Chapter 18 Object Unknown
It was late in the fourth watch, seven days out of Calissant. Rafe was pondering an intricate holographic display that rose from the surface of my desk. I'd my butt attached to one of the chairs on the non-captain side of the desk just watching him ponder the glowing web of lines. It was far too complex for me to follow.
'A shipboard coup?'
Rafe looked up and I glanced back. Tenry was lounging against the door frame with an easy smile, looking like a wharf rat king.
'I'd be the last to know,' I admitted. 'But Rafe assures me he's fishing for the true log.'
'Without much success,' he admitted looking through the display.
The official log of the Lost Star, under all her various names and owners, goes back more than a millennium. It's a comprehensive list of passages, major damages and repairs. The log is supposed to be neither alterable or erasable. But if the yarns of the Four Shipmates have any truth in them, the current log is a work of fiction for at least a hundred years prior to the ship's appearance in the Azminn system.
'I believe I've located a black hole in the ship's data system,' said Rafe, adding, 'A dark node where data can be buried so deep in the system that it's all but undiscoverable and unrecoverable without a very specific series of inquiries, likely known only to the creator of the black hole.'
'Or someone like you,' suggested Tenry.
Rafe grinned and wiggled his hand. 'Maybe... I've a reputation to uphold. But even if I've found the location, it will take some tricky fishing to wiggle anything out of it and, alas, I'm getting old and clumsy.'
'Just out of curiosity, what makes you think Miccall hid the real log? And how do you explain the current log?' asked Tenry.
'Tenny my lad, there are places in the deep drifts where one can buy a convincing ship's log to patch over a black hole. The false log is well done, but hardly original,' said Rafe, dissolving the display and settling back in the chair. 'But, you're just tweaking my beard. You know that as well as I do. It was your business, back in the days when you were a respectable Patrol lad, not a tramp spaceer, to sniff out just such deceptions.'
'Oh, it may've been, once, a long time ago,' Tenry acknowledged with a grin. He switched his gaze to me. 'Why do you have Rafe fishing for the real log?'
'I'm a cautious fellow,' I began slowly, trying to decide how to explain my interest. 'As captain of this packet, I think it'd be wise to see if there's any truth in the tales they told. Because if there is, then this packet may have a history that could rear up and bite us, even now. Especially since we're slated to go out of system. Knowing what this ship was involved in might prove very helpful in avoiding future trouble. I'd be foolish not to see what can be dug up before something nasty out of the Four Shipmates' past turns up.'
He gave me a skeptical smile.
'Oh, I admit I'm curious as well, but it's more than curiosity, it's caution.'
'You've a point,' allowed Tenry, adding, 'I'm curious too, though I'd be surprised if Rafe finds anything. They knew how to keep secrets. Still, it wouldn't hurt to look, if only to keep Rafe out of mischief. For a while.'
'Looks like a long while. But the secrets are in the system somewhere. Any professional advice to share?' asked Rafe.
Tenry shrugged himself off the door frame and said, 'I'm certain I haven't any professional secrets you don't know,' adding in a lower voice as he stepped over to the desk. 'However, seeing that you're determined to dig up their past, I might as well do my part, find the black hole and I'll help you bait the hook.'
I stared at him. 'You can?'
Rafe just smiled. He likely knew something. He likely knows everything.
Tenry nodded. 'But I need your promise to keep what I know between the three of us,' he paused. 'Part of my job with the Mins was to protect them. I failed. I don't intend to fail again with their daughter. Young Min is already suspicious about the crash and I don't want to encourage her to look deeper. I don't want her going after her parents' killers. Seeing that the Four Shipmates couldn't defeat them, they'd likely finish the job of killing her if she found them. The more I know about those days the better I can keep her safe, but the more she knows, the more likely she'll get herself killed. You see where I'm coming from.'
Indeed. And I'd need to chart a very careful course or I'd betray someone's (or everyone's) confidence. I believed, however, that I was bound to keep the assassination attempt secret, not her intentions.
'I have to tell you, Ten, from what she's said to me, she clearly intends to find out who killed her parents and why, despite Captain Vinden's strong hints to stay hidden on Kimsai. She didn't do that. And if she's not taking Uncle Hawk's advice, I don't think we're likely to change her mind.
