest person in the room. —Mind you, I got all this second-hand from Rannie and T (who does love a good yarn); but I've had my run-ins with the USSF-I Lt. before in both of her capacities and I don't doubt T's version in the least.

From Lt. Wu's standpoint, her reaction was understandable; the earlier sabotage had been abruptly followed by brazen theft and what looked like a crewman's kidnapping; now she was learning the "planetary police force" consisted of three individuals and a computer bulletin board. That was a quarter the size of Lupine's Security and fewer than the number of known USSF-Intelligence reservists aboard ship.

She was already there when T arrived, angry enough to spit nails. The DPS, a well-padded middle-aged fellow with a complicated-looking artificial right leg, was standing next to his desk, looking harassed; his assistant, seated at the desk, watched with a wary expression. A computer monitor on the desk had been turned so it could be seen from most of the room.

Rannie was standing nearly toe-to-toe with the police chief, hands on hips, every visible muscle tensed. "You're kidding me. You have got to be joking. We've had sabotage, brazen theft and now a kidnapping and you...have done...nothing?"

While Lt. Wu spoke, T edged in the door and stood quietly. The assistant DPS noticed and raised a hand in a "hold-on" gesture. At the same time, T realized her boss was on the monitor: Lupine's "Sheriff" Mike Mathis.

The DPS — he was dressed in the usual shorts-and-loose-shirt, though his were all tan and sported a badge and a nametag reading, simply, "JIM" — eased his weight partially onto the desktop and gained a little space. "Ma'am—" he began, earning a glare, "Loo-tenant Wu, we have put alerts on the server, did so as soon as they came in. Every security service and department that can connect to the web will see 'em. Port Security tells me they are 90 percent sure they know who bollixed your noisy shuttles, Hack at Irrational Numbers is doing all anybody can do to figure out who store your ship's new engine parts and as for this "kidnapping," your man is four hours late. I think you're over-excited."

Rannie drew a deep breath and it's hard to say what she might've done or said in reply, because T did what any good ship's cop would do: divert, defuse, deflect. "Hey there, Lieutenant Wu, Mike, um, Jim and—"

Rannie turned towards T. The Assistant DPS demonstrated peace-officer instincts; she stood up and leaned over the desk, right into Rannie's path, holding out her hand. "Arabella. Arabella Washington. And you must be Ta-"

"She certainly is," Rannie said. "And she's late."

That was enough of an opening for Jim to get farther back and Mike Mathis to pipe up, "Lt. Wu, as far as I know, you're the only crewperson on-planet with a vehicle. T got here as fast as she could."

Rannie kind of huffed at that but it shut her full boil down to a simmer. Arabella and T traded wry looks.

Mike continued, "T, I've been bringing everybody up to speed. Our friends here aren't so sure Dave's really missing; they don't know him like we do." True enough; while there's no such thing as a short conversation with Handsome Dave — what we call The Dave Treatment is in large part a natural gift for being a good listener — the man is as dependable as a clock. "I've put a temporary hold on squirt-boosters after the next launch up; we've got eight hours at least. I want you and Lt. Wu to round up your pal Roberta and the two pilots we've got down there, and I want a read on the preacher, that George Wells and his buddies. I was gonna send his sister down on the next drop but DPS McAlheny tells me he's not running a prison."

The DPS leaned in. "'Jim' is fine. All I have is a place to hold folks who get intoxicated and won't go home, idiots who keep fighting, that sort, overnight or a couple days until they can get adjudicated. Somebody rates locked up, and I'm not sure Miss Irene Wells does, you'll have to negotiate for bonded storage."

I'm glad I heard about that after the fact — the last time I'd seen Irene Wells, she was in the process of arranging my death and nearly succeeded. Trained as some kind of Edger last-ditch militia and probably not too tightly wrapped, she'd turned murderous while following her brother on his mission to bring his philosophy to the Hidden Frontier. (See Another Day for the whole story).

Mike looked resigned. "She rates a cell on this ship; she admitted to all charges and invoked the Aggreement."

Jim shrugged, "Not how we'd handle it. If she is under charges, all it takes is for her to swear pax and post a surety so she need not be confined; she would be on the next homeward ship or posted forfeit." Aberstwyth might have switched sides but their legal system was still mostly Far Edge: restitutional justice and what still strikes me as a naive faith a person's word is their bond, at least when backed up by a big chunk of cash they'll lose if they break it. (Edger ship law is different and altogether harsher; instead of jail, they give vacuum-breathing lessons. The offense rate is low but the recidivism rate is even lower).

Mike said, "I know how you'd do it. So she's staying put. I still need to locate my people and I don't care how clean he is, Wells and his merry band need checked out."

Even Jim agreed to that much — "As long as nobody has their privacy invaded." The assistant DPS was put to calling up the public information on Wells, who had a lecture meeting slated for that very evening; T did a follow-up on all crewpersons known to be on-planet, narrowing down an already short list and ending up with one location-unknown in addition to Dave: me.

For reasons that I'm sure must have looked sensible to someone — T just looked at me like I was an idiot when I interrupted her description to ask why — on Frothup, celphone location data is only available if the customer dials 999 for emergency help; lacking GPS satellites, it is localized to the cell level, which information is given to ambulance and/or security providers by the phone company's own call center. Okay, lacking that, they could have simply called me; they could have called my boss, especially since he was the guy who told them Dave had gone missing. Instead, they tried Irrational, learned Finley and I had left and for where, spent a little while finding out there was one (1) listed phone number for the "Co-operative," a telephone answered by uncooperative persons, and sent Rannie to retrieve me.

I guess it worked out. Certainly even with the hyper-efficient, cranky Lt. Wu irked at me, I was happy she found me when she did.

She always makes me feel like I should've spent more time at the mirror; where I'm looking pretty rumpled by the time I arrive at Engineering in the morning and the less said about my hair, the better, Rannie Wu looks sleek, uniform (Merchant Service or USSF-Reserve) perfectly in order, long reddish-black hair pulled back in a ponytail with not a strand out of place, and the kind of skin and coloring that makes makeup redundant. Being annoyed makes her, if anything, look even more poised. That said, she appeared to have reached a state somewhere past simple irk, positively humming with controlled anger. Sitting next to her as she slewed the elderly Bug around and zoomed back towards the main road, I tried to make sense of it. "You think Dave got kidnapped?" was what I came up with.

She gave me a sidelong glance, then looked back at the street ahead, downshifting and passing an automated truck. "I haven't made any conclusion. It could have happened. Your supervisor and Mister Mathis want to locate David. I was supposed to be working with one of the Security shift supervisors, finding how someone got access to our sabotage our squirt-boosters in a secure facility, so I was available."

It made sense — Lt. Wu's actual job is inventory control and analysis, a kind of perpetual audit of Stores & Cargo that can make the difference between profit or loss — and, sometimes, between surviving and not. Scuttlebutt has it the United States Space Force had trained her as an intelligence analyst, searching out the effects of Edger smuggling on trade to pinpoint who they were dealing eat on Earth and where they were landing, a kind of spy-accountant. When peace broke out, she got RIFfed the same as I did — except that as an officer, they kept her on as a reservist, provided she could find a job in the newly-civilian merchant fleet. You might think "inventory control" was dull routine but in fact, knowing exactly what and how much the ship has of, well, everything at any given time is essential, if Lupine is to avoid coming up short lightyears away from any possible resupply. With T to check the physical arrangements and Rannie going over the records, they'd make a formidable investigative team. She seemed plenty formidable to me, taking the corner on dark yellow (literally, many of Aberstwyth's traffic lights being plain weird) and very nearly two wheels. I didn't even know an old Bug could do that.

Rannie made frustrated sound, something between a hiss and a sigh, and got the car around slower traffic and into what passed for a fast lane before continuing, "Since I was the only one who bothered to obtain a vehicle, I was the only choice. Now that I've found you, though—" She broke off as another driverless truck changed lanes in front of us. Another pulled up next to the Bug and both slowed to the speed limit. Rannie frowned and huffed, "Oh, not again."

I tried not to smile. It had that Edger feel: unlikely to be chance and it beat either a traffic ticket or impact-testing the little car.

Rannie had puzzles on her mind other than traffic control."There's something being overlooked. Frothup is allied with NATO and we're all such friends—" (Looking back only a few minutes, you sure could have fooled me about that) "—but FCS still has a presence here and nobody — not the local 'police,' not Mr. Mathis — wants to even notice it. We have a chance to see what they're up to, right now."

I asked, "Hadn't I better report in first?"

She snorted. "Hah! Aren't you even a little curious?"

I wasn't, my previous encounters with avid Federation of Concerned Spacemen members not having been especially safe or, in one case, even sane, but she was driving. Besides, the Purser's Department can make your life pure-dee hell without even trying; getting on Rannie's bad side would not be wise. So I just shrugged.

"The FCS office is only a short distance away. A nice little visit couldn't do any harm."

I had my doubts about every part of that statement, but I wasn't doing the driving.

True to form, she had rented a fancier phone than the minimum the Starship Company will cover and even without GPS satellites, it tracked its own location pretty well on cell triangulation and dead reckoning. She already had the address programmed in.

The place was on the far side of Aberstwyth from the port and a couple of blocks South of us. We were there in ten minutes. FCS Hall was a plain-looking industrial building, with block walls and a sheet-metal facade. Double doors opened into a tiny lobby, with another set of doors directly ahead. A sign on them read "CLOSED," above a list of coming events, some already past. To the right, a ticket window and a door next to it labeled "OFFICE."

Rannie strode through like she was serving a warrant; I trailed after. It looked like the lobby of a small business; a stocky, fit-looking and very blond young man behind a desk started to ask,

"Can I help—?" Then he took in Rannie's grim expression and uniform and stood up. "Hey! You stop right there!" He was armed and his right hand was on the butt of whatever kind of pistol he was carrying. I couldn't tell what it was and I didn't much care.

I'm not brave, or bulletproof either. I sidestepped, hands held out. I remember thinking, irrelevantly, that his eyes were an unusual color, very light hazel, almost gold. He had a laser-leveled flat-top haircut, too. His plain shirt and slacks looked almost like a uniform, right down to a nametape reading "T. HUCKLESTON" over a chest pocket.

Rannie ignored the gun and me as well. She marched right up to the desk, commanding the space disproportionately to her size. "The War ended a long time ago; don't be silly, young man." To my surprise, it worked. He took a step back, uncertain. Rannie put her hands on the desk and leaned across, right into his personal space. "Are you in charge of this office?"

"Um, no. No ma'am. That would be Hank. Uh, Hank Kimball. I am his assistant."

Rannie nodded curtly. "Then fetch him."

"Not until after four! Ah — I mean, he is not here." But the protesting assistant had taken a quick look towards a door in the wall to his right.

Rannie smiled in a way that promised nothing good and said, "You're not much of a liar. Shall we try again?"

The young man set his jaw. "He is not to be disturbed!"

Rannie's smile got wider. "I'm sure he wouldn't find a friendly visit disturbing. Why don't you ask him?"

It's not that she's all that persuasive or physically intimidating; Lt. Wu possesses the kind of tenacity found in bulldogs and IRS agents and when yopu factor in her propensity to operate in a kind of simmering snit, she can only be resisted for so long and then you've either got to shoot her or give in. The assistant seemed to be giving the first option serious consideration; he glanced around a bit wild-eyed, but his hand finally left the gun. I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding and made an irrelevant mental note that he had one of those clunky plastic-frame guns. I was trying to figure out which one it was — some of them don't even have a real safety — when Rannie abruptly turned and strode to the door the young man had glanced towards.

"Come along," she said, opening it to reveal a long hallway.

The assistant said, "Hey—!" But he'd lost the initiative; he caught up with her in three long steps and I hurried after, the door closing behind me. He started to put a hand on her shoulder but she spun around, one hand up.

"Ah-a," Rannie chided.

"No, wait, you do not even know where you are going."

"I'm sure you'll rectify that."

He shrugged, started to edge past her and made an abrupt feint, both hands and one foot in motion; Rannie conveted her warning gesture into an odd block that involved kicking off from the wall and turning. By then, I'd stepped back. They froze for a moment and then started trading move for move, evading, each moving to grapple and never quite connecting, faster and faster. I had no idea what to do — I'd about made up my mind to go grab a chair from the room we'd just left and try to hit the attacking Edger, when he began to laugh. Rannie stopped in mid-attack, puzzled. He held up both hands in surrender and tried to say something, stopped and started over, "Okay, lady, no shooting!"

"Why not?" Sure enough, Rannie's hand was on her still-holstered sidearm. Again.

"Pax! I yield. You are no ninety-day wonder, Lieutenant."

Rannie looked daggers at him, "But you just had to try?"

He grinned. "Affirmative."

"Hmpf."

There's no telling how long they'd've gone on like that, but they didn't get much time. The door at the far end of the corridor opened and a stranger looked out, exhaling a long blue ribbon of smoke. Handsome Dave was looking over his shoulder, a cigarette dangling in his mouth.

"Huck! Technician Huckleston! What is going on out here?" the stranger asked.

The young Edger had turned away from me by then but his body language spoke volumes. And as my fellow Engineering Tech Dave recognized me and then Lt. Wui, his expression took a similar turn: Uh-oh. Or possibly even Ohsh-t!

It had been another long day, even allowing for Frothup's 30-odd hours; they both looked so much like kids caught raiding the cookie jar that I started laughing so hard I had to lean against the wall.

Frothup: Dropping In, Part 12

2011-07-15T10:48:00.000-07:00

[TO THE BEGINNING]

As I've said, Finley managed to deflect what looked to me like an outpouring of long-suppressed wrath from the hyperspace engineer and we parted from him on at least neutral terms. Once we were making our way back across the gravelled chaos of the "Cooperative," Finley started to chuckle.

I didn't think it was funny. "What got into him? It's just a telephone."

"It is for you. —There's a reason he's not working over at Tweed. Or anywhere else."

"Oh?"

"You ever notice how the best 'Drive people, the top navigators and automation designers, all tend to be a little different?"

I thought about it. Take Lupine Engineering: we're an assorted lot but pretty typical of the genus geek, it seemed to me: at turns hyperfocused and distractable, not always so great with the interpersonal stuff. Okay, not average, but who is? "Not really. But I didn't mean to upset him."

He misread my expression (or did he?) "Ha! You do know what I mean. Your tutor — did Tim ever even introduce himself? — is a real extreme case, is all. Did him good to be reminded some of us have bosses."

We parted company at the park. Finley headed toward the Tweed building and I walked back towards my autotel, keeping an eye out for a bus or a marked stop. (I really should have looked up the returning bus schedule!) The anti-Earth graffiti on the park gate was already starting to blur and fade. Frothup's long days meant there was still plenty of light and so far, there'd been no hint of rain. The corner where I'd stepped off the bus didn't have any of the usual signs. The one by the autotel'd had read...Oh, duh. "Phi-Low Transport Stop 6." I hadn't noticed any barcode nonsense syllables on the bus, though.

I kept walking, figuring I'd come to Thoth Street in a few blocks and walk the rest of the way unless a bus happened by. A big, fading, half-painted over poster on the side of a building three stores high caught my attention. It looked like had shown a row of tractors working vast fields; the text at the bottom was illegible but at the top, I could make out "H..LP FCS...IGHT..." and below that, "...e Food Army...." The Far Edge had been in a bad way right after withdrawing from Lyndon/Linden, the oldest settled planet and the only one with four names: It was their breadbasket. They'd called it Peace-and-Prosperity, which has always struck me as wishful thinking. Still, the settled region is great for farming and the easily-mined coal at Pitty doesn't hurt. After they'd skipped out at Lyndon, they'd had to go with Plan B. Frothup had been one of a pair of worlds found suitable for rapid agricultural expansion. The other one had failed, (rumor says very badly), but things had worked out here. It put me in happier mood — the place didn't have that many people, only a few towns and just one large city; we'd find the stolen 'Drive amplifiers and if some of the people were hostile, so what? Most were not. Weren't. I corrected myself and wondered if I was starting to pick up the accent. Things weren't so bad. Raub and Handsome Dave would get the sabotaged squirt-boosters squared away, I'd finish the class on the new 'Drive amps I was supposed to be taking, we'd check out the recovered units, install them and it's all be back to normal.

Picture me, if you will, strolling along on a fine later afternoon, reading old billboards, gawking at buildings and the somewhat overwhelming arch of blue sky overhead, starting to be dotted with clouds from the direction of the port, the city's hum briefly broken by the distant Ba-bam! pop-pop of a squirt-booster leaving port. I spotted the little exclamation marks of a course and attitude adjustment scrawled high in the sky. I looked for the wavering star of Lupine herself without success; held "parked" at low-orbit altitude on the fusion/MGHD drives, far above the far side of the port from the city, reflectivity reduced by the barely-idling drive that keeps realspace effective mass manageable, it didn't take much of a cloud to hide the ship from view. Closer to sunset, she'd sparkle against the darkening sky but it was still too early for that.

When I looked down, I had company. Three young men — late teens, maybe, or a little older — had arranged themselves on the sidewalk ahead, blocking my path. One wore a dark T-shirt with the circled-A-and-star, and a truculent expression. The shirt hung so long that only the ragged cuffs of denim shorts could be seen between and his legs. His companions looked a little uncertain; both were dressed in dungarees and tan tropical-type shirts, almost like a uniform. All of them had buzz-cuts, grown out to various degrees.

What the heck, I smiled and said, "Howdy," as the distance closed.

The T-shirt wearer gave me an insolent once-over, shrugged. "You are a long way from home, lady."

One of his companions snickered. "Yeah. Long way."

Well, that was true, but it wasn't friendly. I stopped farther away than I usually would and tried to look around without appearing to. Still— "Not as far as you'd think." Nobody else in sight. Two intersections down, traffic came and went, but never turned our way.

He snorted. "Too far, Earth-girl. Nobody wants you people here."

"Hey, look, I'm just goin' where they tell me—"

One of his pals, the guy who'd snickered, "You people are hanging a warship over us!"

The ringleader took a step towards me. "Nearly bombed us by accident, is what I hear. Or was it an 'accident?'"

I wondered who'd been telling tales out of school? Our would-be saboteurs? Oh, there was no winning this one. It was worth a bluff; I stood up straight and gave them my best schoolteacher look. "I don't know what kind of wild rumors are goin' around, gents, but Lupine has been a plain cargo and passenger ship for twenty years, we never park over settled lands and the ship hasn't got any bombs."

He gave me a nasty smile and rubbed his hand over his scalp. "Right. Like Earth would tell the truth. The whole city heard your misfire the other day!"

Misfire? —Right. Butch's seat-of-the-pants corrections on our wild ride down, lower and louder than usual, especially for a port more used to little Edger bell-ships whistling and buzzing down. I looked him square in the eye and lied, "Just the normal sound of normal squirt-booster operations, Mister—?"

"We reject your empty titles! 'Normal?' Do you think we are all deaf?"

He was nearly shouting and way closer than I wanted. Oh, this was going well. I hoped my increasing panic wasn't showing.

The snickerer took a step closer, too. I held up both hands in front of myself what I hoped was a placating manner and thought about pocketknife in my wright pocket. I was wishing for the first time since Linden/Lyndon that I was armed with something a little scarier. Still, you can't let 'em know they're getting to you, right? I smiled, "Not at all. I think you're used to different ships." I took a sidestep and saw a car turn onto the street from the busy crossroad and head our way, a bright speck. I sure hoped they would keep on coming.

The guy in the FCS T-shirt shook his head. "Lies. Nothing but lies." He stepped within arm's reach, his buddies close behind.

Now I really wanted to be carrying a gun. I'm not all that great; I probably wasn't was gonna quick-draw and do an El Presidente against three guys at close range, especially since there was a good chance they were armed, this being a former Far Edge planet. The way things were going, it sure looked like I was about to discover Edgers were not the least bit sexist about administering a curb-stomping and I would rather have some other options.

If I'd been a little smarter — or paid attention in the self-defense classes T and Ian take turns giving — I would have stepped back, increased the distance. As it was, I thought it would make things worse, so I stood my ground. It wasn't helping.

[CONTINUED HERE]

Frothup: Dropping In, Part 11

2011-06-22T19:17:00.000-07:00

[TO THE BEGINNING]

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... Really, it was a normal-looking street, as normal goes on Frothup; since the bus lines were in off-peak mode and a couple of those had been diverted to the Port route, the plan was that our guy would meet up with an Innovative vehicle to ride to their yard. Handsome Dave had walked up Thoth Street a couple of blocks to 315 and turned portward, headed towards where the Innovative truck was supposed to find him. At the first intersection (I looked it up — Set Street, of course), a tiny car sidled up to curb directly in his path. The passenger door popped open as it stopped and the driver said, "Get in!"

Dave said something conversational about this not being the kind of truck he expected but the driver merely repeated the command, expression unreadable behind huge, dark sunglasses — and pointed a gun at him. He did as he was told.

Not that I knew anything about it at the time. It was awhile before any of us found out, when Innovative started asking how come our guy couldn't be bothered to show up as planned. Their driver had a schedule to keep; in addition to spacecraft, the company serviced a wide range of large, complex machinery, too varied to leave to even Edger robotics for loading, transport and unloading. He'd waited ten minutes, tried Dave's cell phone (via Lupine) a couple times, notified his co-ordinator and gone on. The usual daisy-chain followed; you can fill in from there.

Eventually, someone at Innovative ended up talking to the the Chief, who informed Lupine Security as a matter of SOP. The ship, after all, has crew on the ground in some interesting places — Linden/Lyndon, the ex-Soviet worlds (except for Stalin Mir, of course), even "safe" planets like Blizzard or Kansas II are not without hazard. So in due course, my phone rang and so did T's.

I'll assume she was reading. Me, I was just inside a kind of a building at the "Technical Assistance Collective," trying to make sense of the place and wondering what I'd got myself into.

One of the kettle-tenders had noticed us, waved and jogged over. "Mike! Man, I hardly see you," he said. He bore a strong resemblance to my native guide.

"I never know when you'll be busy. —They've got you cooking?"

The other man — he looked to be early 30s at most — looked a little abashed and waved a hand vaguely at the fire. "Got stuck. Change of pace. You know. Hey, it's ollapodrida — want a bowl?" He noticed me and waved more widely. "Plenty there."

"We've eaten." Mike looked to me. "Roberta, this disreputable specimen is my baby brother. And possibly the best 'Drive-space theoretician we've got. Call him H.P."

The subject of this praise looked a little flustered. "I guess I do okay. Do better if I could just..." He trailed off and looked distractedly into the distance, lips moving. "Hey! ...Maybe." He looked back to us, said "Um. Nicemeetingyou. Gottagit," and dashed off towards one of the temporary-looking structures some distance away.

Mike watched him go with a half-smile. "We might not see him for awhile. During the War, sometimes he'd... Ah. Well." He started walking towards a different little building and I fell in beside him.

To my eye, neither man looked much older than me. "'The War?' You fought?"
He fell out of reverie with a visible start. "'Drive Tech 1, FCS contract fleet, on Lang's Longhauler. H.P. was in Navs. —How old do you think I am?"

I figured I should guess high. "45? 50?"

"Not by the calendar. Double-Ell spent a lot of time at a large fraction of c. We went in after your lot took 'Linden.' I was thirty-three."

Fifty years ago.

He looked wistful. "After '89, our contracts were released. Our home ship had survived. We went back but it wasn't home any more. Even the people we had known—" He stopped, looking blindly into the distance.

Sure, the '89 Agreement promised those touched by the conflict a trip home. But in a move eventually duplicated by NATO and the former USSR, in the first year of open conflict, the Far Edge owner/captains comprising the contract fleet of Federation of Concerned Spacemen came up with an analog to "Boomer" nuclear missile submarines: "Ghost Ships," running at a high fraction of light speed, transiting a system too rapidly to be intercepted even if it had been located,bobbing into Jump once it was far enough away and re-emerging, several jumps later, lined up for another run. Orders were given by ansible in Jump; on return to normal space, an attack could be launched, deadly and practically impossible to stop because of the extreme velocity. It was risky, a collision with even a small object likely to destroy the ship; but it was a major part of the tottering balance that prevented major destructive attack against inhabited planets and stations. For the crew, at such velocities, time slowed; years passed in the war as months did aboard and every Jump brought unexpected change, news twittering in over the ansible at rates that took sophisticated equipment to catch and slow to readability. They were isolated more thoroughly than any Boomer crew: at the end of a Ghost Ship crew's tour, a year of more of subjective time, family and friends left behind had aged up to a decade; over the course of the war, a lifetime or more had passed in five or six years of shipboard time and short, disorienting leaves.

Most crews stayed on after their first tour, in the company of others likewise adrift in time. Reintegration had been difficult — dour Gale Grinnel in Lupine's Engineering department was a typical Ghost Ship veteran: dour, uncommunicative, competent and distant. And at that, our side only ran such vessels for the last twenty years of the War.

I was taken by surprise. "Geez! I didn't know. Mike, that's lousy."

"Yeah, but at least it was the two of us. It could have been a lot worse. It was for most crew." He shrugged. "we're here. We survived. —Time's wasting. Let us see if we can educate you."
He walked off towards "R&D" and I scrambled to keep up.

The rambling shack we were headed to was farther away than it had looked, with huge windows that seemed to have been pried together from whatever random pieces of glass and plastic the builders had found.

By way of changing the subject, I asked Mike about the oddball structure and the people in it. "It's what FCS recognizes as a Voluntarist Syndicate. You can call it an anarchist commune," he said, "More or less. Propped up by business owners who provided the land and the big roof and still pay baseline utilities. Tweed objected to the contribution Irrational Numbers makes until we took them line-by-line through the ROI: most of our advances come from here, or from people who choose to live here. It's a safety valve for the participants: shelter of sorts, access to a little power and clean water, and a chance to...work at what strikes their interest. Or do nothing, though that's frowned on. We don't have a university-as-such but this is a substitute." He gestured at our surroundings: a scattering of trailers and ramshackle buildings, the graveled floor, the rough, soaring roof and pillars and posts holding it up, lit by scattered skylights, unglazed openings and assorted high-efficiency lights. "Sort of."

Hyperphysics Application House — at least that's what it said over the door — resembled Doc Daugherty's office at Irrational, only on a grand scale. The big windows opened onto a large area with workbenches nearest them, everything from wildly piled to carefully ordered or even completely bare, some with names or warning notes. Past them, an open area with blackboards and groups of chairs and on the far wall, a few desks and a large, old-fashioned corkboard, cluttered with notices and posters and sign-up sheets.

Mike didn't slow down; he made a beeline for the board while I gawked like a tourist in his wake. It was a complete antithesis of shipboard Engineering. It was the Chief's worst nightmare.

"Ha! The very guy," Mike said. "Come on."

And he took off for a door, about the time I'd found a sign-up sheet for time slots on Free Research Vessel Bloater. Oh, appealing name. I doubletimed after Mike through the door. It gave on a hall; rooms opened off the hall and one of them proved to be the office/apartment of another one of Mike's former crewmates, who initially scowled at us but rapidly warmed to a chance to lecture.

I can't go too much into detail about what I was stuck on (plus it's embarrassingly self-evident in hindsight); I'm not teaching a class here and then there's the way if I throw many hints about the Stardrive, I'd end up way back in the outback somewhere like Blizzard with no Internet or calling-out privileges. I've been told I can't even mention this guy's name, thanks to some genuinely addlepated security restriction from our pals at Groom Lake NAS. I will mention my surprise when a very large tan-and-yellow striped cat interrupted by sauntering in, leaping to a chair and announcing, "Sfishes. Naow!" Edgers — they had to go and breed cats for speech.

I learned a lot, though the math kept taking unfamiliar turns. Suffice to say that two hours later when my phone started ringing, I was unstuck and well on my way to seeing where theory and the real world met in a whole new light.

When my phone went off, I was in serious geekspace mode. My purse started bleeping and my host took a a couple steps back. "Gah! Phone!"

I gave him a rueful grin, my very best charming duty-calls look but it didn't help much. He shook his head. "You cannot expect to get much done if any nitwit with a phone can interrupt!"

He had a point, though the caller was hardly a nitwit. The Chief talked right over my "Roberta Eh—"

"Bobbi. Your co-worker Dave, is he with you?"

He had the grimly-intense tone that usually bodes ill for someone. I hoped it wasn't me. "No. Nossir."

"Do you know where he is?"

"Not at the repair yard?"

"Hmph. If you should see him, have him call me. At once."

That was the end of that call. And my update on 'Drive theory, too — my tutor was giving Mike a dark look and saying something about telephones, and self-distracting Earthers. He broke off suddenly when he saw me folding up my phone.

Mike made a show of checking his watch, "Would you look at the time! Better get back to the plant and call it day."

We got.

About then, Handsome Dave, blindfolded, had been driven to an unknown location by his kidnapper. His planned bailing-out at the first opportunity had been immediately foiled by an unwieldy electromagnetic lock that had commenced humming in his right ear as soon as he'd shut the door of the tiny vehicle. His very best efforts to apply the Dave Treatment — his ability to get strangers talking about their profession, hopes and, often as not, trade secrets is nearly legendary aboard Lupine — had met with flat instructions to shut up. After his fourth attempt was rebuffed with a gun barrel to his ribs for emphasis, he took the suggestion to heart.

Likewise, his stealthy efforts to get his rent-a-phone from the holder in his belt were noticed and nipped in the bud: "Take the phone out and drop it on the floor!"

Dave swears he was ready to take a swing at his captor after that and take his chances with a one-sided gunfight in a tiny, moving car, but before he could try, the car swung around a corner, up an incline and stopped. An electric motor rumbled for a few seconds, then fell silent.

"You can take the blindfold off now but don't try anything."

He did, and didn't, and saw the car was inside a large, mostly empty room, maybe a warehouse. He started to turn towards his captor, who was having none of it.

"Stop. My clients have a message for you."

"And they didn't want to call? Certified mail too slow? —Right."

"A message for your ship. For your captain. And they wanted it believed. Your ship is in terrible danger."

Dave couldn't help it; he turned and goggled at his kidnapper and started to laugh.

That's as much of a coherent account as I could peice together afterwards; the upshot is, a couple of hours later, he and the local FCS "Extension Agent," which is something like cross between a hired PR flack and a Farm Agent, were fast friends. From the results, I can only assume The Dave Treatment worked, despite getting a bad start. The gun proved to be an oversized lighter, which dovetailed neatly with one of Dave's favorite vices. The Extension agent proved to be a smoker, too — tobacco's not unknown on the Far Edge but it's not common.

One of the problems with the shadowy "Federation of Concerned Spacemen" non-government is that it has no official existence and few if any of the assemblies and appurtenances of a government. Being something of a conspiracy of ship-captains and the semi-official representatives of town-meetings, wealthy only as the participants will contribute — a staggering wealth in goods and materials by Earthly standards — it can't or won't do the normal government behaviors. The FCS is nowhere mentioned in the text of the 1989 Agreement; the closest thing to it is the amnesty granted all Project Hoplite spacefarers ("and descendents, associates and immigrants") save a small group of named conspirators. Rumor has it ratification on their side of the line was a raggedly uneven affair of ad campaigns, direct voting and a running debate among ship-owners and captains that nearly became open violence. There aren't any FCS embassies and there's no way for any outsider (or, I suspect, most Edgers) to speak directly to the FCS as a body — assuming it even has meetings. There appears to be no single body in charge, at least not in the way the rest of us think; there's just a broad set of generally-agreed-on principles, with ad-hoc enforcement, funded on the spot. What they have are private message boards (the electronic variety), PR reps, extension agents, a scattering of attorneys (at least in NATO-controlled space) and, if all else fails, hired Mil/Space troops. It's unsettling.

The Federation of Concerned Spacemen started out as a conspiracy and it still runs like one.

This time, things had very nearly not worked out. The FCS agent had been trying to contact Lupine command from as soon as we'd tied into the planetary telephone network. Crank calls from lunatics — no, make that eccentrics, the denizens of Farside City having taken "Lunatic" for their own — claiming to speak for the Edger "government" are a common annoyance and on a busy starship, they get shunted to voicemail at best. Lupine CCC was already talking with Aberstwyth Port Control and the Purser's tame legal types had been swapping long e-mails with their opposite numbers in Frothup's Council of Mayors since we first emerged from Jump. Frothup's an Allied world, a covert NATO member, so calls claiming to represent FCS never got much above the noise floor. He'd been trying to reach someone — anyone! — from Lupine in person but without ready access to the port (say what you will about Edger notions of security, you don't get inside the port perimeter without a work ID, a ticket or some other good reason), it was catch as can.

Handsome, loyal Dave had been walking along to meet the Innovative truck wearing an official ship's t-shirt, our smiling-doggie emblem on the front and "ENGINEERING USAS LUPINE" across the back tall and proud. The Agent saw his chance and took it.

By that point in the story-telling, they both got a good laugh from the kidnapping. The Extension Agent, Henry Kimball ("not Hank, please," which Dave didn't get, "or Kinnison, either," which he did) turned serious again afterward.(Think of him as something like the old Ag guys, with their advice and handouts for the struggling farmer, only with a website and a stack of various media featuring titles like "Interfacing With A Fiat-Money Economy" and "Field Assay Methods for Precious Metals" not to mention articles and books on voluntary economies and suchlike; which is the other reason he couldn't get into the port: Frothup's Council of Mayors considers him a suspicious type). "Look," he said, "You — all of you, your ship — you are in danger.

"You said that back when you pointing a lighter at me. What's the story?"

"Do you know who Irene Wells is?"

Dave did but wasn't sure about admitting to it. "Should I?"

"This is not a joke! She's a prisoner on your Lupine — a political prisoner, I am told."

"She's a lunatic." Dave fumbled for his phone to check the time, realized it was still on the floor of the tiny car. "And a murderer, Probably not even aboard ship by now. Last I heard, we were going to hand her over to your local cops, to wait for a ride home. She took the Agreement."

(Under the Agreement of 1989, citizens and residents of the various polities charged with crimes in "foreign" jurisdictions were allowed to choose repatriation for trial under their own legal system. It's not considered ideal by either side, as non-Edgers thus avoid FCS-customary and costly "restitutional justice" but it also means Edgers caught smuggling can invoke the return clause — and on their side of Line, free trade isn't a crime).

Kimball looked dismayed. "Here? In bonded storage, right?"

"All I heard was, she was being handed to the police."

That would be the same 3-person "police" force I've mentioned earlier. The Edger Agent looked even more worried. "That's only going to make things worse."

By the time I found out about it, it already had.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Edgers!

2011-05-27T11:53:00.000-07:00

In my non-palatial autotel roomette, there is a hot air dryer. An insanely powerful, automatic hot air dryer; none of that "press button, receive bacon" stuff. Just hold your hands or even head under it and it starts up like a baby jet engine.

In point of fact, there's only one label on it:What?

I was a little afraid to put my hands under it. Y'know, for a group of people so concerned about clarity they all sound like itinerant elocution instructors, sometimes I have no idea what Edgers -- even the ex- ones on Frothup -- are attempting to communicate.

Frothup: Dropping In, Part 10

2011-05-12T04:09:00.000-07:00

[TO THE BEGINNING]

At about that same time, Lupine's first passenger squirt-booster drop was finally cleared and moving toward the boarding locks. T, Handsome Dave and Rannie Wu had first-available clearance, none of that "standby" flying for them. I got the story later, mostly from T. I've filled in the details as best I could.

Dr. Schmid was Acting Captain; in conference with his and the late Captain James' off-watch alternates — high-level Navs boffins to a man but command-skilled, an uncommon combination — along with the Chief, E&PP's Airframe supervisor, the lead squirt-booster pilot (Butch, teleconferenced from Aberstwyth Port HQ) and assortment of Port officials plus the Mayor of Aberstwyth himself (advised by my new friend Raub from Innovative, sitting beside him) had decided to run a full watch of cargo-only squirt—boosters. This despite every last one of them having been gone over by Engineering and Airframe multiple times, all sabotage found and removed and in pristine condition.

I'd've done it, too.

It was a last-minute thing and didn't get communicated down the ranks; T and Lt. Wu found out while in the same waiting room I'd read my comic book. T took the news with a shrug and got comfortable in a seat. Time to nap. Conversely Rannie Wu was furious. Oh, controlled as ever, but T told me later, "You could practically see steam pouring out her ears." Both of them normally work third shift; with the change, they'd lose a night's sleep with no chance to make it up, especially given the time-slip between ship and planetary surface. Handsome Dave was luckier; the Chief hit his pager before the big conference had even broken up and diverted him to the squirt-booster maintenance bay where he usually hangs out, with a reminder to bring his luggage and be ready to report to Departure at the end of his normal shift.

They made port and were clearing what passes for Customs about the time I was cooling my heels in the Irrational Numbers Security office, a windowless cubbie on the second floor at the front of the mu-shaped building. Mike had called them from Final Test immediately, while Doc checked out the empty amplifier cabinets. Nothing had been damaged; the amplifier modules, each one about the size of a file drawer, sixteen to a cabinet, had been simply been unlatched and slid out.

In the Security office, Mike, Doc and the sole Security worker on duty — a skinny guy carrying a disturbingly-large revolver in a low-slung holster — were watching multiple screens on which, over and over, an automated truck painted just like the "Aw Boo Moo Pow" one I'd seen in the morning rolled up to the dock; two shifter-loader robots rolled out, vanished from the picture and popped up a few seconds later on a high-angle image of the Final Test bay, where they proceeded to load themselves full and return to the truck. It took three trips each to empty the cabinets, a little over two minutes total; at the end, the loaders rolled in, the rear door rattled down and the truck drove away. Another screen showed a wide shot of the entire dock area, a u-shape with the Irrational building fronting three sides; the thieving truck went out onto the street through the gate and turned right. Almost immediately after, one that looked exactly like it arrived from that direction, pulled up to a different section of the docks, and robots rolled out from the building to unload it.

"Back it up again," Mike said, "You can about read the door as it turns."

Doc squinted at the screen, "It is not going to resolve the bar code."

Security shrugged. "Best cameras they'll let me buy."

The entire gibberish wasn't readable but by rocking the clip back and forth, they pieced it out. I suspected wishful thinking for a couple of the letters but the three seemed sure: An Bou Moo Pau. Whatever that meant.

Doc must have read my expression; while Mike and Security talked, he turned to me. "It's an encoding scheme; Junior at Phi-Low's runs so many trucks, he's got barcode readers at all his main clients to track them. Scans barcodes off the street traffic, too. He even sells tracking services to the other carriers."

Sounded like good news to me. "So they could follow that truck if we had the code? I mean, the company could have?"

"Still can. Should be all sorted out by this evening. This has got to be some crazy mistake."

I'm sure I looked as confused as I felt. I guessed, "That 'Ah-Boo' stuff?"

"Pronounceable version of the barcode — people can't read the bars. Sometimes they need to."

I wondered why they didn't just number them but about then, the Security guy looked up, frowning. He was on the phone. "Joan? This is Tack. Tack from 'Rational Numbers? Yeah. Is Junior in?"

He must have been; within minutes, Tack was explaining our problem someone at the other end. He read off the code. Twice. Looked frustrated. "Yeah, it could be 'Ah.' Maybe. But the end is bee-ay-you, clear as the sky."

As much rain as I'd seen in Aberstwyth so far, that didn't sound especially clear.
Things were looking cloudy on the phone, too. "Look, I can give you the time stamp. Another truck came in right after this one left." he fiddled with the camera playback, "14, um,14:32:40 and 14:33:25. Can't you check that? Yeah, I'll hold."

He covered the phone mic. and turned his attention to us. "Says the code we read isn't one of his. Wrong sequence. But there's more than one way to skin this snake."

Maybe there wasn't. After a minute, Junior must have come back; Hack said, "Yeah? What?" and looked annoyed. "Surely it read something?" he asked.

It appeared it hadn't. Tack thanked the guy at the trucking company and hung up, exclaiming, "Dammit!"

Other than knowing the truck had been a fake, we'd learned nothing. Or had we? Dr. Daugherty seemed lost in thought. "Tack, don't we get gate counts from that same system?"

"Sure. But it's just time-in, time-out — oh." He turned back his computer, clicked a couple icons and a new screen showed up. "Last three hours, here we go." He scrolled down, muttering times, then stopped. "It's not here."

Daugherty looked unsurprised. "Thought so. —Trick code." It took twenty minutes and another call to Phi-Low Haulage but by the end, even Tack was convinced: the barcode on the fake truck had unwritten itself. Junior had explained the optical reader could be used as a backup input if the normal serial IO failed. "It's for places where access is controlled, that kind of thing." Whoever had done it knew a lot more about internal procedures at Irrational Numbers and the trucking company than seemed possible.

