Rebel's Quest, page 7
part #6 of The Long View Series
When Hoad and two guards escorted the four out of the galley, Tregare waited until the screen switched to a view of the Peron's control room. Then he said, "Jargy? You hear me?"
"See and hear you both, Tregare. "
"You want to tell 'em the real situation, or should I?"
"You give the overall; I'll handle the detail. " So Tregare explained that the Peron had been taken not by UET but by an Escaped Ship, and that now the idea was to sort out the Utie loyalists and put them away safely in empty cargo area until they could be grounded in isolation on a Hidden World. "So we need your help, telling us who's safe to run loose and who needs locking up. And the trick is, none of 'em knows what's happening until we have all the nuts and bolts in the right bins. "
"Thanks, Bran, " said Jargy. "I can take it from here. "
The Peron's computer log had data Bran could use; he fired it into Tinhead, ran correlations with stuff he already had, and came up with some interesting ideas. Some of those, of course, would have to wait on the Long View and some long chances.
The Peron's mutiny or Escape, depending on who was telling the story, had been less bloody than most. Partly, of course, because of Tregares intervention while everything was still up for grabs. The captain, caught unarmed, had fled upship to take refuge in the topside airlock; then, desperate, he went outside in a suit. And when the Drive was cut, his lifeline came loose.
All three Hats were in on the Escape effort and had survived. In fact, there had been only a dozen fatal casualties, and four of those fell to Jargy Hoad's boarding party. Surviving Uties numbered slightly under forty, and Tregare refused to take any of those aboard Inconnu. "You mights well go on to Target Place, Jargy. You can dump 'em there. "
"Why couldn't you?"
"Junior Lee isn't sure we can get there. "
"What—?"
"Oh, we'll get someplace. But to make that kind of bend in our course, and still land—he says maybe so, maybe not. "
Between the two ships, now, came a certain amount of personnel transfer. Tregare had supernumeraries, Hoad was shorthanded and could use a cadre of people he knew. Ola Stannert was of course leaving Inconnu with Jargy. But on the Peron, Second Hat Frei Relliger wanted to leave, so the Hat berths evened out pretty well.
First, though, Bran had a talk with the tall, blond young man. Hosting the session in his quarters, Tregare saw Relliger seated and furnished with a drink, then said, "It's nice you want to join my ship. But I'm curious. Why is it you want to leave the one you're on?"
The man shrugged. "Woman trouble. Which is to say, about three months ago I lost mine to the First Engineer. I thought I'd get over it—but seeing them together on the ship so much, it just keeps getting worse for me. You understand?"
Tregare didn't, but he nodded anyway. "This land of thing happen to you much? I mean, any part of life you care to name, we all win some and lose some. What I want to know: is it, you just can't stand losses?"
Chewing his lip, Relliger paused. Then his expression cleared. "No, sir. That's not it. Thinking back, I've had my share of lumps, and taken them. Including some in the romance department. " He sighed. "This was different. I really thought -- but it all fell apart, and I'm not handling it
'How bad?"
"Killing bad. I never felt that way before, and I don't like it. Its not the way I am. "
Tregare thought about it. "Maybe it's the way you're turning. "
"No, sir. Or I'd have done it. Just being off that ship, now, the pressure's gone. "
"All right. Welcome aboard. "
Relligers Peron shares bought him a Third Hat on Inconnu, near enough to work out. so Tregare staked Leanne Prestor to the Seconds berth. He didn't ask where Jargy was going to fit Stannert into the Peron's hierarchy of officers, and Hoad didn't volunteer the information.
Now connected by a transfer tube, the two ships drifted for several days while all these matters were settled and a certain amount of stores were shifted both ways, to forestall shortages on either vessel. And when these chores were done, Bran and Jargy met to share a farewell drink in Tregare's quarters.
"You have all the computer stuff, " said Bran, "on our rendezvous some day, when I get the big job figured out. "
"That I have. Cheers. " Each man sipped a little. "And I'll keep in touch, best we can over the Long View, and leave word myself, of course, whenever I can. "
Tregare leaned forward. "Who do I leave word for?"