'Rafe, here, is working at my request, but I've no doubt she'll have the same idea once on board. This ship is hers and she's my owner. I'm not about to start my career as captain by lying to my owner. I've given this considerable thought and I think it's best to help her find those people, in the safest, most prudent manner possible, trusting that once she sees what she's up against she'll come to the same conclusion the Four Shipmates did and disappear into the 900 billion or become an adept on Kimsai.'
Tenry gave me a hard look. 'Do you really think it's wise?'
'I'd not be aboard if I didn't trust her judgment,' I replied. 'The thing is, if we don't guide her, she'll do it on her own. I'm certain of that. Helping is not an ideal choice, but the alternative is worse.'
He considered that. His usual carefree, youthful appearance was noticeably absent. Rafe watched us. 'You seem to know a great deal about what she's thinking,' he said after a pause.
A dangerously leading statement. A careful, and not necessarily completely truthful reply was necessary. 'No, I don't. I do know just enough to realize any objection I raise will do nothing to stop her from doing what she wants. Still, we've a living to make tramping, even if the logs reveal the center of the mystery, we'd likely be years of tramping away from it. The Shipmates ran for decades. Hopefully time will temper any wild ideas Min may harbor.'
'Besides, forewarned is forearmed,' said Rafe, watching us. 'But there's no point in raising phantoms at this point. Fishing anything out of the black hole will be iffy unless you actually have the key. In any event, I'll keep your contribution secret, it'll only enhance my reputation.'
'I'll keep your confidence as well. I just wanted you to be aware of how your contributions are likely going to be used. There's no obligation to help, Ten.'
Tenry stared into space thinking and shrugged. 'I don't like it, but I don't see any other course. I know her too well.'
He pulled up another of the chairs and we gathered around the desk. 'Here's the heads of what I know. Dates and places I can dig out later. I first met the tramp skipper you know as Captain Miccall, some sixty-five, seventy years ago. He was going by the name of Dunsany Shard back then and the ship's name was the Desperate Lark out of Balbonte's Rock in the Alantzium Drifts. I remember that clear enough. The other Shipmates all wore different names too. In fact, every time I crossed orbits with them over the next twenty years, they were sailing under different names,' he paused and laughed, 'I think that's why they were always called each other by their titles, Owner, Captain, Pilot, Purser – they'd have had a bloody Neb of a time keeping their names straight otherwise.
'As you know, I spent most of my Patrol career in small patrol boats – sometimes aboard Patrol Cruisers, mostly, however, in planetary orbit – inspecting ships with black marks for contraband and babysitting Trade Control officials while on board to register the cargo of drifteer ships arriving in Unity ports. For the last century, this ship often fell into both categories. She must've crossed my action desk under one guise or another more than a dozen times over those years.
'The Patrol doesn't want personnel in my old slot to get too cozy with the traffic of any one port for very long, if you get my drift, so I was transferred to a new posting once a year and moved f
rom system to system. As footloose as I was, I still ran into them every couple of years no matter where I was posted. And, as I said, always with different names and stories, not that it mattered...
'A ship's hard to disguise once you've seen it enough times. Dimensions and build stay the same and scars and dents become familiar markers since they're usually too expensive to erase. The Patrol keeps a detailed record of our black mark ships. Every ship arriving in port is run through our data base of suspected ships, names and paint don't fool the Patrol...'
I glanced at Rafe, but he kept his face completely placid. It probably wasn't news to him, and with Tenry being Patrol Reserve, it probably wasn't a good time to suggest that we should peek into those Patrol records if all else failed.
'Just as an aside, you shouldn't be surprised if we're searched frequently once we leave Azminn, and especially coming out of the drifts. Those records are still current in Patrol offices. However, if the Shipmates ran contraband, they were skilled enough not to get caught, so they were never tagged red. Even so, I always made it a point to inspect them whenever they showed up in my orbit,' he laughed. 'Just to keep them on their toes...
'I'd take my inspection crew out and turn them loose to give the ship our A1 inspection, while the Shipmates and I sat around yarning in their eclectic mix of truth and lies. It was always a pleasant time. They never seemed to sweat it.'
'How'd you first get to know them? Was it just through inspecting them so often?'
'No, the first time was a lot hotter than a contraband inspection... I was a young officer, five years into my hitch... I was on a patrol in the Thousand Moons of Shadownia, in the Alantzia system... But, well that's a long yarn for another time...'