I asked if the police had been notified; Tack leaned back in his chair. "Probably not the way you mean. It's on the Public Notice page on the 'net, but about now, the Director of Public Safety is having a nap, the Assistant DPS hasn't started her shift yet and Ev — he's my cousin, works nights — is asleep. That is 'the Police.'"

Edgers. I must have rolled my eyes or looked frustrated, because he got a little defensive, "We take care of our own problems. All the private security plus a lot of 'concerned residents' follow Public Notices. They've all read my report and by now, they've seen the video, too. I just posted it. We'll find whoever did this."

He sounded confident. But he still looked worried to me.

About then, the arrivals from Lupine were boarding the bus. T was grinning to herself at the back of the group; she'd just watched Handsome Dave doing his charming best to draw Lt. Wu into conversation. After responding curtly to his first two attempts, the attractive officer had leaned close and whispered something. T, a shameless eavesdropped, had only caught a few words: "...Spring Break...Cancun...video...Starship Company computers..." Whatever the details, it worked; Dave had slowly blushed right up his hairline and moved away. "Handsome" is not the same as "saintly."

I don't know if they had the same bus driver I'd had from my trip into town. T said he was curt to the point of rudeness and not at all helpful in sorting out their luggage; the bus had rattled and snorted into town, made several stops before arriving at the same autotel where I was staying, spat all their bags out in a big heap and roared off almost before they'd exited. "See the Egress..." T mused.

Rannie was disinclined to take matters stoically. "What a dump," was her only comment. Like the other two, she'd picked up a rent-a-phone at the port. She took it out, punched "O" and started looking for a better hotel. From what T told me, she found the automated directory assistance wasn't very good with non-Edger accents.

Handsome Dave had his own orders from the Chief. He had made contact with Innovative Mold on the bus trip in; he took his luggage and while T said, "Your buddy just vanished," he'd actually stashed his stuff, all but a box of replacement circuit breakers and assorted small parts and headed out to rendezvous with an Innovative delivery truck; he and my recent acquaintance Raub were going to start repairs with the squirt-booster at Innovative, then proceed to the port as time allowed. That left T with an open afternoon, a private room and nothing to do; she's as addicted a reader as I am and settled in with paperback, expecting a quiet end to a frustrating day.

...She wasn't expecting the peace and quiet to last: "A policewoman's work is never done," and while she wasn't doing it, new items were being added to her to-do list — but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Back at Irrational numbers, I realized I'd been putting off a call. Waiting wasn't going to make it any easier. For a wonder, I got through to the Chief on my first try. He was as receptive to diplomacy as ever:

"Boss? Are you sitting down?"

"What?"

I took a deep breath. "Our new 'Drive finals were stolen."

"The HPAs? How? Don't they lock doors down there?" (The Chief has a pretty dim opinion of most planet-dwellers, Edgers maybe even more so).

"Um. It's a factory. Trucks in and out. Somebody pulled up, yanked all the modules, loaded them into a truck and drove away."

"'Somebody?' They know who?"

"Actually, more like nobody: it was all automated." I had to explain it in more detail. It still added up to "robots" and "We don't know."

He was unfazed. "Fine. How long will it take to replace it all?"
I hadn't considered that.

Mike, Doc and I were still in the Security office; Tack was on the phone again, talking to his opposite number at some other factory, asking after their security cameras and, for want of a better word, bragging about the theft.

While was doing that, I asked the others how long it might take to start over. Mike looked glum. Dr. Daugherty considered it; you could we wheels going 'round and in about thirty seconds, he grinned. "Five weeks. Maybe a month."

Mike shook his head. "Six weeks, minimum. More like eight. Doc, we don't have a crew. And the semiconductor line will have to be cleared and re-set."

I relayed this to the Chief. He came as near to spluttering as I've ever heard. It wasn't more than a little hesitation and a tooth-gritting edge to his words, "Six...weeks? Unacceptable. Bobbi, handle them; I have to take this to Dr. Schmid."

And he hung up on me, just like that.

While all that was going on, Daugherty sat there smiling. "We'll get 'em from R&D. They designed the semi fab line, after all."

Mike snorted. "Oh, sure. They'll help — if they feel like it. If the same ones show up three days in a row."

It didn't sound like any Research and Development group I'd ever heard of. There was a good reason for that.
* * *
Mike and I were back in Dr. Daugherty's cluttered office; Tack had more-or-less diplomatically chased us out, promising updates, "the very first I find anything out."

Doc had no more set foot in the door and started to sit down than he suddenly was reminded of something. He stood right back up, grabbed a stack of printouts and exclaimed, "Class!"

"'Class?'" I asked, but I was asking a dust trail.

Mike smiled. "The class you have now missed a day and a half of. The plan was to take a little more time with the assembled amps, then I'd get you up to speed for Day Three."
We spent a little time figuring out what I needed to pick up. The relevant chapters of Surfing Through Hyperspace are the standard introductory text each side of the Line, of course, and the basics behind ultra-linear amplifiers, even solid-state ones, are a prerequisite of the job. The high-power solid-state silicon-carbide version is a little tricky and they are peculiar to the Far Edge, at least until now. Too, they don't look at the system in quite the same way — partially due to the WW II German tech they have and we lack, plus divergent developments from there — and as a result, the terms and even schematic symbols are quite a bit different.

Eventually, I got tangled up on something or other that I'd lose my Earthside vacation privileges if I got too specific about. I just couldn't quite wrap my mind around the notion and Mike admitted it was something he was a little shaky on himself. Finally, he came to some sort of decision. "Time to take a walk — I know a couple of guys over in R&D who might help."

I thought he was talking about elsewhere in the Irrational Numbers plant. Next thing I knew, I was following him out the front door, across the street and through a gate into Memorial Park. Both pillars were well-stenciled with "EARTHERS GO HOME," "NATO" under the circle-and-slash symbol and "NO MORE CRATERS," in an assortment of eye-searing colors. It looked fresh.

Mike noticed me noticing. He said a word I missed — something "phage" — looking annoyed and embarrassed.

"What?"

He waved a hand towards the gate. "It won't last. I'm on the Park Committee. A coating on the concrete inhibits crosslinking and it was seeded with paint-eating bacteria. Gone by tomorrow. —Look, they are vocal but they mean no harm. Kids, mostly."

"Not in the habit of stealing 'Drive finals, then?" I asked.

"As far as I know."

"If I was inclined, this place could make me paranoid."

He smiled sourly but didn't say anything in reply. We walked across the park in silence, skirting the crater. On the far side, the rimwall had been graded down and one of the radial streets ran tangent to it. Across the street, the terrain swept down in a shallow swale and in it, a remarkable building with a huge and variegated series of roofs.

As we got nearer, it seemed to be mostly roof, held up by pillars,posts and the occasional short, random-looking stretch of wall. Various smaller sheds and trailers were scattered around in the vast roofed-over space. In the distance, the harsh blue-white glare of a welder stood out; nearer, a delicious cooking smell mingled with woodsmoke where a couple of people tended a huge kettle over an open fire. It wasn't crowded but there were a fair number of people and machines about, most of them looking busy.

A well-worn graveled path led through a pair of telephone pole-sized pillars; on the right-hand one, an ornate, neatly hand-painted sign reading "TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE COOPERATIVE #68" was nailed up slightly askew; a different hand using electric-violet paint had added a large, sloppy question mark to the end and turned the "OO" of "cooperative" into crossed eyes. Below it, a thumbtacked paper labelled "A Codified Set Of The Builder's, Crafter's, Maker's Rules" had been overstamped with a circle-A in a star, the logo of the most rabid association of the FCS; "There are NO RULES" was scrawled across it.

I stopped and looked at Mike. "This is 'R & D?'"

He gave me a crooked grin. "Best on the planet. Only one on the planet. Where do you think Doc lives?"

Edgers: about the time they're starting to seem normal, they do something to remind you they're insane.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Frothup: Dropping In, Part Nine

2011-04-09T05:33:00.000-07:00

[STORY BEGINS HERE]

Irrational turned out to be mostly something I do know: applied geekery.

A little study over another vending-machine breakfast got me on the right bus in a series of buses and three transfers later, I debarked a couple blocks away from the factory, along the portward-facing arc in the industrial district, just a little north of the city's east-west centerline. There was a pretty park across the street, bright with in early-Spring growth, ground mounding up towards the center. I admired it as I walked along; Lupine's little pocket park and planters along the passageways don't amount to that much greenspace and Enviro & Physical Plant's greenhouses are all Authorized Persons Only, for a number of good reasons.

A sign over the first gateway I passed read "Memorial Park" and the hill or bluff rising at the center, across nearly a block of greensward and low plantings, suddenly took shape as the outer arc of a circular feature: it was the crater left when Cut & Run crashed. Right across from the Irrational Numbers plant and office. It looked too pretty to have been the center of so much suffering.

Nothing is completely safe and though I doubt all the details will ever be known, most infamous disasters have no single cause, no easy villain Instead, they follow the Titanic Rule: the ocean-liner's tragedy was the result of multiple factors. [Too fast for conditions, poorly-equipped lookout, brittle steel, inadequate rivets, "watertight" construction with designed-in failure and inadequate lifeboats, to name a few.]

In most such disasters, take any single item off the list and the death toll drops precipitately. The true wonder is that nothing as bad has happened before or since out of hundreds of thousands of Edger Glocke-ship landings, no few of them surreptitious smuggling at Earth (and probably even now, Agreement of '89 or no, Edger ships not considering themselves party to a contract they didn't sign). Edgers have screwed a few ships right into the ground and so have NATO/Russian crews; but never as badly as here on Frothup.

It was in that somber frame of mind that I climbed the steps to Irrational's main door, just as a large, driverless truck pulled out of a gate next to the entrance, the legend "Aw Boo Moo Pow" on what I guess you'd still call the driver's-side door. Um, "Aw Boo...?" all right, then.

The lobby was unremarkable, if you ignored the far wall, papered in a regular black-on-white pattern of two-inch tall numbers. In front of the wall, a desk; behind the desk, a woman of that indeterminate middle age I still think of as older than me, despite what my mirror reports.

She was on the phone, finishing one call as I entered and switching to another line with a remarkable bray of "Irrational Num-bers," in an accept that combined an Upper Midwest rasp with the slight over-enunciation typical of most Edgers. She gave me a look that implied I was underdressed for the lobby, tucked the handset under her chin and averred, "Deliveries go through the gate, loading dock, South side. Follow the signs," returning her attention to the telephone immediately after.

I just stood there and waited, studying the wallpaper. I found "3.1415" at the upper left and it started to make sense, in a Far Edge way. Finishing her call, she looked up and realized I was still there. "Can I help you?" she asked, in a tone that implied that she couldn't, wouldn't and I was dim for not realizing it.

"Um, Miz...Mandelbrot?" (That's what the sign on her desk said, YVONNE MANDELBROT, OFFICE MANAGER. The Fate's jest or more Edger humor?). "I'm from the Lupine? To meet Findlay Michaels?" Couldn't keep the questioning tone out of my voice. I felt as if I was back in grade school.

She gave me a doubtful look, but only said, "All right," and turned back to her phone. There was some trick to the thing; her voice was barely audible most of the time. I caught "Earth...says she's...Oh." She hung up and gave me a less-unfriendly look. "He says he'll be out momentarily. Please have a seat." And at that, she tuned her attention back to the phone, looking more like Margeret Hamilton than ever.

Findley Micheals showed up to collect me before I'd read the wall halfway (...1134999999837... and who saw that coming?) and led me back through the office-type offices to what was obviously Engineering space, workbenches and parts racks, test equipment arrayed on carts and emptier space past that. On the other side of the corridor, a row of offices.

Mike stopped at a shut door of translucent glass and tapped, then opened it even as someone on the other side sang out, "C'mon in!"

Within was a still-life pandemonium. It was a small office — still three times the size of the Chief's tiny cubbyhole aboard Lupine but where the Chief's extreme degree of neatness and order makes a preposterously-small space look nearly reasonable, this room felt tiny.

Whiteboards took up most of two walls, with jammed-full bookshelves below them; the far wall had floor-to-ceiling shelves, heaped and cluttered with an assortment of books, loose paper, test equipment and unidentifiable electronic assemblies. Overflow was piled in the corners and had spilled onto the floor.

To our left, a desk, and turning from the desk, a merrily-smiling, craggy man, with dark, curly hair and bright blue eyes. He wasn't much over five feet tall but he seemed to fill whatever space was left, leaving barely enough room for Mike and me to stand. "Come on in," he repeated, "You must be the young lady from the Earth behemoth we're improving.!"

Mike grinned. "She is. Roberta Ecks, meet Doc Daugherty. Doc's our chief design engineer for the solid-state 'Drive amps."

Doc beamed even wider, holding out his hand and adding "And systems, don't forget, they're no real good without a combiner."

We shook on it and I said, "Right. Glad to meet you." He didn't seem any crazier than any other RF design type I'd known; in fact, he reminded me a little of the boffin who'd tried to drum the rudiments of Stardrive theory into us at USSF, twenty years ago. That memory was what made his name click. "Just a minute: the Daugherty?," I asked, "The CLASSIFIED Daugherty Shunt?"

He could't've grinned any wider but he ducked his head in a semi-bow. "The one and only. I've always thought it was good of your side to remember my name."

It was like casually running into Marconi, or at least Philo Farnsworth. The Daugherty Shunt doubled bootstrap efficiency of a CLASSIFIED and improved transition stability even more; it was what made huge commercial starships a practical proposition instead of a chancy gamble.

I've even read papers arguing the Daugherty Shunt played as big a part in ending the War as the Agreement of '89. I don't know about that. I do know that by shortening travel times and making it possible for a really large starship to re-emerge much farther into a solar system without shaking itself to pieces, it had simultaneously made large-scale trade much more practical and the War suicidally deadly: imagine a carrier like Lupine popping up well inside the Solar System, launching a swarm of high-velocity attack ships and missiles, and dropping back into a 'Drive bubble. At a significant fraction of the speed of light, the damage would be done practically before Earth could react. Or any Edger system, station or ally — Smitty's World, La-A, Frothup, Witherspoon, whatever.

NATO/USSF had the technology within months of the Far Edge's first use — whether by espionage, a captured or defecting Edger starship or some other means has never been told. —At the time, nobody knew why the Edgers had not struck first. USSF would have been surprised, had they not been too busy capitalizing on their good luck (or clever intelligence work). After the peace, it became clear that even at war, the Far Edge depended too much on technology and "biologicals" — plants and animals — from Earth.

Daughtery didn't stop the war but his innovation had certainly made both sides blink. And there he was in his cluttered, fusty office, a rumpled little guy with a slightly crooked smile, an ordinary-looking engineer. History, right in front of me. I don't know if he noticed but Mike picked up on my sudden awe and stepped in, "We're proud of Doc. Wait'll you see what he came up with for this project." Doc nodded. "I don't know why nobody else ever thought to scale them up."

Oh my life: from awe to befuddlement in two lines. "Scale what up?" I asked.

"Gysels!" they said in near unison.

It didn't clear anything up. That was all they'd tell me at the time; Mike arranged to meet Dr. Daughtery in the final-test area after lunch and took me on a quick tour of the plant. We didn't get into the semiconductor fab wing at all, of course, other than the shirtsleeve QC and a quick peek through three layers of windows and down the line of gleaming white and stainless steel machinery. Not a person in sight — "Fully automated," Mike said, "With one tech keeping watch inside in six-hour shifts; they take a break and do six on the QC console outside, too."

Sounded like a long day to me but with a two-hour lunch and Frothup's plus-size days, it still left plenty of time.

The rest of the factory was nearly as automated, a little less so near the end of the line. Final Assembly still have more machines than people and the overall pace seemed pretty slow. I asked about that too.

"It's not high-volume. We're still supplying three-quarters of the FCS and independent ships, but we still run in batches; past the initial sub-assemblies, one crew follows a 'Drive assembly all the way through."

I asked about spares and replacements — turns out that's done in very small batches, based on maintaining a small stock level. "Things change too quickly to tie up a lot of dead storage." It makes sense if you've got a factory handy; a starship in flight has to be able to fix whatever might go wrong and so we end up carrying a "dead storage" full stock of spares. Even the old Radio Corporation and Beamathon companies worked that way: starships started out with what they needed and restocked-as-used, on their predictable returns to home port. It might be dead storage to the manufacturer; for us, it was the stuff you'd better have if you didn't want to end up dead.

We even got in a quick look at Lupine's new 'Drive finals, a dozen cabinets full of solid-state modules, pushing over 100 kiloWatts from the combiner hidden behind them into a dummy load.

There were a pair of big momentary switches on long, heavy cables, which Mike said were used to simulate transients, and hit one of them. Bang! Half the cabinets cycled off and back on, barely a blip on the power-out meter.

He handed the switches to me and I asked, "Like this?" gave them a simultaneous double-kerchunk-kerchunk. That time, the room lights blinked; but the 'Drive final came right back up as if nothing had happened.

Mike's eyes were a bit big as he admitted, "You know, I've never killed both sides at once; we've never built a final that ran this much power."

I nodded but pointed out, "It's going to take a hit like that some day when we're flying. I'd just as soon find out if there's a problem while it's still down here."

He said he could see my point. He still didn't look especially happy about it.

By then it was lunch time. Mike had a surprise in store for me there, too; we walked to a by-gosh supermarket (what, you thought it was all freeze-dried space food? Didja miss the soybean fields between city and port?) a block and a half away, "Hi-Frontier." Tucked off to one side, just past the deli section, a half-row of hot-food counters and what food! Childhood Sunday-dinner stuff, turkey rolls, meatloaf and pork roast, a lot of rice dishes, corn, soybeans, green beans. We eat all right aboard Lupine, Enviro and Physical Plant's agronomists grow an astonishing lot of tasty veggies and even manage chickens, a few hogs and, yes, guinea pigs (they're actually pretty good), but Hi-Front's lunch counter put them to shame. I stopped Mike half-way into a kind of apology for such an everyday lunch, "...since we had to reschedule at the last minute."

I don't know if he believed me when I told him he couldn't have done better with a month of planning, but it was true.

After a hasty meal by local standards — a little over an hour — it was back to the final test area. Doc Daugherty was approaching from the other end of the hall as Mike opened the door; I was watching him and until Mike said, "Son of a snake!" I didn't look into the room.

When I did, it took a moment to grasp what I was seeing. The cabinets were still there, but empty. All of the amplifier modules were gone. Lupine's history-making solid-state 'Drive finals had been stolen.

_____________________________________________
Author's note: you will find that sequence of six nines well into pi; as is so often the case, Richard Feynman was there first. I love his plan for it.

Frothup: Dropping In Part 8

2011-03-09T04:50:00.000-08:00

[STORY BEGINS HERE]

It was still light — light gray and raining — when I got back to my room at the autotel but since Frothup's day runs a bit over 27 hours, it didn't mean it hadn't been a long day. Once we'd been released from not-quite-durance-vile, we'd caught an indifferent meal in what passed for a lunch counter at the port. Afterward, Raub had headed back to his shop to work up alternatives for the sabotaged circuit breakers and I'd caught a bus back into town.

Our run-in with Port Security had worked out better than expected: though Port Control had flatly denied any chance of the sabotage happening while our squirt-boosters were under their care, the not-police had approached the matter with the cynical skepticism of good cops everywhere and worked their way down the list of every Port employee who could possibly have had access to them. A cleaner named Mallory had shown up for his shift while the vehicles were starting to be hauled to where Raub and I had looked them over. He'd stuck around just long enough take in what was happening; gate records showed him leaving shortly after. Port Security had sent an officer to his address of record, which turned out to be a vacant lot adjacent to the crater from the tanker crash. And that, on this still very Edger-like world, was just about that: he'd been hired without references and there's no official paper trail other than voluntary documents. At least for a certain value of "official."

I didn't hear those details at the time but I have my methods. This is, if it counts as "method" that my best friend is the ship's third-shift Security boss. With one of their own looking very questionable, Port Security decided their opposite numbers on Lupine needed to be brought up to speed; they may be a bit too suspicious of anyone from Earth on the Far Edge but in a crunch, Edgers tend to step right up. Part of stepping up involved an Edger custom I'd heard about but forgotten: they post criminals and debtors. Assault someone, skip out a bill, pull a hold up, dodge making restitution for a crime, run out on a trial or your spouse, flee an accident, whatever, it gets posted. They started out doing it literally, "Wanted" posters tacked up on corkboards and the like; you'll still find that for local stuff in small towns and stations, mining drifts and the like, but mostly it's on computer networks now, internet or even Fidonets in some places. Port Security ran a search on the cleaner's name to no avail — and then tried an image search on the suspect's work ID. The software's tricky but it worked better than you'd think. It turned up three possibles and a little more digging elimated two of them: one too young, one known to have skipped the planet. Number three was a bingo. Vandalism, five years back. It wasn't much as I'd count crime, tagging a building with a political slogan, but despite an attitude towards free speech that'd make the ACLU crow with delight, Edgers take property rights very seriously.

And speaking of free speech... There was a pamphlet shoved under the door of my autotel room when I got there, EARTHMEN GO HOME across the front and a wild mix of misinterpreted, misreported Earthside and NATO-space politics and paranoid accusations on the inside. Who knew the Trilateral Commission even knew about the Hidden Frontier? Or that the Kansas II territorial government was run by non-humans? Despite overheated, ALL_CAPS invective, I was pretty confident neither of the George Bushes nor Mr. Obama and Ms. Pelosi were crypto-Rosicrucians; but hey, I just fix Stardrives, maybe they all had me snowed, too.

I saved it for the laugh value; C. Jay has a handsome collection of similar things, everything from Chick tracts to a made-up history text from Stalin Mir, where the old Soviets had very nearly managed to convince a generation born there that they and their "perfect" political system were all there was of Mankind. (It didn't work out, though the endgame probably would have gone on a lot longer had the USSR not. Visit the place now and you'll get no closer than low orbit; they even run their own shuttles. Suspicious doesn't begin to cover it and they're fanatical about self-sufficiency.)

Tried to reach Handsome Dave but he was off-duty and not responding; checked my watch (still on ship's time, CST just like Starship Company HQ) and my only choices for scuttlebutt were Drew or Conan the Objectivist.

The ratty little terminal built into the desk in my room had a blinking "Message" icon that finally caught my eye; navigated to the inbox and there was a note from Lupine's IS boffins with the URL for (limited) access to the ship's intranet. Shipname.ftl, as usual. I didn't expect it to be much use with the available hardware, but there was a text-based browser in the terminal's top menu and I was able to fumble my way to my official ship e-mail account.

A note from Handsome Dave confirmed they'd found a couple boosters with the same sabotage; sure enough, they'd been down and unloaded on the suspicious Mr. Mallory's shift. Ship Security — Sheriff Mike — had insisted on checking every single squirt-booster and Lupine's two de-miled landers (LRV's Hardaway and Snodgrass, better known as "Hard Way" and "No Way"). That was the only damage found other than somebody's forgotten and seriously forbidden ashtray on Snodgrass. Probably the squirt-booster tampering been caught on pre-flight and if not ,probably it wouldn't have mattered much, no more that the one that made my trip down more exciting than it needed to be. On the other hand, a light load that just happened to mate those two squirt-boosters to a couple of cargo containers could have gone majorly wrong.

Dave added that he'd send us replacement breakers in the first trip down once Port and Lupine had squirt-boosters moving again, "maybe tomorrow." Ever the optimist.

Along with the usual routine stuff — new entries in TASKER automagically get e-mailed to everyone in Engineering, and we're not spared the same kind of work stuff you get, either — I found a note from Mike at Irrational, asking if I was ready to reschedule with them. I replied that I'd check on it, added the Chief to the recipients, logged off and turned in. It was just about full dark and the rain hissing outside was very nearly as soothing as the normal background sounds of my quarters aboard Lupine. I snuggled under the covers and drifted off.

For the second morning in a row, an unfamiliar alarm was going off and I groped for a light switch that, once again, wasn't there. Frickin' rent-a-phone! I found the lights and said a bad word; grabbed for the phone, knocked it to the floor and said a worse one.

Managed to repeat neither of them answering the phone. It was T. As usual, she started right in: "Hey, do you have contact numbers for Port Security?"

"What?"

"Didja get their card?"

"Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Breakfast time. End of my shift. You're not up yet?"

"T: Planet. Non standard days."

"So what time is it?"

A fair question. "Just a minnit." There was a clock built into the console on the desk, dim-flowing numbers just visible if I sat up. "Four thirty ayem. Jeez."

"Um, 'oops?'"

"'Oops.' Hey, I'm up now. And I think I have a card with a number for the Port cops."

"Fan-tastic!"

I winced. It was too early to be that enthusiastic about anything, as far as I was concerned. But it turned out she was bursting with news, more than enough to finish waking me up:

"I'm going to be down there this evening, looking into the saba-toojie. And you'd never guess who Space Force Intel is sending!"

Hmph. Never guess, would I? Watson, a clue! Sleepy isn't the same as stupid; I've only officially met one USSF-I reservist aboard ship. "Rannie Wu?"

"Aw. You peeked."

"You know we've met." Sort of; at the time, I think she'd've been happy to have me tossed out an airlock for being the cause of her wasting time. "She's an investigator?"

"Closest they've got. Intel trained and you know what she does in the Purser's office."

"Not really, what?"

"She runs Internal Inventory! You can't tell me Engineering's never been in her sights."

"Aw, geez, double-eye. I've met her minions, trying to explain how a $57,000 phantasmajector tube is 'consumable supplies.' The Chief got their boss to back down. So that was her, hey?"

T kind of coughed, and went on, "She's sharp. Mike says USSF is sending a Regular Forces team aboard a Mad Russian courier but all he's got is a couple of names and an ETA about 40 hours from now."

That was a mark of just how much attention USSF was giving it — they'd much prefer using their own ships, few though they are. BisPosEtKom -- Russian for "Express Delivery Co." but hardly anyone calls them that -- flies tiny starships, which despite their minuscule mass carry enormous 'Drives and realspace engines and can probably beat anything flying. The huge Mad Russian fleet, started by ex-Soviet Space Arm pilots and techs, means there's usually one headed where you want to go. It wouldn't be much fun for the passengers or pilot; those things are crowded even when they're empty.

"So Sheriff Mike wants to have it all wrapped up before the cavalry arrives?"

T just snickered. That'd be a yes, then. No pressure.

"So why isn't he headed down?"

There was a pause. T was quieter when she replied. "The Captain. He's got to be here for that."

"For what? Are they going to have services already? Here? Why Mike?" Sometimes I'm not as clever as I like to think.

"No — Look, we go way back." She sounded grim. "You've seen a lot of things that aren't exactly common knowl—

"Are you trying to tell me Mike thinks somebody killed Captain James?"

Grim gave way to bleak, "We don't know. Medical says it's highly unlikely but Mike and USSF-I really suspect the timing. And that's all I'd better say."

"And way more than I should have heard. 'Unlikely?' T, it's impossible."

"I sure hope you're right."

While we talked, I'd been logging on to Lupine.ftl; during T's revelations, my e-mail had popped up and for want of a coherent response, I looked at the inbox list. The usual blather from Personnel, Medical, what looked to be routine stuff from Enviro & Physical Plant (Conan the Objectivist claims he's seen a BOIL AIR notice from them but I am pretty sure he's pulling my leg) and...a note from the Chief. He always sets them to ACK back to him and the sooner read, the happier he'd be:

Roberta, Report to Irrational local start of business for walk-through and training. Dave and locals will repair boosters today.

At least it gave me a way to deflect the subject. "Say hi to Handsome Dave, T; I'll bet you lunch money he'll be riding down with you and Lt. Wu."

"No bets; you cheat."

"I just wonder if he's met the Lootenant already? I'm expecting a full report"

T snorted. Dave's quite the ladies man but none too fond of the starchier sort of officers — or of the Purser's inventory-watching, penny-pinching minions. On the other hand, except for that and not being blond, the Eurasian USSF reserve officer fit his usual date profile: smart, not too tall and strikingly pretty. It could be an interesting trip.

I dug out Port Security's card and passed their contact info to T with a "See ya later." We were off the phone before I realized she'd neatly avoided one factoid: if USSF Intelligence was sending Lt. Wu to look into sabotage at Aberstwyth Port, who was running their side of the investigation into the death of Captain James? She'd very clearly said, "Mike and USSF-I." The more I learn, the less I turn out to know.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

War Poster

2011-01-15T11:30:00.000-08:00

C. Jay (you would not believe what the C stands for, by the way) has a nice collection of ephemera and books -- stuff from the NATO and Russian worlds and a few things from the Far Edge like this poster, nearly fifty years old now:Nobody who's seen it so far has any idea what the "Star Palace" was. Some kind of Edger venue, but what or where?

Frothup: Dropping In Part 7

2011-01-05T18:36:00.000-08:00

[STORY STARTS HERE]

Even before the rain, it didn't look good. Oh, there were some pluses: we had not found the possible major booby-trap by getting ourselves exploded, for instance; and Aberstwyth proper was on the far side of the port's high, hollow-square berm. But blowing a big hole in the ground and spraying radioactives around is something of a social gaffe, even on the Far Edge — and even more so in a place where they have already had an overlarge share of flaming death from above. Run that by the force multiplier of what appeared to be mixed public opinion regarding the NATO worlds and.... What I said before. Didn't look good.

Raub was more hopeful. He wanted to hand this mess over to Port Security and I let him talk me into it.

I knew that Chief would balk at paying some ex-Edger bomb squad — assuming they even had one — ruinous fees for a possible booby trap that, if it was there at all, was probably on a timer or some kind of freefall switch. I didn't want to have to explain the expense to the Chief or the Purser's office, either. But better them than the citizenry of an entire planet who would be left with the mess.

So Raub called the Port Authority's not-cops and gave them a short summary of the situation. They told us to stay right there, then took about half an hour to arrive. We spent the time talking shop and watching the light rain. We'd ducked into the squirt-booster farthest away from the one that had the power plant got at. It was a big passenger double like the one I'd ridden down in; we'd popped the airlock hatch open and sat on the edge. It wasn't raining very hard but it was continuing to warm up and the humidity was rising, a far cry from the cool. clear morning. I commented on it and he looked surprised. "Yeah, this time of year, it rains at least every other day."

"Pretty big temperature swing, though."

"It is? I still think you've had too much shipboard time. This is normal."

It wouldn't've been, back where I spent my growing-up time, but I was saved a dialogue on comparative meteorology by a siren.

Let me explain something: starships don't show up every day. Even at a port frequented by the generally smaller and more numerous Edger ships, it's weeks between ships. Port Control can be a kind of routine affair, with the ancillary business of storage and surface transport predominating and what few full-time staffers there are operating in very narrow and well-worn mental ruts. Shift change had come and gone in the control center without a word and either our presence wasn't logged or the lone controller didn't bother to check when asked. So when Raub called Port Authority Security, they had called the control center, gotten a "Who-what?" response and despite his careful explanation, had taken things a little bit wrong. (I was miffed. What, sabotage to Lupine's squirt-boosters isn't gossip-worthy news?)

Security showed up expecting the very worst. Sure, they're not "real" police, but you'd be surprised how little those details matter when you are looking at the wrong end of what passes for a standard LEO-type weapon on the Far Edge: a copy of the WW II "grease gun," which even the select-fire edition of can ruin your whole day. The one riding — ha! — shotgun had his aimed at us from their little golf cart-looking vehicle from first clear sight.

It helps to be with a local. When the little quadricycle stopped, two uniformed officers hopped off and as the one kept cheap and nasty armament pointing at us, the other hopped out from behing the controls and barked, "Step down from there and put you hands up—"

Which we did.

"—Now move slowly over there — Raub?

He was quick to reply, "Yes, Matt. Um, good to see you?"

"Who's the woman — keep your hands up, Miss! — and what are you up to?"

Raub smiled. I don't know if I'd've been able to. "It's a long story and Port Control should be able to back us up...."

The big one who'd been driving, Matt, shook his head. "No they cannot. I think you two had better come with us."

At least he didn't handcuff us.

The Port Security team were not that different to police officers in your home town: they'd rather be safe than sorry. The good news was, we were going to get in out of the drizzle before it really started to rain. The bad news was, while we weren't quite under arrest, we weren't free to leave, either. They brought us in and abandoned us in the public office of Port Security, tucked in the rabbit-warren of spaces under the outer berm, a cross between a waiting room and a small-town police station, presided over by a cheerful and heavily-armed young woman behind a tall desk. I still had my phone and I made the call I should have made a half hour earlier.

The Chief wasn't answering. Next step was to go up a level — Sheriff Mike, or Dr. Schmid — but I tried the general Shop number first, hoping he'd be out there.

Nope. Handsome Dave picked up. He'd been chased chased out of his lair in the squirt-booster bays by Lupine's Security, who had that section buttoned up vacuum-tight. I gave him a sketchy outline and got as far as the suspicious hatch when he started to laugh.

"Oh, it's darned funny up there, pal. You're not stuck down here!"

"No,no, wait," he snickered. "Did you write down the ID number?"

Darned right I had. I read it off to him and there was a short silence, if muffled chuckling counts as silence.

"Yep, here it is. Power room wrote it up day before yesterday when they had to change out tow units. Latch is jamming. They had to force it."

I didn't have anything to say at first. I was grinning too widely. "You son of a—"
Raub had been chatting with the desk officer, a young-looking woman with a wide smile but he'd sat down next to me while I was talking. He broke in with, "—snake," and I echoed him.

Dave replied, "I'm the snake who just saved your hide."

"As soon as we figure out how to make it official, you mean. I need the Chief."

"Left about ten minutes ago, looking annoyed. I think he's in a meeting. I'll take this to him as soon as he's back."

I tried not to sound desperate when I asked, "Do me a favor: page him with it," thanked him and hung up. Stuck. I guessed I could invoke the Agreement and ask for a lift back but the odds of that working out didn't seem good. Sure did wish I'd brought something to read. The only magazines looked like security stuff, with titles I'd never seen before, things like"SWAT" and "Concealed Carry" and months or more out of date. Still, there was some hope; I figured I might as well smile and gave it a try.

Raub gave me a quizzical look. "Good news?"

"I hope so. Our guys — Lupine's, I mean — bunged that door up."

He looked thoughtfully into the distance. "It figures."

"As soon as I can get hold of my boss, we'll get this straightened out."

"Not him on the phone, then?"

"Unh, no."

He made no reply and the quiet stretched out and hung there. I blinked first. "Hey, what's the deal about snakes?"

"What?"

"When I was on the phone. And I've heard other people say stuff like that, too."

"Oh! That. It's from the war. It started as a joke and we never stopped."

"Okay, but what, exactly?"

He grinned, worries forgotten for the moment. "Simple. Any expression that refers to a person, place or thing, you substitute 'snake.' Unless it had a snake in it already, then it should be 'cow.'"

I took that in. "Um, why?"

"For fun! Because it confuses dirtsiders— er, sorry. I mean you guys. Old-worlders. No offense."

Old-worlders? Suddenly I'm European? But I caught his drift. "Okay. At least now I know. But if I'm a 'dirtsider,' what's that stuff outside under the grass?"

"Frothup. I guess it's dirt, too, but it's our dirt."

I gave up. Edgers! "Fair enough." I had another question but about then, the officer on the desk — her nametape just said JOANNA — looked over at us while talking into the air (Bluetooth, of course) and gestured us over. "Hey, you two. I think we're done with you."

As I later found out, the meeting the Chief had been called away to was a conference wall with Port Authority's higher-ups about my little mess and Lupine's side of it alone involved him, Dr. Schmid, Security Director Mathis, the Purser and a couple of her tame legal wranglers — and for all I know, a couple of chaplains, too. After Dave's page hit the meeting, we were almost in the clear; the only remaining problem was the curiously methodical damage, where it was happening and who was doing it: pretty much the same mystery we started with.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

On The Far Edge: Captain Mitch And His Spirit

2010-12-24T20:37:00.001-08:00

[This's not my authorial voice but one from the other side of the line, a kind of gossip reporter for an Edger news site.]

I knew he was a glocker crewman the first time I saw him. The skinsuit gives them away; the working stiffs never bother to unfasten their gloves, even in civic pressure or on a planetary surface. He was sitting disconsolate in one of the little bars near the old cargo port on Smitty's World. These days, the big transfers use Newport, thirty miles away, big enough and modern enough to handle Earthside containerized freight in bundles and the fat, fourth-generation bell-ringers our guys use both independently and to carry cargo on and off the huge station-ships. The older ships and the smaller carriers still find it easier to get a spot in the pattern for the old port, easier to deal with the freight-wallopers and, perhaps, easier on their pride, too.

It was just 1900, 22nd December, Greenwich. Like most ships, stations and planets with cycles too far from the human norm, Smitty's kept strictly to Greenwich Mean Time, or as close as they could. These days, with the phase-rotation ansible and modern computational horsepower, that's close as anyone could want.

The bar'd made a few concessions to the calendar in the form of a bedraggled banner draped across the top quarter of the backbar mirror and twinkling little led lights circling the ceiling, sagging markedly in several spots. It wasn't doing anything for the glocker's mood; he sat by himself near the wall, attention on his sippie of station gin-and-water as though all the worry in the world was contained therein. Or perhaps an anodyne to it and he wasn't hopeful of a successful treatment. He looked up as the door -- and on Smitty's, most of them are merely doors -- jangled behind me and I caught the dark curls, hazel eyes and freckles of one of the Materjacks. Clearly not Micki or little Martha but that still left Mikey and Mitchell, Mark and Marvin, the whole lot of them originally out of some little industrial installation doing mining and refining around La-A's star, or maybe it was Otherstone's. They're all well-known among the smaller starships as fair pilots, navigators and captains, starting even before their father and family ship was lost on Ganymede, early during the war. Skiddoo had been serving as a gunship, all the younger family safely elsewhere, but an entire generation of Materjacks had flashed to a ball of steam and molten metal and with it, their legacy.

Stringing for the newssite FreeTradeCetera, I tried to keep up with the shipping news, the lifeblood of civilization, our Edge on the mudballers from old Earth. Oh, that is boosterism; but it is who we are. I had spent the first of the week at Newport and not paid much heed to the small fry.

"You, I should know," I said to him. "You might be the Martian or the Saint, or the young one--"
"Or the oldest," he replied, "And that is me, just old Mitch. But you, I do not know, with the big fine notepad" -- he nodded at my well-worn SlateBook -- "and the talk of a glocksman but you wear no proper suit for working," with a frown at my bared hands. He had my story soon enough, as well as any interviewer could. "So you write about the Free Traders and the big Earth shippers for the webs, is that so? You would know, then, if there were to be any openings for a Captain shortly?"

I demurred. "I know them when they're posted, same as you. Someone you know needs a berth?"

"Me. Just me. They've come and took my Spirit Of Skidoo and here I am, an honest man walking the docks with a lamp in my hand. Spirit is gone."

That pile of patches! It was coming back to me. One of the small ones, a Derby or a Cloche, with an older MOF 'Drive and only enough power and mass for the third-level effect: slow and uncertain. The Materjacks had put it together from salvage thirty years before and run short-haul freight to keep the family afloat. "I'd heard it was lost, bounced into a rock free-trading around Sol?"

"No, no, a rumor. Stove up. Stove up some, was all, and I had to sell my share to get her fixed, but the best Cloche flying is still at it and I was still her Captain. What a beauty! As shiny as a silver dime. Smooth as silk to land and in and out of the Jump. She shouldn't be carrying anything but shareholders and their luggage, you know."

"I'd heard her 'Drive tended to glitch and the boom was off-center?"

He replied with some heat, "It is a lie, a jealous lie. There was never a finer little bell."

"Wasn't she down to half a year per light-year underway?" I asked, just to see if he'd bite.

He leapt up. "Six months? Show me the man who told you that and I will show him six months all right! She goes two months per, and that with a light hold and half power! And a beauty, like to blind you under any light, all the portmasters know her."

"So the stories of air leaks and coolant in the lifesystem..?"

"Not one bit of truth in it. Not one bit. She was a beauty, a real beauty," and he slumped back over his sipper, took a long pull and looked near to tears.

I hate to see a man with years in Jump space and with stripes on his sleeves cry. I inquired how he'd come to lose her altogether before he sprang a leak himself.

"A misunderstanding, really, a misunderstanding. When you come right down to the rivets, it was Dutch's fault, my Navigator, though we both sat Pilot, of course. He was the one took on the 'prentice, though we all should have known better. There we were at Witherspoon's, full up with fuelwax" -- kerogen, that is -- "for The Rind, and he shows up with a youngster in tow. She looked young but she had all her papers; we'd had to leave Jack W., the Third Hand, back at La-A with a broken leg, him having lost an argument with the cargo-jack, and we were plenty tired of hash-and-eggs from Engineer Jo, plus if her precious 'Drives were out of true, why, she'd tell us to sling a packet in the 'wave if we were that hungry! It was a trial. --How I miss that neat, fine galley!-- But the 'prentice, she wasn't a Welles or a Witherspoon or a Faux-Smith and on Witherspoon Processing--"

I nodded. It's not that big a drift and if you're not born or married into one of the three families, you are a rare bird indeed.

