Six

The Star of Carolina, in transit

“Did you ever imagine anything like it?”

One of the Star of Carolina’s outstanding features was its observation bubble, a large poly-steel blister on the outer hull that offered a slowly rotating view of space – or, in this case, the weird, continually shifting, unfathomable patterns of subspace.  The only down side was that, to accommodate the passenger compartment’s rotation to provide gravity, you had to strap into seats that rotated into the bubble at the touch of a switch – and the ship’s rotation made you feel as though you were hanging upside-down.

“Not me.  I’ve seen stars before, from Forest, but nothing like this.”

Mike Crider (Junior) and Maria Gutierrez sat in the observation bubble, ostensibly watching the streams of subspace whipping past but really just enjoying each other’s company.  Maria’s raven-black hair cascaded down, framing her face.  Mike’s attention was constantly torn from the spectacle of subspace by the nearer, more fathomable, and yet more beautiful sight seated next to him.

“Daddy says you don’t see stars in subspace.  He’s not even sure that there are stars in subspace.  Oh, look there!”  Maria pointed at a vermilion whorl that spun, danced at the edge of vision and was gone, somewhere far aft of the hurtling ship.  “I wonder what that was.”

“Beats me.  Most impressive thing I’ve seen before was a logger out on the eastern savannah, and that wasn’t a patch on this.”

“What’s a logger?”

“Big things, herbivores, live out on the fern prairies and savannahs east of our mountains.  They’re about six to ten meters long, armor-plated, with big horn blades sticking out to the sides.”  He held his hands a meter apart to show the size of a logger’s side spikes.  “A beak like a turtle – they can bite right through a tree trunk.  They’ve got big plates of horn on their backs and necks, and they walk on their hind feet and the knuckles of their hands.  First one I ever saw was a big bull, leaning back on his tail to strip a tree along a branch of the East Fork River.  He was leaning back on his tail, using the big, hooked claws on his front feet to hook down branches to eat.  Thing was like two stories tall.

“Dad knows a guy who hunts them, but I’m not about to try it.  Rocs are plenty exciting enough.  Plus, you have to use a rocket launcher or a cannon to kill one.”

“I’ve never seen anything much bigger than a deer, but I’ve always been a city girl,” Maria confessed.

“Well, you’ve got me beat there.  I’ve hardly ever seen a town.  Just Settlement, and it isn’t much.  Heck, Forest doesn’t even have a Skyhook yet.”

“Daddy says it’s mostly farmers.”

Mike Junior smiled as he watched a pattern of violet sparkles cascade past, fading to a dull green as they went.  “Yeah, I suppose it is, ships always re-provision at Forest – this one did, we watched two cargo hulls of food shot up before our shuttle took off from Settlement.  But we’re not farmers, we’re pioneers.  We hunt for meat, hide and feathers for the colony.”

“You hunt wild animals?” Maria asked, frowning a little.  “Doesn’t it bother you, killing animals?”

“What’d you have for breakfast this morning, Maria?”

“Oatmeal, eggs, sausage – a little chorizo,” Maria answered.

“Sausage, eh?  Think the pig gave it up voluntarily?”

“OK,” she smiled.  “I see your point.  But it’s got to be lonely, living way up there in the mountains.”  Maria leaned a tiny bit closer; the herbal scent of her glossy black hair filled Mike Junior’s senses.  “Don’t you ever miss being around people?”

“Sometimes.  Can’t really miss what you never had.”

“I guess.” 

A trail of salmon-pink ripples cascaded past the viewport, turning rapidly through white to end up bright blue. 

“What do you think Tarbos will be like?”

“Beats me,” Mike answered.  “I guess there’s a big city, just down from the hills where they Skyhook comes down – Dad says it’s called Mountain View.  It’s supposed to be one of the prettiest cities in the Galaxy.  Well, that we know of, anyway.”

“I’ve never been off Earth,” Maria said softly.

“Yeah, I’ve never been off Forest.”

“It’s a little scary, isn’t it?”

Mike Junior thought about that for a moment.  “Well, maybe a little, but not like a guts-turning-to-water kind of scary, like when you make a bad shot on a roc and he turns and comes after you, twenty feet tall and screeching bloody murder.  It’s more like a final-exam-in-cyber school kind of scary, when you know you’ve been goofing off out in the woods and not studying.”