Looking puzzled, after a moment Hoad laughed. "Oh, yes. Not the Peron, you mean. Well, it took a lot of thinking, but I finally have it. The gamble, Bran, when we overtook the Peron and I led the boarding group. " He shook his head. "Anyone who played poker with those odds would be an idiot. "
"It was all we had, Jargy. "
"I know. But it wasn't figurable; it was all wild cards. So that's how I'm naming my ship, Bran Tregare. It's Deuces Wild. "
They drank to that while impatience rioted in Tregare, and he thought, first Kickem, then Limmer, now Jargy. It begins to move!
* * *
From the Peron—now Deuces Wild—came one other item of possible future gain. Eda Ghormley, Inconnu's chief medic, told Tregare about it. "I talked with this woman on the other ship, one of their medical aides. She's a sleeper from the Underground, and she's going to do the cheek tattoos for Mr. Hoad and his new officers, so they can fake it at any UET colony. "
Immediately interested, Bran said, "How about for us?"
"For us, she gave me a kit, and instructions. So if you want me to fix up Mr. Gonnelson and Ms. Prestor, and the new man—"
"If they're willing. " Because about Leanne, he wondered Would she go along with having her face marked?
Ghormley might as well have read his mind. "What I have here is new. For one thing, it's removable. "
Tregare rubbed his own cheek. "Suppose you could fix this for me, where three promotions all look the same but don't match my first marking?"
She shook her head. "No, sir. That permanent stuff I can't do anything about. I'm sorry. "
"Not your fault. " Comes to it, I'll have to think of something else, is all.
The only other problem he could think of, along those lines, was that Frei Relliger wore a Seconds tattoo but was Third on Inconnu. So Leanne Prestor, now Second Hat, would have to settle for being marked as Third. He hoped it wouldn't bother her much.
The Relliger part made no sweat because young Freis promotion was recent and his tattoo was the erasable kind. Prestor, though, disliked the entire idea. "Why should I? Why do we have to? I don't want my face marked up. "
At the moment, other worries on his mind, Tregare was close to having had it with Leanne. "In case we hit a UET colony, is why. " Then he said, "If you'd stayed with Krieg Elman, you wouldn't have to worry about this small stuff, would you?"
In seconds she went pale, no doubt thinking of the debris and plasma that Elman's Stump Farm had become. "That's dirty, Tregare. That's really dirty. I—"
"You came on here and I took you in; you joined the team. Now it's one of two things. You take that damned tattoo—that
temporary tattoo—or Relligers my Second Hat and I find me a new Third who's not so picky. "
"And what happens to me?"
He shrugged. "Chief rating, I guess. "
"And do I stay here, or not?"
Oh, she was pushing! Narrow-eyed, he said, "That's up to you. For now. "
He watched her absorb what he said. She made a sort of smile. "I guess I can put up with the tattoo. "
"Good. " He came to his feet. "I have to check some things. "
He'd waited to go up to Control because he wanted to match with Junior Lee Beauregards stint down in Drive. He was a little ahead of the Chief Engineers sked, just long enough to take one more good look at the rather discouraging Drive data. He called down for Junior Lee to call back when he came in, and not long after, that intercom channel sounded. "Beauregard here, cap'n. "
"Right. Tregare here. Chief, I've been punching figures out of Tinhead, but I want you to tell me what they mean. "
Junior Lee cleared his throat. "Well, 'em numbers, I know 'em good. Can't talk in 'em much, though. What y'all need?"