"Mind you, those papers looked all right. Jo ran them and the local web said they were jake. 16, uncontracted, Basic rating."

Not unusual. If you're a NATO or Russky mudballer, 16 likely sounds young. We figure if you can claim your majority, you've reached it. Even for an underpowered cloche like Spirit of Skiddoo W-Proc to The Rind could be hardly more than four months, five at the outside, long enough to take a 'prentice's measure, short enough to not be a bother if he falls short. Or she.

"It wasn't until the second night out Dutch heard her crying. Took Jo to find out why. She was no sixteen and no Glocker 'prentice, either. Crystal Smith she was, the very granddaughter of the Smith himself, out to see the world."

A scion of Johnathon Harper Cameron Smith, Smitty, sole proprietor of the non-aligned (and sunless) world. I told him that sounded like a pickle, but no reason for a man to lose his command, and he nodded.

"You would think that, would you not? Dutch was sure there was money in it, and wanted to divert to whatever port or drift or station was nearest. Jo cursed our lack of an ansible -- you'd think the owners would have one piped in, her the finest Cloche in the firmament! -- and said we should head on Rind-wards and send a message out with one of those Mad Russian couriers after we'd docked. But that is not my way. No, I told them, no, we must get this little one to home, first and foremost, and keep it quiet to not embarrass her gran-dad. Oh, I was clever, clever!"

He paused in his narrative, drained the last few cc's from his sippie and gave it a significant glance. I was eager to hear how he got from a mission of mercy to a captain without a ship, so I waved the bartender over and got him a fill.

"Was I not so clever. We pushed her hard, my little Spirit; dropped out, reset and made the Jump here to Smitty's in under two months, almost--"

A run the big station-ships will do in a week and Gen Fours solo in a month.

"--And the Smith himself welcomed her back as a prodigy and us as heros. He'd have nothing for us but the best, the very best, the finest accommodations and whatever we wanted, entertainments every night and it was not even two weeks gone by before I got word."

I asked just what that word might have been.

"The owners! When we'd gone overdue at The Rind, they'd put out a circular to all their agents; and when their man here sent back we'd been seen on a drunken carouse for nigh the past week, he rounded up a crew and took her out, my very own Spirit." He returned his attention to his drink, pondered it and emptied the sippie as though its contents were only water. "So if you know of anyone out for a Captain, qualified as navigator and pilot alike, and very discreet, mention my name to them, will you?"

And with that, he turned away, as if he had gone suddenly shy of saying more.

I'm told Spirit of Skiddoo had life-support problems before she could get up enough velocity to Jump out from Smitty's and in the subsequent towing and repair, somehow word of the miscarried justice reached the desk of one J. H. C. Smith, Prop., Smitty's World; I cannot say precisely what happened from there, but I am pleased to report that by Christmas Eve, Captain Mitch Materjack and his crew were back aboard Spirit of Skiddoo with commendations to boot and perhaps the only glockers qualified to keep "the finest cloche in the starry sky" actually in the sky.

Merry Christmas from the Far Edge of the Hidden Frontier!

In Space, The Connectors Are Not Flatulent

2010-12-17T06:26:00.000-08:00

The Hidden Frontier comes to Earth: PEI-Genesis offers a full range of space-rated connectors. Outgassed, even, to keep them from failing in interesting and dangerous ways.

Riddle me this, Mr. Detective: if NASA (+.mil), commercial satellite folks, SpaceX, Blue Horizon, Bigelow, Virgin Galactic and the various X-prize contenders are the only market, how're they turning these gadgets out in bulk without going broke? Total up all the known customers and you might use up a week's production at the connector factory to replace every vacuum-spec, low-magnetism, non-toxic plug and socket they're using.

Just thought I'd point that out.

Lupine's Logo

2010-12-06T18:31:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned before, "there's a doggie on the ship's stationary," and on the officer's uniforms, too. You'll find it on people's T-shirts and sweatshirts; passengers can even buy souvenirs. Those versions are mostly plain, dark-blue on off-white. Unlike the snarling wolf's head profile of her warship days, Lupine's merchant wolf is enjoying the ride.

On the sides of the ship's single largest pressure hull, there's this version by a top graphic designer, filling the full ten-story height: Famous graphic designer? Yep. And you know him, too -- Mr. Robb Allen.

Now available on a T-shirt!

Frothup: Dropping In, Part 6

2010-11-15T18:36:00.000-08:00

[TO THE BEGINNING]

No cell signal inside the squirt-booster, of course, and it didn't look all that great in the big hanger; I found my way back to the human-sized door and stepped out into the sunlight. It seemed a little warmer already, though clouds were skipping overhead at a pretty good clip.

The Chief was my first call and it works unexcitingly just like calling a business -- dial up Lupine's temporary number and punch my way through the shipboard system. I tried to just stick to the facts, bare description, but he started asking questions before I'd gotten very far. Ended by telling me he was having "Dave, Jay and anyone else on shift" go check out the other boosters, and that he was grounding any we had at the port. Sometimes I think he's paranoid; but that doesn't mean he isn't right nearly all the time.

I went back inside and had about enough time to check in with Raub when his phone went off. Or phone-like device; he was carrying the same kind of gadget his buddy had used at the gate, looking like sort of a Soviet iPhone and it seemed to work just fine in the hangar. Edger tech, overbuilt, probably half of it from parts smuggled off Earth. (This is the galling thing about Edgers; lacking any strong central authority that bothers to do more than the most basic policing, short on population and, at least until recently, many kinds of industrial infrastructure, they regard smuggling as a sort of a game. But that trade runs both ways, as it must; I am convinced the papers that started our side down the path towards stealth technology was based on information sold by an Edger smuggler low on trading fodder who needed bucks for blue jeans or beer — or a roller bearing or a breeding pair of guinea pigs; which reminds me, avoid the hot dogs and lunch meat on their side of the line).

While I was following that train of thought to its unlunchly end, Raub had plenty of time for a semi-mysterious conversation, at his end mostly consisting of monosyllabic questions: "They did? Just now?" "About an hour and a half." "Where?" He gave me a couple of unreadable looks through all that, ended the call and sighed. "Feel like a change of scenery? You and me, we are the 'experts' now."

I tried to look innocent. Failed, as usual. "Which means...?"

"It's off to the port for us — they're hauling all your boosters to the far side of the field and we gotta check them." He turned back to his phone and punched numbers.

I'm not going to detail the trip back to Aberstwyth Port, but there are some aspects worth mentioning. Naturally, there's a more or less direct route to the port from the North side of Southport/South end of Aberstwyth and it's not named after any ancient deities, either. But calling it "Road 215" didn't make bumping up and down through rolling farmland on an unfamiliar gravel road, at a rate of speed and in a pickup truck that appeared to have been "improved" from a collection of random truck-like parts any less, ahem, "thrilling." My driver was revealing a nearly shocking amount of leg and grinning like a fool, clearly after every last erg the drivetrain could turn into speed. I wasn't even sure what the truck had been to begin with. The few labeled controls and indicators were no help, though a lot of the markings looked like Chinese. I was pretty confident the speedo was calibrated in kph but after it passed 100, I stopped trying to read it. Yeah, I hurtle unafraid through hard and hostile vacuum outside of normal reality for a living; I ride aboard a starship as big as a medium-sized city as it plunges into solar systems at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. I even fall to planetary surfaces in landing craft that don't have enough lift or motive power to fly for more than a few minutes, and cheat at physics in order to set down, and relish the experience. But I'm still a chicken in ground vehicles. The landmarks are too close, the other drivers and random critters are even closer and there isn't even any central traffic control keeping tabs on it (most places — ask me sometime what Kansas II has instead of railroads). What would happen if we met up with one of those driverless trucks?

I needn't have worried. The road was wide and smooth; the only other vehicle we saw was a truck headed the other way, a big flatbed with a few tarped shapes in the back. The driver favored us with a cheery wave and as we rushed past, I saw the flying saucer logo on the door and the name INNOVATIVE. Raub noticed me noticing — I wished he was looking at the road — and said, "Yep. We just about own this road. Even do our own grading."

We arrived at the port intact, under increasingly cloudy skies. It was already warm enough I'd struggled out of my sweatshirt in the truck, one more distraction from the drive. Raub checked in at the gate and we followed increasingly-worse lanes around the huge berm. On the far side from the city, there was a series of beat-up concrete pads. Five of Lupine's squirt-boosters were laid in a row there and a funny-looking hauler was bringing another one out.

A fussy-looking gent with a clipboard was waiting as we parked, and trotted right over to the truck. "Which one of you is Mr. 'Ecks?'"

Geesh, another one. "I'm Miz Ecks, Mr.—?"

He held out a clipboard. "Port Control. Sign here."

Man put my back up. "What's this, Mister 'Port Control?'"

The man sniffed. He actually sniffed. "Your bill. For hazardous haulage. Plus fine for operating dangerous vehicles. Additional fees for special storage." He seemed primed to continue.

I made my eyes all big and innocent. The "big eye" part was easy; by then I'd found the total, a staggering sum. "Gosh, I can't sign that. You'll need an officer. Did you Cc Lupine command?"

He looked daggers at me.

Raub had been looking on with a half-smile. Now he leaned in, right hand on his hip, shirts pulled tighter over a shape that could have been a holstered gun; Edgers tend to consider personal protection a do-it-yourself art. "Knock it off, Jim," he said, "At this point we don't even know if there is a hazard. Whyn't'cha let us find out before you total up the bill?"

"But- but-" indignation was warring with fear and just about to lose,"What about the powerplants?"

Raub shrugged. "No moving parts. Jimbo, I went over the one in our shop myself and it's clean. These, we'll find out -- and if it worries you, git."

I wouldn't've put it that way. On the other hand, I don't work for Frothup's main starship repair yard. With a last, schoolteacher-stern stare at me, the port agent turned and tromped off towards the ungainly vehicle that had finished dropping off the sixth squirt-booster.

Raub turned to me. "He's not a bad guy, really. Transferred out here from the Port Admin offices downtown after the Cut & Run crash, though, and he's never really got used to it."

I nodded.

"Hey," he asked, "How many of these things are down?"

A text message had buzzed into my phone on the way but I'd been bouncing too much to risk a close look. I fished the thing out of my purse and had a look. "Eight, counting the one in your hanger. Guess they haven't brought the final one out yet."

"Tellya what -- let's both go through the one in the middle, then split up and work our way out."

It sounded like a plan to me and I said as much, adding, "You won't need my help on the software unlock?"

He didn't turn a hair. "Nope."

The "middle one" turned out to be a bingo, the same MO only with a nice scratch down the the front of the power supply and a little etched spot in the deck. Somebody was after our squirt-boosters and they'd darned near succeeded in creating a nasty incident — and a medium-sized crater. By the middle of the afternoon, under skies gone overcast and climbing temperatures, we'd found three more. Raub had found something else and called me over: scratches and gouges where someone had been trying to get at the power plant of an otherwise unsabotaged squirt-booster, or possibly succeeded. It was the one that'd been hauled out last, after we'd already started checking them out.

I'm not sure how much I can explain about that power source; while if properly handled it's as safe as a Russian lighthouse or even safer, it is a little bit classified and tends to worry the fretful. Individual units are fat cylinders like overgrown LP gas tanks and they're incredibly rugged. Drop 'em from high enough, though— Just about anything will melt and/or splatter, even rocks.

Looked like somebody was a belt-and-suspenders saboteur. Until that find, I was still hoping that it was, somehow, defective parts or some bizarre maintenance mistake.

We stood there, looking at the thing, and I figured I needed to say something. "It could be worse," I ventured, "it could be—"

"Don't say it."

"—raining?"

It started to drizzle.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Organization

2010-10-08T17:52:00.000-07:00

I have added links to some of the vignettes and story arcs. You'll find it at the right-hand side of this page, under the heading STORIES. ~~Most~~ A few of them link back to my personal blog, which is where I first started telling tales about my job in the exciting, fast-paced star travel industry.

Some of you who arrive via websearches or blog links may not be of the same political opinions as those you will occasionally find me expressing elsewhere on that blog. I hope that won't keep you from enjoying the yarns. Bear in mind that somewhere aboard Lupine, or at least somewhere along the Hidden Frontier, is someone with notions about politics and humanity that are almost exactly like your own.

Update: For those of you who (like me) prefer to read a complete story, everything linked to as a story arc or vignette is self-contained, with one exception: "Adventures In History" has yet to be completed. But it contains a lot of historical background for the Hidden Frontier and doesn't come to a cliff-hanger.

Frothup: Dropping In, Part Five

2010-10-08T03:07:00.001-07:00

[TO THE BEGINNING]

He yelled, I stopped. Sure, somebody barks out an order like that, my first impulse is to get my back up — and so's yours, probably. Nevertheless, I stopped and kept my mouth shut. Most of my working life and leisure time is spent in surroundings filled with ways to be killed or injured and when someone says "Stay put!" you stay put and survive to find out why later.

"Why" was quick to arrive this time, as a machine that looked like a cross between a "bobcat" and a forklift trundled by right behind my confronter, carrying a large sub-assembly of pipes, strange modules, high-pressure fittings and fat cable bundles. Farther back, the source of the rumble and squeal revealed itself to be a traveling crane carrying an unfamiliar-looking lander, looking like a streamlined mobile home, slightly burned around the leading edge. The large structure fronting on the street was just the first of a series of big peaked and arch-roof buildings scattered around the vast space. There weren't a lot of people visible for the size of the enclosure but every one of them was in motion, including the guy who'd stopped me.

The forkloader ground on past and he folded his arms, took a step back and gave me a once-over just short of insulting. I looked him over right back, head to toe, a great lump of a man over six feet tall, strong-looking, with close-cropped sandy hair, a slightly prehistoric aspect and as my gaze returned to his face, a very faint and engagingly wry smile. "Okay," he said, "You must have half a clue. Or none at all."

"One or the other," I agreed. "Roberta Ecks. From Lupine. You've got one of our squirt-boosters...?"

His smile got a little wider. "Oh, that thing." He took a gadget like an oversized cell phone from his pocketed and keyed something in. "We put it over in 14-H. This way."

We wended our way through the place, which was a little more organized-looking from inside the maze, to one of the arched buildings. The big doors were closed; he led me through a smaller door next to it. Inside was shockingly...not neat, exactly, but despite a profusion of tools, toolboxes, work surfaces, materiel, cables and hoses, there was a complete absence of junk and debris. It was brightly lit and the very few trip-and-fall hazards were well-marked.

Dominating my view, a well-worn Glocke-type shuttle easily 70 feet in diameter; beyond it, impact bags stowed, swinging from a massive overhead hoist by stout slings through new hoisting eyes in her hardpoints, was Lupine's failed squirt-booster, a long, shiny half-a-boat shape. The big guy headed towards it and I followed.

There was a worktable up against the side of the ship, where a stocky fellow wearing an untucked shirt and sandals was working at a laptop computer with an expression of intense concentration. He must have been wearing shorts, but his shirt-tails were so long there was no way to tell. He turned and looked up as we got closer, shirt swinging open to reveal he was wearing a T-shirt underneath it, also untucked and nearly as long. I still couldn't've told you if he was otherwise clad. For all knew, I was among the sans-culottes. He nodded at my guide and said, "Heya, primitive. She's who they sent from the Earth ship?" The way he said it, it sounded like maybe I had fleas.

The big guy started to say something; I stepped up and held out my hand. "Roberta Ecks. Chief 'Drive Tech, Lupine," thinking, 'Earth ship' me, willya? Some of these guys, you have to get almost toe-to-toe with 'em before they'll even give you a chance to prove you know what you know.

Other than a certain tightening around the eyes and mouth, his expression didn't change. "Okay. I'm Raub. Thought I'd get a head start but the software's, unh, locked up as tight as the hardware." On the screen behind him, the login sequence was, in fact, just finishing; I ignored it and gave him my very best Big-Sisterly, I-know-what-you're-up-to Hearty Grin.

"Great! Glad to meetcha, Rob. And...," I turned but the big guy was already halfway to the door. I noticed he was wearing a glove on only one hand.

Raub chuckled. "It's R-A-U-B. And don't mind him, he's kind of a Neanderthal. Awfully good tech, though. --I've seen the report your pilot filed. Anything else I should know?"

"Breaker trip when we took a lightning hit, not much more to say. Let me finish the software unlock and get the hatches open and we can have a look."

* * *
I started a standard diagnostics routine. As for not actually having had to log myself on, I ignored it and he didn't bring it up but, typical Edger tech, he'd managed to get into ship's systems all right, though there's no serious effort to secure them; that could create a safety hazard. Physical isolation is the primary security. I suspected he could have beat the physical locks, too, but I didn't give him the chance, just climbed up the stingy flip-down foot- and hang-holds and unlocked the hatch. Inside, we made our way to the 'drive module, snugged in at the squirt-booster's center of gravity. It doesn't have to be at the CG but it simplifies things.

Access is via a junior-sized pressure door with a decent lock. Can't have some nitwit mistaking it for the washroom the ship hasn't got! It smelled half-wrong, hot electronics with a whiff of Old Fireplace. We swapped looks; it wasn't a good sign. I gave him a quick, hands-on, hand-waving rundown of what did what; he took it in with a raised eyebrow and a faint smile. Engineering approaches vary between us and the Far Edge and a single squirt-booster has very little redundancy in the 'Drive systems. It doesn't have to; they are never deployed singly. Edgers, at least the ones in space or working on space-travel hardware, still regard it with a mixture of amusement and horror.

I set to work getting access to the HV supply for the 'Drive and asked Raub to check on the diagnostic. There's about enough room for one tech to get the modules out — as long as no one else is in the compartment.
* * *
Some circuit breakers — especially cheap ones — are just fuses with a fancy lever. The first big overload that comes along, poof! They never work again. Believe me when I tell you that's not what they put in spaceflight-rated equipment. No, we get the good stuff. Nevertheless, the breaker on that HV supply sure felt dead. By the time had the module unfastened, wrestled out and nearly opened up, the Edger tech was back, carrying the laptop.

"This can't be right," he said, "it's backwards." And so it was. The lightning transient showed up as a series of overrange indications and false faults — but the breaker had tripped a full two seconds earlier. Sure, it's not very long, but unless you believe inanimate objects can react to future events, it's too long. Still, there's one chance and the Edger came up with it the same time I did: "How's your logging software handle simultaneous inputs?"

I grinned. The Edger term for any software from our side of the border is "flabware." They're convinced it's all flashy graphics over not much substance. "Crudely. But not that slowly." The code is just looking at inputs one after another, tic-tic-tic; if 1 through n go flaky all at once, it still takes finite time to look at 'em and they'll be time-stamped differently. But not by a whole second, let alone two! There are slicker, more accurate ways to do this; for instance, subsystems could latch and timestamp their own data, but it just makes the whole mess more complicated. "Either something went nutty in the log, or the timing's just coincidence."

The possibly-pantsless Edger gave me a long look. "Funny sort of coincidence."

I didn't have any useful reply to that, and for once managed to avoid saying it. I turned back to getting the side panel off the supply. The breaker's right underneath it, top left corner. There was a nasty black smear of soot on the inside panel and the breaker had a nice burned hole in the side; it even looked a bit melted. Which is funny but not amusing: plastics, composites, used in these applications are not supposed to melt or burn very easily.

It didn't look good. If this was a component failure, it was a fleet-grounding defect, at least 'til we figured out why. I said a rude word, earning a surprised glance from Raub. His eyes widened when he got a better look at the breaker. "Jeesh, what're you people making parts out of now?"

For that, I had an answer, "Nothing that should've done that, at least not all by itself."

It really didn't look good. I fiddled the breaker off and on a few times. It just flopped back and forth.

There was a melty spot visible on the front of the breaker in the ON position, down at the bottom. The Edger tech noticed it, too.

I may not be the sharpest spoon in the drawer, but the front of a circuit breaker is just a big chunk of plastic. It's not all that close to the parts that can fail-with-drama. I took another look at the whole mess and then took a mental step back. There was a way to check this out without leaping to conclusions. "Raub, I need to make a call. You guys cool with cell phones?"

[TO BE CONTINUED]

All Part Of The Service

2010-10-05T18:43:00.000-07:00

"Engineering to Jump Control. Engineering to Jump Control."

Lupine had completed the long run-up to a significant percentage of the speed of light and was leaping out of Frothup's star system, at long last; it'd been fun but I wasn't gonna miss the place. As is usual during a Jump, all us on-shift Engineering types were hanging out in the Shop, listening to the intercom. We get the "big loop," anyone keys up anywhere in the 'comms, we'll hear it.

This voice wasn't over the intercom but the plain-ordinary dial seven-oh paging system...which is locked out during FTL and maneuvering operations. Locked out, that is, except for the control rooms and a very few other critical locations.

Not that I that that deeply about it at the time; I was nearest the hatch and was already in motion when the Chief said, "Bobbi..." from his vest-pocket of an office. At that, I hit the entrance to Jump Control right behind Gale Grinnel, one of the old-timers and a man who won't let his left wrist tell his right wrist the time of day. He hadn't been in the Shop when he call came in -- must have been closer to Jump Control, though.

I've described the place before, kind of a cross between Mission Control and the bridge of a very large oceangoing vessel; the Star Pilot him or herself sits front and center, at a distressingly tiny set of controls; in the worry seat today was Lorena, Kent Good's spouse, something of a Den Mother to the assorted clutch of a pilots and right hand to Randall, the big boss pilot and head guy in charge. And I have seen her freeze a Navs boffin with a single icy glare after a clumsy remark about "women drivers." To her right sits the Navs Lead, sorting possible scenarios and lining them up for the next move; next row back is a couple of Imaging techs who are mostly sorting the incoming data so that what shows up on the big screens at the front of the bridge is optimally useful, a couple more Navs types straining to stay ahead of what might happen, and Power Room's on-site tech. The back row accommodates E&PP's remote tech, ditto from Stores and Cargo, plus space for trainees and the officer officially on watch. And down in the front row, on the pilot's right, is one more station: Jump Coordinator, in charge of all tasks not directly related to getting into or out of a superluminal condition in one piece. Among other things, he's got the main 'comms console.

That'd be the one he's pointing disgustedly to, while looking daggers at Gale and innocent li'l me. The one with exactly one light on it, instead of the rows and rows of alphanumeric displays and LEDs that shold be lit up.

A lot of Jump Coordinators are retired pilots; not everyone has the nerves to do the the job for year after year. Others are pilots on reduced duty, or picking up extra income working overtime; or they are, to be indelicate about it, cock-ups who might be Genuine Certified Star Pilots but who Randall won't trust in the big chair.

Yeah, guess which variety we've drawn? He's not happy about it, either, and looks even less happy when Gale ignores him, pulls a tiny "green tweaker" screwdriver from his jumpsuit sleeve pocket (he's old school that way), and jabs it in the RESET hole in the primary intercom panel. The last little yellow LED goes out, with a "cluck" from every earpiece that earns us a hasty, annoyed glance from Lorena; then they all light up, a tiny fireworks display, most of 'em go out and come back on one-by-one as proper labels and indicators.

The JC looks flabbergasted. Gale turns and gives me a tiny grin and we both step out into the passageway and start back to the shop. "Darned kids anyway," he mutters, "It used to be just one lousy partyline -- and that didn't work most of the time." Behind us, I could hear the JC start to splutter, think better of it and stop. Even the larger egos have to bend to moment -- there's ten miles of starship, thousands of lives and billions of dollars in cargo riding on every Jump; get it wrong and you're a shooting star in someone's sky -- if you're lucky.

By the time we get back to the Shop, the usual discussion is in full swing: Why Doesn't Engineering Sit Console During Jump? We're in time to hear the Chief's judgment: "You're not operators! Our job is to make their jobs easier -- and to stay out of their way the rest of the time!"

He's right, of course -- half-way to outracing light is no time to start tearing the widgetry apart unless it's absolutely necessary. You don't ask a mechanic to look under the hood of your car while you're headed down the highway!

Frothup: Dropping In Chapter Four

2010-08-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

[STORY BEGINS HERE]

It was nearly pitch-dark and an unfamiliar alarm was sounding. I slapped at the lightswitch next to my bunk and nearly popped my shoulder, hitting nothing but air. Speaking of air, I couldn't hear the ventilation running! That was enough to penetrate my awareness; I sat up, blinking, slowly remembering I wasn't on Lupine and I had places to be. The "alarm" was my rent-a-phone, beeping and buzzing on the molded-in headboard. I grabbed it, dropped it, picked up, pried it open and mumbled, "IzzEcks..."

It kept on ringing. I said a word I shouldn't and poked at the green button.

"Bobbi?" It was Handsome Dave, before I could even try another hello.

"Yeah." By then I had my feet on the floor and had just grabbed my wristwatch. It's an affectation, an old-fashioned pilot's watch, but it glows in the dark without any maintenance and the glowing hands showed a quarter after four. "D'you realize what time—"

"I do. The Chief asked me to call and there's a long list after you: the Captain died last night, er, tonight."

The words made sense one at a time but not in a row. "The- He what?"

"The. Captain. Is. Dead. Doc Poole says it looks like natural causes."

I didn't have a reply to that. It was like hearing the Lupine itself was gone. Holy cow, now what?

"Doc Schmid is acting Captain. The Chief said you should keep after the repair yard, we need that squirt-booster ASAP — all leaves are canceled."

"I wasn't on leave. Is he canceling my factory training, too?"

"I dunno. Ask him once that booster's running. Have you seen Butch? Um..."

"Hey!"

"That came out wrong. He's on my list and there's no ground number. I called the port and they played cagey."

"That's where I saw him last. He didn't turn right around?"

"Doesn't look that way —Look, I have a long list, we're trying to reach crew before rumor spreads." And he hung up on me.

Talk about wake-up calls.
* * *
Twenty years ago, I was slimmer, hungry and desperate to get off Kansas II. I'd bounced there after a very short stint working my way up through the Engineering ranks on the old container-freighter William Howard, my first corporation-owned berth and the biggest starship I'd worked on, a mile and a half from stem to stern. It was also a revolving door; command staff changed often, transferred up to larger, busier members of the Cincinnati Group's fleet or fired for not making the grade. Next level down, changes were nearly as frequent; I was hired in as third engineer and finished as Chief, then managed to get crosswise with a new captain and a 2/O just jumped up from Senior Navigator. As luck would have it, Billy How was orbiting Kansas II at the time; I was "offered" serious demotion and transfer, inevitably to a worse ship. Already irked with Cincy, I asked for a ticket dirtside instead. ..."Asked" might not really be the right word; but perhaps tempers had cooled a bit or one of the Purser's tame attorneys had reminded them of the very serious penalties incurred under the Treaty of 1989 by an officer in command of any spacecraft who ejects crew or paying passenger without proper process and verified cause from a very short list. Or maybe they weren't actually bad guys, just jerks under too much pressure. Whatever; I squirt-boosted down with a mixed batch of managers and support staff from the light-truck division of a major automaker, assorted politicians and three families from some flooded-out one-horse town in the Dakotas: a typical Hidden Frontier bunch.

Junior Jayhawks are proud of their world, proud of the resemblance between the settled sections of it and their namesake and proud of their cultural resemblance, too. Imagine Chinatown or Little Italy; now picture the same strong sentiment about Kansas and you've almost got it. If you grew up in the Midwest, especially any of the thousands of farming-and-light-industry towns, it's a familiar sort of place, give or take the deathwood pollen alerts and a buffalion or twelve. KC2-Squared strives mightily to be as cosmopolitan as the original Kansas City with a quarter the population; I can say they do have fountains.

They've got industry, too. It turned out my 'Drive ticket — not to mention the lightning-bolt-and-gear pin on my collar — opened a lot of doors. Behind one of them, I found a decent job senior-teching for a microwave manufacturer — ovens, that is, not communications equivalent. Behind another, I picked up part-time income teaching night-school Introduction To Radiofrequency Electronics.

I was making good money. I was renting a nice little house, dating nice Jayhawk gentlemen and I didn't have to carry a pager. It should have been the happiest time of my life.

I was miserable. Bored out of my skull. Planetbound. It'll sound crazy but the situation felt claustrophobic — with a whole planet to knock around on! I tried for a ship gig; even a local mining run, with 'Drives only powerful enough to cheat Newton. My last CO, however, had neglected to sign off on my 'Drive operator's license. There's a space for it, and tick boxes for "satisfactory" or "unsatisfactory;" all I had was a blank space and an unlikely story. Oh, there were open doors on the ground a-plenty, but nary an undogged hatch for me in the high and airless.

Kept my name on the register anyway, just in case. 18 months after I'd hit dirt, I'd about given up. Lupine — one of the biggest two civilian starships flying — had come in the previous week. I hadn't bothered to check on a payin' berth aboard her; the Starship Company is the biggest and the the first of the private outfits flyin' out of Earth and Lupine and her sister ship Vulpine* are their darlings. I was a hard-luck case 'Drive tech without a fancy degree, just Uncle Sam's best force-feeding of common sense and exotic physics. I didn't stand a chance with them.

I was home grabbing a PB&J on whole wheat when my 'phone rang. K2's got 'phone solicitors just like you do in Duluth or Yonkers, so I went with Disconcerting Response #1: picked it up and announced, "Telephone!"

There was a long pause. A looong pause. Ha, got you, I thought. Then a man spoke, slow and strong:

"Miss Ecks?"

"It's your dime, bucko. And my time's a-wastin'."

"Roberta Ecks?"

"Only one in town, last I checked. C'mon, try'n sell me a vacuum and I'll hang up on ya. I'm in a hurry."

"I believe you have the wrong impression, Miss Ecks. This is Captain James of the USAS Lupine."

"Aw, right. Did the second-shift QC guys at Wessex put you up to this? Tell 'em from me it's not gonna work." And I hung up.

Lucky for me, Captain Telemachus James had a very good sense of humor. Luckier still, he really, really needed a 'Drive engineer, their main tech having tried a shortcut with a high voltage interlock the previous day and lost the bet. He called me back immediately and led with, "Miss Ecks, I am offering you a job aboard my ship. A real job."

It wasn't a joke. I called in "gone" to the community college; eight hours later, I was bounding upward in one of Lupine's squirt-boosters. I sent the Test Maintenance department at Wessex a farewell postcard from orbit.

The Chief was not terribly impressed by my record and not by me in person, either. His tiny office was crammed with both of us in it, even with the top of his desk scrupulously clear and everything shipshape and properly stowed in shelves and racks on the bulkheads. Waving my license, he declaimed, "Captain James says he's got faith in you. I don't know what you've done in the past, I don't care where you worked or who for. You've got a chance — a chance — to reboot. This is my Engineering Department; either you can do the work, or you're out. If you're good at it, if you show up on time and get things done, you'll do well here. If not...." He stopped and gave me a grim look. "Just don't." He handed me my ticket. "See Gale Grinnell, man with black hair there at the bench; he'll show you where to post your license. Ask him what he needs help on. —And get up to speed on the RCA ST75-FH 'Drive exciter, too."

I'd met the Captain in person very briefly when I first came aboard, a big man with a reserved smile and a firm handshake; he seemed, well, fatherly. I didn't find out about his war record until a long time later — served on the man's ship for five years before somebody explained the things his official biography left out — like six months in an Edger prison hull and a triumphant escape, among other things.

For my entire time on Lupine, Captain James had been the calm at the center of the storm. And now he was gone.
* * *
I laid awake thinking back, thinking forward, caught in a loop. The Captain's dead? Eventually I dozed off and woke again in just that somber a mood when my "wake-up call" came through at 0600, a harsh beeping. A hasty shower in that too-familiar Frank Lloyd Wright head -- if he's not related to Orville and Wilbur, howcome is that design so much the prototypical airliner loo? -- followed by brushing the worst knots from my hair (pleasantly, Frothup's water supply seemed softer than Lupine's) and grabbing my hoodie and whatever was on top in my duffle(carpenter's denim dingareess and an "I [heart in a gear] ENGINEERING" T-shirt), I was shivering at the bus stop, sipping at an indifferent cup of coffee. At least it was hot. And I sure wasn't back on Kansas II any more.

The hotel (I'd call it by name but all the sign on the front said was "LODGING") had had printed maps in the lobby, sharing a display rack with various glossy tourist-y brochures, including a restrained one I'd picked up promoting the "Ship-Wreck Impact Site Memorial." It was tucked into an intersection with businesses an all four corners, sharing frontage with a small office building. Across 75th was something calling itself Chemist; I was betting pharmacy rather than ChemEng, but what I could see of the window display could have been either one. The street sign (in a font suspiciously similar to Papyrus. What? I notice these things; it's worse when I'm tired or stressed) confirmed the hotel faced on Thoth Prospect. According to the map I was one block in from Osiris Way, the last major curved street before the city trailed off in a web of lesser roads.

Mass transportation -- when it exists at all -- is a bit idiosyncratic but fair-to-good on most of the worlds of the Hidden Frontier, for a very simple reason: cars are scarce. Trucks are more common but the two- or three-car household is a rarity. What showed up at the intersection snorting and squeaking to a stop only ten minutes behind schedule, looked like a tattooed school bus, not a slick earthside bad neighborhood on wheels, but it was headed the right way. I hoped it was, anyway.
* * *
The south side of Aberstwyth had been pleasantly same-as-before, a cross between suburbia and gentrified cityscape: a few blocks of residences and then a business corner, or an intersection with apartment buildings on every corner, over and again. We went by several bookshops along the way. Even in my distracted state, it looked nice. A model city.

Southport looked more like the boxes it had been packed in. The bus snorted across a bridge, past a collection of the kind of concrete-pile apartment buildings I'd initially thought to find and shuddered to a stop at the "town square," a weedy vacant lot containing a swingset built of what looked like junkyard scrap, a neatly-painted sign (SOUTHPORT welcomes you) and a half-dozen yelling kids, dressed too lightly for the weather. Off the bus, a brisk breeze made me feel chillier.

On the other hand -- the sunlight was plenty bright and there wasn't a cloud in the sky; it was possible, that too much time aboard a starship had made me soft. Or not, I thought as I shivered and zipped my sweatshirt all the way up.

The shipyard was at the edge of town, a couple blocks north and west of the nearest bus stop. It was an unprepossessing place and the walk there wasn't much nicer -- small houses with yards full of this and that, a few small shops and a few that might've been either or both. The 'yard, when I got to it, did sport one of the few actual brand-name type signs I'd seen on a business, a rusting shape like a cloche hat, painted silver with "INNOVATIVE" lettered around the circumference, perched atop a pole: I guessed it was supposed to be an Edger "Glocke" starship lander. Innovative what, I wondered. The main building was a corrugated-metal barn, with no obvious entrance; the rest of the lot was fronted by a tall fence of the same material, badly in need of paint. Something behind it was making a rumble and squeal that spoke of high mass and a slim margin of safety. There was a double gate standing ajar in the wall that looked like my best bet; I edged my way through to behold a chaos of junk, half-assembled vehicles and big equipment in motion. I looked around, trying to make sense of it, when a man the dimensions and approximate size of a glacier-deposited boulder stepped right in front of me and commanded, "You just stop right there, Missy! Not another step!"

Great. I make friends wherever I go.
______________________
* It's too good not to share: Vulpine's captain from her first day of civilian service has been one Margeret Fox (R. Adm, USSF, Ret.). Her reputation is nothing short of awesome but skill aside, you have to wonder at the trail of chance and whim that put a Fox in charge of a fox.

[CONTINUED IN CHAPTER FIVE]

Postage

2010-07-25T17:58:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the Interstellar-International Postal Union, any stamp is good anywhere, mostly; but I'm still tryin' to figure out if the former stamps of a former government, denominated in their former currency, are worth anything other than "Lookie-kewl" points:Gads, were those people on drugs?

(Scanned in here about 4x life size). It's not like I can send it to my youngest niece or nephew back on Earth; the Feds and other Treaty powers take a dim, dim view of such behavior....

Frothup: Dropping In Chapter Three

2010-07-21T18:29:00.000-07:00

[Story starts HERE]

They could put a bell or a beeper on electric forklifts. They could especially put a bell on the automated ones. Sure, it will eventually drive everyone who works near 'em luridly nutty, but think of the children and innocents it might save. Including me! But even if they didn't do that -- and they don't -- I do not care how talented a programmer of servomechanisms you are, nor how sophisticated they are, the rotten machines should not do a happy little dance after they have nearly hit me and rolled up to their destination.

This one did. I was looking around for the lunatic who'd tackled me when the movement caught my eye, a little tracked vehicle dancing back and forth, cargo platform moving in counterpoint, right next to the bus, where luggage hatches had popped open low along the side. It got lined up to suit itself and started shoving boxes in, all untouched by human hands. Biiiz-arre. The bus driver hopped out and started towards me, a reassuring sight. I was interrupted by a nearby voice: "Lady, are you all right?"

Tactical me; my assailant had come to light not ten feet to my left and was trying to catch his breath. "It almost got you! Did you not see the lane?"

Those "decorative lines" on the sidewalk.... "Umm, no." I was irked. "What lane? Aren't those things supposed to, like, automatically not hit people?"

"Yes, well, it wasn't stopping. Are you okay?"

I thought about it. Looked at my hands, knees, felt my elbows... "Skinned up some. Is that thing yours?" I was gonna have bruises. Oh, yeah.

"The bus company owns it. You are supposed to stay out of the lanes. Um, I'm Findley. Findley Michaels." He grinned at me as if I should like him.

Oh, great. They knock you down, then wanna chat you up. Has someone seen to many "meet-cute" movies? Thing prolly would'a stopped on its own. "I'm meeting someone here. Do you work for this 'Bus Company?'"

He grinned again, one of those guys who sheds ten years when he smiles. "Call me Mike. I work for Irrational Numbers. And you'd be Roberta, then?"

H'mm, and not even a pocket-protector on him. By then the driver had reached us, a little out of breath. "Miss, are you all right? Do you not know to stay out of the lanes?" He had an even stronger Edger accent than Mike and he looked more angry than concerned.

"In order: I think I'm fine. And no, I didn't. Afraid I'll break your robot?"

He looked even angrier. "I thought you might have been hurt."

"Thanks you your buddy here, not much and not by that gadget." Said gadget was in the process of purring towards us with what I thought was arrogant poise, carrying surface empty; yeah, I'm anthropomorphizing, but it sure did sashay after it nearly got me. I watched it wheel on by and through an overhead door, out of sight. The door whirred down and slammed into place, untouched, I supposed, by human hands.

Mike broke in, "She's fine. Lupine tech crew. I'm with Irrational--" and darned if he didn't offer the guy his business card.

The driver gave me an opaque look, his expression suddenly no more revealing as a door closing. Look, things are still strained between the Far Edge and everyone else, no surprise after years and years of mutual suspicion, smuggling, distrust and confusion. Spacefaring Edgers are fussy and a bit odd but we've got a common foe, the vast empty darkness between the tiny places where people can live. Compared to that pitiless vacuum, a Russian, a Frenchman or even the most fanatic Federation of Concerned Spacemen member is a welcome friend and his ship, no matter how odd, improvised or arcane, is a haven. Sure, there's conflict, but in a way, you're all on the same side. The number of planet-bound Edgers I've met is tiny and a skewed sample at that, given that they were all either passengers or crew on Earth-based starships. The only other time I've seen anybody just shut off was once on vacation, when I said something much too much damnyankee in the rural South and I suppose that time, I had it coming. But this? All it had taken was the name of my ship -- and what'd he expect, running a bus to and from the planet's only spaceport?

Whatever, he was done with me. He said to Mike, "You are doing this," and turned away, back to the bus, muttering something that sounded like "Cow-in-the-grass..." He hadn't even reached to take Mike's card. There was already a line of people waiting to board; the driver trudged angrily past them all and back into the bus.

Mike watched him go, then turned to me. "My card?" he offered, with a hint of irony. I took it -- a soft plastic, flexible only along the long axis, the text and graphics were metallic, shiny. It was a circuit board! As my hand warmed it, an array of tiny, multicolored LEDs pulsed, outlining in turn:

IRRATIONAL NUMBERS PARASPATIAL ENGINEERING

J. Finley Michaels
Senior Designer

tel: 32 Green 3478
JFM@irrational.fthp.null

After that, the LEDs went out and went it back to being merely unusual. Knocked me the rest of the way out of being mad and I chortled in delight. I couldn't help myself. I'm a geekette, okay? I'd stuck a handful of my cards -- the good ones -- in my back pocket when I was packing. Reached and (for a wonder) they were still there, so I handed him one. He read it and grinned. "'Airship Privateer?' How well does that pay?"