Maria laughed, tossing her raven hair in a way that made Mike’s heart hammer in his chest.  “I hadn’t thought of it quite like that.  Has that really happened to you?  I read about rocs in science class when I was in high school – you really had one come after you?  A wounded one?”

“Yeah,” Mike answered, remembering.  “I was only sixteen, and my shot went a little low.  I had the other barrel loaded with a shotshell, too – stupid.  Dad gave me some hell about it later.”

Maria sat quietly for a moment, waiting, and then impulsively punched Mike on the upper arm.  “So, tell me what happened!”

“Oh, yeah.  Well, Dad got him with a high-ex round.  Dropped him in a full charge – he slid up to about ten feet from my boot toes.  I couldn’t move for about five minutes.”  He omitted mentioning another, more embarrassing consequence of that close call – one that had required a change of undergarments.

“I imagine so!”  Maria casually reached for Mike’s hand, intertwining her fingers with his.  “I hope that sort of thing doesn’t happen very often.  I’d just as soon you stayed safe, you know.” 

“Uh, no.  Not very often.”  Mike’s powers of articulation had suddenly diminished, but he managed to give Maria’s hand a squeeze.

Outside the bubble, a swirl of light blue faded through purple to a light pink, culminating in a starburst of brilliant white. 

Maria and Mike Junior sat quietly watching the weird, unpredictable lightshow of subspace as the Star of Carolina plunged on through the unfathomable continuum of subspace towards Tarbos.

Corinthia

Of all the settled worlds, there was only one that was not a project of Off-World Mining & Exploration.

Twenty-six years earlier, the younger brother to the United Kingdom’s King Charles III led an expedition to an undeveloped planet.  Prince Harold intended to re-establish a true monarchy, and with the wealth of the Royal Family behind him, he contracted an OWME liner to transport himself, his family, and six thousand, two hundred and forty-three followers to Corinthia, where he was crowned King Harold I. 

Corinthia was then discovered to have an amazing, no, a stunning wealth of mineral riches.  Corinthia’s crust contained incredible amounts of titanium, germanium, rhodium, all the valuable construction and power metals, silver and gold as well.  In the space of five years, mining operations made the privately held planet very, very wealthy indeed, and King Harold I became the wealthiest man in the Galaxy by a considerable margin, surpassing even the recently deceased Hiram Gellar.

But the message from Tarbos had come as a shock.  Harold I had what he liked to refer to as “a very nice little arrangement” on Corinthia, and he wasn’t enamored of the idea of a Galactic government suddenly wanting to impose rules and regulations on his privately held planet.

And so, it was a very disturbed King Harold I of Corinthia that called a meeting of his chief advisers to discuss the proposed meeting on Tarbos.

“Would someone please tell me what precisely is to Corinthia’s benefit in all this?”  The King glared at his Ministers, seated before him around an enormous conference table of local wood.

“Sire, we need to examine the logic carefully.”  Lord Alfred Roth was the King’s Minister of Planetary Affairs, his best and most trusted friend.  “This Pritchard, he makes a compelling argument.  I would point out, Your Majesty, that Corinthia is unfortunately located on the far edge of settled space.  There are no colonies farther from Earth than we in this direction; there are no other settled worlds to serve as buffers between the Grugell and us, or for that matter any other hostile races who may exist.  The common defense alone is worthy of serious consideration.”

“We will have our own shipyards operating in three years,” the King pointed out.  “Can we not build our own ships, our own defenses?”

“We could, sire; but the cost would run into the billions.”  This came from Lord Nigel Sands, his Minister of Finance.  “I’ve researched the issue.  A modest fleet of ten armed ships for local defense would cost a great deal indeed.”  He handed the King a pad.  “I’ve taken the liberty of summarizing the costs involved.  It’s important to note that we would also be required to seek technical experts in the area of weaponry.  We have successfully recruited drive engineers and spaceship architects from Earth, but we have no weapons experts.”

The King took his time perusing the pad’s screen while his Ministers waited patiently.

“I’m not entirely convinced, you know,” he said at last.