And that was the problem; Bran wasn't sure what he did need. All right, go in with what they both knew, and work from there. "Chief, I stretched the exciter and Nielson Cube both, chasing the Peron. Efficiencies are down, on both units, and once the drop starts it keeps dropping. "
"Glad you know that, cap'n, same as I do. "
"But I don't know how fast either unit loses efficiency. What the curve is. I tried a negative exponential but it wouldn't hold. So—"
The engineer cut in. "That ain't it. It's—lookyere, sir—what we do is, I punch you up 'em numbers to read. Better'n any try talkin' 'em things. "
Hell, yes. If Junior Lee could "talk" with Tinhead's keyboard and readout, there was no need to put this stuff into words. Bran watched as the numbers began to emerge. On another input-output circuit he ran trial calculations, trying to find a curve that would match. And finally he had one, or almost. Starting with normal top Drive boost he found that once the effects of his abuse of those units began, the dropoff curve was a reciprocal log function. He told Beauregard as much. "Varies according to how close we push max, and there's a couple of constants I'm rough-guessing for now, but that's about it. "
Silent for a time, Junior Lee said, "Put some numbers in that?" So Tregare did, and Beauregard's next answer was, "Then cap'n, either we coast us a whole bunch, or with the speed we got now, we don't turn course hardly at all. "
"I agree, " said Tregare. "When I work out which it is, I'll let you know. " Already he was running star charts on his nearest aux screen. "And thanks, Chief. "
He returned to quarters nearly an hour later than he'd said he would, and found Leanne, wearing a light robe, dozing curled up on her left side.
The clink of ice cubes, when he made a drink for himself, woke her; she sat up, and he saw the small bandage on her left cheek.
He smiled. "Been busy, have you? I appreciate that. "
"Yes. Temporary or not, though, the process still hurts and draws blood. " She leaned forward. "So will the removal, if ever. Ghormley told me how the temporary part works. It's simply that the Underground developed dyes that can be neutralized by tattooing again, with a special fluid. " She stood, and came to him. "Bran? What took you so long, up in Control?"
"Trying to figure where we go next. " He told her of the Drive problems. "We need to get someplace where repairs can be made, and getting there we have to nurse what we got. "
"Have you decided? Our destination, I mean. "
"Not yet. It takes figuring, maybe even talking. " He had his hands to either side of her waist. "Before I went upship you had a mad-on at me. You still do?"
"No. I thought it over. For UET an officer does have to look the part. " She leaned up to him, and they kissed.
"Fine. I'll go sluice off a little sweat, and be right with you. "
The trouble with the weakening Drive was that Tregare had to guess right the first time, what to do; a wrong guess meant drifting to eventual starvation. He'd already ruled out their original goal, Target Place. Chasing the Peron had put Inconnu far off course from that world; he could make the turn, or the decel and landing, but not both.
Terranova was a possibility, but he'd have to change course
"immediately if not sooner" and even then it'd be close. They'd need to cut Drive and coast most of the way, until time for a slower, more extended period of decel than usual.
That's where the Long View came in, the time-dilation that came with high vee: Einstein was long dead, but his ideas still governed ships that chased light. The difference between running point-nine of c and point-nine-nine didn't make all that much difference by planets' time, but by ships' clocks it made a lot. With a healthy Drive, Terranova was maybe eight ship's months distant. With his Drive, Tregare was looking at more like two years. He wasn't sure his supplies would hold out that long.
Up in Control, when he thought he had it figured, he called council, presiding over his three Hats and with Junior Lee sitting in. He gave them the figures: Drive efficiency dropping on a reciprocal log curve "... active time, that is, and any time we run at less than max, helps stretch our reserve out. " Requirements for a course change to point at Terranova. "Doesn't leave much leeway on the decel end, but maybe enough. " He cleared his throat. "That's not the problem, though, " and he gave them the time-stretch part. "We might make it, we might not. "
"Choice?" That was Gonnelson, and Tregare caught his meaning.
"There is one. yes. " He flashed the star chart on the aux screen. "I'm skipping one other UET colony and two Hidden Worlds we might reach, because none of them have Drive repair facilities the last I heard. Or likely to develop any such thing by the time we could reach those places. "
"Some idee, though, " said Junior Lee Beauregard, "you got up your sleeve. Ain't that so, skipper?"
Tregare nodded. "Sort of, Chief. " With a light-wands dot of brilliance he traced a path across the screens chart. "The course we're on, we came to by chasing the Peron. It was going to Stronghold. Of all our possibilities, that's the most distant. But in ship's time, it's the place we could reach the quickest. "
He watched their individual reactions to the idea. Stronghold: UETs fortress outpost, set up to guard against the alien Shrakken, lest those creatures come to avenge UET's murder of a Shrakken crew and taking of its ship. Well, that was the rationale Tregare had heard for Strongholds existence.