"You've got me; nobody ever took me up on it." Geek rapport established, I had to ask, "Um, what's up with--" I nodded towards the bus.

Mike looked at his shoes, back at me. "Holdout, I guess."

"'Holdout?'"

"Thinks we should not have aligned with NATO."

Great, politics. I shouldn't've been surprised. I kept my expression neutral, or tried to, and said, "It's not really 'NATO,' you know. Not since '89. Especially not since the Russians signed on in '99."

"Close enough."

True. On paper, there's free trade and freer travel between every starfaring culture except for France and China, who aren't talkin' to nobody nowhow and will deny even that. In practice, there are still barriers -- habit, custom, mutual suspicion. I just nodded; in reply, he asked after my luggage. The excitement and puzzlement of the last few minutes was wearing off enough that I was starting to really feel the cold again. Happy to change the subject and move back where it was warmer, I opined that it should be processed by now and we wandered back into the terminal to find out.

* * *Not only was my luggage ready, it was already on the bus, thanks to the same snotty little automaton that had nearly run me down. When I gave the ICE clerk -- his nametag read "Port Control Services LLC" over a Dymo-misprint I wouldn't've dreamed of attempting to pronounce -- a surprised and annoyed look, he told me it was S.O.P for all incoming luggage to be loaded on the bus and pointed out, "There is nowhere else to go."

"What if I was going to drive myself?" I noticed Mike kind of brace himself when I asked and wondered just how stupid a question I'd asked.

The ICEman was only too happy to explain. "The Port Authority allows only a few drivers onto Port grounds, all of whom have been cleared and approved. You could neither obtain or operate a vehicle at the Port."

Welcome to the Far Edge, bastion of freedom.... That's unfair, really. If I kept asking, I'd almost certainly find out "Port Authority" was a private business; it always is on Edger worlds and even on a few on our side of things.

By the time we got back outside, the bus was nearly full. The driver gave us a sidelong look but said nothing as we boarded and Mike threw money or a token in the box. I didn't notice which. There are all sorts of monetary and transportation arrangements along the Hidden Frontier, the sales-tax-funded trolley system on Blizzard being among the oddest; they're a special case thanks to the hostile climate. Edger worlds favor hard currencies, usually Earthside conductor-metal coins traded at spot value, but these days Traveler's Checks and PayPal work just about everywhere Lupine travels. The ungainly vehicle lurched into motion before we'd even found seats.

Wasn't all that ungainly, either, once we'd got moving. Out from under the portico, the port's vast berm receding behind us, the road soon changed to well-packed gravel with wide ditches. Thanks to the huge wheels and good grading, it was smooth but noisy. Traffic consisted of our bus and a few containerized-freight haulers in both directions. Other than the road, gently rolling, Iowa-like hills covered with what still looked like soybean fields, the only other scenery was the growing indication of a fair-sized town dead ahead. Mike caught my eye and grinned, "First time here, right?"

I nodded. I've spent enough time shouting over loud machinery.

"It is bigger than it looks." He gestured towards the front window. "Aberstwyth, I mean."

Indeed, with every little hill, the city seemed to take a larger arc of the horizon.

"The Port runs a three-klick exclusion zone. Not much even that close since Cut & Run"

That'd been about fifteen years ago. I'd heard a little about it but forgotten the details if I ever knew them at all, so I gave him an inquiring look.

"Freight-runner, tanker." -- An Edger, then, not containerized -- "They came in loaded with rendered kerogen from the Ladasha* system, had navs trouble and fried their 'Drive finals trying to land. Almost took out the port but they tried to divert. Overshot, overcorrected, landed on the boundary. Hit about midway between the old industrial area and downtown."

Oh, gods. That wreck. "Residential?"

"What?"

Blamed noisy bus. I spoke up, "Was it a res-i-den-tial area?"

"Mostly warehouses. One apartment building" -- probably a big, modular pile of prefab concrete: quick, cheap and depressing -- "and five homes." He looked bleak.

Call me insensitive but it's the obvious question: "How many?"

"It was a weekday afternoon. It could have been a lot worse; at least twelve on the ground and everyone on the 'runner. Seventeen died in the crash, another ten afterward and nobody knows how many people were injured. There were fires all over town. It-- It splashed."

Dear gods. The highly automated, low population typical of Far Edge settlements would've kept casualties down, with a tiny crew on the ship and people few and far between even in most of the city; but it surely made first aid and fighting fires all the harder.

I must have mouthed the words. Mike nodded with bleak pride. "You never forget where you were when happened -- after's kind of a blur, everyone pitched in." He looked away, out the window.

While we spoke, the bus had chugged loudly over another row of hills. At the bottom, fields abruptly gave way to city. The front had pretty much blown through and patchy, Spring sunlight shone through gaps in the clouds. The road ba-bumped from gravel to paving running between big barn-like buildings, with shiny metal roofs and concrete-block or metal walls, peelingly painted in a wider, brighter assortment of colors than I remember from back home.

"Cheapest storage in town. Even now." Mike was still looking at it. "After we had fought through the worst of it, things were still bad. We asked for help and we got it; we set up the Mayor's Council and an Emergency Recovery Committee, too, but FCS didn't approve. A year after the wreck, they decided it was too nearly a permanent government. Started running ads online, on the radio. TV wouldn't take them, so they set up their own channel."

Geez, Edgers. Who else could've invented a despotic minarchy? The Far Edge's non-government is the Federation of Concerned Spacemen, the same reclusive string-pulling organization that masterminded the subversion of the original atom-missile moonbase in the 1950s. The good news is, they don't exactly rule; they don't make laws or operate courts and their primary mode of interaction is hired ad agencies or commercial reps. The bad news: their basic unit or organization is the ship or station and FCS will tolerate nothing larger. On a planet, that usually means city government are about as big as things are allowed to get. Get too big and first you get warnings; next, some fine day the heavens rain down Mil/Space "marines," and every government center on the planet gets wiped out. It's highly targeted and holdouts who haven't joined the growth rarely suffer; but any innocent or loyal partisan who gets in the way does not stay in the way for long. It's only played out that far twice, as far as I know. Only once on an actual planet and that ended in capitulation after the first wave. But the other occasion, an association of asteroid-belt mining interests, their stations, ships and other facilities, left a system nearly uninhabited. As the news spread, there were courts-martial internal to Mil/Space and highly publicized, and public avowal of general reorganization. There were even public statements by supposed FCS Board members. Then the war heated up and history rolled on -- but was not forgotten. NATO tried to get repudiation of the practice put in the Treaty of 1989; FCS rejected it out of hand as "unwarranted interference in internal matters." At least they did manage to sneak in right of self-determination, a two-edged sword that acknowledged the legitimacy of FCS...and left some wiggle room.

"The Council of Mayors knew they'd better do something, fast; about a third wanted to give in but our Mayor then -- and the Town Council behind him -- called for a vote. Everyone on the planet: ally ourselves, our whole world, with Earth, or stay with FCS." He stopped, looking thoughtful, lost in memory.

"And the ones who favored goin' with Earth won," I prompted.

"Barely! There were fights, even riots some places. Some anti-Earth bunch tried to set fire to the refinery at Southport and nearly succeeded. I think that was what pushed it the other way; nobody wanted another fuel-short Winter." He fell silent again.

While I pondered Edger weirdness, the warehouses had given way to a kind of open-plan strip-mall suburbia. Nothing very fancy, steep metal roofs above a lot of cinderblock, precast concrete and corrugated metal. What looked like siding here and there would probably turn out to be metal, too, or some synthetic. Real wood and reasonable native substitutes are scarce most places; Linden/Lyndon's unusual that way, and exports lumber (or near enough) during good times. Not so Frothup. Oh, trees punctuated the patchy grass in most yards but they were smallish, none more than a couple decades old. Every few blocks there'd be a business of some kind, a KeroGas station or a little grocery or hardware store, or something less obvious. Traffic had picked up a little, more bicycles and motorcycles than I was used to seeing. Bigger vehicles were mostly of smallish pickup trucks, a lot of them unfamiliar models. Then again, every time I visit home, the cars and trucks all look odd and not only because the time spent near C each side of a Jump stretches lives. I was confident the little cars like a couch in a box labelled "Smart" had to be Edger make; no way anyone back home would risk something so tiny on the highway.

On level, paved roads, the bus was a little less loud. Even I felt the conversational gap left after Mike's reminiscences. Thinking back, I picked the easiest tack, "Are winters bad, then?"

"--What? Oh. Not bad for here. But it gets cold and stays cold. And there is a lot of snow." The question had broken his mood, a little, and he smiled again, "I grew up here. Would not want things any different than they are."

* * *Not only was the sun out, it was almost warm outdoors when we finally reached my immediate destination. By then I'd learned this was typical of Spring on Frothup , a day or two warming, followed by a thunderstorm and sharp drop in temperature.

The hotel I was going to be staying at wasn't downtown, though we'd changed buses there; Edger cities don't have much of a downtown anyway, the passion for decentralization and redundancy that characterizes their stations and spacecraft being reflected in most of the cities as well. But it was (Mike told me) close to Irrational's main building at 56th and Ma'at and only a few minutes from the R&D center. I'd explained about the squirt-booster and probably needing to spend a day or more on repairs. He just asked to know when I'd be ready to see the factory and start learning about the new 'Drive power amplifiers.

My room was ship-simple, a collection of built-ins in a stack of identical units, one wing of a plain little hotel. Mike acted a little apologetic about the place, dropping me off at the lobby, which was automated: feed cards or money into the slot, pick your room type, get an access card with a room number printed on it. Suited me. They had cheaper, a little maze of Japanese-style "sleep cells" off the lobby. I've slept in those but I'd as soon not -- and I prefer 'em split into sections for men and women, which these were not. The hotel had nicer choices, too, "suites" with a separate bedroom and even light-housekeeping rooms more like my quarters on Lupine. What I had was the most numerous type according to the occupancy display, a smallish room with a collection of built-ins that included a bunk more than wide enough for a married couple, the usual desk-and-chairs, basic bath (a modular Frank Lloyd Wright clone -- so common they're almost homey), hardwired 'net connection and mud-color carpet. It was clean and cozy; I didn't see any reason to ask for an upgrade. Irrational was paying for the room, and room service, too, which, once I was settled, proved to be accessed through a terminal/phone (unispaced monochrome display!) built right into the desk and delivered by a dumbwaiter system. Presumably there were humans involved in the process; alas, no Moxie on the beverage menu but I'd made a good sized dent in a tasty bowl of home-cooked-looking chicken stew and about finished my comic book -- oops, graphic novel -- when my phone rang.

The Chief. "Need you at the certified repair service at 0700 tomorrow."

And a good, good evening to you, too. Which I didn't say. There are only so many techs and of that finite number, I was pretty sure to be the only one dirtside. "I figured. Have an address?"

They were in Southport, which I was gathering was the industrial center; refitting pressure-rated cargo containers and squirt-booster repair there made perfect sense. A little fiddling with the room terminal found an ASCII-art map. Aberstwyth was a long, quarter-moon arc embracing the port, North to South; Southport, a blob at the (surprise!) South end. The major long, curving streets looked to be named after the Egyptian pantheon. (Have I sighed, "Edgers..." too often? A peculiar lot, you must admit) Cross streets were sensibly numbered, at least. The Chief had checked out the bus schedule -- he knows I'm not a morning person -- and had the details; I made a few notes after he'd rung off, finished dinner and my book, and fell blissfully asleep. It had been a long day.

I was still asleep at 0200, about the time Doc Poole later determined that Captain Telemachus James, one of the most distinguished captains of the Far Edge War and Lupine's Old Man for longer than I'd been aboard, suffered a massive heart attack asleep in his quarters and died without ever waking up.

[CONTINUED In Chapter Four]
____________________
* Yeah, they really did spell it "La-a," after the earthside urban legend but I'm not playing along. Edger names, there's no figuring; I'm told there's a contract outfit that works up astronomical names for the FCS and prevents duplication. They turned whimsical long time ago or started out that way; which gets right back to the Edger sense of humor.

Frothup: Dropping In Chapter 2

2010-06-22T04:43:00.001-07:00

Attitude jets cut in with a sound like a fire hose, a hard shove as he moved the stick and the squirt-booster rolled in line with our vector and on around until it felt as if we were nearly upside-down. Intent on the display, he made a few more fine adjustments to our attitude, flipped a toggle and then just sat there. Presently, another countdown popped up and marched from :30 to :00 and on the zero, we slammed into bumpy grayness and thudded back out again almost a minute later, "falling up" a little off the projected path. Butch looked at it and decided, "Close enough. Y'like that?"

I kind of hadn't - I prefer my excitement predictable - but it didn't seem polite to admit. "Looks like we lost a 'Drive."

"Yep."

"Problem?" (See there, I can do "laconic"). One 'Drive will do for most four-ups, but that's at a hundred-percent redundancy, minimum safety regs allow for flight. Lose one on a full load and once you're down, you'll stay down 'til it's fixed.

"Nope. Might be on the way back, lot of mass on the order."

"We good for techs, groundside?"

"Um. You offerin'?"

There's not a squirt-booster pilot alive who wouldn't prefer to have one of his own tech crew overseeing any work on the vehicles he flies. Airframe (so to speak) work is one certification (aboard Lupine all three of those guys are under E&PP, SOP for anything the Starship Company owns; most other outfits work the same), 'Drive tickets like mine are another. In an unfriendly port or a smaller one, we'd have to provide our own crew for all the work. I'm sure there's a good service company in Aberstwyth but even if it wasn't a Company rule, I'd just as soon be looking over their shoulders myself - maybe lending a hand, if they're not touchy about it. Not only is my paycheck and sometimes my own precious hide being hauled in our squirt-boosters, you don't leave 'em unwatched any more than you would a tactical nuke. You don't have to have visited the Sergeant Snodgrass* memorial crater to understand how much harm a misused 'drive vehicle can do - but it does drive the point home.

While I thought through that, Butch had a quick, quiet conversation with Frothup Bunker (believe me, a tower is the last place you'd want to be) featuring terms like "minor profile deviation" and "out of the turnaround queue T-F-N." When he finished, all I said was, "It's the Chief's call but I wouldn't bet against it -- I'm here and you know how he feels about idle hands." (Or even insufficiently-busy ones).

Butch made an assenting sound, his attention on the controls; I saw another decision point coming up and no more below it - a slick recovery from the 'Drive glitch - so we were going to be doing a bad impression of a genuine rocket ship pretty soon.

Or not so bad an impression; the last hop knocked us back into the real world upside down and at a near-stop over one corner of the landing field. Like the rest of the process, landing can be automated but requires really reliable position info to work properly; most worlds don't have GPS and squirt-boosters rarely carry sophisticated radar. As it was, we had a nice view of lights chasing into the center of the field from the four corners and the squirt-booster's perfectly good radio altimeter. Several of the lights were out in the row most directly beneath us; comforting. Or not. Butch lined up over the center of the field - X marks the spot - as we began to fall, then flipped the squirt-booster rightside up, gray-green land replaced by silver-gray sky and rivulets of rain. Blind but safely atop the four cargo containers we carried, Butch watched our progress on instruments, making small adjustments for drift. The final hard shove of deceleration is automated; the pilot can trip it early but two different systems ensure the rockets will be ignited nevertheless. Landing gear, in the usual form of fat clusters of spherical airbags had deployed already; with a sound like the big brother of all blowtorches, the last push settled us in our seats like someone climbing onto our shoulders and then, with a single hard jar and bounce, we were down.

We'd outflown the heavy rain — "drizzle," like heck — but not by much. As Butch did his post-landing checks and I gazed out at the misty, gray field, sheets of rain swept across it, almost hiding the pair of big-wheeled ATV buses headed toward us through a break in the grass-covered mounds ringing the field. Lighting flashed dimly behind the rain and several seconds later, thunder sounded. Butch hit the release button on his seat harness and grinned. "Welcome to sunny Frothup. You did bring galoshes?" --In a cheesey tour-guide tone.

I faked up my best mock outrage, "I certainly hope you weren't expecting a tip, young man! Not after a ride like that."

"Take it up with your own Engineering department, why don'cha? You give us stuff that blinks out in a storm like a cheap light!"

"Lightning-proofing! Oh, golly-gee, whyever didn't we think of that?" The 'Drive and avionics will take 99.99% of possible hits with barely a flicker. Ninety-nine point nine-nine still leaves plenty of occasions for the dice to come up bad, which is why there's so much redundancy. Pilots know that, but they'll complain anyway.

Butch rolled his eyes and made his way to the hatch, remarking, "I need to make sure none of the paying customers get lost on the way out."

I sat tight, not wanting to stand there in the way playing Junior Space Pilot and annoying the steward. On the other hand - there's usually an incongruous-looking rearview mirror on the middle of the instrument console, it being kind of handy to be able to see who's at the door. I reached out and angled it so I could watch the thrillin' excitement of debarkation. Maybe it had been thrilling, at that; the faces I could see looked a bit greenish and worried. Even the steward look a little frazzled, telling them, "Back rows, I'll get to you as soon as we've got A through F out. The shuttle's lining up now and we'll have the outer hatches open shortly."

* * *
I must have dozed off; it was still spitting rain but a little blue sky was showing through in patches and there were actual shadows in the cockpit. The steward was leaning in the cockpit, saying, "Tech...?" I caught sight in the mirror as he leaned back, replaced by Butch.
"Time's a-wasting! You remember how to do a shut-down...?"

He'd already powered down the flight controls and 'Drive; I shut down the monitoring software and hardware, killed the six breakers for enviro., three more for internal lighting and another two for the main power buses. Squirt-boosters aren't big enough for the fusion-over-MHD systems used on full-sized starships; the primary power supply is.... I'd better not say. But it's safe enough and doesn't take much looking after.

Flippancy aside, Butch watched me run through the procedure and nodded when it was done. I unstrapped, climbed out, accepted my carry-on from the steward and followed them through the hatch and down a short ramp into our ride though its roof, the same high-wheeled ATV bus I mentioned earlier. Oh, the luxurious extras that come with bein' starship crew! I was surprised at how brisk the breeze was; having fallen through a thunderstorm on the way, I expected hotter. As we got our bags stowed and settled into our seats, the ungainly-looking spider crane trundled up to take the assembled squirt-booster off to the docks where it would be taken apart into four passenger/'Drive units and four cargo containers. Butch had already tagged #4; it would report itself in need of service during the routine checkout between unstacking and reassembly into a new stack of cargo containers and by then, Butch would have set our groundside liaison on lining up an outfit to do the repairs.

None of us knew it then but probably just about then, a man was making furtive alterations to a shipping order. This would result, several days later, in an innocent freight hauler taking a dozen crates to a destination other than where they should have gone. A small thing, almost a prank; or so he thought. And a well-paid prank, at that. But none of that, not to mention the perp, came to light until much later

The landing area was a little different from what I'm used to seeing; past the zigzag gap in the high berm, we were in a kind of alleyway between it and another berm even higher. The bus turned into an opening in it and after another zigzag, rolled into a short tunnel that debouched into a very large room and sighed to a stop. I could see silvery daylight through high windows on the far side of a lounge strikingly similar to the one I had departed from. Of course, between it and our ride was a half-wall, a series of tables and three uniformed types who could only be Port Control. There aren't a lot of restrictions on what you can carry, but there are a few. More to the point, you really, really need to have had all your shots. (What if Pernicious Athlete's Foot were to break out, or Morbid Bromodrosis?) Once we'd gone though the usual nonsense — show ID, proof of immunization, all things the Purser's office would have already e-mailed down but which must be matched up to you in person — I rented a phone and checked in with Lupine Commo while Butch went off to make arrangements for the lightning-hit squirt-booster. Cell phone technology trickles out to the various and sundry U.S. and allied worlds; there's no telling just what you'll encounter of if a ship's cellphone will work with it. It's simpler to pick up a phone-in-a-box at the port and let the commo folks upstairs know where to forward your calls. It can get bottlenecked if call volume's high but unless the ship-to-planet links are majorly antiquated, a simple forward never has to pass through the fascinating historical artifact we use for a telephone system analog aboard ship, just up and back down, digital all the way and if the lag's bad, you give 'em your direct number. Easy-peasy, unless the IS guys have one of their rare and infrequent disasters. (Sometime I'll have to tell the story of MTBF and how very very differently it is viewed by those of us who spin wrenches on stardrives compared to the data-mongers; geez, if I accepted what they think is good, we'd be sittin' stuck at the corner of Location Unknown and Bad Guess right now).

Supposedly, Irrational was sending somebody — an engineer — down to meet me at the port. I didn't encounter anyone who looked particularly engineer-ish and/or holding up a sign saying "Ms. Ecks of Lupine" in the terminal building, so I went outside for my first real fresh air in several months.

Oh, man, what a mistake! The air hit me the minute I was through the doors, a wet, chilly blanket. I don't know how cold it was — 45? 40? — but it felt like a fridge. I had a sweatshirt in my bag and I dug it out, but it didn't help much. I thought thunderstorm weather was supposed to be hot! So much for that notion.

There wasn't much to see. A wide sidewalk decorated with variously-colored lines and stripes paralleled an indifferently-paved road, the whole thing under a heavy-looking concrete awing supported by massive pillars (turned out the whole thing was carved out beneath the outer berm). On the far side of the road and a final row of pillars, what had to be farm fields hazed with a little bright green new growth under overcast skies; a suggestion of a smudge on the horizon might have been a city or stormclouds. While I stood there, shivering and wondering what I'd though was so all-fired great about the great outdoors, a high-wheeled ATV bus trundled up the road and snorted to a stop. The destination board flipped through several preposterous-looking choices before settling on ABERSTWYTH. It looked more like Iowa to me.

There appeared to be precisely one passenger on board, a tall, moosey-looking guy who debarked as soon as the driver opened the doors. He looked around, caught sight of me and then his expression changed. Looking grim, he charged right at me and grabbed me on the run before I could muster the wit to step aside. I tried to keep my balance but tripped and fell on the cold, damp concrete; he let go before I pulled him down and I rolled right up by the wall and tried to get to my feet. Something went wooshing by, heading straight for the bus. I stared after it, trying to gather my wits.
______________________
* The real first American on the moon. (See earlier episodes). Neil Armstrong would get - and deserve! - the credit even if the incident weren't classified: the way international aviation rules work, it doesn't actually count if you disintegrate yourself and your vehicle in a bungled landing on the return trip, and it doesn't count if you never tell anyone, the way the United States Space Force played it and still does. So the record books are right -- as far as they go. But things went farther, faster, earlier and sneakier: Besides the USSF bases built about the time the Mercury 7 were winning their fight to not be merely "SPAM in a can," Farside City was planned and ready in '69. Construction was hidden in plain sight among the rest of the Apollo missions

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER THREE

Frothup: Dropping In: New Chapter 1

2010-05-29T23:26:00.000-07:00

Blast it, Frothup was cold, at least at Aberstwyth port. You'd expect that on Blizzard or Vineways but it's easy to forget that some planets have seasons. Frothup's are mild enough in the settled regions but when your warmest garment is a zip-up sweatshirt, a blustery 40 degrees — 18 local, a sure tip-off the place wasn't settled by USSF transportees — is cold enough.

I'm ahead of the story already. Times I set foot on the dirt, I usually ride down in a cargo flight, well after all the crash-urgent goods have moved and Engineering has settled into in-port routine. Not today; with new and seriously-different Stardrive power amplifiers to learn, install and get certified, there was no time to spare. Oh, not that they'd actually give up a payin' seat, but I was squirt-boostering down first-available standby, first passenger flight that came up with enough spare mass margin to get me in.

It was still likely I'd have to wait and the first rule of travel is, Bring Something To Read. Despite a couple of interruptions, my comic book was getting interesting; the plucky young hero had just saved the day and his boss, a gorilla, probably wasn't gonna eat him. (And I thought my job had hazards!) In the real world, the slightly scruffy passenger waiting room off Lupine's starboard squirt-booster bay, the PA system went bong and muttered, "Technician Ecks, report to Gate Six. Technician Ecks to Gate Six, please."

Yeah, yeah, sky-blue courtesy phone t'you, too. And I'd finally got myself slouched comfortably, too! I climbed to my feet, hoisted my carry-on bag onto the seat I'd just quit, stuffed the graphic novel in a side compartment, grabbed the bag and started off. Sixth bay of eight and I'd sat down near Gate One, where the slidewalk lets off. The passenger area is not all that big — no more so than a factory town's bus station, Earthside, or maybe a large subway stop — but it is long.

It's airlocks into every squirt-booster and no cheating on the door; E&PP's Safety crew doesn't care if it takes longer, locking through four or five at a time. The seal between the Lupine's lock and the squirt-booster's hatch is only 95% reliable, as they'll point out at great length if you're fool enough to ask; it's rare they'll explain that most failures in that five percent are trivially tiny leaks. The real risk is that they're assembling and moving big, massy transports on the other side of the bulkhead and if the hatch on that side gets smashed, with the airlocks, damage is limited. Or that's the theory. I reached my ride as they were herding the last batch through the lock and squeezed in, making apologetic sounds. Pressure was equal on both sides so it's not that big a deal, one hatch shuts and green lights illuminate next to the blue "air okay" indicators above both hatches; open the next one and the hatch you entered through is locked closed, complete with a big red light that wavers in intensity (long-short, long-long-long) just in case you're both illiterate and color-blind. The fancy lights — LEDs — are a decade-old upgrade; when I signed aboard, the indicators were still direct-reading gauges and mechanical "flags." Either way, it's a social ritual akin to taking a busy elevator; you're closer than you'd like to be and so's everyone else.

No sooner described than done; the hatch opened and we filed across the seal and through another open hatch into the squirt-booster. They're ungainly, unglamorous vehicles, long, skinny shapes with two flat sides connected by a smooth curve, tapering at each end. They're strapped to stacks of cargo containers, or to each other, or just fly solo, depending on need. Passenger versions are set up like a commuter jet, seating three across with luggage racks overhead on the high side, low along the curved face and a narrow walkway that splits each row into a pair and a single.

I didn't even glance at the crowd sorting themselves into the amusement-ride seats; at my left was the hatch to the control room and in it stood Butch-the-pilot, with a toothpick in his teeth and a half-grin on his face. "Well, well, well," he said, "Look who went tourist," and winked at me.

"Like heck," I told him, "I'm headed down for school. Official business."

He nodded and waved me to one of the two "jump seats" up against the bulkhead, nearly as all-enveloping as the passenger seating. "Yep, so they tell me. Sit down close, maybe I'll let you look over my shoulder later."

Not such a bad deal, that; it's highly automated fly-by-wire, with rules of precedence that make the ones for trains look lax, but it's still genuine flying, with an actual view outside. I love it; I enjoy even an ordinary passenger seat. It is, however, not for the squeamish. Even a state-of-the-art squirt-booster is a wild ride; the newest in Lupine's fleet is running hardware and software three years old. Which is another reason they haven't got portholes for the passengers — even the video display is heavily smoothed, just like a fancy camera, and it's a new thing to have it on during even part of the descent. Ascent's another story — blink-blink-blink, with three corresponding lurches and you're up where skies are black and the fallin's easy. Plus or minus a blink; a good navs system can do it in one Jump but the jolt's too rough. Conversely, if it's a tricky orbital match, crummy navs software or just old, there may be quite a lot of Jumping, falling, reorienting and Jumping again. And don't even get me started about the glocke-y, microJumping, mad-German-science jitterbugs the Edgers prefer! No matter the vehicle or the rev of the control/navs software or Drive, it's generally pretty fast: Here to There in under an hour, waiting-for-clearance included.

Landing is different. Squirt-boosters are more efficient grouped and just like locomotives, you only need a driver in one of 'em. Four-up is a typical package: four big cargo containers, strapped together in a diamond (one on top of two on top of one, in set-down attitude), with the longways cucumber-wedge shapes of the squirt-booster strapped in the corners. That would mean two be will upside down and two will be backwards during deceleration and one module gets both...except the seating is modular, normally handled in 3-seat by 4-seat sections with a narrow little aisle. Those can be further reconfigured into columns of four in line, which is what gets slid into the two upside-down wedges — very rarely; passengers dislike it. The "landing gear" is just fat airbags backed up by skids, deployed very late in the landing process. There's been at least one rollover, scary but harmless. (C'mon, people, it gets slammed through the thickness of an entire atmosphere!) Stick a saucer (heat shield) on the aft end of the fat-cucumber assembly and there you have it but for one last, creepy step. Pilot, of course, flies from the rightside-up, forward-facing squirt-booster and the other three are slaved to that one. Copilot gets to fly backwards in the other topside section. Just in case. They tell me it's quite a view.

The cockpit is equipped with two seats nevertheless and plenty of room, making Butch's offer even better than you might think. Another batch of passengers cycled in and filled the remaining seats. Butch told me, "I'll call you once we're foamed up," gave the steward who was sorting them out a minimal high sign and ducked into the cockpit. I was already in the jump seat farthest from the steward's control panel and had the padded bars down and the five-point harness clicked together before you'd read half of my desciption.

Steward was a skinny guy I didn't recognize with an E&PP patch on his coverall and a row of "merit badges" showing specialties underneath. I can't read 'em all but I recognize first aid with CPR and defib training, Fire/Hazmat/Pressure and Security Auxiliary; he had plenty more besides. It's not exactly a serve-drinks-and-soothe job, another place where E&PP's hands-on "general specialists" are found.

I'm going to describe the trip in some detail. The Hidden Frontier is still officially secret and this is supposed to be "fiction," but this is way cool for all it is usually not fast-paced action or even gripping interpersonal conflict (but stay tuned — you'd think just swapping out a 'Drive final amplifier would be cut'n'dried but my job is never that easy).

You're probably wondering about the term foamed up. And that'd be the main reason there aren't any portholes: With the cargo containers and squirt-booster units all strapped together and loaded full, the next step is a big lurch and a short, swaying ride to be covered in ablation material: foam.

Older systems used jettisonable shields and hand-assembled shells; the very first reliable ones ended in a parachute drop and they're still used for small, cargo-only drops to remote locations. For passengers and most cargo, that was replaced by microJumps and clever 'Drive tricks. The last five years, better control software and smaller, more nimble 'Drives incorporating Edger (Glocke-derived) tech have simplified even our more-conservative landers. —Edgers have been jittering in and out of atmosphere for decades now and only rarely leaving big, smoking holes in the landscape; our side of the line, streaking down in a ball of flame might seem worse but for all that it remains a brute-force solution, hundreds of thousands of commercial trips have resulted in only three known accidents, neither on Earth. (USSF? Don't look at me; they don't publish stats. You couldn't get me in one of their early landers at gunpoint, though: getting shot is safer).

Even before the ride down, preparation is unnerving enough when you can't see it. In the cockpit, pilots admit to finding the process claustrophobia-inducing. The display at the front of the passenger cabin shows calm, pastoral scenes but it doesn't fool anyone; the assembled squirt-booster/cargo container bundle swings gently from four "sacrificial" lifting eyes while Our Highly Trained Staff (also known as the riggers who have most irked their supervisors) slap jettisonable covers on the cockpit windows and spray layer upon layer of quick-curing ablative foam over the entire vehicle. A mere 20 or 30 minutes later, they're done and duck out just before your transport gets shuttled into one of the big airlocks; the inflight movie has already started.

I'm joking. Our passenger drops, they play soothing music, mostly to hide the interesting sounds, while the screen at the end of the compartment the passengers face shows a shifting, soft pattern of mostly greens and blues or the formentioned highly-smoothed outside view, once there is one. Any frequent flier aboard is already engrossed in some kind of personal-playback device; while the spraying is getting done, the steward checks to make sure the useful little projectiles are secured. Company policy once banned them altogether — a "personal" cassette player masses enough to do serious damage — but that mostly resulted in greater stealth rather than compliance. Better believe starship crew were early and serious adopters of the no-movin' parts versions and the smaller, the better.

So why did they worry? Why do I, even now, hope the steward's carrying duct tape and knows how to use it? (Yes and yes, btw). See, it's like this: after they stuff our ride into the best-fitting airlock (and play scavenging games with the air left once the pumps have hit their limit), the outer hatch opens and a nifty hydraulic ram pushes the squirt-booster stack on out — and immediately down. It starts out slowly, 'til you're free of the idling 'Drive field and then, ah, then the fun starts.

Big starships take up "forced geosynchronous orbits," with the Drive ilding to keep effective real-space mass low. Essentially, hovering on the big fusion-over-MHD main realspace drives. It's not without risk, anything in actual orbit at that level that intersects is movin' fast enough to make a mess, but it does have some advantages: for instance, as soon as the squirt-booster is clear of the ship and the 'Drive field, it drops just like a rock, heat-shield end first. The feeling is precisely one of being in a vehicle that is pushed off a cliff, which is pretty much what just happened.

I don't care how many times you've done it, it's still a surprise. Into the can you go, the air hammers and hisses away and you wait for final clearance. Then there's a series of mechanical noises, the thing gets slid for what seems a long way (it isn't; the ram is very slow) and, suddenly, the noises stop and you're falling, strapped in a chair, laying on your back in an echoing near silence, broken only by the low thrumming of life support and an occasional tick or thump from the various systems.

It doesn't stay that quiet for long. Once you've "dropped over the edge," the first sound is usually everyone taking a deep breath and if there's an ijit or ijits aboard, they'll announce themselves with a nervous laugh or a whoop better suited to a roller coaster. Didn't have any of those this trip but the inevitable weak tummy didn't take long to make itself known. The steward glanced at an unlabeled annunciator panel facing our seats, where a steady red light had given way to a blinking amber one, unbelted and went to work. The first drop's usually the longest and the gentlest; the pilot's getting his last met and traffic info before things heat up and loading the numbers into his presets, while the steward deals with any messes, or panics and hands out airsickness bags to anyone who looks a bit green. There are usually plenty of takers; I already had that imminent-head-cold feeling of zero-g and was pleased I'd slept too late for breakfast. On the panel, the yellow light steadied up and I heard a quick double knock on the hatch into the cockpit; I looked up and saw the status tally on it change from LOCKED to OPEN.

Don't have to ask me twice. I grabbed a handhold with one hand, popped the latch of my five-point with the other, shrugged out and refastened it (a crummy job one-handed but you can do it) and had the hatch open and myself through. There are good reasons you don't waste time moving aboard a squirt-booster.

Butch was still poking at a touchscreen and frowning; he waved at the shotgun seat and I spidered my way in though the dimness and belted up. The lighting is set to ramp up slowly; by the time the cockpit window covers are popped, it is bright enough to make ease the transition but most pilots prefer to start out in the dark. I think they feel too closed-in otherwise, but it's just a guess — I've never thought to ask. There was finally a little noise other than residual whoosh and hum of lifesupport: a thin, high screech as the upper atmosphere became thick enough to matter. Butch made a last few keyboard entries, shoved it back in its slot, fiddled the covers over the preset buttons on his right and left armrests open and shut, sighed and relaxed. "Don't plan on a picnic," he remarked.

"Oh?"

"High overcast and drizzle. If you've been missing blue sky the last three months, don't blink on the way down."

"Mm-hm." I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have; even in these days of glass cockpits and advanced automation, there's a fascinating amount of instrumentation and I don't spend as much time with it as I'd like. A decade back, Handsome Dave decided he'd had enough of the nominal "day" shift old-timers; when a quiet directive was passed around instructing us to treat Jonny Zed "as though he was a valuable member of the Engineering Department," it was the last straw and he very nearly jumped his contract. As it happened, this was just after the Starship Company had started installing Beamtheon Mark IV 'Drives in the squirt-boosters and they had vast and convoluted problems from the outset. I don't know how it was managed but the next I knew, Handsome Dave had a bench in the Vehicle Maintenance shops at the aft end of the starboard squirt-booster bay. He's spent most of his shifts there ever since. Good for him but the rest of Engineering has to work all the harder to stay current. All of which goes to explain why I was starin' at the display when I should have been learning about the weather — not that it would have done any good.

While I stepped though read-only maintenance screens, we fell on. Things were about to the first fun stage; the assorted disconcerting noises had been getting louder, accompanied by increasingly violent shaking. I was starting to feel like my sinuses were clearing, a sure sign of increasing weight. On the main display in front of Butch, a little animation showed our past and projected trajectory, with a little icon at a discontinuity. Next to it, a countdown ticked inexorably backwards, only without the ticking. Butch opened the covers over his presets and got that six-things-at-once piloting look. As the count hit zero, it felt like something picked the vehicle up, slammed us around and all of a sudden, I was weightless again. The shaking changed character and started to slacken but I knew it would be back, worse than before.

If you're Isaac Newton, we just broke an immutable law of nature; the ship wraps itself up in a low-order Jump field, rotates the field projector, and pops back into real space "falling" in an orientation related to the direction the projector was turned. (I can handwave my way through the math but you really don't want me to). Falling any direction but down doesn't last, of course, and it's a huge jolt; but if you have the tummy for it, it sure is fun!

The kicker is, the location where your little private bubble of space-time rejoins the one most folks use is only approximate 'til you actually do it. The smaller and quicker the Jump, the greater the uncertainty. (Contrarily, a very powerful 'Drive field will do you in about like a ride inside a microwave oven, so every Jump a squirt-booster makes has to be small and fast). The closer to the ground you use this trick, the more likely you'll star in your very own crater: air's compressible but dirt and water, not so much. So we travel in a series of "sonic" booms, around half of them the real thing and the remainder the louder thunderclap created when the squirt-booster phases back into real space. The pilot's job is to end up over the landing area, falling at a rate the very limited-burn-time rockets can bring to a gentle landing. A good pilot can set down within a city block or less of his goal. Butch is really good, usually able to land right on the mark. On the other hand, this isn't like an airplane; unexpected wind, bad weather, lousy navs or just plain bad luck can require trading accuracy for a survivable set-down. There's no such thing as a touch-and-go! There's no good second chance; "up" is the safest direction to go but the minimum safe Jump is far enough and deceleration cap limited enough to make a soft landing questionable on the second try and highly unlikely on the third. As a result, "landing fields" for squirt-boosters are very large open areas; a quarter-mile square is a small field and most are between a half-mile and a kilometer square. (Even bigger for Edgers; their pulse-field "bell" shuttles are a lot more maneuverable but have been known to pop into realspace a bit lower than the surface of the landing area. This can be very loud).

—I wasn't thinking of any of that at the time; I was grinning and trying not to shout "Whee!" After the first Jump, we "fell" up awhile, slowed and started down again. It's a strange feeling. The heatshield RFI was down to nothing; there was plenty of time for another position fix from the Lupine. Butch looked at the numbers, satisfied. "Where we should be."

The next drop, we broke the sound barrier, a strange feeling; the shaking gets worse and worse and then — the ride becomes eerily smooth. A bit of that and then another little Jump and vector adjustment; we went subsonic and sped up again. It's deadly serious stuff...and the best roller-coaster ride imaginable.

What was up does come down; eventually we were low enough, slow enough and the ablative foam was sufficiently burned and blown away that Butch triggered the release control, allowing the canopy covers to shred away, revealing the promised blue sky and fluffy clouds.

As also promised, it didn't last. Those clouds were a solid pillow underneath us and comin' up fast.

We fell into the clouds and things grayed up. I was grinning like an idiot; I know I have gone on and on about the process (it's still not quite routine, which is why it's so rarely fatal) but it's big mean fun. "Not quite routine:" I was watching the display as the next hop-point approached, hit, and we dropped out of the here-and-now with a jar and—

And right back in, with a lurch that left the little ship feeling heeled over to my left. Rain lashed across the canopy, obscuring a dim gray limbo beyond, briefly lit by lightning accompanied by a peal of thunder. On the main displays, several icons went red and I looked over at Butch, who was already busy. I called up the basic STATUS display, found an OL flagged red for the #4 squirt-booster unit, "upside down" on the corner below us. I paged through to the detailed info, and it looked like the thing had lost power barely into the last Jump. Back out to the top screen and there 'twas: we were falling at an angle to our intended path, and too fast.
There wasn't much I could do besides keep my yap shut, so I did. Butch was still busy when I glanced over but he looked more annoyed than worried. He punched in some more numbers, reached over to the control stick at his left and said, "Here we go."

[To Be Continued]

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way (revised and completed)

2010-05-21T04:22:00.000-07:00

The Lupine had done a particularly rough reemergence into normal space to start my day; the first big jolt had produced an electrical transient spikey enough to throw the primary 'Drive telemetry for a loop and we'd had to fly even more blind than usual while I — more or less assisted by Jonny Zed — reset everything we could get to with the 'Drive running full-tilt. Randall was piloting, of course; he gets it done and nothing rattles him but he figures everyone else is that way, too. Plenty more little things got shaken loose, too and it wasn't any better for the Enviro & Physical Plant crews; even the Power gang had some faults, thanks to the honkin' big spike. By way of comic relief — second-hand, I didn't see it — the XO, riding observer in the Bridge, lost his lunch on the second transition. Man's a pro; they tell me he just grabbed a dropsick bag, heaved horribly, sealed the flap and held on 'til the process was through.