“It would be imprudent of you to make a decision so quickly, Your Majesty,” Lord Roth answered.

“Yes, but it would also be imprudent for us to fail to attend this conference, would it not?  And so we shall.  In fact, I’ll go myself.  Lord Roth, you will accompany me to Tarbos.  This conference is scheduled to begin in,” he shuffled through a pile of papers on the table, “six weeks.  The Royal yacht will take less than four to make the journey to Tarbos; this gives you two weeks to prepare.”

“As you wish, sire.”

“Prepare a message for this chap Pritchard.  Tell him Corinthia will be represented.”

Tarbos, five weeks later

Mountain View had never been this busy.  For that matter, Bob Pritchard had never been this busy before, either.

A month’s worth of research went into the conference’s program.  A month spent in the Tarbos Main Library, researching Earth history, government, economics, trade issues, a dozen or more smaller topics.  The result was a pad bearing roughly a terabyte of data, to be handed to each delegation on their arrival.

Pritchard had arranged quarters for the delegates at the Tarbos-Mountain View Marriott, which wasn’t nearly as impressive as it sounded.  Tarbos had little need for hotel facilities, and the hotel was crammed to capacity with the seventeen delegates, their families and aides.  In fact, the big new Tide Pool hotel/casino up the coastline from Mountain View would have been far more suitable, but the commute – even by air-car – was considerable.

And the delegates were beginning to arrive.  Three this morning, and the rest expected within a week.

The K-101, outside Tarbos’ orbit

A hundred and twenty thousand kilometers outside Tarbos’ orbit, the undetected and undetectable still held station.  Boredom had set in long since; a warrior race with a violent history, the Grugell society did not cultivate patience.

“Incoming message from the Imperium, Commander.”  Kadastrattik turned in his bridge chair to take the message form.

MONITOR COMM-CHANNEL 175 STANDARD.  IMPERIUM INTELLIGENCE SERVICE HAS MADE CONTACT WITH AN INFORMATION SOURCE ON THE PLANET. 

A series of codes and alternative action plans followed the terse opening.  In due time they’d receive a message.  The message would tell them how to proceed.

The Star of Carolina

The Star of Carolina had dropped out of subspace the day before, and was now proceeding towards Tarbos on one-third drive. 

“That’s Tarbos now.”  Hector Gutierrez pointed out a blue and white sphere to his family as they stood alongside the Criders in the Star’s Stellar Cartography suite, looking at a playback of the main navigation scanner.  “It’s a heavy planet, I understand – you’ll feel about ten percent heavier than in the one-gee they keep on most of the liner’s passenger compartments.  Lots of minerals.  Rich planet.  They say Mountain View is the most beautiful city on any of the settled worlds.  It’s even got nice beaches.”

“Not like Forest,” Mike Senior observed.  “I’m afraid Forest’s always going to be a poor planet.”

“How do you figure?” 

“Well, we’re mostly farmers on Forest, you know.  There are no mineral deposits that anyone has ever found, nothing to mine or manufacture with.  We have to import almost all of our manufactured goods.  The soil is fantastic, Earth crops grow really well and there are a couple of native plants that the science guys say they’ll be able to alter for crop growing.  But farmers are always on the bottom of the economic heap.  In good times there’s plenty to go around and crop prices are low, so the farmers don’t make much money.  And in bad times…  well, you remember reading about 1930’s America?  The Dust Bowl?”

“That was mostly due to bad farming practices, but I see your point.”

“Yeah.  Well, this is going to be a whole different deal.  Maybe things will change.  They say Forest is going to be the breadbox of the Galaxy one day,” Mike Senior added hopefully.

Beside him, Mike Junior’s hand sought out Maria Gutierrez’s.  She returned the pressure of his thick, work-roughened hands with a squeeze of her own slim fingers, and smiled a small, secret smile. 

“Is there a moon, Daddy?” Maria asked.

“One little one,” Hector Gutierrez answered his daughter.  “About the size of Phobos.”

“That’s sad,” Maria whispered in Mike Junior’s ear.  “Nights aren’t very romantic with no moon.” “They will be,” the younger Crider promised her.  “Trust me.”

To see more of Animal’s writing, visit his page at Crimson Dragon Publishing or Amazon.