Frei Relliger half stood, then sat again to speak. "I don't— sir, a Hidden World would be best, or even a UET colony. But Stronghold—it's a UET military outpost. What chance would we have there? How could we get away with it?"
It was about time, Tregare thought, that somebody made that point. Because it needed answering, and the answer seemed to be his own job. Carefully he kept a straight face as he said, "For one thing, we lie a lot. I grant you, Relliger, it'll take some study. "
Gonnelson nodded. "Stronghold. "
5. Stronghold
The long haul into Stronghold, with Junior Lee pampering the touchy Nielson Cube and Drive exciter, gave Tregare time to figure and rig the ship's cover story. Working from the data from Kickem Bernardez on UETs list of ships scheduled for Stronghold over the years, he picked a name. In council with his officers, Control and Engineering both, he said, "From here in, we're the Alexander the Great. "
So the ship's talker-beacon gained an Alexander program. Outside on the hull, the insigne was changed—not totally, but the name was overlaid and the symbols altered. Leanne Prestor designed the necessary decals, and Hain Deverel went outside in a standard suit to place the polarized-electret plastic overlays, which would withstand plowing air on landing. Floating out on a lifeline, Deverel relayed views of the new insigne to an aux screen in Control; Tregare said, "Yeah, good job, Hain. Come on in—I owe you a drink. "
So the ship's outside would bear UETs scrutiny. The inside was more difficult. Hiding the ship's true log under a couple of levels of code-groups was no problem. Working up a fictitious log to fool UET's command at Stronghold—well, for a time there, Tregare missed a lot of sleep.
There was no use trying to begin the Alexander's history at any real point of truth. But nothing wrong with working in a few truths concerning ships and persons; the trick would be to come up with items that UETs own records might confirm, while keeping the log free of entries subject to disproof. What made the job possible at all was that customarily ships gave only taped summaries at their ports of call. And personnel records in those summaries began with the date a person joined the ship plus citing the previous duty station. For ratings and unrated crew only the bare bones were required— UET was mostly interested in officers.
So Tregare began by having the Alexander detached, long before lift-off, from its Stronghold-bound fleet, which was due to arrive a year or two after Tregare would with luck be there and gone again. For its "original" officers he threw in names he knew UET couldn't check on—some real, some phony.
He checked the timing and decided that this hop should be the Alexander's third. All relatively short ones, and he had to run t/to through several times to make it come out right. He put himself aboard for the second one, as First Officer off the Hoover, at Terranova. The next fictitious stop, at Johnsons Walk, logged Cleet Farnsworth off the ship to a new command, the Pizarro, with Tregare succeeding to the captaincy. Then he had to juggle his other officers' records, both to fit the dates and to seem credible.
When he thought he had it right, he called council again, ran the summary and called for criticisms. Except for a few details, most of his work drew approval. Hain Deverel chuckled once. "A nice touch, captain, having that Utie turncoat Farnsworth promoted. Wherever the bastard is, I hope his soul appreciates your charity. "
Tregare grinned back as Leanne said, "The summary's fine, Bran—at least I think it is. But what if someone coming aboard wants to snoop the full log. And finds there isn't one?"
"That's right, " said Bran. "I guess I haven't told anybody about that part yet. So now I will, because we'll need to get into practice first. "
Approaching Stronghold, Tregare studied the data Bernardez had captured and passed on to him, and learned the rigamarole required before landing at the fortress outpost. Of course he had it in mind to ring a few changes.
A little less than three days out, the hail from groundside began to come clear. Frei Relliger had the watch, and per orders he called Tregare. "You'll want me to hold off answering, I expect?"
"Right. The way we're coming in, there's enough stellar wind that it's feasible we couldn't read them yet. Tape everything, though, and monitor while you're doing it. If there's anything you think I need to hear, tell me right away. " The intercom went silent as Tregare reflected that the young man off the Peron was really a lucky acquisition.
Tregare got up from bed. He hadn't been asleep, just waking and dozing comfortably, almost ready to rise but lazily delaying the act. Now, though, he might as well start his ships-time day.