Thanks to some inventive genius in Navs, we'd Jumped long and were decelerating at .9 g instead of the normal .75. You wouldn't think it would make much of a difference but it feels like lead shoes, only all over.

All that and more besides: it was a middle-of-nowhere Navs waypoint to line the ship up for the short Jump to Frothup, revectoring at what the bridge crew were calling "a crummy little star" (Sure: "star," "little." Compared to what? A navigator's ego? A Jump pilot's confidence?). I'm sure it seemed little to anyone who had time to look. We weren't going to get even as close to it as Pluto approaches good ol' Sol.

I had just completed that ugly shift and was weighing shower first versus dinner first when my hatch buzzed. It means visitors, just like it does at your house. H'mm, hadn't considered that option. Peeked through the viewer — also like yours, though pressure-rated — and saw a wall'o'man stepping back. In uniform and not the policeman blue of Security, nor the spiffy Merchant Marine getup of command staff. I turned to the phone — also an intercom — punched the TALK button and asked, "Who izz it?" So sue me; I'm not a big fan of uniformed strangers.

A woman's voice replied. "'It' is Lt. Wu, Sgt. Thomas and Corporal Slin-"

I cut her off, handy ol' TALK button. "Do you have a warrant?" I was pretty sure I hadn't done anything and besides, Sheriff Mike likes me, some. He'd'a warned me. Right? Hey, I was a genuine heroine, I was!

"A warrant? Miz Ecks, I have been tasked with bringing you to a conference room, not arresting you."

"Okay, okay." Security — or any E&PP Emergency Responder — can override doors anyway. I popped the hatch and in they came.

It was an interesting assortment. Sgt. Thomas was as dark a man as I've yet met, self-assured, friendly-looking and mostly plain big. He walked in as if he owned the place and stopped in the center of my cabin. I gave way and sat down on my bunk. Corporal Sl-something (I never did get a good look at her name tape), fanning out on the far side of the room, could not have been more of a contrast, petite and perfectly composed, skin the color of coffee with cream and close-braided hair. Last, Lt. Wu: Eurasian, intimidatingly pretty, sable hair, grass-green eyes and moved like someone who would have landed on her feet if the ship suddenly flipped on one side. She walked over to me — three strides, not much of a walk — and had clearly measured me up and found me wanting by the time she got there. She looked vaguely familiar and when I noticed the "feathered shoe" (a quill and an old-fashioned adding machine) pin on her collar it clicked. "But you're from the purser's office! Hey, I worked all those hours. Ask anyone in Engineering! Ask the Chief!"

"Oh, for pity's sake! There's nothing wrong with your time sheet. As far as I know. I'm not here on Purser's business; I'm also USSF Reserve. We all are. I have no idea what this is about. We were activated and told to fetch you, is all."

They've changed the uniforms since my short stint and the Reserve's are different still, a dark, nearly black brown, off-white and pale gold instead of the Regular-USSF's midnight-blue, silver grey and (gak) baby blue. (There's a perfectly good reason for the distinction, which I may explain sometime). Besides, these days USSF is essentially a kind of space-going Coast Guard, focused on keeping the peace and helping the hapless. It still didn't bode well.

On the other hand, despite her brisk, not-unfriendly manner, Lt. Wu was radiating suppressed impatience and I hoped I wasn't the target. I had a distinct impression the big, happy Sergeant would be just as happy if she told him to palm my skull and start me walking. So I didn't mull long. I stood up smartly and despite being taller than the Lieutenant, she didn't give way. So I smiled (never let 'em know you're worried) and said, "Let's be off, then." Might as well.

She turned without a word and led the procession; I grabbed my zip-up hoodie and fell in behind, turning in the corridor to see Sgt. Thomas shut and dog my hatch, looking older in the corridor lights than I'd first guessed. The "Locked" led flickered on, so I didn't have any excuse to linger. He gave me a stern look, echoed by the corporal; the Lt. cleared her throat and set off again. Down the passageway and then aft, which probably meant they had a vehicle; the nearest access to the central utility route is a couple hundred yards aft of where my cul-de-sac opens onto the slidewalk.

They had a car, one of the generic little golf-carts-from-space. I got to share the back seat with the sergeant; it was a close fit. Not a word from any of them.

* * *
Lt. R. N. "Rannie" Wu was furious. Furious! Someone was going to hear about this. Activate her on an idiotic babysitting job, go pick up a grubby tech who was either clueless why or an outstanding actress. Her status was supposed to be low-profile! Oh, there were layers and layers; her USSF Reserve status was no secret. But as the seventh-ranking member of Space Intelligence on the Lupine — as far as she knew — assignments to routine jobs like this were rare. What a waste! Ship's Security could surely handle this one, even if they'd nearly made a mess of the situation with the Edger lunatic she'd been informed of only after the fact. ...The mess, it suddenly clicked, this tech had been in thick of.... Her anger picked up a tinge of dour amusement. Possibly not as innocent as she seemed, oh?

* * *
In far less time than it takes riding the slidewalk, we pulled up at the very familiar stop below Primary Command/Control/Comms, home to the Tech Core, Drive Control, the Bridge and my home-away-from-home, the Engineering Shop. —And Officer's Territory above all that, which is where we headed, up a flight and through pressure hatches, elevator up three floors, and another short climb and another set of rated hatches to where the carpets are fresh, the bulkheads are paneled and the worries are staggering. Most of that section's a recent — well, ten years old — addition, sharing its hull (though not open access) with the first-class accommodations. Early-evening/Second Watch shift, not a lot of activity; we headed forward, through yet another pair of hatches, into the refurbished-but-original senior officer's section. Stopped just inside, at the entrance to what I'd guess was once a wardroom. It's a smallish conference room now: nice carpet, panelled walls, indirect light, table and chairs occupying the center, coffee (coffee!) service neatly racked in a corner.

Not a large compartment and when I peeked in over the Accounting Lieutenant's shoulder, it was made all the smaller by Captain James himself seated at one end of the table, a large, genial, soft-looking man with very cold eyes. He's a veteran of the War, of course; don't ask me what he did but it left an imprint. Security Director Mathis was at his right and — I should be more surprised — The Chief was at his left. Corporal Sl- peeled off as we entered and stationed herself outside the hatch with that unreadable military non-expression, ready to stand there as long as it took; Sgt. Thomas did the same imitation of furniture inside. Lt. Wu gave me a severe look and turned to Captain James. "Technician Ecks as ordered, Sir!"

He looked at her tiredly. "So I see."

"I presume you wish us to remain, Sir?"

"Incorrect. In fact, you didn't see Roberta, you didn't see anyone here. And neither did the rest of your detail."

"Sir?"

"None of us were ever here, Lieutenant."

I ventured a glance at Sgt. Thomas, standing impassively inside the hatch. Without moving any other muscle, he winked at me. I quirked an eyebrow at him but he made not to notice. Meanwhile, Lt. Wu was trying not to look annoyed, piqued or curious and mostly succeeding; or so it looked to me. She managed to limit herself to, "B- yessir."

"Good job. You are dismissed."

She acknowledged the order, turned smartly and departed, giving me another Watch Yourself look and collecting the Sergeant, who managed to give me another wink and the least flicker of a grin before he followed her out and shut the hatch.

This left me looking at a closed door, which didn't seem to be the best idea; I turned around to find all three men waiting. "Sit down," the Captain told me and I sat. "Not at the far end!"

The Chief gave me a semi-baleful look. I got up and sat down next Sheriff Mathis. Maybe I could hide behind him if things got worse.

On the other hand, maybe they're gonna pin a medal on me. A secret medal. Hey, it could happen.

Captain James gathered our attention, using whatever power it is that ship-captains, successful miltary COs and the better managers have, and launched right into it: "Bobbi, do you know why you've been asked here?"

"Umm, no. Some 'ask,' Sir. Er—"

He smiled. That's a good sign, right? "There were reasons. Ahem. It has been brought to my attention that you have a 'blog.'"

I shot a quick glance at Sheriff Mike, who looked innocently back. So I looked across at the Chief, inscrutable as ever. He's never struck me as the net-surfing type. Besides, what's this "brought to my attention" stuff? I filed the forms back when I started.

The Captain continued, "It would be an understatement to tell you the Starship Company is concerned about security. Access to interstellar space is the single most explosive secret on Earth and the allied governments require we closely monitor all communications to the homeworld. Yours is getting close to the line."

"Sir — Captain, I cleared that. Ask Mike. I know what the guidelines are and I've followed them: no details about the Stardrive, nothing about the CLASSIFIED, no real names of stars, planets outside the Solar System or any person, no time/distance numbers, I could quote the whole list."

"Security Director Mathis was first officer I asked. His faith in you is...extraordinary. Our employer's faith, less so."

Aw, rats. And it's such a long way home, or even to Kansas II, which is probably as close as they'll ever let me get. "So I have to stop?"

I don't know about anyone else, but I could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed.

Time stretched and my heart sank. Then his expression relaxed; he almost smiled. "No. Particularly in light of certain, hem, recent events. But I am given to understand that the United States Navy has applied considerable pressure to ensure you stop mentioning the Naval Air Station at Groom Lake."

You may have noticed I lack tact. "What? It's just handy shorthand for 'secret airbase.' I've hardly even talked about Area Fif-"
The Chief hissed, "anh-ah!" at me.
"—Groom Lake NAS. And besides, civilian traffic works out of—"

The Chief gave me a blankly disapproving look and kicked me. Or maybe it was Mike, but I doubt that.

"—Another field. Other fields. And besides, I follow the news from home! The new President's cut NASA 'way back. They're about to go public about us!"

Captain James shook his head. "I think he'd like to. His party could certainly use the boost. But it won't happen. The Russians won't stand for it, the Chinese are threatening and the French—" He broke off. I gave him my best quizzical look. "I can't tell all I know and I don't know much. Something has them badly scared. They've tightened security and are in talks with all the major players, even China." I started to speak and thought better of it; this was all way above my pay grade. "The upshot is, you need to watch what you write and how you write it. Based on the latest from USSF Farwatch Command at NAS Groom, the Starship Company has issued new guidelines for communication — letters, e-mail and all online contact. Everyone will be getting a copy but you are getting one now." He paused and looked stern. "Before you get into real trouble."

Okay, fair enough. —For readers who just wandered in, it goes like this: The NATO/Far Edge war sputtered out a few years before the Cold War Earthside lurched to an end. Nations got out of the "Space Navy" business about as fast as they could; even the blackest of black budgets can only be stretched so far and things were right at the breaking point. As "swords" like the huge carrier/transports Vulpine and Lupine were beaten into plowshares — actually, cargo and passenger carrying behemoths* — civilian ideas like freedom of speech and freedom of association began to spread. There are still real problems stemming from the fact that the Hidden Frontier is hidden and while the effort to keep it so usually isn't intrusive, it is often troubling. How to keep something that big hidden? For the Edgers, it's a culture-wide conspiracy of silence; these are the folks responsible for the few genuine UFO encounters, after all and their ranks include some of the most successful smugglers and black-marketeers humanity has yet produced. The Russians and Chinese simply don't allow anyone in the know (other than a handful of officials) to return to Earth, ever. The Soviet Russians went to extremes, back when: the entire second generation on Stalin Mir were raised unaware of Earth at all. After the USSR fell, the Russian Federation faced a difficult challenge and bobbled it on that world. The Stalinists will trust no one and allow only the most limited contact. At least they're the sole exception among the ex-Soviet worlds, the rest of which are now about as free (or not) as Mother Russia herself. The French FTL fleet is entirely military and under strict discipline; their "colonies" are supposed to be much smaller than anyone else's, narrowly focused on scientific specifics. The U.S./Commonwealth worlds, on the other hand, try hard to keep communications open and available. Between worlds, there are no limitations unless the planetary governments impose them (as has happened, various times, on Linden/Lyndon). Dependent governments and enterprises, like the oil and mining outfits on Blizzard, the U.S. Territory of Kansas II or the Canadians on Vineways can't even impose stricter limits than the allied governments allow. There's Fed/Crown censorship on what goes back to Earth, but it has been pretty relaxed; who'd believe it?

Some, it seems, do. Or USSF and the U.S. Navy think they do, which comes to the same thing as far as it matters to me.

And I was getting the VIP treatment because...? While the Chief was doing his usual impression of the Buddha — the serene one, not the fat, jolly version — and "Sheriff" Mike can do the cop-face all day long, Starship Captains, the successful ones, are political animals. Captain James was more successful than most and proved it now by giving me a conspiratorial smile. "Your blog already had ears twitching. Your little run-in with an FCS agent played well with the Company and the worlds we trade at but it put you right at top of USSF Intelligence's list. I know you like to play the iconoclast; I've seen your service record" — Ouch! It was my bad luck to have enlisted in the U. S. Space Force just in time to learn my trade...and then run headlong into the drastic reductions of the 1980s. Any excuse would do and I was young and entirely too independent: O-U-T, missy, and don't get caught in an air-tight hatch on the way — "and you must understand this is not the time to get your back up."

"Is that a roundabout way to say I have to drop my blog? There's about a dozen people who'd be e-mailing with questions."

He looked impatient. "No. It means you have to follow the new guidelines. I'm sure you can do that; USSF wanted to be sure you took the advice seriously."

"Serious as the walk home, Sir!"

"Hm. See that you are, or you just might have to."

I hoped that was a twinkle in his eye but I think I have learned when not to push my luck. "I shall, sir." I did my best to radiate demure sincerity, failed. "I shall."

He turned to the Security Director and nodded; Mike handed me a manila envelope and said, "There ya go: the rules."

* * *
That was 48 hours ago. Never did get any coffee in that meeting. I've been studying The Rules in my free time since and truth to tell, it's nothing I wasn't already doing. —Oh, I have been getting close to the edge. I really shouldn't have even mentioned the CLASSIFIED, let alone any clues to the size or the hinting at what trades are involved in building one; but good luck assembling your own and even more so considering that the — but never you mind. It's somewhere between the size of a fridge and a Freightliner and when tickled properly it folds up space like your Mom does a bedsheet and that's all you need know.

And I Work On A Starship is gonna stay right here at the usual stand.
__________________________
* All starships are hideously expensive to operate (though peculiarities of the 'Drive do create economy of scale, especially for the very largest) but an aging fleet of star-jumping warships and their supporting vehicles, with enormous crews, out-dated equipment and little provision for cargo, couldn't be supported for long and kept hidden. Lupine and Vulpine were the biggest of the breed and had required massive refitting for their new role.

"Important Notice?" Sure Is!

2010-03-08T19:42:00.000-08:00

I'm not sayin' the E&PP techs still haven't found the slow leak in squirt-booster Bay 3, but...

The Battle Of Ganymede, Part 2

2010-02-17T04:43:00.000-08:00

Story begins at The Battle Of Ganymede, Part 1 [Editor's note: Accuracy of this fictionalized account of the only battle fought between FCS forces (Mil/Space and others) and USSF plus NATO allies within Earth's own solar system is in some doubt. Many of the incidents have not been verified and most of them cannot be. The Mil/Space Tech "Hawkins" does appear to be the father of Juliette Hawkins, first known case of Hawkins-F.]

On the surface, the soldier was still struggling with the cleaning rod and muttering a steady stream of imprecations directed at the Army, USSF and someone apparently named "Damn Ted Armalite." It wasn't helping.

Sudden movement caught his eye; he looked up in time to see rocks, dust and ice hanging in the middle distance, then starting a lazy fall back down as the ground underneath shook. He missed the flash of movement to his right that could have been two men carrying large packs. They didn't miss the glint of reflected light from his faceplace and ducked behind a truck-sized rock.

* * *
"Snakecrap!" Hawkins said it; braided line connected the two men, clipped to attachment points at front and back of the harness built into the outer coveralls they wore over their leotard-like pressure suits. Mil/Space had thoughtfully included an intercom cable; mating jacks at each end connected it to an earphone and microphone in their bubble helmets. SOP called for VOX rather than push-to-talk, reasoning time and a free hand to flip a switch might both be in short supply if things went wrong. "You saw it, too, Lieutenant."

"Yes. He's not one of ours."

"Check. Now what?"

"We have a closer look." Griffon began to check his weapon as he spoke, then moved the sling to a looser, front position that would allow easy aim but hang out of the way until needed. Hawkins did the same, with a shorter loop to keep it mostly clear of the line between them. Hardly more than an oversized handgun, their "rifles" looked like nothing so much as something hastily welded together to lubricate heavy machinery. "He's out in the open. Looked like he was seated or dug in."

"Pretty sure he was seated, up against one of those rocks." Hawkins wasn't their top imaging tech — that had been Feelie — but manpower was too scarce for the Edgers who ran Mil/Space to assign any man to an imaging post who wasn't both sharp of eye and quick to grasp what he saw.

Griffon nodded. "Could be. Suggestions?"

Neither man had set out to be a professional soldier and neither one had undergone extensive training in the ancient skills of ground troops. Their employer, Mil/Space, was one of several contractors supplying skilled manpower to the Federation of Concerned Spacemen, still the only real ruling body on the Far Edge. Specialists, their war had been a matter of images on a screen, of the sudden flash that told of a hundred lives lost, of stealth and subterfuge, months of boredom punctuated by hours of frantic activity. The ground war on Ganymede had come as a surprise to the Edgers; confident of the technological advantage from the German 'Drive technology that reduced the effective mass of spacecraft and their own improvements that allowed safely controllable, albeit jerky, maneuvering near a planetary surface, even the recent loss of Peace-and-Prosperity, their most populous settled planet, to a USSF flotilla had not appreciably shaken their opinion. Nothing had until routine scans found a very large USSF/NATO fleet approaching from an unexpected direction and by then it was too late.

The officer had been born on Earth itself, a child of one of the original FCS conspirators, smuggled aboard along with many others. Most of his life since had been spent aboard spacecraft and space-based industrial facilities. While he didn't suffer the paralyzing agoraphobia that was the bane of many of his peers, he didn't have Hawkins' ease in the wide-open spaces, either. The Tech was from Peace-And-Prosperity, formerly Linden, of mixed Edger/German background; he claimed Ganymede reminded him of the mining camp at Pitty on his home world. Anyone who hadn't seen the place assumed he was exaggerating. "Ground's pretty torn up. I think there's enough cover to get a closer look before we plan too much. Might even be able to just grab him."

While they spoke, the subject of their discussion had managed to remove the KIT, CLEANING, XM-16E from its storage location and was assembling the contents, remembering the lecture: "These kits are scarcer than your rifle. You are the first soldiers to receive them and you will learn to use them!" Should'a tried it one-handed, he reflected. Locking the bolt back was going to be even more interesting, but it was a better bet than trying to get the receiver open. He looked up again, thinking he'd seen something. Shouldn't be anyone — or anything! — at all out here, not so soon after— After what? He couldn't remember. Hell with it. Clear the rifle, find out where you are, figure out what to do next. He turned back to his rifle, wondering what the chances were the body he'd spotted was still carrying any air.

He didn't wonder long. A figure in a funny-looking spacesuit popped out from behind a boulder to his right, pointing a nasty-looking grease gun at him and then ducked back out of sight.. He started to reach for his XM-16 with both hands, nearly dropped it at the stab of pain from his shoulder, but managed to bring it to bear, just as another guy slid down the rock he was leaning on, landed to his left and grabbed his gun, twisting it down and away. He shouted and tried to stand as the second man bumped his helmet, grabbed him to maintain the connection and yelled tinnily, "Drop it!" While he was distracted, the first one closed the distance and yanked his rifle away. He was their prisoner, as fast and simple as that.

* * *

"He doesn't look too good," Hawkins protested. "And we're not in the greatest shape ourselves." They'd reattached the line and intercom between them. At their feet, the subject of their discussion still sat where they'd found him, deprived of his rifle and knife, trying unsuccessfully to read their lips. The shorter one was gesturing. "There's no way we can carry him and I don't think he can walk."

The Lieutenant was having none of it. "Are you a mindreader, then? We do not know that."

"Nossir. But he sure didn't try to stand when we grabbed him. Even if he can, we can't take him along."

"What else? Leave him? Shoot him?" Life was hard on the Far Edge but it was not cheap; there were rarely enough hands for any task. Extensive automation helped and aggressive recruitment of Earth's displaced, disaffected and unwanted had began to make a difference — possibly too much so on Peace-and-Prosperity, but that was Earth's problem now. Between the harshness of space and the shortage of manpower, few Edgers would consider leaving a man behind. Even if they had to invent reasons why. "We need to find out what he knows. General Filiaggi needs to learn what they know."

Hawkins almost rolled his eyes. The General — founder and principal of Mil/Space and one of the chief proponents of hired contractors rather than civil servants for nearly everything — was infamous for his strong opinions and fierce temper. Keeping him happy was both necessary and nearly impossible. "You think so?"

"I'm certain of it - and it's an order. We're taking him along."

The soldier wasn't having much luck making out what they were saying but frequent glances his way left no doubt it was about him. It's sure not where to stop for lunch, he thought, and nearly grinned. Better to think about that than what the other two might do next. Their coveralls — clearly not spacesuits, open at collar, sleeve and cuff with something shiny that looked skin-tight underneath — bore familiar-looking name tapes and unfamiliar insignia, starting with some kind of star-and-rifle logo under a banner that proclaimed "MILSPACE ASSOC." or something similar along with a smaller design consisting of a star and the letters "FCS." One of them had upside-down chevrons-and-rocker on his sleeves, with a lighting bolt over a bowl shape at the center. The other had bizarre triple bars. Digging up a memory from his childhood in Chattanooga, he took a guess and when triple-bar bent down to bring their helmets in contact, spoke first: "Captain, what's the verdict?"

The other man chuckled. "Captains command ships. Call me 'Lieutenant.' About the same as one of your 'Captains.' Less confusing." His speech was almost unnaturally distinct, like a telephone operator's. "What is your name? Can you stand? Can you walk?"

"I might need some help standing. Walking, I could do that for—" he glanced at his air gauge and made a rapid estimate "—about forty-five minutes." Faces pressed too close and at a funny angle, he could still sense puzzlement change rapidly to annoyed comprehension. "And my name is..." This was nuts. How could a guy forget his own name?

The enemy officer wasn't waiting. "Insufficient air. Not good. What are your oxygen connections like? We might be able to jury-rig—"

He interrupted, "We might not have to." It took some explaining. The other Edger, "tech-not-sergeant" Hawkins, freed up the breather backpack from the partially buried body and brought it back. The nametag on the pack read, "Wilkerson, M." It didn't ring any bells. One tank was full; the other was just over three-quarters. The chemical bargraph on the CO2 absorber, the one you normally had to have a buddy read, showed ten percent gone.

While he sat with the pack on his lap, steadying it with his left arm and holding the pendant gauges in his right, his captors reconnected their intercom.

"Lieutenant, he's got threaded connectors. Fine threads! And manual valves!"

"Not quick-connects? Those big suits do hold a lot of air. As for manual valves, Tech, your suit has them, too. I am certain you follow S.O.P and use them; the check valves are merely a back-up." He suppressed a sigh. Hawkins did no such thing unless he was being watched. Planet-dwellers were easy to spot by their causal, sloppy observance of safety procedures, at least until the first time their luck failed. Afterward, well, the survivors were more careful. The tension between long-held Edger belief that stupidity ought to be self-correcting and not wanting to lose a man was usually subsumed in the larger concerns of the increasingly-heated conflict with Earth. Usually.

Hawkins, feeling unfairly chastised, folded his arms and tried to look resolute. The officer had other worries. "Is there a radio in that thing? Did you notice a radio on the dead man's suit?"

"No and no. And no antenna on his. Could be something transistorized, low-power, too small to notice. I doubt it."

"H'mm. And without quick-connects, he has only as much time as his pack and the one just salvaged will allow."

Griffon considered the options. Odd were good there was an Earth vessel, some kind of low-radar-image landing craft nearby, which it would not do to encounter even if only a skeleton crew was aboard. Closest friendly — if she'd made it — was Skidoo, a lightly-armed freighter that had been landing when his imaging installation had been hit. Next best was a tie between the another imager and General Filiaggi's "flagship," the mostly-hidden Not Minneapolis, a repurposed seagoing battleship "borrowed" under dubious circumstances. The freighter was out; it would have been an obvious target, for one, and if enough of the imagers had been taken out, odds of a successful landing weren't good. Heading for the next imager was a shorter trip but one that would take them farther away from the flagship, towards a destination in unknown condition with uncertain communication. And he didn't want to share credit for the capture, he admitted to himself with a sour grin. On the other hand, the Minnie was either intact or his destination didn't matter. And on the other other hand— Operational security was tight; he knew where the flagship was, offset from and little outside the ring of five imagers that surrounded the township-sized landing area, but he didn't know the intervening terrain or how to find the hidden accesses.

He was looking towards his prisoner but not really seeing him when the scene suddenly lit up. Hawkins, intercom still plugged in, yelled distortedly, "Holy howling snakes!"

He turned in time to see the fireball still climbing. Had Skidoo's captain decided to run for it? The location looked right, but it could have been an Earth ship hunting the freighter and hit by his own side. It was an expanding blob of hot gas, molten metal and twisted debris now. Molten metal including the reactor. "Hawkins, help me grab the Earther, now. We need to be on the far side of the rock he's leaning on."

Unsurprisingly, the prisoner was staring at the fireball, too. Griffon and Hawkins rounded on him, hoisted him up in a chair carry with the spare air pack still in his lap, the lanyard a trip hazard between them and made good time getting the boulder between themselves and the explosion. Their passenger struggled briefly until Griffon put his helmet in contact and shouted, "Explosion. Rad hazard." It wasn't much cover — the glowing mass was still headed up — but it was better than nothing at all. The explosion was well distant, almost to the horizon, so their direct exposure couldn't have been significant. Or if it had, there was nothing to be done here and now. Indirect exposure was another story; "hot" debris was going to be settling gently down for a long time. Maybe even days; but the same low gravity that was going to keep material aloft for such a long time meant it wasn't raining rads yet.

"Set him down here, Tech." When had Earth become so bold? He was used to thinking of them as incompetent clods, timid navigators who lacked the closely held tricks and techniques that allowed FCS-allied ships to twitch and jitter their way down to a planetary surface, controlling their effective mass and altering their vector with tiny, subcritical Stardrive jumps. What had been a battle of infrequent feint and parry in which Earth's only gains were the result of blind luck had turned nastier, starting — as far as he was concerned — with their imager and who knew what else. With a nuke plant vaporized and sprayed across Mil/Space's landing field, the fight had to move elsewhere. Didn't it? He didn't have enough information; it didn't matter, he had to act. Six months ago, he'd been graveyard-watch imaging officer on an independent "covert freighter" little larger than Skiddoo, an engineering manager with a fancy title. Recruited by one of the several contractors hired by the Executive Committee of the Federation of Concerned Spacemen to provide "external security," he'd been run through a hasty military officer's school, most of it a stack of reading and a handful of lectures, then assigned to a series of imager installation much like his shipboard job. Or they had been until today, when a lot of material that had seemed dull, unlikely, even paranoid had suddenly become sensible.

Griffon's prisoner, picked up, hauled around the huge boulder and dumped on the ground with barely an explanation watched the enemy officer with gnawing worry. The man seemed distracted, almost alien, his body language close and cautious. He'd seemed not unkind but he was an enemy officer and by everything he'd been told, the enemy was sneaky, untrustworthy and profoundly different. The other one, the "Tech," (and what kind of rank was that?) acted a little more normal — he'd even been looking over the XM-16 he'd slung on his back when the lieutenant sent that around the boulder — but he was one of them, too. He took another look at his air gauge and did a little mental math: a half-hour, no, call it 40 minutes left. Sure felt like the last time he'd looked had been longer than five minutes ago. He looked back up to see the Tech looking at the sky and looked that direction himself to pick out three shimmering stars slowly descending. The enemy officer, Griffon, was beside him in a couple of loping steps; the "clonk" of their helmets colliding pulled his attention away.

"Are those are your side's ships?"

"How should I know? Anyway, I don't have to answer."

The officer was silent for awhile, as the lights grew larger and brighter, one clearly closer to them then the other two, shapes almost visible through the white light of the rockets. Finally, he spoke, "They're not ours. It's either yours or we both have company."

As they watched, Another light, dimmer, redder, joined the three, jittering and jinking, the light flaring and flickering. Griffin spoke again, "Now that is one of ours." Squinting, the soldier could almost make out its shape, like a hat with a narrow, conical rim. It seemed to jump from one position to another almost randomly; closer and then farther away, tilting and turning. It stabilized briefly, upside down and moving up, then vanished. Almost immediately, one of the three likely-USSF ships blossomed into a swelling sphere, reddening and churning. Griffon asked, "That's steam? Just how 'hot' are your landers?"

A whole shipload of good guys just died and this weirdo wants to talk shop? Not a chance! "Damifino. Wouldn't tell you if I knew." Bits of wreckage were starting to rain down, raising widely scattered puffs of dust in the distance, a vague wave sweeping towards their position. Griffon said something about "...Cover!" and waved the tech over.

———
The narrative breaks off there. Further specifics of their actions that day are unknown. Sr. Lt. Griffon stayed with Mil/Space during their re-organization from a corps of mostly specialists to the deadly "Space Marines" known today, a change prompted by huge losses during the fighting on Ganymede. The USSF soldier may have been Cpl. Lawrence Mathis, recorded with Griffon as having been treated for mild radiation exposure aboard FCS Saint Paul (the "Not Minneapolis," a converted former Brazilian seagoing battleship "borrowed" while being towed to the breakers) and repatriated in the war's first prisoner exchange some weeks later. Mathis was reported lost later that year when the USSF Mitchell went missing while investigating a reported Edger smuggling base on the far side off Earth's Moon; no wreckage has yet been found. As for Hawkins, he is known to have died on Ganymede; his body is interred in the monument there, a vast, faintly radioactive raised terrace bulldozed up from the former Far Edge landing field, site of the fiercest fighting and where four ships fell or were destroyed on the surface: USSF landers XL-5 and XL-17, the FCS armed freighter Skidoo and FCS "gunship," the privateer Extraneous.

The Battle Of Ganymede, Part 1

2010-01-14T20:06:00.000-08:00

[Editor's note: Accuracy of this fictionalized account of the only battle fought between FCS forces (Mil/Space and others) and USSF plus NATO allies within Earth's own solar system is in some doubt. Many of the incidents have not been verified and most of them cannot be. The Mil/Space Tech "Hawkins" does appear to be the father of Juliette Hawkins, first known case of Hawkins-F.]

He came to still annoyed, his XM-16E in his lap, a spent casing broken and stuck in the chamber. Frickin' poodleshooter! The light was wrong and he still felt seasick. They said you got used to it but he was starting to doubt that applied to everyone. He reached for his "advanced lightweight combat weapon" — the miserable malfing toy — and winced at sudden pain in his right arm, stabbing like lightning. He looked down and felt his irritation change to a stab of fear as he saw the huge dent in the joint protector at the right shoulder of his spacesuit. Lucky I'm not dead, he thought, pushing the fear away, then raised his head to stare at the empty, icy waste before him, a maze of pressure ridges and drifts of powdered ice and and rock dust, punctuated by the starker black and white chaos of a fresh crater perhaps a hundred feet away. It was hard to judge distances, until he realized a lumpy shape in the middle distance was a spacesuited form, awkwardly sprawled face down; on the edge of the crater, other shapes had to be a helmet, an arm, possibly a torso— He looked back down at his rifle. Yeah, some luck.

It was day three or maybe four of the battle. He was one of the specially-selected, specially-trained USSF ground troops, equipped with state-of-the art weaponry; as far as he had known — and not much cared — six months earlier, a mere handful of men had ever left the Earth and that was just for a few close orbits and a flaming, dangerous return.

The only thing he had known about space travel that had turned out to be true was the danger of re-entry and supposedly the science johnnies were working on that. He wasn't sure what the knowing talk of "gravitational anomalies" meant — there were too many new things to learn that weren't rumor: A decade earlier, the United States, in the person of one adventurously mutinous airman, had reached the Moon in secret. He had died in a crash landing on his return, destroying his vehicle and adding a new crater to the A-bomb range in Nevada. The "Outer Hebrides Agronomy Project" had jumped from raw physics to crude but workable hardware in three years and given rise to top-secret Project Hoplite, an effort by the United States and Western allies to establish a nuclear missile base on the Moon. The project had gone terribly wrong; the limited technology available included a nearly-miraculous faster than light Drive but control was so clumsy that the trip was effectively one-way. The "dedicated scientists" chosen to plan the venture had subverted it, packed the crew with fellow-conspirators and ultimately fled the Lunar base for an unknown destination, sending a single cryptic message when they departed: "We have saved you twice over."

What that could mean, no one was certain. The eventual follow-up trip had found the remains of what appeared to be a Luftwaffe Moonbase not far from the site Project Hoplite had selected and used to launch their unauthorized flight into the unknown, but the German base had obviously been abandoned years earlier. Just as obviously, the later conspirators, the self-described "Federation of Concerned Spacemen" had removed or destroyed anything that might have shed light on the Third Reich's 'Drive technology.

As time passed, reports of "flying saucers" had become more and more frequent; in NORAD-controlled airspace, the vehicles were increasingly elusive. Elsewhere in the world, men willing to deal in cash (or better, barter commodities) found new customers, secretive, close-mouthed foreigners who came and went in ways it was best to not inquire after too closely. NATO and Soviet intelligence services noticed, and drew their own conclusions.

Meanwhile, the remains of OHAP/Hoplite (under the new acronym JANETT) recovered from the Lunar mission's betrayal and grimly set about building what was to become the United States Space Force. As it grew, selected NATO allies -- supportive Brits, incredulous French, inventive Canadians -- were made privy to the secret. Of course the Russians had found out. The hue and cry from HUAC and Senator McCarthy did little to distract them or their spies.

He'd been told none of this when he was encouraged to volunteer for a "unique opportunity to serve;" during the rigorous (and frequently bizarre) training that followed, he and his peers quickly learned that excessive curiosity was one of the many ways to wash out. It wasn't until they were aboard the "experimental Navy transport" City of Philadelphia and well out to sea that they were assembled a squad at a time and given the first lecture of many to follow on the real situation, as the "Navy ship" brought its 'Drives online and squirt-boosted into Earth orbit. Freefall turned out to be a sorting process all its own; despite a lingering, floaty queasiness, he'd been among the first to adapt, rewarded by being put to work securing and cleaning up after the rest.

Philly and her sister vessels were hastily welded-together adaptations from USN's mothball fleet fitted with Stardrives and reaction drives that managed nearly a eighth of Earth-gravity thrust on a good day, hardly enough to keep feet on decks, mess trays on tables and chow in a soldier's stomach, but enough it was, especially if you could keep from thinking about the source of that acceleration. The Raytheon Mk. IIa Stardrive itself was barely-controllable in the gravitational field of a planet; it could reliably hurl the ship away from the surface but that close-in, the possible vectors occupied about a 70-degree hemicone of probability. Unlike later designs, the Mk. IIa was unable to "skim the interface," reducing the ship's effective mass; it could take you up to a selected altitude, more-or-less, and it worked adequately covering interplanetary distances but the detail work of getting from place to place took a reaction drive. A rocket. More of a teakettle, really; aiming for simplicity, Philly-class space vehicles used an atomic pile to boil water, the same pile that ran twin, contrarotating steam turbogenerators to power the 'Drive and the rest of the ship's systems. Shielding was...adequate. Personal dosimeters were mandatory.

On the Earth-Moon run and starting stealthily, the ships couldn't carry enough water to manage the constant-boost profile that would have made the trip a day's excursion. Instead, it was a five-day trip. Fifteen minutes at maximum boost five times a day made bright spots of relief from the microgravity provided by the bare minimum water flow needed to keep the pile "lively," at least as lively went, which wasn't much.

Every minute of of the journey not given to rest, meals, meals headed back up and struggling with inadequate, clumsy relief plumbing was taken up by training. Drilled and skilled in the soldier's fundamental arts, he and his fellow-selectees had already been taught the basics of scuba-diving, parachuting, gymnastics and advanced hand-to-hand: everything their superiors thought might be of use without giving away classified information. Now that the secret was revealed, the pace was redoubled. There was a reason for it: America — and her NATO allies — had an enemy in space. The traitors of Project Hoplite were making raids, abducting innocents, mutilating livestock, triggering anti-bomber/antimissile alerts; who knew what they might try next?

Landed — with a grinding, scary thump — and billeted like sardines at USSF's Fort Hiram Q. Snodgrass — "the first American on the Moon and for all that he was an Air Force noncom, the first USSF spacemen and don't you forget it!" — his days and those of his fellow-spacemen became even more crowded: Space-suits, Care, Operation and Field Repair of; The XM-16E, Battle-Rifle Of The Future (plus range time, starting in a huge, isolated, pressurized range and moving to vacuum); Tactics and Maneuver in Vacuum, Zero-G and Low-G (largely speculative). They learned a specialized language of gestures ("Your suit will not have a radio transmitter! Transmitters can be tracked! Transmitters will get you killed!") and practiced working in heavy spacesuit gloves. Specialists learned their shares of thousand-and-one jobs required to support troops fighting and working in the most hostile environment Man's armies had ever taken on. Eventually his cadre, the entire attack group, was ready; the United States Space Force had their ground troops.

The enemy was on Ganymede, possibly Europa as well, snuggled deeper in the strong electromagnetic and gravitational fields that made navigation and communication increasingly difficult the closer ships got to Jupiter. "Fortress Europa" was a grim joke among the planning officers, fretting the uncertain margins of spacecraft performance and human endurance. They reasoned if the rebels could do it, so could our troops, despite the enemy's superior spaceflight technology. NATO/USSF Operation Bounty Hunter was begun at the appointed day and hour, proceeding faultlessly up to landing their new spaceships on Ganymede with all the elan the Moon shuttles had lacked. It had become increasingly less-smooth afterward in a series of brief, bloody firefights, equipment failures and/or overt action.

And it had all come to this: alone in a strange place with a malfunctioning weapon and unknown injuries, the immediate past a thunderous blank. He started to shrug, winced, and set about clearing his rifle one-handed. Step One, remove cleaning kit from buttstock, tricky enough in spacesuit gloves.

* * *Not two hundred feet away, in a pressurized "hut" concealed, half buried, under a deliberately-random pile of the excavated material, an FCS imaging tech was working to free his superior's leg from a fallen equipment rack that had managed to trap the officer without — as nearly as either man could tell — doing serious harm. He gave the rack another shove, then stopped to poke at a tender spot on his left arm. "Ow!"

"Hawkins?"

"Lieutenant?"

"You do not know from 'Ow' until you have a, h'mm, comms package on your leg. Give it another push."

Hawkins grinned to himself. The Lieutenant was a decent guy and he must not be too badly hurt if he was still dotting every i and crossing every t.

It had taken a series of efforts, Hawkins heaving at the rack as Lt. Griffon inched his left calf free. The effort was not helped when a speaker on the wall began an anemic burbling. Both men turned toward the source of the sound, below which a panel hung slightly askew. One tally on it was flickering.

"'Pressure Low.' Want your fishbowl, Lieutenant?"

"I am almost out from under. Have your ears popped? Mine have not. Two or three more tries and we can both work on the next...challenge."

The other man nodded, realized Griffon wasn't looking at him, shrugged and gave the leaning rack another shove, and another, and the officer was free. Griffon rolled on out from under the table and stood in one smooth motion, patted dust from his garment, then looked down.

"Torn!" Sure enough, the tough, stretchy material of his pressure suit had a vertical, two-inch rip on the side, at mid-calf.

"Stand still." Hawkins swept fallen items aside with his foot and knelt for a closer look. "Could be worse, you didn't get cut."

"Do you think it will hold if wrapped?"

"It should. There's rip-stop gunk in the suit lockers, too. No reason to chance it."

"Absolutely. We'd better check on Hix, Feelie and Ferrill, first." The remainder of their team, a remote-sensing outpost for the landing field, had been off-shift in the living quarters module when the impact happened.

"You stop at the lockers, I'll step on through. Deal?"

Griffon favored the soldier with a thin grin. "That's 'Deal, Sir?' And it is."

The suit lockers were next the airlock hatch at one end of the long, narrow enclosure, and opened into both the equipment room and the bunkroom at right angles to it by means of interlocked, pressure-tight hatches. The two sections connected via the main airlock; the suit locker, tucked into the angle between them, could serve as a crude back-up airlock.

The suit locker was only in mild disarray and the main airlock appeared to be intact. Hawkins grabbed his helmet and breather pack from their stowage, stepped into the airlock and secured the hatch. Across the small area, telltales next to the hatch into the living quarters glowed warnings for pressure and temperature, confirmed by direct-reading instruments beside them. "Should've shown up on the alarm board," Hawkins muttered to himself. He tried the hatch anyway. Undogged, it still wouldn't budge. He settled his helmet into place, shrugged into the breather pack, set the valves and then began to cycle the airlock, one careful step at a time.

When the pressure was low enough — surface-normal, a good enough vacuum for most purposes, he opened the hatch into the living quarters.

Into what had been living quarters; he stepped back as debris slid gently into the lock: a battered telltale panel, a ripped girlie calender from a hot-rod shop, unrecognizable lumps of ice and rock falling in slow motion to reveal...an elbow? Possibly. He stood for a moment as the mess came to a stop, puffs of dust still floating, and shook his head. There weren't any pressure-tight bulkheads past the hatch and all the pressure-suite helmets and breathers had been in the locker. No one could be alive in there. Clearing the blockage away, he gently closed and secured the hatch and set to repressurizing the lock. When it had finished cycling, he returned to the equipment room, where Lt. Griffon was winding a stretchy strip of fabric around his pressure-suited calf, covering the tear. Griffon started to speak, caught sight of the other man's face and stopped. His expression grew more somber.

"They're gone, sir." The two traded a look; both of them knew of men who had died in this conflict but never so close. "Looks like that side took a direct hit." The officer nodded. "Has there been any traffic on comms?"

"I haven't heard a peep, but I haven't checked the transceiver yet, either."

The FCS was using a wired-wireless system, low-power FM transceivers obtained surreptitiously on Earth or copied in their own shops, interconnected by coaxial cable. It was inefficient and not completely secure, but cut through the terrific radiofrequency interference around Jupiter better than any other system they'd tried.

Hawkins looked at the fallen rack. Cables exiting the top had parted raggedly. Tubes were still lit in the equipment. "Power's on, those cables were down low and there's plenty of slack, but the coax is broken. I can patch it up well enough."

"Well enough to keep us from being a shining beacon to our foes?"

"Dirtsiders, I'm not too impressed with their SigInt; I think so, sir."

"I would not be too hasty to underrate their abilities, Tech. Hook it up and we shall hope you are right or they are too busy to notice."

Expedient repairs notwithstanding — as long as there's duct tape available, you don't need a mating connector to hook RG-8 cable to an SO-239 jack, though it helps — Hawkin's calls produced no reply.

Griffon checked his watch. "Should be a time pip shortly." But the time came and went; either the officer's watch was a lot worse off than it looked or the radio circuit was dead.

Hawkins was the first to speak. "Nothing. Looks like we walk."

"Indeed."
* * *
On the surface, the soldier was still struggling with his rifle and the cleaning rod while muttering a steady stream of imprecations directed at the Army, USSF and someone apparently named "Damn Ted Armalite." It wasn't helping.

[CONTINUED HERE]

[DELETED SCENE: twenty minutes earlier, under the ice/dust surface, sparse lights flickered on, dimly illuminating drifting haze. A man coughed, retched, then asked, "Oh, holy snakes, what was that?"

From under a table, a fussily-precise voice muttered, "What do you _think?_ They shelled us."

"Um, right. Lieutenant Griffon?"

"None other. And you would still be Hawkins, correct? I don't suppose you're in a position to help me out from under here; my leg appears to be trapped."

The room had been small to begin with; shaken and jumbled, it appeared even smaller. Equipment cabinets were leaning at crazy angles, kept from falling over only by the lack of space to fall into. Hawkins was still strapped in position in front of the imaging display rack, which had rocked but settled back into its original position. He gingerly tried to move, his skintight pressure suit incongruous on his skinny, potbellied body. He poked at a tender spot on his left arm. "Ow!"

"Hawkins?"

"Lieutenant?"

"You do not know from 'Ow' until you have a, h'mm, comms package on your leg. Get over here."

Hawkins grinned to himself. The Lieutenant was a decent guy and he must not be too badly hurt if he was still dotting every i and crossing every t. END DELETED SCENE]

Slap-Happy Holidays

2009-12-21T05:06:00.000-08:00

I walked into the Engineering Shop to start my shift, only to discover Jonny Zedd was holding forth to Kent Good on the care and feeding of our few remaining multitrack data recorders, using the one Kent had opened up on a service cart as a podium. He went on and on, about how there are no moving parts in the head assembly (wrong), how none of the device-specific mechanical or electronic parts can be had (way wrong; [a major Japanese manufacturer] did grab up the product line long ago but they've continued to support it — and long-time USSF supplier Universal Actives second-sources everything but the front panel.

I listened agog at the depth of misinformation as Johnny wound down and departed on the hour, his shift being over. Kent shook his head, sighed and smiled.

"You're a patient man," I told him; Kent came to us after a couple of decades in Engineering on a smaller ship of the same vintage as the Lupine, which means it would have had the exact same recorders. "Gave you the skinny, did he? Jonny's killed at least a half dozen of those things since I signed aboard."

Kent smiled even more broadly. "I know. I'm into this one after he 'fixed' it. But you stop — Christmas is just next week."

He's right. Merry Christmas to Kent, Handsome Dave, C, Jay, The Chief and especially, Jonny Zed — and f'pity's sake, Jon, don't get too ambitious! Merry Christmas to us all.

Merry Christmas to my readers, too.

Inbound: Going Bump In The Night

2009-12-10T18:22:00.000-08:00

Lupine, a ten-mile-long city in flight Blish never dreamed of, was coasting in zero-g. This is no fun but we'd bounced in a little off-kilter and Navs had so decreed. If you're not susceptible to falling dreams, it's not so bad for sleeping; tuck in the covers and drift off like Little Nemo! I woke up about three-quarters when the alarm sounded and my cabin lights blinked on and then off again. From the phone panel set in the wall next to my bunk: "Final warning! Acceleration in thirty seconds! Take hold!"

It sounded like Navs finally had us lined up for our first inbound course correction.. About time; I was already tired of squeeze-bulb instant coffee. I hoped it was going to be a long burn.

I was still recovering from my brush with death at the hands of a unbalanced Edger -- or a fanatical member of their Home Guard, take your pick; either way, Irene nearly got me. I'd been sleeping a lot and ordering in meals; it's not cheap but even though Dr. Poole himself had cleared me to go back to work (and the Chief was fuming at his restricting me to light duty, or at least faking it convincingly), I was not a hundred percent.

So I just laid there muzzy headed for a few minutes before blinking my eyes into some semblance of focus and palming the lights back on -- there's a handy switch for that, right below the telephone panel -- then took a quick look around. Nothing unsecured but my jeans and they weren't going to hurt anything. It's not like a NASA-front moon shot from the '60s; Lupine ramps up thrust over a period of several hours to get back to our normal three-quarters g, plenty enough to make down stay down. With that happy thought, I drifted back into a big, fluffy gray cloud of sleep.

BA-BUMP! A big double jolt woke me right at the threshold of sleep. I kept my eyes shut, thinking, hoping, probably just a reflexive kick, and drifted back off.

Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. BZZT! BZZT! "BOBBI!" It was later but I had no idea how much. Lights were still on, my pager was bleeping and the telephone was saying my name. I slapped at the big PHONE button, said something and got a worried-sounding reply. "Bobbi? You awake?" It was Kent.

"Mororless... Wha...?"

"I said, are you up?"

"YES. Whaddizzit?"

"I dunno, the 'Drive just dropped off and we can't restart it. Drive Control keeps getting SWR trips. Doc Schmid was here and he said to call you -- he's already headed for the 'Drive compartment."

Lupine's Second Officer is a first-rate Navs boffin and fully-qualified for 'Drive work but it's been a very long time since he slung solder or swung a wrench. Suddenly I was a lot more awake. And it hit me what the double bump had been: 'Drive quits while we're under heavy thrust; we stop bein' so slippery in realspace and the reaction drives throttle up to compensate, almost immediately. "Almost" is what makes it bumpy. The big MHDs downstream of the fusion reactors (all of it tended by the Power Room gang) have significant control lag -- jokingly known as "turbo lag" -- so all the RF-pumped ion maneuvering drives already running on our normal "down" axis were briefly pushed to 120% and then backed off in a not-quite compliment to the MHD starting to roar. All perfectly normal behavior, not that you ever get used to it. I sat up, peeked around the corner to see if I'd left the phone camera off (yes), got up and started digging out clothes. "Tell him I'm on my way." So much for that nice warm bunk and a full night's sleep. "Have you made sure Navs is aware?"

Kemp averred that A) he had; B) the navigators were swearing and C) they wanted our best guess when we'd have the 'Drive online again ASAP. No doubt -- with the 'Drive pulsing away on low, we can cheat at physics; lose it and they're unexpectedly playing at Newton's table. Oh, there'll be one or two what-ifs covering this kind of failure running already, there's a reason most starship navs types are avid chess and Go players, but they've got to get it updated in a hurry and start working up what-ifs based on how soon we get the 'Drive running.

Nice damn timing. An SWR fault, especially at the low power level used for sub-light maneuvering, is about sure to be between the big final amplifiers we were headed in to replace and the CLASSIFIED, or possibly between it and the 'Drive field radiator. Easily-found external evidence of exactly where it might be is unlikely.

One item in our favor I didn't find out about until I got to the 'Drive compartment was we had some extra and very high-zoot test gear; while I slept, Dr. Schmid had received a Mad Rushin' delivery of an elderly but nice Network Analyzer, on loan from the Company HQ, Earthside -- Earthsideish, that is: Farside City on the backside of the Moon. He had decided it couldn't hurt to have a look at the CLASSIFIED and the new combining system using our own gear and ansibled the request right before we dropped back into normal space.

A quick aside for readers not out here on the Hidden Frontier: "Mad Rushin'" or "Mad Russian" is a nickname; the outfit calls itself "Express Delivery Service," only in Russian, and they fly small, egg-shaped FTL vehicles that consist of a hot (in more than one sense) power plant and oversized Stardrive, a smallish cargo bay, a screamin' basic Navs setup and one (1) young, well-trained, enthusiastic and optimistic Russian star-flyer in a ruggedized space suit; there's no other enclosed life-support. Most of the "drivers" were born on the old Red planets, nearly all are former Soviet Space Arm (the real one) and every last one of them is a born gambler. The death toll isn't quite as bad as you might think but nobody's offering them life insurance policies -- and when it absolutely, positively has to be there in four days or less and price isn't a concern, your best (and most often only) option is a Mad Russian, popping in and out of a high-order 'Drive field and taking exactly as many Rads as his employer's medical advisers permit. A difficult-to-read font I assume is Cryllic says "BisPosEtKom"[1] on the olive-and-crimson labels, but in English just about everybody calls it some version of "Mad Rush Shipping," including them. Story is that most of their courier ships have been retrofitted to modern fusion reactors now but nobody's willing to sneak aboard to check and most of the hulls still have "hot" spots, so you can't be sure from a distance. So, now you're up to speed -- and so was I, on a mad rush of my own.

It's a good ways to the closest connection between the crew-level slidewalk system and the ship's only direct maintenance-vehicle connection between the control center and the 'Drive compartment. This is all to the good, as there's no slidewalk in it, just narrow, railed walks along the sides. I jog-trotted that stretch, grabbed wildly at the rail when the deck swayed once, kept moving and was out of breath when I came through the hatch to find Dr. Schmid, Big Tom and four suited-up riggers looking every bit as happy as you might expect guys who'd normally be hitting the bars and/or the arcade about now. Tom looked sheepish and the conversation shortly revealed why.

Dr. Schmid said, "Oh, hi, Bobbi," and as I dogged the hatch,he added, "The Chief'll be here any minute with the adapters and cables."

I looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

Tom spoke up, "Um, I was told was to bring the analyzer; I didn't see anything that looked related near it."

Dr. Schmid managed to look tired and noncommittal at the same time. "Power's up as high as we can make without VSWR shut-down."

I glanced at the control rack display for the 'Drive finals: idling at about two percent peak power, with a duty cycle that should knock our effective mass down to about 85 percent, and asked if the riggers had 'laid hands' on the big coax yet. The crew boss, Dan, shifted uneasily and said, "Nope; we'll have to rig and I figured you guys would want to make with the Big Science first."

"Can you send two guys out with an IR camera, scope the line, and then get started with as much as can be done without shutting down the Stardrive?"

He nodded and glanced at Dr. Schmid, who nodded back and said, "Might as well. We'll watch on the monitor in here, get as many eyes on it as we can. At ten percent..."

"Yeah, we might not see much." The boss rigger turned to his crew. "Randy, Jer, gear up and head on out."

* * *
Sure enough, we didn't see much; maybe a warm spot seventy meters out but zooming in didn't resolve it any better. The riggers packed up the IR camera and began, well, rigging, setting up the lines and winch they'd need if we'd lost a section of transmission line. In the accessway along the CLASSIFIED, Big Tom and I unstowed two spare concentric-line sections (19.35 feet long, 6.125" OD and much too heavy even at Lupine's normal three-quarter g; there's a lot of copper in them) and laid them ready on the deck.

As we ambled back into the 'Drive compartment proper, the Chief arrived carrying a mailbin loaded with books (hey, Starship Company, ever heard of CD-ROMS? Thumb drives?), bright blue precision cables and two big boxes of adapters and calibration ends (shorted, open and cal-lab-accurate 50 Ohms) for the network analyzer, each marked KEEP WITH NET. AN. AT ALL TIMES!!! "Found it under a 50-foot coil of 12/3 cable, the whole thing bungee-netted to the deck," he puffed.

Big Tom looked relieved at this news. I took the bin from the Chief, hauled it around behind the Stardrive final amplifers to the analyzer, sat it down and dug out a book, right volume on my first try; it'd been at least a decade since I'd messed with one of these and the trick we needed to do -- swept bandpass time domain reflectometry, "radar on a rope" -- is not the most obvious mode to set up. If all you remember about a thing is that it was difficult and counterintuitive, it can be a powerful incentive to relearn fast. All the more when your boss and his boss have both walked back to look interestedly over your shoulder.

Chapter 2, INSTRUMENT MODES, page 2-12, TIME DOMAIN, just a brief description of Option 010. Chap.6, MEASUREMENT, page 6-29, pay dirt! Bandpass TDR, yes, yes.... I punched buttons and got into Transform mode, nifty, set Start and Stop and hey-dammit! Can't get the thing pushed out past a couple hundred nanoseconds, not ten pecent of the time (distance) we'd need. I looked around in frustration to see the Chief take his celphone from his ear and make a throat-cutting motion, turned to see Big Tom walk back to the front of the 'Drive finals and heard the big contactors thud open as the Lupine jolted with the ion drives throttling up in transition. The 'Drive was off; Dr. Schmid cranked the manual coax switch knob around, disconnecting the CLASSIFIED and connecting the line to the 'Drive radiator array with the test port; he hooked one of the precision cables to it and leaned over to connect the far end to the Network Analyzer.

I tried setting the Stop limit to the right value: nothing doing. Knew I was overlooking something but there's nothing in the book... Sweep menu? Start freq, stop freq, right across the critical (and, you bet your life, classified!) band, okay. Now, linear or log sweep? H'mm, it's in linear; I toggled it and went back to the the Transform menu and Lo! A shining victory for semi-panicked fobbing-at-controls! I punched the STIMULUS: STOP button, spun the manual-setting knob and walked the end of the displayed 'scope trace out the line... At 95 meters, a small spike, fine; then at 165, pow! Right off the scale! "Got it, Doc!"

"Don't be hasty," he warned me, "You're not even halfway out."

But there were no other big blips, right out to the gentle trailing-off of the 'Drive array. One-sixty-five was our culprit. Dr. Schmid used his phone to dial into suit radio comms and have the riggers give the line a good whack at the proper point (82 and half meters, since the analyzer gives you the there and back distance). I took out my calculator and came up with the flange between line sections 10 and 11 as the most likely and sure enough, slapping that flange made the spike on the Analyzer's TDR trace dance.

It was enough to even convince Dr. Schmid; he smiled and agreed we needed to replace both sections, while cautioning me to be prepared to find even more damage, "...once the big discontinuity is remedied." He's right far more often than not.

Dr. Schmid took the Chief off to one side and started a whispered conversation. I didn't really intend to overhear but caught, "...found it now...might as well go get what sleep you can. You look like hell and you were awake two days straight when we almost lost--" He noticed me not-really-listening, shot me a look that was almost a glare and I decided to see if there was something useful I could do farther away.

Finding the problem is half the repair; with the 'Drive offline, Lupine was still burning through reaction mass at a wasteful rate. The long accessway for the CLASSIFIED ends at the regular airlock the first pair of riggers had used. The hatch between the accessway and the 'Drive compartment is a full airlock hatch, not just pressure-rated, with a second set of indicators and controls for exactly this job, hauling sections of high-power concentric-line out into the Great Beyond. It's an annoyingly large enclosed volume and takes awhile to pump down. As soon as we'd decided to replace the two suspicious sections, boss rigger Dan and his helper Adrian ("He's a new guy -- transferred up from window-washer in the greenhouse." Or maybe he has a Ph.D. Riggers, I never know if they're serious) had sealed up their suits, shut the hatch and started it cycling. You can't scavenge all the air with a practical pump but you can save a lot of it; unfortunately, the amount lost is proportional to the enclosed volume. So we don't use the big lock unless we must; Lupine is huge but this is a negative-sum game.

Dr. Schmid and I passed the time running the network analyzer and showing Big Tom how to use it. I'd called up the suit radio channel on the 'Drive compartment phone and in speaker mode, we listened to Dan and his crew discussing the job, with occasional comments from the safety officer on duty in the Control Room. Eventually, we felt more than heard the outer hatch open; by then, the first two riggers had unbolted the line sections, jacked the line apart and removed them, and were ready for the two new pieces.

The rest is "mere mechanics," as they who don't have to do it say. The riggers dropped the new sections in, bolted them up and we repressurized the line with dry air to 3 psi above ship standard.[2] Meanwhile the riggers gathered at the hatch, killing time. Takes about fifteen minutes to air the line back up and another fifteen to be sure we don't have any really egregious leaks; there's no point cycling them back in 'til we're sure their work has succeeded.

The first part of pressure-testing doesn't take much attention. Much more interesting was the network analyzer display, now minus the big mismatch blips. There were a few tiny wiggles on the display but nothing's perfect. Ten minutes after shutting off the air supply, the gauge hadn't budged a tick down from just-over-three. Doc Schmid cocked an eye at me and said, "Let's apply some power!" He reached up and started cranking the transfer switch back from TEST to NORMAL.

I went over to the phone, picked up the handset, "Dan? You have have your field-strength meters handy? We're going to bring the 'Drive up slowly; if they get even close to yellow, sing out!" 'Drive energy is nothing to get casual about. "Yellow" on the little meters riggers are supposed to carry is well below the danger level: better safe than cooked.

Punched up another line, the hotline to Drive Control. Eric answered. Good; he's nearly unflappable. "Eric? We're gonna try running the 'Drive up to about ten or twelve percent; set it at 20% duty cycle. Match me with the ion drives, okay?"

"Are you callin' Power Room, or should I? They're kind of unhappy since the big glitch."

"I'll leave that to your tact and diplomacy. Five minutes -- you'll see the rig fire up on the remotes. I'll start at zero and bring it up slowly."

He laughed and hung up. Doc Schmid gave me a nod. "Five minutes. You do it."

Fine by me -- brass he may be but he's got entirely too much faith in the goodwill of the universe to suit me.

Our 2/O has an endless supply of anecdotes, a good many for the days when men were men and 'Drive techs occasionally got knocked into the middle of next week, not always metaphorically. This one involved the old City of Louisville, a water-cooled Klystron-like 'Drive final and contaminated cooling water. I really hope it's not true, but it does begin to explain how the Lousy got its other nickname. After five minutes of that, I double-checked the Christmas Tree displays on the front of each 'Drive power amp, green side lit to READY and red all off, and pushed the BEAM ON button. The compartment lights flickered as the high voltage supplies step-started; the 'Drive came up at zero power, standing current only, and then one of the three finals crowbarred to OFF.

I said a Very Bad Word (as is my habit when these noisy little bobbles occur), checked to see that output was indeed zero, cleared the fault and put that final amp back to STANDBY. Quick as it was, the timers were still happy and the READY led lit up in a few seconds. Gave Dr. Schmid a glance, he nodded and I pushed the BEAM button again. The reluctant amplifier came up, stayed on and I started to breathe again.

Time to see what happens next; I tapped on the RAISE POWER button and watched the Forward Power meters for all three finals and the combined output lurch up a tick. One percent, two, three.... The floor briefly felt a bit greasy underfoot, then steadied. Eric was tracking the (apparent) change in real-world mass very closely. He's good at it. Ran power up a little more, inching up to ten percent. Not a wriggle on the Reflected Power meter. This is what we can safely call A Good Sign. I stepped on up to twelve percent and it stayed steady.

A quick word about power: the meters on the 'Drive finals (and the remotes at DQ) are reading peak power; average power is what fiddles with our relationship to the rest of universe. The average power depends on the waveform, which in normal space is just a pulse, with varying on/off times depending on just how skittery Navs wants the ship to be. It gets way worse making a hole in reality and wrapping the ship up in it but Highly Classified Complexity aside, it's still average power that does the work.[3] So who cares about peak power? Engineering does; it's on the peaks that insulators break down, phantasmajector tubes find fun new ways to fail, and so on and so forth. Like the time we proved (by unwanted example) that Tweed's baseplates for the high voltage safety switches tended to absorb moisture from the air, though we had some help from defective E&PP climate-control with that one; but that's another story. Keep notes -- you might fall on hard times and have to work as a 'Drive tech some day!

Meanwhile, Dr. Schmid was already on the horn with the riggers, asking for another IR scan and redundantly cautioning them to mind their field-strength meters. He hung up and turned to me, "Have Eric hand off thrust to the MHD and we'll run 'er up some more. Might as well find out now if it's going to fail." He was grinning. Unusually for the breed, he loves this kind of dice roll. Me, not so much.

Still, he's right. I'd rather find out inbound to a planet than heading for a Jump or part-way through, especially when our destination has repair facilities. Another call to Eric and some discussion of ion thrust hand-off to Power/MHD, 'Drive duty-cycles and peak power later, Drive Control had walked us down to 1% on-time and I was gradually increasing power again. Without the complex modulation that wraps the ship up in a pocket universe and squirts it along at a rate that has outpaced light when we pop back into normal space at the end of a Jump, it's highly predictable but the shorter the duty cycle, the worse the effects if there's any stutter or irregularity. It nearly always goes okay; but even 10,000-sided dice with one bad side still do have that bad side.

On the other hand, every Jump is a dice roll, too, with a lot more at stake than the jars and bumps of abruptly varying thrust. Lupine is huge but resilient; built for battle, her structure bends under stress instead of breaking. I wasn't especially worried but I kept a hand on a grab bar and my toes under the footrail[4] as I ran the output past 70 percent peak power. The rig stayed steady as can be. Not a tick on the Reflected Power meter.

The boss rigger called in to admit their field strength meters were now indeed at the lower edge of yellow, so we held at 70 for ten minutes, fifteen, twenty.... Dr. Schmid pronounced himself satisfied. He had me run the 'Drive back down to ten percent and hand off full control to Eric in DQ, adding, "Have him call up Navs for their latest runcharts and load them in the automation; I have no doubt we'll soon be hearing from Port Control."

As it turned out, he was right.

The riggers were already cycling the lock, having carried the bad line sections in with them. The bad line would have to go off to one of the machine shops for repair. We were back in the starship business once again.

_________________________
1. "Bistro Postev'tee Etu Kompaniya," something like, "Deliver This NOW Co." Alternatively and with typically-mordant humor, if you catch one of their brave (or shal'noi, loony; most likely both) pilots when he's well-rested, he'll tell you it means "Now deliver (save) this company," profit margins being very slim when your business model is based on what amounts to a nuke-powered top fuel dragster with a cargo bed. Increasing Internet connectivity is helping a lot, since their dispatching and routing problems are, literally, cosmic. It has paid off for them in other ways, too: every Mad Rushin' vehicle carries an ansible, an e-mail node, ginromous RAID arrays and several different versions of normal-space wireless data transceivers. They've got contracts with many planetary ISPs to carry the e-mail but their own traffic comes first.

2. For the nuts'n'bolts types, what we're breathin' is an oxygen/nitrogen mix at less-than-Denver pressure and with a bit more oxygen than they serve in Colorado. We could air up the concentric line with anything nonreactive, as all we're really after is to keep the inner-conductor connectors from vacuum-welding, prolong the life of the PTFE parts and give hot spots a little extra cooling help. In the old days, they used high-pressure tanks of nitrogen, hauled up and aft from E&PP's chemical plant (greenhouse fertilizer, gunk for air, water and sewage processing and on and on), but a pair of nifty little commercial gizmos do the job now with a lot less heavy lifting and a way lower chance of inadvertent cold-gas torpedoes.

3. Well, really it's RMS power, but you either knew that already or don't care. If you ever need the info, you'll learn it.

4. After every stretch of zero-g time, in addition to the usual bumps, bruises and et learning the hard way that mass remains even when weight is imperceptible cetera, the ship's clinics receive a steady stream of patients with sore feet, skinned toes and suchlike; bracing your feet under the toerails when they don't stick to the deck by themselves gets to be a habit but humans're not really built for it.

Another Day, Part 18

2009-11-26T18:14:00.000-08:00

(GO TO BEGINNING)

For all my glib jokes about it bein' a long walk home, for all the times I have been in bad situations a long way from help, not until now had I really been convinced of my own mortality.

Irene was going to kill me and I wasn't even sure why. Maybe silence wasn't the best policy. "Irene--" I squeaked, started over, geesh, think, "Irene, how can I make things better?" It sounded fake even to me.

"Oh, do shut up." It hadn't gone over well with her, either. "You grubby people, with your grubby ships and your miserable, uncivilized planets. There is dirt everywhere! You have no idea; Wiitherspoon Processing was clean. It was orderly. Things made sense. This is all chaos and barbarism." She emphasized the important parts by yanking on the lanyard attached to my wrists. "It's a good thing I kept up my militia training. Those contractors--" She meant Mil/Space. The Federation of Concerned Spacemen is as close to a real government as the Edgers get but it's not that close. "--They are good enough for routine but I have always known it was just a matter of time before you people attacked us again."

Right over the edge. I am dead, just as dead as Katrina. "They should have just let your 'Federation of Concerned Spacemen' kite off with an entire Moonbase?" She snorted and gave the lanyard another painful jerk. Geez, I'm so good at this. Gotta calm her down. It was hard to think what to say. "Irene, they pretty much did. All that was over a long time ago. We're all friends now."

"Friends? Friends? You're helping take our Founders back to the dirt and carrying Nazis right beside them, too!"

"Irene, they're all dead. Ashes. Your brother needs you--" Crazy lady tryin' to kill me, I should have been more excited. I sure was sleepy.

"That freak? My brother was rational! He's gone. Hopkins-F destroyed him and all I have left is just a horrible, horrible copy."

My suit was beeping in my ear. I don't know how long it had been beeping but her ranting matched the beat. My heart boomed in counterpoint, louder and louder in my ears and I started to drift off; just as the darkness pulled me under, I heard Irene break off her rant with a grunt and then I was floating away, down down into the dark. Last thing I remembered was thinking with mild regret about all the people and places I'd never see again.

* * *

"Stop struggling! Just lay still, I've got you." I'd know Ivan's unusual flavor of English anywhere but why would one of Sheriff Mike's shift leaders be talking to me that way and especially why would he be in my compartment? "Somebody call the clinic. Doc Poole needs to know she's hypoxic." I was in my bunk asleep, wondering why my helmet was off -- what an odd thought! -- and why it felt like I'd wet the bed. I opened my eyes and Ivan was looming over me, looking worried. The "bunk" suddenly felt cold and hard, too. "Just lie back," he told me, "And hang onto this." "This" was a bottle of air. Someone I couldn't see slapped a mask over my face and the next thing I knew, I was on a cot and being hustled down a passageway.

I'd like to tell you the world suddenly snapped back into focus but it didn't. I fell asleep or passed out before they even reached the nearest maintenance-vehicle tube. I woke next to a different beeping and the hushed murmur of nearby activity. Opened my eyes to dim light and just laid there, looking at the monitor, the dingy divider curtains in their deck-and-overhead tracks and the homey, well-used bulkheads and cabinets of one of the Lupine's main clinic. I was alive. Hadn't expected that.

After a few minutes, a nurse came in, frowned at the monitor, made a note on it with a stylus -- so much for the traditional clipboard -- and smiled at me. "You are awake. You've got visitors. Do you want to see them? They can't stay long. You had been given some kind of CNS depressant and you have been exposed to very high CO2 levels. You need to rest"

I thought about that for a minute. Other than T and Navigator Dave, I don't really have close friends. Shipboard, if crewmates stick around long enough, you'll know them all too well eventually; why hasten the day? On the other hand, part of me was still stuck in that nightmare on the hull. Friendly company seemed like a good idea. Rest didn't; I'd seen quite enough of the inside of my eyelids already, thank you. "Send 'em in," I told her.

To my surprise, the first two were Mike Mathis and The Turk. Mike was oddly demure, a combination of worried and pleased. Turk Turon was just short of jolly, a swarthy Santa Claus. He loomed over the bed and gave me a big and only mildly lecherous grin.

"Safe and sound you are, and all thanks to me!" he boomed.

Mike winced. "Too damn' close for me," he said, and turned to me, "You are okay, right? Doc Poole says you'll be good to go by tomorrow or the day after."

I smiled and nodded. "If he says so, I believe it. I'm just tired. --Mike, what happened?"

He smiled thinly. "I used you for bait."

"It was startin' to look that way."

"If I had thought it would get this far out of hand, I wouldn't have. With little Villy buttoned up -- he's not just on good behavior, you know: he's wearing a tracking anklet -- and his late girlfriend's cheater cardkeys accounted for, you and all my suspects should have been on a tight leash." He looked bleak, then shrugged. "Hey, you wanted to help. I did need a closer look at Welles but once we found his pal Villem, I was at a dead end. I still wouldn't've done it--"

Turk had been puffing up proudly -- Santa with a _pony!_ -- and broke in, "Until I showed him how to track you: RFID!"

Aw, geez. The Starship Company has been pushing that stuff for five years now, but just for inventory control. Stores & Cargo makes extensive use of it and so do the businesses "downtown," where a network of short-range RFID readers can just about retrace your shopping trip; Handsome Dave was a 400-Amp panelboard for three weeks before the Merchant's Association figured out who was hauling the tag around, e-mailed him to knock it off and copied the message to the Chief. I'd thought the rest of the ship was clear of that; most access control uses keycards or ordinary lock-type locks.

I must have looked irked. Sheriff Mike said, "You wouldn't be alive if he hadn't. We'd tagged most of your sweatshirts and almost skipped your pressure suit; Ivan put a tag in your suit coveralls just to be thorough. Anyway, it worked. The smaller passageways aren't real well covered but when our last reader hits showed you near an airlock and then lost you, it wasn't hard to figure out. E&PP didn't show the lock having been cycled; I sent a couple of guys to the lock and they found the damnedest gadget defeating the alarms. I was already yelling at my RFID "expert;" Turk rounded up his riggers and sent them pinging away with portable RFID readers down the port and starboard deck cargo areas until they got a hit from you. By then, your buddies in Engineering had a high-gain directional antenna ready for us and I had my troops suited up."

The Chief had quietly entered my curtained-off compartment behind Mike, started to grin and covered by giving me a grim look. He chimed in with, "We spent time on that antenna we didn't have to spare. And now you've got yourself on the sick list. You and your peers all going to be working overtime to catch up."

"Aye-aye, Boss. Just as soon as the Doc will let me." The Chief looked faintly annoyed at that, which seemed about right.

"Anyway--!" Mike said, "It wasn't easy, since I hadn't planned on having to track you outside the ship. But we made it work. We found you and we found our killer, too; once we got her inside, she started talking and wouldn't shut up. I paid extra for a Mad Russian courier to swap anisble messages with her point of origin."

"And?"

"And nothing! Nothing useful. Confirmation of her identity as per the '89 Agreement and a demand I return 'our resident' to 'her home.' Denial of all charges."

The Chief looked interested. He loves interstellar law the same way some people love soap operas, though he is loath to admit it. Turk snorted: the only thing Edgers do that he approves of is the way most of their planetary settlements use precious-metal currency. Me, I was worried. "Will you?" I asked. "She's in the brig, right?" My heart sped up.

"What? No! I mean, yes, she's in the brig and no, I won't send her back. It's not my call. If she asks to go, we've got to release her to her home jurisdiction, you know that. It's the Agreement." That is how it works. In theory, the accused is then tried under his polity's justice system. It can get complicated; most of the Far Edge barely even has a real government: FCS reigns more than it rules, at least when it's not dropping Mil/Space troopers to counter organized activity it deems detrimental. Their usual official presence is though a Public Relations agency or a hired representative. Justice is a local option; lawlessness not locally controlled results in an unannounced visit from Mil/Space, rapid, brutal and nearly always effective. Not that I thought all that at the time -- I was just concerned Irene would get another shot at me.

About then, the same nurse as before parted the curtain and gave us all an Intent Babysitter look. "Roberta, you need to rest. Your friends can come back later." She traded looks with The Turk, who nodded, looked even more pleased with himself, grinned at me again and left the compartment, the nurse on his heels. Ooookay.

I was feeling a little dizzy but I didn't intend to close my eyes again for a long time. "I am resting." She rolled her eyes but left. I looked back at Mike. "Sheriff, what's the deal with her? That was way more than just 'crazy.'"

To my surprise, the Chief answered. "That's classified," he said.

I wasn't buying it. "By who? What, I nearly get killed by Aunt Super-soldier and it's classified? I thought we were all friends now!" Except the French, of course, and the Red Chinese.

Mike looked uncomfortable. He shifted his weight from one foot to another as he said, "You know it's not that simple."

The Chief broke in, moving closer. "Some of it is. Roberta, there are matters to which Mike and I are privy as USSF reservists that you cannot be told about." (I knew it, the Chief is ex-Space Force! Prolly ex-NASA before that, too). "Other items are not classified, but are not common knowledge." He gave me a sterner look than usual. "And they are not to become so. Is that clear?"

I nodded.

"The Far Edge ruling body maintains an effective armed force entirely seperate from their Mil/Space contractors. They're like a militia."

Mike spoke up, "We think it started during the War, after Io. It was the first time they really lost and they didn't realize until much later that our victory was nearly as a big a disaster. They started setting up local militias for last-ditch defense. Recruiting was public but it was organized as a covert force, a kind of pre-existing Underground."

I laid there and thought about that. The Battle of Io had been reported as a hard-won victory but Mike was implying it was Pyrrhic. Add in the Edgers working to get a rifle behind every blade of grass -- or a saboteur behind every airlock, more likely -- and it certainly explained why USSF/NATO and our temporary allies had been so willing to negotiate for peace. It didn't make me feel especially good about the courage of our political leadership. "So you're telling me Irene is one of those...commandos?"

Both men spoke at once; the gist was that this was just an interesting set of factiods and if I chose to infer something neither had said, that was my choice. Y'don't say.

My nurse -- well, the nurse; we both get paid by a little interstellar carrier outta Duluth -- returned, fussily impatient. She checked the display again, the same one she can call up at her desk, turned and gave us The Look again. "I really must insist. She must rest. Michael, Ra--"

The Chief interrupted her with, "We're going. Roberta, I'll see you in Engineering as soon as you're cleared." One of these days, I'll learn his first name. Mike nodded at me and they left, the nurse behind them.

Okay, there are still holes in my memory, but at least I wasn't drugged and/or overpowered by an ordinary Far Edge housefrau loonie nearly old enough to be my Mom.

* * *

Three weeks later, Lupine was under thrust in a forced orbit over Frothup. Our squirtboosters were shuttling passengers to the main port, Aberstwyth. Doc Poole had pronounced me good to go (as he put it, "No more brain-damaged than anyone else in your department," which isn't too ringing an endorsement considering some of my nominal peers) after a couple of mights in the ship's main clinic. I'd spent nearly every on-duty moment since in the 'Drive compartment, puzzling over the advance drawings Irrational had sent up for our solid-state 'Drive finals, working with a senior electrician from the Power gang and an Environment & Physical Plant HVAC tech on power and cooling for the new beast. We'd taken it as far as we could while Doc Schmid and the Chief were entertained planetside by Irrational's brass, getting the skinny on the new finals. Now it was my turn; I was headed down to spend a week learning he nuts and bolts at their plant while all the parts and pieces were put through final test, after which it, a couple of their techs and me were going to be installing, testing and documenting the gadget. USSF was supposedly sending an inspector to check it out but he (or she) wasn't due for another couple of weeks.

I was sitting in the departure lounge (think "small-town airport," only more utilitarian), slumped mostly asleep in my chair with a pretty good comic book on my lap, ignoring the passengers and crew milling around. They'd page me when they had a seat and in the meantime, the inside of my eyelids was looking better and better.

Of course someone said my name. I tried to ignore it but he repeated it. Opened my eyes and it was George Welles, sans entourage, dressed like a hiker. He gave me one of his disconcertingly open looks, grinned, said, "Mind?" and sat down beside me without waiting for my reply. I thought to myself, If he's handing out tracts, I'm gonna slap him into next week, but I just smiled back at him and waited for whatever came next.

He managed to surprise me. "I was hoping to find you here," he said. "I want to thank you."

I wasn't buying it. "Sure. Right. Your sister the super-soldier drugs me, tries to kill me and had already killed a Space Marine who was involved with your current secretary in a plot to smuggle the ashes of the Edger ringleaders and the equally-cremated remains of Nazi -- or at least WW II Luftwaffe -- spacemen back to Earth. Now Vill's confined to the ship, your lunatic sister is just plain confined and you are stoppin' by to say 'Thanks.'"

His grin faded a bit but he perked back up. "It does sound altogether grim when you put it that way. But consider," he held up one finger, index if you will, "First: my sister was and is deeply disturbed. She'll be headed home now, under guard, to get the help she needs--"

"And the justice she deserves?" Which if you ask me, would be a short drop at the end of a rope. Or a long drop; whichever.

"As much as anyone ever does."

I gave him a nice You Suck look.

"Truly, I mean that," he protested, "Our ways are not your ways but you may be surprised at the outcome; whatever her mental state, she must make redress, what you'd call civil penalties."

Fat lot of good that would likely do me -- what's the going cross-border rate on drugging and attempted murder? Not much, I'll bet.

But Welles, determinedly chipper, waved two fingers and plowed on, "Second, Katrina and Vill's covert mission or missions have not been stopped. Your own Captain has determined it will do much more good than harm to see it through. Vill is a good man; this may even help his home world find some political-economic stability."

More fat-chancing; Lyndon's been a mess since long before I knew about it. You name the political system, they'll make it go wrong.

Welles, however, was on a roll. He made a sloppy Scout salute, saying "Third, thanks to you I have been reminded that I am still in this universe and I must be more engaged with it, not hiding behind helpers and followers. Hopkins-F isn't crippling, especially not with the latest drugs. I will be stopping off here and looking for a nurse. Your own Dr. Poole has offered let me ride out Jumps in the ship's clinic but I'd rather not; I spent enough time in sickbay when the syndrome first hit me. Besides, this is a an entire planet; perhaps they'll find something in what I offer."

I gave him a skeptical look. "And that would be.... Warmed-over Khalil Gibran? Unprovable stories of The Infinite?"

It didn't faze him. "An idea. An ideal. Perhaps it is just a new gloss on an old structure; I don't know. I do know there is something bigger, better than ourselves. I can't make you or anyone know it but possibly, possibly, I can turn some few away from despair or wrongdoing."

Give him this much, he meant every word of it. "You sure do mean well, George."

About then, the PA announced an impending departure. Didn't call my name but Welles stood up. "That's my bus," he said. "Lord keep you well, Bobbi."

"Thanks," I told him; he may be a nutjob but his heart is pure. It wasn't him tried to do me in. It wasn't even one of his believers. "Thank you but I'm still not buyin' it; a lot of the docs think it could be a brain problem."

"I know you don't believe. That is all right; I'll just have to believe for both of us." With that, he turned and blended into the crowd headed for departure gate, just one more passenger.

I slouched back down in my seat and tried to fall back towards sleep. It's funny how few busy watches it takes to be short on shut-eye yet again. At least George Welles was out of my hair.

Just another day in the starship biz.

-30-

(This ends one adventure but another has already begun! Check back here for yet more adventures from I Work On A Starship!)

Another Day, Part 17

2009-11-05T19:23:00.000-08:00

* * *
Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. It happens often enough I should be better at it or at least have better stories: I'm fast asleep and the phone starts buzzing. To add to the fun, I'd fallen asleep with a book on my face (here's to paperbacks!). I fumbled it away and groped for the phone with my eyes still shut. It could be a wrong number, you know.

It was, but not in the way I was hoping. I reached out, whacked the big PHONE switch - I've had to replace the thing twice in the last year - and mumbled, "Whoizzit?"

The voice that replied wasn't especially familiar but the words woke me the rest of the way like a cup of coffee in the face: "Miz --ah-- 'Feynman'?"

Crap. Crap crap crap. Busted. "Wrong number!" I reached for the switch.

"Don't hang up! You are in great danger! We all are."

"Call Security. 999 from any phone or terminal."

"There is no time!" She was sounding more and more panicked but c'mon, could this be more cliché?

Name, name, what was her name? Oh, yeah, "Irene, knock it off. I've seen enough cop and spy movies. Call Security! I'm gonna."

"Oh, no, you mustn't." Despite the crisp accent that sounds irked to most non-Edgers, she was nearly wailing. "What'll they do to poor Vill? Please, please, you must help."

Mike's right and so's the Chief: this is not my job. On the other hand, whose is it? Wake me from a sound sleep, I'm still a tech, so I started to find out. "Try to calm down and tell me what's happened, first."

"He's gone! I went to see him and his door was open and he wasn't there and I found a note."

This is getting tiresome. "Calm! Down! Irene," she hadn't objected to using her first name time, "Irene, I sure can't help if I don't know what's going on. You're on a ship. Where's he gonna go? It's a very big ship but it's not that big and I have reason to know your pal is locked out of most of it." Or so I hoped. It's what T told me and Sheriff Mike had confirmed.

"That's what his note said -- he's in a lot of trouble, he's being watched and he doesn't see any way out."

Swell. He'd struck me as more of a survivor type than that but you never know. I reluctantly agreed to meet her, throwing on clothes and shoving a brush through my hair while we spoke. I thought about dropping an e-mail to Mike, thought about what he'd have to say and changed my mind. Compromised with a short note to T's non-work addy: Exciting developments in our mystery? What've you guys done to Villy now? Mama Irene is all weepy! Update when I find out, c ya, R She's the worst correspondent I know but that should result in a call as soon as she saw it. I grabbed my phone from the charger and charged out the hatch.

* * *
Three hours later, I woke up, flat on my back and even more slowly than usual. Once I'd gathered enough wit to grasp the situation, I reflected that I'd thought I was more of a survivor type, too. I was stuffed into an ill-adjusted skinsuit -- mine, at least -- and any thought that kept me from thinking about horking in my helmet was worth following. My mouth was dry and the canteen was empty. The last thing I remembered was accepting a cup of tea from worried, flustered Irene and then a long nightmare of walking and walking down unfamiliar corridors. It is amazing just how abruptly you can finish waking up when it dawns on you that something has gone terribly wrong.

"Don't fall back asleep on me again, dear." The words and tone of voice were sweet enough but somehow it made me shudder. Irene's voice, just as you would expect, "I'm starting to wonder about you! We've talked and talked for the last twenty minutes but you don't seem to really be quite all there."

Ye cats, I was doing that? Shades of my teen years. I pried a sticky eye open to be rewarded by scintillating darkness rimmed with scary red and yellow lights, otherwise relieved by a few far-off ill-lit shapes. "I'm up," I croaked before considering how much better off I might be to keep silent. I tried to stand and flopped back down, weak and awkward; the coveralls worn to keep from tearing the tight MCP suit (and to provide a place for pockets, not to mention the overwhelming immodesty of a skin-tight mechanical counterpressure suit) were open almost to my waist, pulled down to free the sleeves which -- I twisted to look but couldn't quite see -- were probably what was knotted around my gauntleted wrists. It felt like the whole thing was made fast to something behind me by a short lanyard. I had thought I was ready for a bad outcome but this was way over the top. Looking around as much as I could, there was no question I was on the hull; the light and shadow had that razor-edged look you get in vacuum and my MP suit had the easier feel they get in zero pressure. There was no sign of Frothup's star and down was well underfoot. I retched again and suppressed worse. It appeared I might have misapprehended the situation. Also, I had a pounding headache.

"Are we awake now?" Same sweet, concerned and overbearing Irene. Oh, yeah. "Not feeling well? You know, I think something very bad might have happened to the glockey little widget that removes the CO2 from your air supply." She had to be behind me; I tried rolling to one side but couldn't turn far enough. "Ah-ah! You'll use up your air all the faster!"

Great. Suit training was a long time ago and oxygen consumption is wildly variable. Lose the rebreather with a full tank and you've got, um, at normal exertion an hour not counting safety factor.. If you're not in any way excited or stressed; if you are working hard of frightened, you can burn through an hour's air in fifteen minutes. Add in the reserve-you-are-never-to-plan-on and you can double those numbers, though it'll be pretty thin before it is gone. Nothing like the right kind of fear to induce clarity: other than drills, I'm in a pressure suit three times a year on a bad year, a few hours at a stretch. In a suit with a working rebreather, you've got air enough for a full watch, so I'm never even close to the limit.

There's a PANIC button on all pressure suits, center of your chest, with an anti-oops guard you can reach under or break with a bit more than ordinary force. I tried to bring my knees up to trip it, couldn't quite bend far enough (try it yourself!), and was rewarded with a painful yank on my wrists. Not to mention a chiding admonition, "Lie still! That won't do you any good."

I did as I was told, thinking hard. Why won't it do me any good? The suit's data transponder comes on automatically any time external pressure drops below half an atmosphere (a little higher than Denver, not sea level), lighting up a tally at the EVA monitors in the Control Room and E&PP's console room, streaming physio data and life support status to displays in both locations and into storage. The PANIC alarm uses both the data transponder and an independent UHF system borrowed from aviation. It’s got to work, no matter what

Unless it's deliberately been disabled. "Life support status" includes insignificant trivia like status of the rebreather: before the airlock had finished cycling, my suit should have started screaming to places where it would be noticed. Those hazy red and yellow lights I mentioned earlier are the status displays, HUDed onto the helmet at the edges of your vision and they ought to be mostly dim green and blue. Irene either gimmicked my suit or didn't intend me to last long enough for it to make any difference. Either way, it had to mean she was more than plain crazy.

While I mused, she fumed. "I don't know what you're doing in the middle of this — just some greasy tech. Do you know what George did before this syndrome ruined our lives? He was an engineer, you'd call it industrial automation or some dreary name. He designed the robotic systems at the richest metals-and-materials plant anywhere; we were on the station advisory boardl. I had just been inducted into the FSC council. We were respected. He makes one FTL trip to some filthy ball of mud and everything falls apart!”

For once, I kept my big mouth shut.

“I gave up my career! I gave up everything when he fell sick, I got him the very best healers, the latest medicine and for what? So my brother could be some kind of mystic? And then, then on that miserable place, that dirty, dirty ‘Lyndon,’ our factotum got so sick, they saddled us with that sneaking “Villy” and after all that, after all that, I find out he’s smuggling dead Nazis back to Earth and worse yet, the Federation is colluding to smuggle the ashes of our own Founders there! Back to the mud!” She broke off abruptly. “You were supposed to arrest him for murder, you know.”

For all my glib jokes about it bein’ a long walk home, for all the times I have been in bad situations a long way from help, not until now had I really been convinced of my own mortality.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Another Day: Inbound To Frothup

2009-10-14T19:11:00.000-07:00

(Note: out of sequence, follows highest-numbered part of "Another Day")

In space, sometimes you'd like to just scream.

One nice thing about zero-g you can go to the loo without encountering the unpleasantness of a seat sullied by some helicopter princess; anyone overly squeamish about having to squat where others have sot is either gonna have to bide a wee (ahem), make her peace with the isolation given by disposable gasketry, or learn the hard way that even a gentle pressure differential won't take "ick, no" for an answer. The latter lesson is learned early in one's career but the number of times I've heard surprised squeals leaves me wondering just how well it sticks. —Or is that an indelicate choice of phrase again? How anyone can get through zero-g and pressure-suit training and remain very squeamish is a mystery to me. Not one of the Great Mysteries but still--!

It's small consolation for the zillion-and-one things that weren't property stowed, got bumped and must be fished out of the air filters, let alone queasy passengers and newbie crew or the crummy, bloaty headcold-coming-on feeling as your body redistributes fluids. And nobody ever pretended weightless sanitary arrangements were especially nice or all that convenient. There's the one small advantage and that's about it.

Coming into Far Edge systems (not to mention a good many of our former colonies, nominal allies and one-time enemies, and don't even get me started about the French), you've got no choice; the local version of Port Control wants any incoming "stranger" vessel to adopt their assigned safe vector ASAP and no foolin'! In all but the newest and/or poorest of systems, a "constellation" of little comsats orbit the star 'way out, the same satellites that stream current navigation data to incoming ships, carry a canned message or almost AI with those instructions. Once that's done and it has shed enough velocity to minimize the likelihood of a successful kinetic strike, if they're still feeling even a little suspicious the usual drill is an instruction to kill all thrust while the details of your course and destination are negotiated.

Never mind that all this fol-de-rol is a dogwhistle in the canine-free darkness if the "stranger vessel" is a big hunk of rock arriving at some significant fraction of C, guided by a crew intent on doing harm. It's what the Edgers do to feel safe and it would -- maybe! -- slow down a more-conventional attack if anyone was fool enough to try. Still and all, even the hard-line Soviet worlds are less trouble to deal with.

So there we were, coasting in on a course that, uncorrected, would intersect nothing more than cosmic dust and possibly some tiny rocks, while Navs sweet-talked whoever the Edgers had stuck with port Control this week, and let us all hope it isn't one of their stubborn, barely-supervised near-AIs on the other end of the line. The air system was set on High Volume and "down" was temporarily a matter of mere decor for everything, including dinner.

In Engineering (and every place else outside of passengers and deadweight cargo -- but I repeat myself), being all floaty-sick is no excuse and thus it was when I tried to get out in time to have hot sticky goop on a plate for lunch instead of cold sticky goop in a squeezebag.

"Bobbi," stopped me at the threshold. It was the Chief, leaning out the hatchway to his minuscule cubby. "That external telecomms circuit you were working on is out. Again. Dead."

Commo circuit? Three weeks ago when it hardly mattered, maybe. I shot a glance over at Gale and Jonny Zed, huddled over a dead twenty-year old CRT monitor from a remote-drone control bay more intently than it deserved. No help there and besides, Jonny Zed maneuvers in zero-g like the Hindenberg in a high wind — and often provides his own wind, too. Being elsewhere would be good. "On it, boss," I sang out and headed the other way down the passageway, away from the breakroom where E&PP's Catering crew would have zero-g midwatch food cart for another fifteen minutes and towards the racks instead.

Absent acceleration (or gravity), you can fly but it's best not to fly too fast. Like driving on ice, hurrying in zero-g is a bad idea when you haven't done it in awhile. I'd kicked off at the Engineering Shop hatchway and was sailing nicely along, fingers of one hand grazing the forward-side handrail, when Kent Best popped out fifty feet ahead and made a series of gestures that didn't make any sense to me. I shrugged big and managed to impart a sideways vector, coasting on a long diagonal while he tried again. It still didn't make any sense, I was out of reach of anything, he yelled something and gesticulated and suddenly it didn't seem like I was gonna get stopped in time. I made a frantic left-handed grab at the handrail on that side, brushed it, got a hold and lost it, tucked in and did an awkward skin-the-cat that had me moving feet-first, facing the deck and the rail well within reach on my right. I grabbed it again, swung my legs in and got my feet on the rail, sliding to a stop just short of the hatch as Kent ducked inside the frame, chuckling.

"Whoa, there, Speedy! Navs was just paging you, their link to Frothup Traffic keeps cutting out and they're not happy."

"No, reallllly? Chief just now happened to mention it to me." I got myself untangled, hooked one foot under the toerail and turned to face him.

Kent grinned. "No doubt."

"I've got a quarter -- American! -- says it's one of the A-to-D's flippin' out." The voice link is half-antiquated, a cluster of dedicated rackmount PCs that handle telephony-over-IP in any system that's set up for it and pass it on to our shipboard telephone exchange (freshly upgraded in 1972, IT&T's finest, Ma Bell having bid too high) as four-wire-plus-signaling, which translates from geekspeak as "stone-age analog." (At that, it's cutting-edge compared to the three different all-analog radiotelephone setups we use for close maneuvering and in places where IP -- or at least VOIP -- has yet to arrive). To simplify (ahem) interfacing, audio in and out is consumer digital, S/PDIF, and a frame of external converters knock it down to plain analog like A. G. Bell used to make. ...When they feel like it, that is. No-name custom cards, sourced and installed about the same time USSF scaled back and the big ships ended up in civilian hands, there's no documentation and they have a reputation for flakiness. We have a few spare boards and exactly one (1) alternate unit; Earthside, good A-to-D/D-to-A boxes have vanished from the market, as they're very handy for circumventing Digital Rights Management. (But you didn't hear that from me!)

Back in the racks, there weren't any alarm indications on the converters and all the PCs were, for a wonder, happy. Kent brought up the supervisory displays for the PCs and glided away while I made a quick call up to Navs to learn 'happy' was what they were not: "It sounds like crap! Do something!" At least I found out which line they were on.

The quick fix is force the call over to another converter and I'm lazy and irked enough to do it in hardware, yanking power to the afflicted PC. Hand-over-handed myself around to the back of that row of racks, braced my toes up under the footrail and did just that -- I always end up with sore feet after time spent in zero-g. This "fix" still leaves me with the problem but it made the esteeeemed wearers of the slide rule'n'grid pins actually happy once they'd reestablished the call. It's not like we won't get there if their little confab with the local skywatchers were delayed but I'd as soon the folks who workout our trajectory were not otherwise stressed and that goes double anytime we're on the Far Edge side of the line. So Navs is settled, at least one phone channel not okay, crises averted but problem remains, especially considering where we were. What now?

Power the computer back up and shove test signals though the system, starting at the easiest end, the A-to-D/D-to-A converter. Kent was ahead of me; while the hard-workin' Navs ~~loudmouth~~ spokesman not presently in confab with Port Control (I don't wonder why) was complaining in my ear that nothing Engineering touches ever works right and how were it not for Navs, the rest of us slobs would just be stuck in nothingness (I figure we'd just pull in at the next service station and ask directions and told him so, too), Kent the chessplayer had gone back to the Shop and nabbed the test box. I reached in and grabbed for the audio connector at the PC and it fell out in my hand. Fell out? Um, this is a no-falling zone, right? Free-falling, which comes to the same thing.

Yeah. And if you don't have a QG connector seated until it latches, the springs that normally retain it will, on slight provocation, gently eject it. Darn thing didn't fall, it was pushed.

From the other side of the racks, Kent: "Um, Bobbi?"

"Yo?"

"The other four lines just lit up and if I'm readin' this right, it's the Captain, 2/O, Legal and...food service?"

"Crap. You signed on since our last long trip, that's right. Never visited Edger space?"

"Nope. I was USSF, the old C-946, became Nauvoo City. Spent all our time on the Mars - Deseret run, plus Gagarin after the Agreement. No Far Edge out that direction. Got a lot of Russians. Besides, I thought Frothup was on our side of the line now?"

"Just barely. Also, 'Aha.' Betcha your 'food service' is E&PP's pet botanists or worse. Betcha Port Control's bein' finicky. Betcha it's an AI"

"Bet ya we need that other line back, too."

"Should be up now. No activity?" I'm surprised it didn't take off the minute I powered it back up.

"Nup... There it goes. Incoming, PC shows 'em in the phone tree" (We are so Space Age that way!) "and punching for the Old Man."

"I'm guessin', but-- AI gets shirty on our guys when the phone connection goes bad, hangs a go-slow on Navs, calls for full phys. and biological, Cap'n James gets on 'em, AI calls for backup and the nearest Real Live Human In Authority just called back. I'm still takin' bets: Look for his other line to drop, followed by the E&PP Greenies, 2/O and maybe Legal..."

"I've heard it's interesting when an Edger AI get cross.... Captain's hung up his other line. This is too easy."

"They should all be." I took a look at the rack wiring, reseated all the other QGs (latched, the lot of 'em), just about gave myself a foot cramp in the process, winced and shut the rear door of the rack. "I'll take the QBox back to the Shop."

"Say 'Hi' to the Chief for me," Kent said, with just the least trace of amusement in his tone, "I'm pretty sure the remote indicators for RF/reaction need recalibration and that'll take the rest of my shift."

The ex-mil guys know all the good dodges! Wish I'd thought of that.

On the way back to the Engineering Shop, I sort of floated on past to our delightful break area. Food Service was packing up but I managed to get a bowl of very thick beef stew and a roll, along with a reminder to be mindful of the crumbs. As I was mopping up the last of it, parked at one of the table/return-air filter traps (aren't we clever? Yes. We. Are. Right up until they get clogged), the lights dimmed once and the PA system clicked on: "Attention All Hands! Attention Passengers! Normal acceleration will resume beginning in six hours. Secure all loose items. It is now fourteen-thirty, we will begin acceleration at twenty-thirty." Click!

It'll take a couple of hours to get back to our normal three-quarters g. Hooray! Real food for breakfast! Might as well skip dinner and have a head start. Zero-g leaves me a bit unsettled and glue-based stew wasn't helping. Even after less than a day at zero g, the odds are about even we'll have some kind of mad scramble as weight resumes. With any luck, it won't be in Engineering and I can sleep through it.

Finished out the day working through small items left open on TASKER, utterly unromantic but even ancient data recorders and crummy little intercom amplifiers need to be fixed or scrapped for parts, right? Hey, it's a living.

Another Day, part 16

2009-10-14T19:07:00.000-07:00

I mingled and chatted, trying to listen more than I spoke, which doesn't come all that naturally. Seemed to a mingling of faiths. even a few sort-of Deist agnostics, all of 'em convinced Mr. Welles' take on being a Glover confirmed their own beliefs. For all I know, they're right; I was interested that he kept it low-key and didn't look to be setting up his own ElRonnange. Drifted back to where he and his were holding court. The blonde was checking his pulse in a professional manner and Vill was looking bored.

"Hey, Villem Braun, right?" I asked, "I think we've got an acquaintance in common."

He perked up a bit. I mentioned T and he momentarily looked annoyed, then decided to brazen it out, "The young lady and I have met, yess."

For some reason, this earned both of us a short, poisonous look from the blonde. Done with Welles -- he was already listening to another eager acolyte -- she turned, shifted closer to Vill and asked a bit too sweetly, "Who's your new friend, Villy?"

"Um. You are?" Still trying to figure out just what I might be up to, he looked beseechingly at me, a cue not even I could miss.

I smiled and stepped up, "Bobbi--" uh-oh, I need an alias, "Bobbi Feynman." Oh, yeah, that'll fly.

She blinked but accepted it. Edgers. Probably thinks I changed it to honor a personal hero or something.

"I'm Irene. George is my brother, my older brother; and I'm his nurse, too. Though some days my Vill takes more looking after." She patted his arm. He essayed something of a smile.

Oh. Like that, is it? Still, she seemed harmless enough. Maybe a bit cloying but you'd think a career bureaucrat'd like that, wouldn't you?

I smiled back and said something inconsequential about men needing looked after -- truth to tell, if they can't take care of themselves, I don't want 'em around -- and she asked after my travels. I passed myself off as a Starship Company tech deadheading back to The Homeworld, a turn of phrase common among USSF and ex-Space Forcers; it's a common practice with outfits flying more and smaller ships and covered my late appearance, since I would have been staying in crew accommodations. (In fact, the Starship Company doesn't allow deadheading; you sign the Articles and you work, or you don't fly. Highhanded? Probably. The overhead on a really big starship, even the two fastest cargo haulers this side of the Far Edge, is staggering. Me, I'd rather have something to do than get a free ride anyhow). Eventually, the conversation wound down and I made my escape.

Sure enough, not five minutes later, Vill found me on the far side of the decorative (fake) rockpile that conceals the park's public facilities. He greeted me with, "That woman!" Not much of a hiya.

I gave him a quizzical look.

"She thinks herself my Mother! But you-- You work for the police?"

"Hey!' I glanced around. I'm subtle like that. "Not so loud. It's Security and I'm just helping out. Also, what's-her-name--"

"Irene."

"Yeah. She sounds more like your wife."

He shuddered. "I'm single, thank you," and gave me the checking for rings once-over (nice try, pal, but I don't wear jewelry; there are enough nine-fingered 'Drive techs already. And my eyes are up here). "But why are you here?"

Geesh, man gets arrested, spends the night in jail, or the last half of it, and simultaneously bein' henpecked and hunting comes first? Bureaucrats! But I smiled, he's no worse than most, give anyone a pack of troubles and they are most likely to worry about the one immediately at hand.

"Mike wanted someone to get a look at your Mister Welles in his natural element and as you so wisely observe, I don't look like Security. 'Cos I'm not."

"George--? You people do not think he...?"

"I don't think anything. I'm out of idea and I've been reminded this isn't what I get paid to think about anyhow. Aren't you gonna be missed?"

It startled him. "Only by her. Mr. Welles is -- You do understand, he is the most gentle of men -- he doesn't keep track of me; it's my job to keep track of him. Appointments, travel arrangements, ansible interviews. He's a good man, you know, a very good man."

"So I'm told. But," I spoke more quietly, "not actually why you're here, hey?"

I hope I have a chance to play cards against him (I do okay at euchre); you could see the wheels spin. "I told your boss. You already know...?"

"I know enough. What'd they do, bump off his original guy?"

He looked offended. "Please. He fell ill. Coincidence. And my government took advantage of it, no more. They offered my services in his stead, a convenient coincidence."

Methinks he protestesth overmuch but, "Whatever, okay. 'Government' of Lyndon. Shouldn't you be better at this?"

I'm so diplomatic. He got a little bit purple, started to speak, thought better of it and started over, "No real thanks to you people! We do have a government, you know, and I. Am. Not. A. Spy." He hissed out that last. Better than shouting; I'd already noticed a few glances our way, despite the almost-crowded anonymity. Still, they had to recognize Vill, confidant of the Mr.Welles. One face looked familiar, but the figure turned away before I got a good look.

"Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to--"

He was ticked. "There has been quite enough not-meaning-to already. Katrina is still dead and all you, you people can do is further harass me? Tell your Mister Mathis I am- - Tell him whatever you wish! Where can I run? What does he think I might do? Good Day!" He turned and stomped off, or as well as anyone can manage in 75% g. It's a little bouncy.

Yeah, that went well. Or not. I felt someone staring, or caught it out of the corner of my eye, anyway, and turned in time to find motherly (smotherly!) Irene looking daggers. She faded back into the crowd again and I decided it was time to get out of the park.
_______________________________
*On the other hand, in most cases the people who stayed on those worlds have made them into nice places to be, or at least no worse than most places. Which just goes to show, though exactly what I'll leave for you to figure out.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Another Day, Part 15

2009-09-23T20:52:00.000-07:00

Dr. Schmid was hazily averring his enthusiasm for our modern age.

"This is an historic opportunity; we are sharing technology, ideas are cross-pollinating, amazing new vistas opening. Bobbi, how have the 'Drive finals been performing?"

His sudden veer to specifics took me by surprise. "Well enough," I hazarded. "I'm sorry it took so long to find the bad connections that were messin' up PA 2. It's been solid ever since, output's starting to fade on 3 a little."

"You've never really liked those Tweed finals, have you?"

The Chief gave me a narrow and hooded look. I'm not especially diplomatic but if there was ever a time to try! "Well... The old tetrode RCAs would run better, with more wrong with them, than any I ever worked with. After they stopped making the tubes for them, though.... The Tweeds are better than I expected, the tube and cavities are good GEC stuff anyway. They've always got us through."

"What would you say to something like the RF sources for the newer ion drives: solid state?"

The Chief blinked, slowly, which is like most men leaping to their feet. I coughed back a giggle, 'cos nobody, nobody is pushin' the kind of power we need through any flavor of transistor at the frequencies the Stardrive needs to make the CLASSIFIED run. We were lucky to do it with external-anode power grid tubes; even the phantasmajector tubes are a little iffy up there.

Dr. Schmid's bland affability is difficult to read most of the time and today his Swiss-Buddha expression was more impenetrable than ever. "There's a company on Frothup that's been supplying silicon-carbide power amps to the Far Edge for at least the past fifteen years. I'm told they even had some kind of connection to Tweed before '89. The Edgers have finally admitted they have this technology and the Lupine is going to be the first Earth-based ship, the first one we know about, anyway, to make the change. I've been arranging details with Irrational; neither of you should count on any time off this planetfall."

The Chief nodded and made a note on his celphone, same as he would if you told him his quarters were on fire or we were going to skim a the photosphere of a star on our next run-up to Jumping. I'm the inquisitive type: "'Irrational?' Um, what kinda name is that?"

Dr. Schmid went so far as to grin. "Irrational Numbers Corporation. Edger names, you know how they are." His grin faded. "Bobbi, haven't you been helping Security some?"

I nodded. The Chief almost sighed.

"This upgrade is big. I'm sure you see the ramifications were we to make an extended stop at a Far Edge world with an unsolved death aboard. The Security Director has already heard from the Captain: this needs to be resolved. Now you're hearing from me: You need to wrap up your part of it. Mike has a staff. We were two weeks out but Captain James is stretching it to three and by the time we're around Frothup, I expect your full attention."

What do you say to that? Don't tell me. I said, "Yessir," and waited to find out if he had more to say, thinking Good-bye, Nancy Drew. Then I thought again: Far Edge world? "I thought Frothup was actually on our side of the line?"

The Chief grunted. Dr. Schmid looked abstractedly over my head, studying the same air vent he looks at whenever he's being evasive. "So to speak. Certainly there are full diplomatic relations, which implies something more like a government... Commercially, though? Their ties to F.E. are strong. Culturally, too. And Irrational's principals are definitely Edger. The economic exchange alone is historic. Historic."

Dr. Schmid being himself, he smiled and threw me a curve: "This an unparalleled opportunity and I want to be certain you will be involved. As I am sure you yourself want to be."

That one's a bit barbed. The Lupine's 'Drive, just like the rest of the ship, belongs to the Starship Company as a matter of law, interstellar Agreement, Company regulations and traditions that go back to when humans first started loading cargo and people aboard large-ish vessels and undertaking long journeys for fun and profit. More directly, every last rivet, wire, gadget and blivit is under the control of Captain Telly (for Telemachis) James as delegated, in the case of all things Stardrive, to Dr. Schmid and through him to the Chief, who could throw any of his minions at fixin'. Withal, those 'Drives are mine. I kept the old gen 2 RCAs running past their prime; when we burned up a power supply off Tsiolkovsky and the ex-Reds got antsy, I was the last person to light up the gen 1 RCA we kept in reserve (with its wacky early CLASSIFIED with a zillion tweaks and fifteen 6166 power tubes in the finals that had to be hot-tuned though twelve hours of high idle before a Jump), maybe the last time one was used, ever. I helped take both of them out and install the Tweed over a decade ago and I've kept it percolating ever since. I wouldn't risk missing this surprise upgrade unless it was a matter of...of life and death.
Which, I suddenly remembered, it kind of was. I ran through the rest of the meeting on autopilot, smiling and nodding. (And I do me auto. Remember that Triennial Inspection I was frettin'? Put off; the final test and acceptance of the new 'Drive finals will replace it and I was too distracted to even feel relieved).

Hey, I've got two weeks and all I need to do is get Sheriff Mike some better intelligence on George Wells and his bunch; maybe he'll just round 'em all up and won't need me at all.

Maybe I'll get a pony for Christmas too -- but it'd probably be on the menu if I did. Gonna be a busy fortnight.

* * *
"Busy fortnight?" Roberta, Mistress Of The Understatement: as far as the Chief was concerned, our Date With Technological Destiny meant it was high time the 'Drive Compartment got a thorough cleaning and every last subassembly, part, manual, bit of software and even tool that was old, worn and/or not immediately applicable would be chucked in the Recycle bins and, if possible, entirely disposed of. Times like these, I am reminded of the persistent rumor that he is one of the very few guys to have made the transition from NASA's oh-so-public grandstanding disinformation campaign to the real deal; his aversion to excess sure fits that profile. He had a point -- we needed to have the decks clear in the most literal manner for our historic upgrade. On the other hand, I'm a packrat. The Lupine is bigger than most towns and while most of that space is given over to cargo, paying passengers and essential functions, we've got room to spare. What haunts my nightmares is not excess mass or volume; it's having what I need when something critical conks out at an awkward time and most times can be awkward when you're outpacing light. There is, as they say, some tension between us and I'd resent it, except the Chief is mostly right; we travel with a full set of spares, two well-stocked general industrial suppliers and an electrical wholesaler aboard, not to mention machine shops (one ours and one commercial): if we don't have what we need on board, we can make it. ...Well, except for the CLASSFIED and there's a spare for every section of it, too. It would be a big nasty job to sweep and retune (but I've said too much already). Yet I still fret over that ten-cent part that goes ping in the middle of a graveyard watch and me without a bobbie pin to replace it -- or the chassis from a 1957-vintage grid modulator to borrow parts from. It's not logical.

All of that is taking the long way 'round to explain that by the time my shift ended, I was tired, a little dusty -- even HEPA filters can only do so much -- and ready to lock up the 'Drive compartment and go directly home.

A-hem. Go directly home. Of course my celphone rang. Of course it was our erstwhile Security Director.

"Bobbi?"

"Nope. Trained panda, here; Bobbi took the week off."

"Right. Look, Welles is gonna be talking to his flock in the park in about an hour; I've got his tour guide or whatever on a short leash--"

"That Vill guy you arrested?"

"T talks too much. Especially to you. But yeah, him. I'm 99 percent sure he's not our killer and I don't want him missed. So back he goes and he'd better toe the line. I'll have some of my crew watching but I want you there, too, up close. Don't do anything, just keep your eyes and ears open, okay?"

I was pretty worn out but I'm nothing if not nosy. "The park, one hour, I'm on it, Sheriff."

"That's what worries me. Don't be too on it."

"Why, Mr. Mathis, I have no idea what you might possibly mean."

* * *
It was much the same crowd as last time, a mixed lot of folks who'd be pretty unnoticed most places on the Hidden Frontier. A surprising lot of Russians this time. I paid more attention, chatted and nary a one I spoke to was from Earth. Some, well, most of the former Soviet worlds were especially appealing as places to be from, so it's understandable that as soon as it was even slightly possible, "from" was indeed the word.* The Park's a nice place, even crowded; fountains were burbling and the scent of green, growing things helped elevate my mood. --So did a dish of gumbo; Georges' place was on my way, after all.

For a wonder, the Great Man was there, and he didn't look to be particularly impressed with his own greatness. His helpers were there, too -- Vill and the woman I had seen last time and assumed was his wife, all of them on one of the park benches. He was talking quietly with a few people, "...No, no, I'm not saying you should believe because of what I have experienced. I know what I felt -- what I still feel, even with the medicines, but I cannot prove to you it is real. I think it is but your faith has to come from you. Maybe it isn't there today; perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps not. There is plenty of practical good for you to do in the meantime..." Didn't sound like any preacher I ever heard but I'm a little tone-deaf that direction.

(TO BE CONTINUED)
_______________________________
*On the other hand, in most cases the people who stayed on those worlds have made them into nice places to be, or at least no worse than most places. Which just goes to show, though exactly what I'll leave for you to figure out.

Another Day, Part 14

2009-08-31T04:35:00.000-07:00

(TO THE BEGINNING)

Security officers on a starship work in an environment that has more in common with Andy Griffith's Mayberry sheriff than most law enforcement types; while the ship is indeed leaping through the limitless cosmos -- or at least the Earth portion of the Hidden Frontier (less the worlds settled from France and China and, mostly, the two hardline ex-Soviet worlds) -- a starship between planetfalls amounts to a small town with no roads out. Additionally, Security answers to the Captain and ultimately to the Starship Company, not a Mayor and Town Council.

As a result, Security is more inclined to wait situations out and the officers are encouraged to apply logic and common sense instead of no-tolerance rules, to de-escalate instead of arrest, confrontation or other ways of bothering the Security Director. All of which goes to explain why there was not a lot of shouting and shoving; John stepped to one side of the opening through which he'd entered, saying, "Keep your hands where I can see 'em, Mister," adding, "--Alan, hang back," while keeping his attention on the seated man. "All right, whoever you are, we're going to take you out of here. 'S that a problem?"

"'Vill,' please, and I shall come along quietly. Do be careful of the urns."

"Stand up, slowly, hands in sight, do not move until I tell you; it's gonna be a lot easier getting back out if I don't have to cuff you - - Er, '...Urns?'"

"Surely Katrina has told you...? There was a procedure if it was found out."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Here's my procedure: my buddy will lead the way, I will follow him facing back at you and you will follow me, maintaining our present distance. Got it?"

Through this speech, Vill's expression had changed from one of bemused concern to genuine alarm and he replied, "Yes, but --"

"'But,' nothing. Unless there is an immediate hazard," John gave him a hard look and Vill shook his head, "keep it 'til we're out of here. When we get through that cargo can, you will turn to face it, hands behind you, and you will be handcuffed while we figure this out. Is that a problem?"

Vill shook his head again.

John called out, "Alan, we're movin'," then said more quietly, "Mister, come on. Slowly!"

Their intercom "radio" mikes had been on the whole time and when it comes to comms, Lupine and her sister ships are state-of-the-art: Good communications systems are a life and death matter for any critical ops. Usual operation is in "partyline," mode, in which every live mike is heard by every receiver on the system. So as soon as John set his prisoner in motion, T acknowledged and rearranged the rest of her crew. Alan stepped out and cleared the hatch, moving out of his fellows' lines of fire as John emerged, followed by Vill, who turned and was cuffed according to plan.

T gestured to her Auxes muzzles down, hold position and walked over to John, Alan and Vill, who immediately asked, "You're in charge here? Am I under arrest?"

"It amounts that. --What are you up to, anyway?"

"Didn't Katrina tell you already? Secrecy is moot at this point! The plan was, if either of us were caught--"

"Whoa, there. As far as I know, we haven't caught any Katrinas and all I know is what I see. So, once more: what's going on?"

His eye got very wide, then narrowed: "But-- You don't? The Eld- Um. No. I must not say more."

T was about as impressed as you'd expect, which would be not at all. "Fine, buddy. You're in a lot of trouble and you know it. Okay. Here's the fine print: You are being detained, presently charged with being in an area prohibited to passengers. There may be additional charges against you, of which you will be informed. You have certain rights and responsibilities, to which you agreed as a condition of your travel contract and of which you have already been informed. They may differ from those (if any) established on your planet of residence (if any), so pay attention. Anything you say or do will be recorded for our use. Your location will be monitored at all times and you may be confined if the Captain or his representative finds it necessary. You have right to representation of your choice of your choice as available on this ship and per provisions the Agreement of 1989 you may, for all except capital offenses, request deportation to your home planet or ship in lieu of hearing but you remain liable for any actual damage to this ship. You may not be held in secret. You have the right to know the offense or offenses with which you are charged within 24 hours of their being filed. Do you understand these rights and requirements, which do not include any that may additionally be imposed by your home planet or ship?"

He blinked. "Well, I-- Yes."

T smiled. "Good boy." She turned to Alan, "'Book 'im, Danno.'"

In her ear -- and all the other Security and Auxes -- Mike's muttered "Very funny," was all too clear. Security may make as many as five or six actual "arrests" a year and most of those are crewmembers, for whom the procedure is considerably simpler even after the Agreement came into force.

* * *

T didn't tell me all that at the time, of course; just the broad outline, ending with the arrest. A search of the container found very basic living quarters for one, showing evidence of a long stay by a female occupant, which ruled out Vill twice over. The urns, 378 of them, all but 26 marked with nine-digit numbers, proved to contain ash; Doc Poole took about ten seconds to pronounce it "likely human."

Mike and the Turk had watched the arrest and promptly turned their attention to an argument-discussion about access to the cargo bays and how a passenger had gotten in. Old as Lupine is. large as the ship is and as much as she's been modified since launch, the impromptu conference ended with both men poring over 3-D renderings and blaming one another for the inevitable lapses and overlooked maintenance accesses. Once past the hatches (far too many to suit Sheriff Mike) that separate "downtown" and the passenger accommodations from the working parts of the ship there are, for safety's sake, few barriers that cannot be easily gotten around.

By this point in our tale, it was my morning and, nerve-wrackingly, I'd been called up to Dr. Schmid's office along with the Chief, where things got even more interesting.

So I was sittin' in Dr. Schmid's compartment in Officer's Territory, passing up an offer of coffee and wonderin' what I had messed up. Vill, meanwhile, was taken to the Security office and processed in by Alan, John and the lone officer on duty there. After the whole thing blew up, he authorized releasing the statement he made at that time, so rather than try to paraphrase it, I'll just quote his own words:

"My name is Villem Braun and I am a citizen of Lyndon, resident of the town now called New Alamos. My family has farmed in this area since 1947 or '48, the chronology was a little scrambled; my maternal grandfather was a life-support technician, the life-support technician, on Glocke 38 and I am not ashamed of that. He never spoke of his life before landing, not around me. Of course, my earliest memories are after the Second wave landed, the ones who were abandoned by what you people call 'Far Edge.' The ones who landed didn't call themselves much of anything until the first elections, when they formed the Linden Unity Party . Yes, this is germane to my situation.

"I grew up in the chaos of history: the self-described First Government, when Star City was built to replace the original capital at Limetree, followed by the Panic and the Occupation, and the Second Government, the Rebellion of '63, the Re-establishment and-- but Lyndon's sad history is well-known. I never saw the worst of it. New Alamos is at edge of the coal fields, essential and far enough from Limetree and Star City to miss the mobs. There are farms enough nearby that, other than six months during '75, we never got hungry or had much trouble, at least not compared to Star City, Limetree or Pitty, not even in '73 when the People's Collective seized all the coal and tried to nationalize the mines. That was when Pitty burned and Pitty Under mine is burning still. I was away at Star City by then. I had managed to get a decent education and was working in civil service, trying to make things better and becoming increasingly skeptical of the Collective, when FCS -- the Far Edge -- first contacted me.

"'Federation of Concerned Spacemen' is still what the ruling body of the Far Edge calls themselves. They are often referred to as the Elders and the right word isn't "rule;" the settled planets that side of the line answer to no one and even among the starships, compliance with FCS is voluntary. Custom is, however, strong; unyielding Nature is their highest law and the lessons it teaches are indelible.

"Where was I? 1978 it was, over a decade before the Agreement. There was no official contact between any part of the Far Edge and the settlements that had followed. What we knew, what the governments of Earth at least some of them knew had been learned from people here on Lyndon and Blizzard when they were rediscovered, and from prisoners taken on Ganymede. Still rewards were posted for the original FCS members; by then the Unity people had come forward and been granted amnesty, mostly. Abductions and 'cattle mutilations' were still happening on Earth and even Kansas II. I suppose even Lyndon. So any such contact was...unapproved. Risky.

"And so what? By then even my Post Office job was risky. It was the one good thing we had and People's Commissioners here and Gauleiters there were interfering, opening mail, stopping our carriers, cutting phone lines. What worse harm could come from listening to these shy outsiders?

"The answer was and still is 'None,' I think. I was soon passing minor bits of information to them and inserting messages untraceably into the mails. Things got worse before they got better but improve they did; within five years, the Unity/Social Democrat coalition had ousted both the Collective and the "Sixth Reich" in the hills and even kept the old capital at Limetree from being destroyed. Some criticize the accomplishments of our coalition government but for fifteen years, right until the money collapsed, it was the best my home ever had.

"Like many of us, in the economic troubles I lost everything I had saved for retirement. My involvement with FCS had dwindled after Agreement '89, of course (have I mentioned I am almost certain I carried The Roglaski Letter that started all that?) but I was still in touch; when they contacted me this past September with an unusual request, an unusually _well-paying_ request, I was ready to help. When my own government -- yes, we do still have one, powerless and impoverished though it is -- quietly made it an order, there was no other honorable path.

"...You know of the 1989 Agreement. No one missed the end of worrying that Earth or the Far Side would attack each other. But you may not know of items left unsettled. The most important to the FCS was, their founding leaders were not given amnesty. Your own United States government and their NATO allies refused to consider pardoning the men who stole their Lunar missile base. Ready though they were to forgive their children and grandchildren and so on, ready though they were to ignore the furtive..."borrowings" of genetic material and technology as long as they came to an end, that one thing remained unresolved.

"By last Summer, time had itself solved the problem: the last member of the original conspiracy passed away. They had long wished return home and the current FCS leadership was determined that they should. The increasing amount of cargo shipped between the Far Edge and Earth-based worlds made it simple enough; rather than risk breaching the Agreement by making direct contact, they smuggled the cremated remains of their founders to Blizzard, had their agents assemble it into a series of standard containers with a few...changes and consigned it to Earth. It ended up aboard your vessel, with a 'Space Marine' to stand watch and ensure proper dispersal of the ash upon arrival. Unbeknownst to me, some of the oldest members of the Social Democrats had intelligence of this effort and to it, wished to add the remains of some of our own First and Second groups of settlers. Yes, yes, even the First. Some of them were evil men but they are now dead, dead after privation and risk and even bravery and it is time they went home; and maybe their ilk will bother my world less once they have.

"I digress. Too much history, too many dashed hopes. When your Lupine took the container and half-dozen others, all seemed settled; when you filed new course plans on departure, adding this excursion across the Line to Frothup, there was great consternation. Even now, there is not much trust. What if their cargo was suspected? What if our addition was? And so I found myself, um, activated, revealed, retired, briefed, suddenly on the inside of events within my own government and the Far Edge, helping the Social Democrats -- I have always been a Unity member, all my life -- and prepared to leave the planet. They even had a cover; the, um, facilitator -- and covert observer -- of a touring Edger had fallen ill and I was to take his place. Of course, the "tourist" was George Welles. FCS has a great horror of popular movements of any sort and I have the impression anything resembling a new religion is watched with great care.

"How it was all arranged is mere detail; I will of course outline how I evaded your security systems -- I was provided with the keycard you have taken from me, I do not know how your codes were breached. I boarded, the remains of our First came with other cargo and once the ship was underway, I made contact with Katrina.

"And of Katrina, is she not in your custody as well?"

Sometimes things are simple; Vill identified our mystery corpse from photographs as the missing Katrina -- "Hulinsky, I think."* It didn't help explaining why or exactly how she was killed and if you're not thinking Vill wasn't first-and-only on the list of likely suspects, you haven't been paying attention.

* * *
Meanwhile, up in officer's territory (I said I'd get back to it), all hushed voices and fancy carpet, Dr. Schmid was taking an interminably long time to get to the point. Coffee service was cooling on a corner of his desk, the Chief was sipping from a tiny porcelain cup that looked incongruous in his hand, and the 2/O himself was averring his enthusiasm for our modern age.

(TO BE CONTINUED)
_____________________________-
* With a long u, as if it were spelled "Hoolinsky."

Another Day, Part 13

2009-08-05T18:18:00.000-07:00

The tale of the inadvertently-crashed card game was good gossip and a good catch for Ivan's guys -- shippers pay us, trust us, darn it, to take proper care of their goods -- but hardly cause for murder and I said as much to T.

She rubbed her palms together, grinned as happily as a child, chortled, "Oh, wait 'til I tell you the rest," and started to relate her side of the lurker sweep.

From here on out, I'll tell T's story as I figured it out later; it'll get too confusing if I stick to only what she or I knew at the time.

Her team's first hit turned out to be a still. (It never fails. The Lupine has no shortage of places to buy all grades of alcohol and yet just like every starship of sufficient size and most of the sublight haulers, too, there is always some crewman who's just got to build a still). They noted it for surveillance and moved on. Another of her teams carefully worked its way up on...a trysting couple. On the clock. But at least they were married, though not to one another. Handed them over to their supervisor; The Starship Company doesn't much care who you sleep with but frowns on so doing on company time. Other possibilities turned out to be false alarms, though one did give Stores & Cargo advance notice of a small chemical leak. It was after that that things started to get interesting and T left the S&C office Mike had borrowed to join her lead team, hanging a little wide-angle pin-camera on her tunic pocket as she left. (I once asked, "What's that badge for?" only to be told, "Watching!" Ah, Security humor).

Of all the shirtsleeve-environment sections of the Lupine, the main cargo bays may be the most foreign to everyday experience, unless you work in a Zeppelin hangar. When the ship was new (long before the present "downtown" and "grand hotel" additions at the bow and upper side), the vast bays at Port and Starboard were hangar decks, where fighters were serviced and large drop-shuttles (replaced many years ago by the squirt-booster(s)strapped to cargo containers method) were stored; the former flight decks, outboard, were the nucleus of our present squirt-booster and ROV bays. Inboard of the five-story-high ex-hangars, the original holds are still in use for smaller items. The battle-ready (though never battle-tested) original configuration called for huge, pressure-rated hatches every 200 feet; these days, every other one is left open and "escape pod" safety refuges are spotted along the bulkheads and down the center line. Pressure suits are still required during cargo ops, when hatches at each end open to vacuum and the first two interior hatches are used as a cargo airlock.

These, least visited in-flight of any holds, were the areas T's teams had started on, using Stores & Cargo's IR-capable monitoring cameras to find the most likely containers. Their first hits were in the more-accessible sections and the process became more difficult as they got deeper and deeper in on each side. The big bays are almost exclusively used for containerized cargo which the shipper has paid a premium to have carried in a controlled environment; the containers are briefly exposed to zero pressure and temperature extremes when loaded aboard and when offloaded at the destination, but for many cargoes, it's an acceptable trade-off. Shippers can spend even more and never have their orchids, prize poodle, high-precision CNC machine or whatever at risk of exposure to heat, cold or vacuum but most don't. In the big holds, the containers are shoved and stacked by the same system Space Force used to move their small fighters, scouts and transports, a powered flatcar system flush with the deck and traveling cranes in each section. Take the fully-loaded deck of a big ocean-going container ship and set it in a huge tunnel, then add the hooks, haulers and other hazards of a cargo port and you'll begin to have an idea. It's a lot more cluttered than the Lupine's version of "deck cargo," racked in vacuum, and much harder to search with IR and chemical sniffers. When T's Security and Aux teams get even a faint hit, they check it out, sometimes having to stand back as Stores and Cargo unstacks and shifts containers to dig down for close examination.

"Hit" number four was looking to go that way but a particularly eager Aux took it on himself to walk the perimeter of the stack and found a container that appeared shut and locked but wasn't, exactly. This came a little after Ivan and company found the card game, so there were a few jokes about bustin' up another as they sorted themselves out and T, already close by from setting cameras on the still (and taking bets the would-be distiller would get word and never return) jogged over to get a first-hand look.

It was neatly done; the usual external latch appeared shut and had the opening not been left ever so slightly ajar there would have been no reason to suspect the container was anything out of the ordinary. There it was, a stenciled rectangular logo for an outfit none of them had ever heard of, "Star Azure." Except it was standing ever so slightly proud of the surface: a concealed hatch. "We got very quiet," T told me. And she sent one of her regulars to place a spare camera at the opening, with a thread-sized fiber-optic lens just barely protruding over the edge. Softly, softly.... Her hand held security monitor showed nothing much except more light than expected and vague shapes. Mike, with big displays in his borrowed command center, described close-stacked pallets sheathed in opaque plastic with barely room to squeeze past and a faint light shining from the far end. After ten minutes without so much as a flicker, T told her boss she was going in, gestured her team to gather and set them for action in whispers.

"John S., Alan--" (the tallest of that pair barely comes up to her shoulders but it's all muscle and plenty quick) "You're going in. There's no room for a dynamic entry and Ivan's the expert on that anyway. Take it slow and don't get fancy. The rest of us will be staged in several locations, ready to cover if you have to back out -- Matt and Abby, down there, the Auxiliaries right here. Clear?" Nods all around. "Do it." They all started to move and she caught the entry team's attention "Wait for my signal. And guys?" John and Alan looked at her expectantly. "Don't get killed."

Alan grinned; John S. just rolled his eyes and catfooted towards the visible end of the cargo container. Alan caught up and at T's gesture, eased open the hidden hatch. Jon drew his sidearm and stepped through. Alan unholstered and, after miming a silent three-count, followed.

* * *
In the temporary command center, Sheriff Mike was being reminded yet again that Stores & Cargo's proud boast of knowing the exact whereabouts of every item entrusted to their care was located was not the same as their knowing the identity of every item in the holds and external storage; the holds are just too vast and the riggers and remote-drone operators who make up the bulk of the S&C cargo-handling staff are focused on maximum stowage with minimum damage to persons and goods. To make matters worse, he was trying to follow T's crew in the monitors and to entirely confound that effort, he was being reminded by S&C's most colorful watch supervisor and one of his longtime Persons Of Interest, Cargomaster Turon, better known as the Turk.

My pal and occasional date Stephen the Navigator points out that the Turk is the Lupine's most dependable source of fresh flowers, that he is the ship's only arms dealer and cheapest ammunition source (except when he's in dutch with Mike and it's been confiscated again) and that his most visible sideline business, a collection of cheap (but sturdy enough to be shipped in vacuum) carnival rides he inevitably manages to get squirt-boostered to and from planetside at the lowest possible rates and has set up and operated by a few of his impressive and mysterious assortment of local contacts during our longer stops, brings joy to children throughout the Hidden Frontier. Not even Stephan can offer cogent comment on the Turk's laser hair removal or claimed camel-rental enterprise on Kansas II beyond, "It must be a needed service." The Turk is, to put it mildly, a go-getter, though going where and getting precisely what (let alone how much) can be a matter for heated debate and/or legal scrutiny. Claiming to hail from "the least known of the 'stans," his backstory is as obscure as most of his business dealings. All that said, he's a dazzlingly effective cargomaster; crews on his watch are among the fastest and safest at the high-risk transferring and stowing freight not just on Lupine but anywhere, though I suppose the highly-automated systems found among the Far Edged are nominally less risky. His honesty, under the strict scrutiny of the Starship Company, has been proven (in administrative hearings!) to be punctilious if a bit more concerned with the letter than the intent. In short, the Turk is...a headache. A highly-skilled headache. He was at his obfuscatively-helpful best with Mike most of the time and this night was no exception. His accent is mild but indescribable, so you're on your own.

"I am telling you, eff— Sir, we have no record of that container; the stack it is in... It should not be that height. I am offended by it. Offended!"

Mike expressed doubt with narrowed eyes and started to ask, "This isn't one of your--"

"Offended and insulted! And misjudged! Do I look like one who would pay inside rates?"

"Don't make me describe your looks, Cargomaster. Also, I don't care. How'd that container get where it is? Did it crawl in when we were between stars?"

The Turk contrived to look innocently saintly and failed, managing an expression between puppyish and hangdog. "It is unknown to me. Another shift's work, perhaps? Could it be nothing shady but a matter instead of....Security? Some, some thing for the Space Forces?"

Mike stopped for a minute at that. "I'd've been told."

The Turk said nothing.

"Probably, I'd've been told. Dammit, Turon, do you not check on the holds?"

"For pilferage? For shifting? For improperly-secured containers, for cranes and carriers unstowed? Yes. Of course, yes. For mystery containers that should not exist? Of how many thousands? This you think I should be doing? Hanh! Do I tell you how to, how to, securify?"

"Yes. Every time we have to have a little talk."

"Hah! I should not help you at all, ever. But, for the sake of long acquaintance.... I can see what we may have from the cameras. It will not be much, after 72 hours, only the proxies are kept, very low-rez, you understand?"

Mike gritted his teeth. He knows about as much about the practical side of security video as anyone aboard and the Turk was hardly unaware of it. The Lupine is just too blamed big to watch every bit of, let alone keep all the images; Moore's Law notwithstanding, whenever data storage capacity gets bigger and cheaper, Navigation and Control are the first to get it, followed by Environment and Physical Plant. Security gets the leftovers. Stores & Cargo is more concerned about immediate issues -- personnel safety, fire and chemical/biological hazards -- and their systems lean heavily to realtime coverage, archiving only for insurance purposes.

About that time, motion caught his attention: T's team taking up position, as seen through her camera. He saw Jon S. step through the opening and held up a hand to silence the Turk.

* * *
John S. had a better view but it wasn't much, just what the camera had shown: a narrow path between opaque-wrapped pallets of lumpy unknowns, meandering just enough to conceal the source of light at the far end. He catfooted down it carefully, feeling a slight shift as Alan stepped in and hoping there was nobody else to notice. He had to turn sideways to clear the heaped cargo on each side but the foot was clear. Closer to the far end of the container than he'd thought, he came to the bend and slowed even more. Ahead, bright light shined through another opening about the same size as the one he'd first entered. He gestured Alan to stop and cover, started to take a deep breath, thought better of it and stepped through, sidearm held close, attention wide for threats.

-- Into a narrow space with -- counters? -- on each side. No, not counters, open-sided crates, counter-height, holding an array of shiny cylinders and at the far end of the aisle they created, a man sat, quietly, watching, with a mildly amused, mildly worried expression. "Well," he said in his softly musical, German-sounding Lyndon backcountry accent, "You got Katrina and now you're here. What next?" It was Villem. George Welle's assistant.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Another Day, Part 12

2009-07-14T18:13:00.000-07:00

(GO TO BEGINNING)

Sure, a secret agent. It could not possibly fail to be any less glamorous than my Real Career Between The Stars (or whatever it is I do around here), right?

Riiiight. "Earlybird" puts me on duty as the overnighters are doing lunch, call it 0430 if you like. I didn't, but I had to anyway. I'd had trouble getting the wave out of my bangs, ends sticking out caterwompus despite vanity’s dab of styling gel, and I'd had to resort to hair spray. (There are lots of ways to zero-G-proof your hair, clips and braids and ponytails, but bangs take stickum). That's probably trivial where you live but it gums up the filters in a sealed system; you can cook, use hair-spray and so on (no volatile spray-paint!), but Environment & Physical Plant monitors the pressure drop across the air-return filters and if yours reaches the limit too early compared to the standard, you buy the replacement and they're not cheap.

Still, groomed (-ish), rested (more or less) and fed (coffee and a roll counts, right?), I stumbled my way down the slidewalks to Engineering at only a little past the appointed hours. Drew was waiting at the hatch. "Hi there! I'm headed for lunch — Conan should be back any minute," and he was off. Well, that's Drew, utterly reliable, unflappable and keenly aware of the exact minimum requirements for any task. He's also our best source for reports on Conan the Objectivist's temper-driven flights of verbal fancy (e.g, "Does the Chief expect me to excrete obsolete germanium transistors?"), which makes him an invaluable asset to his peers.

Looked at the "incoming" shelf and there wasn't anything critical waiting; picked up a terminal from the rack by the hatch to the Chief's office cubby, plopped it down on an open workbench (hooray for wireless!) and logged on. Nothing new in TASKER. E-mail, let's see, free tix to some play on our next stop (we're still inbound to Frothup, an ex-Far Edge settlement as you can tell from the name), free passes to the zoo likewise, lucky winners get round-trip travel and overnight accommodations.... Yah, yah, I never win those, I just hitch with a squirt-booster pilot; there's usually room, especially on the off shifts. Something from Mike, an FYI: "We're sweeping cargo for freeloaders starting 0100. Will let you know if anything/anyone we find clears Welles..." Oh, that'll be being effing big fun -- remotely-operated vehicles scanning the exposed cargo containers for unaccounted heat/chemical signatures while mixed teams of Stores & Cargo and Security types go through the Port and Starboard conditioned-space holds. H'mm, it's just about certain I know someone beside Sheriff Mike who's on that....

Why wonder? Dug out my celphone and scrolled through the contacts list 'til T's name came up. Ring. Ring. "'El-o?" Wide awake, when she's usually on straight-up first shift.
"T, it's Bobbi--"
"This-is-notta-good-ti-yum—"
"So, you're on the lurker sweep and Mikey's right next to you, then?"
"Yup."
"Aha. Later?"
"'Kay."

H'mm. I'd call Ivan but odds are good he's either in the same room, busy or sleeping. I don't know him all that well but enough to know he's not quite as patient with noseyparkers as T, and she's not very. Besides, Mike will notice, if he hasn't already. Too, while T will hang back, watching her teams on vid until something breaks or she's decided it's about to, while Ivan's usually in the thick of things from the git-go. Different cops, different approaches -- also, Ivan never had a fool of a remote-drone op slam into him on the hull, smash both shins and breach his suit, hitting hard enough to knock out the suit's radio and keep on going, while T, well, it must have been a hellish hand-over-hand back to the nearest airlock where they found her passed out after she'd hit the "Pressure" and "Emergency Call" buttons. It was how she'd got the promotion to shift supervisor -- not for being tough and most certainly not for getting badly injured on the job, but by successfully and professionally running, from her hospital bed, the investigation that caught the perp.

T's quick to point out it wasn't that much of a prize; Mike's got four (4!) patrollers on his watch, T and Ivan make do with all of three each and what they deal with outside routine cargo security work is mostly foot patrol in the "public" spaces plus the usual loud arguments, drunks, fights and the occasional pilfering or vandalism that any large ship or small town gets. When they need more help, there's the Auxiliary Security Force ("Security Oxen" or even just "The Oxes" if they're not in the room), mostly Stores & Cargo and Environment & Physical Plant types and a few of the more-ambitious riggers, some of who have, at differing times, more free time than the Starship Company figures is good for them. For a lurker sweep, the teams are made up of one Security fulltimer and one or two Auxes and if more than a half-dozen teams are needed, the best of the Auxes get brevetted.

* * *
My shift was uneventful other than a spate of message from a planet-side data-comms outfit complaining about link quality; I switched to one of the backups before grabbing an RF meter and optical TDR and backtracking from the receiver all the way to the point where the coax entered the hull. Just my luck, four hours later I'd proven the signal was crummy all the way back to vacuum; I logged on to schedule riggers to check the antenna and found a half-dozen chiding queries about it, the last an abashed, "Link good now, er, just realized you're a starship and light-_hours_ out!" New on the job, are we? Made it back to the shop just in time to put my toys away and go off-shift. Time to go be a spy!

* * *
...Some excitement that was: stroll "downtown" and mill around in the park for an hour. The Great man never showed. A sullen-looking middle-aged man with the musically Germanic accent of the Linden backcountry accompanied by a thirtyish, pudgy blonde with a motherly smile eventually announced to the crowd that "Mr. Vell-es" was feeling a little poorly and would not be speaking that afternoon.

The crowd was an assorted bunch, from kids just barely walking through elderly folks. Well over half Lyndoners and most of them I'd guess at citydwellers, but the remainder were from all over, judging by accents and attire. Even a couple of sure-nuff Russians, I don't know from Earth or one of the string of planets the old U.S.S.R. had established along their section of the Hidden Frontier. None of them struck me as particularly blissed-out or cult-y and their reaction to Welles' absence was no more than ordinary concern. The guy who'd shared the news -- "Vill," would you not just know -- didn't seem to have any particular power over them. I spoke with a few people who said hi and made my way home. Stopped off at "Gumbo A-Go-Go" for takeout (the Hidden Frontier, well above any storm surge, got its share of Katrina refugees, handpicked by recruiters from Starship Company, our competitors and reps from organizations on a couple of planets. We got Georges, who made his way from E&PP Food Services chef to self-employed in record time, to the very great benefit of those of us aboard Lupine! Sure wish I knew where he gets that bread) and slidewalked home, looking forward to a nice dinner, a sound sleep and a day off. --Not that the Fates'd let the last item happen!

But you already know that tale of woe.

Not my idea of fun but there are worse ways to spend half of your day off -- I didn't even have to leave my cabin, though I'll admit to a little trepidation to Dr. Schmid roaming around Engineering with a tweaker and the access codes. He's a fine officer and a good man but it has been awhile since he slung solder, which he mostly didn't, having been a Navs wonk before The Starship Company decided he was officer material. "Should you ought to be doing that, Sir?" is not anything you can delicately ask and the fact is he's right nine times in ten dealing with hands-on tech, despite a terrifyingly theoretical approach. But we get one day off for every five on -- maybe it sounds unfair to you but what would I do with the extra day, mow the lawn? Paint the house? Climb Everest? -- and so I decided to make the best of the half-day I could grab. And then ended up back on the phone later that evening.

Found a note from T in my personal online inbox, her usual terse e-mail style: "A busy night's sweep, call for info." Sent a half-hour ago, her second-shift morning. So I rang her up.

While I'd been chasing signals and chasing my tail in the park, Mike's Security crew had indeed been busy. He'd put T's group inside the hull and had Ivan's lot plus the best three cargo drone remote ops checking the unpressurized cargo (T still bears a bit of a grudge). Initial "outside" scan showed a handful of hotter-than expected containers, two Starboard and one Port with mild chemical signatures of the sort that usually indicate habitation.

It takes a closer look to ID the exact container and the most likely-looking choice was put third when a cross-check with the manifest turned up fertilized eggs as the contents. The rates are considerably less for what S&C likes to call "deck cargo," so I guess it makes sense. The next suspect looked even more that way when no listing could be found of it and Ivan and a couple of helpers were moving in for a closer look when the cargo chief on duty called them off: Space Force, USSF military cargo, Hands Off. Soldiers In a Can? I asked but T refused to speculate. And thus on to the next one, all the way across the width of the ship and forward, so our stalwarts called for a remote drone carrying a "personnel pod," little more than an armored framework with benches and tie-downs and rode most of the way across.

You can't exactly be stealthy in a pressure suit but Ivan comes as close as anyone can, despite being about 1.5 men high and wide. His pair of Auxes, guys he's worked with for several years, are nearly as good. They worked their way among the containers towards the heat source, scanned the barcode and found the contents listed as "furniture, office, assorted; pressure-tight." With a double hatch, no less, perhaps for fussy Customs inspectors: a basic airlock, big enough for one suited individual who doesn't suffer from claustrophobia. Leaning his helmet carefully on the wall, Ivan could hear sounds, possibly voices, the occasional scrape or thump. And as T put it, "even a redhead knows that's not what office furniture sounds like." Time to see what's inside!

Ivan went first, his Auxes stacked up beside the outer hatch ready to follow or react to his quick exit -- or whatever it took. There's no way to cycle an airlock quietly, even an unpowered one; the dogs and bolts thud and clank, air hisses through the valves and it is not a sudden or subtle process. By the time pressure in the lock was close enough to the pressure in the cargo container to free the inner hatch, whoever was in there was well-warned.

...Not that any warning would have been enough to clear out the cigar smoke, though you'd've thought between three riggers and four S&C crewfolk, at least one would've swept the cards out of sight: In full vacuum gear, Security insignia big and bright, Ivan had just crashed a poker game.

Playing cards for money is hardly against company policy; there's a nice "game room" up in passenger territory (middle-sized casino), open to anyone who can comply with the dress code, that turns a healthy profit, undeterred by even our most straitlaced port of call (cough, Kansas II, cough). There is no end of polls and lotteries, card games, dice and for all I know, pitch-penny and liar's poker (look it up). Nor is there a blanket ban on smoking; there are two designated smoking compartments for crew and subcontractors and a posh smoking parlor off the aforementioned casino for the paying customers. Though the rates are ruinous and your neighbors are liable to complain if they get a hint of it, you can even have your own quarters fitted out for smoking. (Smoking does do bad things to your mandatory insurance premiums, but hey, nothing's free). Indeed, both S&C and the rigging department tend to have long stretches of largely-idle time and while official policy encourages keeping busy (hence the Security Auxiliaries and our mostly on-call Fire/Pressure, etc. department), supervisors turn a blind eye to innocent amusements.

However, opening up sealed cargo containers and burning cheap stogies therein, that is not so innocent and it's certainly against Starship Company regs. The fire risk and crummy air quality only made it worse; Ivan, the mildest of men most times, is nevertheless of "One riot, one Ranger" size and when riled up, it is a rare man indeed who can stand up to him. He barked, "Hold it! Hands up!" as he kicked the cheap hatch shut behind him and the boys just about swallowed their cigars in the eagerness to comply. His Auxes, listening over his open mic, piled into the lock together and cycled it as quickly as they dared but by the time they were in, Ivan had the miscreants lined up, looking sheepish and sounding off.

Good gossip and a good catch -- shippers pay us, trust us, darn it, to take proper care of their goods -- but hardly cause for murder and I said as much to T.

"Oh, wait 'til I tell you the rest," she said, and started to relate her side of the lurker sweep.

Her team's first hit turned out to be a still. (It never fails. The _Lupine_ has no shortage of places to buy all grades of alcohol and yet just like every starship of sufficient size and most of the sublight haulers, too, there is always some crewman who's just got to build a still). They noted it for surveillance and moved on. Another of her teams carefully worked its way up on...a trysting couple. On the clock. But at least they were married, though not to one another. Handed them over to their supervisor; The Starship Company doesn't much care who you sleep with but frowns on so doing on company time. Other possibilities turned out to be false alarms, though one did give Stores & Cargo advance notice on a small chemical leak. It was after that that things started to get interesting and T left the S&C office Mike had borrowed to join her lead team.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Another Day, Part 11

2009-06-11T18:11:00.000-07:00

(GO TO BEGINNING)

(The plot thickens. -Ish).

What with one thing and another (especially the SHF control/telemetry dish that hopped a rotational stop which the remote-drone ops ignored 'til the cabling was well and genuinely axle-wrapped, in 3-D), I'd about shelved my own efforts at the puzzle of the stardrive-killed Space Marine -- let alone our H-F.d. visitor -- when I got a call from the Security director a week later. "Bobbi? I think maybe you can help me."

"Really? 'Cos, you know, 'I'm not a cop--.'"

He heaved a sigh. "And neither am I, when you get right down to it. Me and my staff are as close as we've got. But I need somebody who's already got the skinny on the situation and Dr. Poole is too recognizable."

"So what happened to, 'Leave this to the professionals?'"

"Look, Nancy Drew, he knows me and everybody I've got who I'd trust to get this right is up in passenger territory regularly, in uniform, so they're out, too. Like he's not gonna know Miss T on sight? Or Ivan, for that matter?"

"H'mmm, point. But -- 'He?' 'Get what right?'"

"Aw, geez, maybe Doc Poole would be better. This isn't a game!"

"Okay, okay. But what is it?" I was pretty sure I knew already, but I was irked about the "Nancy Drew" wisecrack -- that's the second time this week!

"It's that guy -- George Welles. The Hopkin-F preacher guy. I need someone to see what he's like when he's not being watched."

"What's he got to do killing a Space Marine?"

"Maybe nothing. Maybe— Those "Marines" aren't just soldiers, y'know; they're more like the Mounties or old-time Texas Rangers. So we've got a some kind of a preacher on Far Edge medication, plus a dead Far Edger who's as near as they get to law enforcement and just happened to board at the same stop, which just happens to be a place without a lot of passenger traffic that has a bad history that includes a surplus of self-appointed 'great leaders.' Maybe it's just me but it smells funny."

"With all that, this Welles guy is not gonna think I'm a watcher? What kinda hokey name is that, anyway?"

"I don't know about his name and I'm not asking you to do anything but get curious and keep your eyes open! Besides, how's he gonna know you're not a passenger...?" He went on to explain how his foolproof plan was foolproof. I only half-listened; I was thinking about the mess on Lyndon. Or Linden. Or Peace & Freedom. Or Sunblack II --It's all the same world and the same mess. It's history I picked up in bits and pieces - - a charity drive here, a web page six there, wild rumors and a little time on-planet. It boils down to a mess.

It was the first world the Far Edge ships found after they fled Project Hoplite, the unbuilt missile base on the Moon. And it's the first world settled, too, only not in that order. It was settled in 1946, which is why the Edgers were headed that way. It's not why they skipped out; the ringleaders had decided the Lunar base would be too destabilizing long before they launched and had made their plans and picked their crew accordingly. But what they found when they got there put matters in an entirely different light.

There are plenty of places on Earth's Moon where one might locate a missile base. Some are better than others but it was a matter of chance the three scout ships of Project Hoplite would pick the site they did. That one of the pilots of the 27 ships that followed would notice implausibly regular formations in a nearby crater was not a surprise; inattentive fliers don't last long, let along get far enough along to be where Lt. Farrelini found himself.

The mix of caution and, shall we say, "appreciation of risk" that put so talented a pilot at the controls of a barely prototyped vehicle relying on dangerously-immature technology must have guided his next move. Rather than report his sighting (see how well the conspirators had chosen their rebels?), he noted the location and bided his time. Several weeks later, in his surface assignment as a tractor driver, the Lieutenant wrangled assignment to the survey party headed that way. And proceeded to drive the geologist and surveyor with him right to what proved to be the abandoned remains of a Luftwaffe base.

Yeah.

It's not the sort of thing one would expect. Wild rumors about "The Bell" and preposterous photo-hacks purporting to show flying saucers strain too far at credulity. But there it was, dark, empty and ransacked. One stubby cylinder-shaped vehicle, half-wrecked, stripped of all usable parts [1]; meager pressurizable huts, airlocks gaping; what might have been a solar-powered boiler, engine and generator; collapsed greenhouse-like structures; a few personal possessions and, tucked behind the open inner hatch of one hut's airlock, a stack of thin metal sheets scratched full of closely-packed, tiny writing. The Deus ex machina only goes so far; none of the men could read the language but it certainly looked as German as the faded labels on the doors. Not to mention the stylized eagles clutching an infamous symbol.

That's right. Space Nazis.

There was an abortive effort to keep it hushed up but the cat was soon out of the bag. Translated, the message on the plates told a hardly-believable tale; a secret base planned as yet another "war-winning weapon" proving instead to be one more drag on the dwindling resources of the Third Reich, the warrior-explorers and a small group of "experimental subjects" marooned as the Third Reich fell to the Allies. 'Drive radiation had taken a toll on the group and it was evident Germany was lost; the survivors had reworked the vehicles and planned to flee the inhospitable Moon. Mars and Venus were ruled out after one-way scouting missions to each one resulted in a barely-survived crash followed by reports of insufficient air from Mars and an attempted landing turning to screams from the atmosphere of Venus. In desperation, they'd chosen a long leap to the nearest earthlike star. One man, proud or optimistic of eventual victory, had scribbled it all down in secret on scraps left from the salvage work and left it for those who would follow after.

For the cabal that had hijacked Project Hoplite and the crew they'd recruited, it must have seemed pure serendipity: they had the atomic-armed missiles they wanted to get out of the hands of any government on Earth, the ships, the material and supplies to build a base -- or a mobile space station, a huge ship. They were already planning to disappear and now they had a Mission. A Quest.

I'll just hit the high points: the hurried partial assembly of their vast wheel of a "mother ship" and departure from the Moon, the long, hard, tragic finishing work done in solar orbit, the seizure of one ship by disaffected group members and its disastrous attempt at returning to earth and the consequent premature FTL jump to the indicated star added up to several years. You can imagine the consternation, confusion and re-reevaluation that ensued when they arrived at to find an Earthlike planet that at first appeared uninhabited. Eventually, they found several huddles of hovels: New Germania. And over a hundred very hungry survivors. Compassion won out over caution at first, though at least half the ex-Hoplites wanted to bomb the site from orbit and keep moving. The compassionate faction landed, taking seeds and supplies; this was still when landing was a chancy proposition. It was a one-way trip. The ship, designed for a Moon landing, didn't have enough thrust for a soft landing at the limit of their 'Drive's accuracy and as luck would have, the last hop was overly low. Crunch-down knocked the CLASSIFIED out of alignment, killed both phantasmajector tubes and injured most of the crew. More bad luck followed: sickness raged among the landing party and no further physical contact was allowed. There you have it, Step One of the mess on Linden, the original jackboots-on-planet having been Step Zero. Things improved for a while once the virus had run its course but suspicion and hostility remained on all sides. The ship-bound Far Edge (they'd begun to refer to themselves as being on "the far edge of everything" by then) were settling in to their new life; planet-side, a wary truce prevailed, as the new arrivals had brought seeds, animals and additional tools and expertise. There were even the stirrings of a basic government and steady contact between the planet-bound and space-dwellers.

It was five years after the arrival of the Far Edge when the first ships of the US Space Force arrived, small scout ships streaking through the system on sputtering stardrives, popping in and out of the rational universe, taking photos and making radar sweeps on every emergence into normal space. The Far Edge gathered together and without a word to the planetary civilization, vanished into 'Drive. Call it Step Two of the Mess on Linden. Steps Three, Four, Five and Six would be the subsequent contact, establishment of a military government, settlement by colonists from Earth using newly developed re-entry techniques and the first civil war. It's been forty years since somebody threw out the first incendiary bomb and things have never really settled down; full-on war is rare but no government (or name for the place) has lasted more than five years unless you count the Farmer's Market. The only real sign of progress was when they'd renamed the main port "Star City" instead of "New Germania" and stuck with it.

That's where our "holy man" had been. If peace had spontaneously broken out in his wake, the news hadn't reached the Lupine yet.

* * *
If you're a passenger, a big starship is nearly as class-conscious as an old ocean liner; First and Second class share a dining room and some -- but not all -- of the lounges; Third Class is its own world. It's not as bad as "steerage" on a late XIXth-Century steamship, but it's as basic and crowded as minimum-allotment crew quarters. All passengers and crew have access to the commercial section, our "downtown," at the very bow of the Lupine. First and Second Class passengers make much use of the restaurants, bars [2] and gift shoppes but nearly all those who travel Third have little reason to go there other than the tiny park E&M maintains; it's free, about the only price most of them can afford.

It's quite a nice park, given the constraints of star travel. There are no tall, heavy plants, no large fountains or loose mulch and the koi pond is under glass. Three low "hills" and natural-looking rock walls covered in vines and other plants make the space seem even larger than it is and with a high blue (fake) haze and full-spectrum lighting overhead, it's the next best thing to being dirtside. If that's your thing. Me, I use it as a shortcut to get from the McMaster storefront at one end of district to Swearengen's (an electrical wholesaler based out of Kansas II that I swear stocks everything. All the time.) at the other; sometimes I dawdle or even take lunch there, if I can justify the time.

With this buildup, you know what's coming: our mysterious mystic and his band of followers(traveling Second Class) had taken to gathering in the park a couple afternoons a week and had -- quelle suprise -- started to gather an audience that included no few passengers from Third, Second and one or two from First. Mike proposed I start attending, too, minus my usual collar pin (a lot of us wear 'em; 'Drive Engineering's sigil is the "exploding gear," the lightning bolt and sector gear of Engineering on a starburst, all in gold if you've got the full certification. Not that I'm proud or anything). Of course he had to add that what I usually wear would fit right in, which is both mostly true and a bit of a put-down. Hey, it's a physical job.

It wasn't a terrible idea but I'm not all that anonymous. Plenty of the merchants know me. Security, E&PP workers of various sorts and officers are a lot more widely recognized than Engineering tekkies. Mike's answer to that was "It's unlikely. So what if you are? You're not Security, you're not an officer. Why wouldn't you be honestly curious?"

I wasn't so sure anyone would believe that but I'd've eventually gone to see what the guy was about anyway. Most of my reluctance was for Sheriff Mike's benefit. I agreed.

Nothing's ever easy; the very next afternoon, after a nasty morning, we lost the main stepdown transformer feeding the 'Drive finals, which I described earlier. That gave Mike time to convince the Chief to stick me on the earlybird day watch (gee, thanks) and take me off-call for a couple of hours after my shift on the days Mr. (Rev.?) Welles and company had their shindigs. I was startin' to have my doubts but like it or not, I was a secret agent. Or something.

* * *______________________________
1. The cylinder's just the lifesystem; the 'Drive it sits on at rest, and dangles at the end of a long cable from in FTL flight, is roughly bell-shaped. The crudity of the whole assemblage gave rise to the Far Edge slang term "glockey" for a kludge. Hilarity ensued when trade between Earth and the Edge started up and they saw their first Austrian plastic.
2. Sure, we’ve got bars, have a drink! But woe betide the crewmember that shows up for duty noticeably Under The Influence or fails a random alk test.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Another Day, Part 10

2009-05-11T18:08:00.000-07:00

(GO TO BEGINNING)

At least breakfast hadn't had time to cool down.

* * *
The Chief had arrived at Engineering with the first shift earlybirds. He was in a mood and sharing it all 'round when I showed up. Like most of his humors, not without reason; we're still inbound on the long slowdown to our next port of call. As always happens once another Jump's well along, the Engineering Shop has become quite sloppy — things piled atop things. Random unrepairables-for-salvage litter the work benches along with parts, tools, printouts and bits of wire, metal and plastic. While the clutter is considerably less than would be found in other venues where electronic devices come to be healed and is usually not so bad that a bumpy exit from or entry to normal space does much damage, it's A) against the Starship Company's rules and B) plenty dangerous when we're going from the standard .75G to nil and back again while making planetary orbit.

The Chief being the Chief, he leans to invoking a combination of item A and incredulous outrage that any group of tekkies, anywhere, could ever produce a mess so tangled and dire; nor does he spare any of us, no matter how careful we've been. His approach stings, though he believes he's making a concession to our pride by soft-pedaling the safety aspects. Me, I'm all too aware the debris doesn't care if you left any of it out personally when it slams into you. The injury you prevent by cleaning up after the other guy may be your own!

Big Tom was in, along with Terry (another USSF legacy tech); C. Jay, and Jonny Zedd were there too, having been the lucky earlybirds met by the Chief. Handsome Dave was still checking out escape pods (more properly "points of refuge," since they do not themselves escape to anywhere: they allow crew and passengers to escape depressurization, hazmat and such), safely distant in a squirt-booster bay. Some guys have all the luck.

Aw, who needs 'im; we had enough hands to get the job done in short order and sure enough, by mid-shift, we'd sorted and stowed and produced two piles, one of saleable scrap (you'd be surprised what some of the worlds we visit will buy) and another, smaller, for the jettison drum. The Chief had harrumpfed a few of our choices to save (this is a man with a large, professionally-framed photo of a helicopter being pushed off an aircraft carrier posted on a bulkhead in his office), so off they went, too.

Jay had put off lunch (he and Tom have been lunching together since before I signed aboard) and I tagged along. Terry and the Chief were enough to cover, especially since we were only going down the passageway to the palatial breakroom that serves Engineering, Ops, the Bridge, Navs and anyone else with the right access card. 'Cos it's a hot ticket.

Perhaps I'm too sarcastic; the Hospitality gang loads our sandwich machine with decent stuff and depending on our last few ports of call, the candy and crisps selection is pretty outstanding. On the other hand, the beverage selection is the same rotgut coffee you get out of vending machines everywhere, reconstituted juices and the sodas, well, let us merely refer to wildly variable takes on "OpenCola" and let it lie.*

But dish--! That, we've got. Tom had the latest and shared it in a disapproving tone. "'Dija hear we picked up one of those, um, glovers on our last stop? People think they're hearin' from God?"

I listened with interest; Big Tom possesses the kind of quiet, certain faith one associates with monks, while his long-time friend is resolutely certain there is Nobody Up There. It suits them but you don't want to be caught in between.

"Glovers," said C. Jay. "You mean someone with Hawkins-F Dysplasia? How is he even managing to travel? That's a serious downcheck for starships. The way I hear it, even zero-G is too much for some of 'em, flashbacks or something."

"Word is the Edgers've got some new drugs. With those and tranks, some of 'em can hold up, though I don't know why they'd want to."

I hadn't known about the passenger or the drugs. H'mm. I said,"Tom, you are a fount of knowledge. Where's he headed?"

"I haven't heard but I do know he's got a whole passel of admirers up in passenger country."

Jay snorted. "Figures."

"No, really. He got on at Lyndon with a bunch of them. Well, six or seven. Just average folks. Paid cash."

Jay whistled; I looked piously at the overhead and quoted, "'...Yea, though I walk though the valley of the Shadow of Death...' That's seriously weird. Most of the Hopkins-F types say the experience is ineffable: can't be meaningfully described, only experienced first hand; and the rest of 'em don't say anything. Does that sound like 'Linden' or 'paid cash' to you?"

"Aw, c'mon!"

Jay just grinned but I never know when to shut up. "Tom, you've gotta admit, not many get to leave there who can't put 'ex-Big Cheese' or 'former El Supremo' after their name and they're usually chased by a warrant. Or worse."

"That's not true, what about the Francises?"

Third-generation farming family, big family; saved and scrimped and did without starting as soon as they realized the problem with Lyndon/Linden until the whole family could Get Out, or gens 2 and 3 anyway, the first generation having paid the price of their misjudgment. It's all-round unusual, as farmers are about the only bunch most of the various failed governments have left alone; mostly, anyway. The Francis family was a three-day wonder in the Far Edge media five years back, with a lot of pointed commentary that made things a little hot along the hazy border for awhile. "An exception, Tom, and that's the only reason any of us heard about it. Or remember."

"Yeah but it wasn't just them—"

"And it got a lot harder to leave after that, too, right up until the last government there crashed over it and took their banks down with it. They haven't had anything big enough to even pretend to be a government since, either."

"Well, that's where he got on. And he's picked up twice as many people since, too."
______________________________
* The flip side is that a small vial of neroli oil is better than gold; even the systems where the genuine article is easy to come by have no shortage of patriotic entrepreneurs turning out their own version. Make mine Moxie — if I can't get it reliably, I might as while be missing something unique.

(TO BE CONTINUED)