Alantzia. That figures.
'Anyway, I recorded all those meeting in my private records along with what names everyone was wearing at the time and perhaps some other fine details that might help you hook some data out of that black hole, if it exists and the data is there...'
'Great, it's all those little details that I can tie together, crew names, cargoes with precise Unity dates and associated ports or planets which I can use to bait my hook. Once I wiggle some data out, I can usually tease the rest out as well, given time. It's getting that first strand teased out that's so iffy.' Looking up Rafe added, ' Yes, my dear?'
'Rafe, Ten, Captain?' said Molaye, from the doorway.
'Yes, Molaye?' I asked, hoping I didn't look guilty. Most likely I looked startled – seeing her gave me a little jolt of concern. She and Lili had the watch. Though the bridge was only a few steps away, she'd not come around to just pass the time of watch.
'Sorry to interrupt your confab, but we're reading an object approximately five hours out and about four thousand kilometers off our course. No laser beacon. No radio reading either, of course. Our first read gives us an object in excess of four kilometers in size but there's no mention of it in the charts. We thought it best not to wait too long to inform you.'
'Right. Exactly. Luckily we have our systems' mate right here,' I replied, nodding towards Rafe.
Rafe already had the radar scan up on the desktop and on one of the view-panels. It showed what appeared to be a slightly brighter fuzzy object against a glowing background of Azminn-lit gas and dust. It had to be big and bright to be visible at this range.
'Notice the occasional spark near it,' added Molaye.
Damn. We were sailing half blinded by the dust and gas of the Nebula. By the standard of the Nebula, we were in clear space, only in the planetary orbital path is there less dust and gas. Yet even so, we were plowing fast enough through the dust and gas to create a shell of ionized gas and charged particles around the ship, severely limiting the range of our radio, conventional radar and other sensors. The glare from Azminn made the thin veil of dust and gas bright enough to make the laser radar less than optimal as well. We were relying on the charts rather than our sensors at this point, and if the charts are wrong or incomplete, well, damn.
The object was no danger itself. But if it proved to be a small asteroid, a likely prospect, given its size, it might well be associated with a swarm of smaller rocks, undetectable at this range. Depending on how that swarm lay in regards to our course and how extensive it was, we might not have time to alter our course to avoid it if we waited until they were detectable. Space, even in a meteor swarm is mostly empty, so we'd likely pass through untouched. However, with the right angle, even a half-meter sized meteor could penetrate one of the hatches and vaporize in the hold inflicting hundreds of casualties to our passengers. Highly unlikely, but not unlikely enough to ignore.
I watched the screen as Rafe fiddled with the radar controls for a bit. He couldn't make it go away. It wasn't a phantom reading.
'Interesting. Willy my lad, the master is going to have to retire to the main console to get a better read on this,' he said, pushing himself to his feet with a sigh.
I turned to Molaye still in the doorway. 'Call Kie to the bridge, Rafe always appreciates an audience to oh and ah and tell him how clever he is, plus Kie should be able to pick up a new trick or two.'
Molaye nodded and as Rafe followed her out the door, he paused and said, 'With just the laser radar, this may take some time to pin down.' He gave me a significant look.
I sighed, but I'd already realized that. I swung around the desk and consulted the duty roster and tapped the com link for Lilm in engineering.
'What's up, Captain?' answered Lilm.
'We appear to have a large uncharted object with a possible meteor field along our course...'
'This close to Azminn?'
'Aye and Rafe hasn't been able to make it go away. I'm going to run ahead and do a little scouting,' I said. 'Would you please cycle the gig up and see that it's fully provisioned.'
'Can't argue with Rafe. I'll have the gig ready inside of ten,' said Lilm.
'I'd like to volunteer for the job, Skipper,' said Tenry as I broke connections.
'Thanks Ten, but it's just a quick survey. I'll do it alone. It gives me a fine excuse to pilot a boat like it should be flown, wide open. Every time I've tried in the past, the skipper or mate came down on me with a hundred gees.'
'You've been the skipper for six months...'
'True, but habits pounded in at a hundred gees, and reinforced over fifteen years are hard to break,' I replied defensively.
'You should still have someone else on board,' insisted Tenry 'I'll tag along.'
'It's just a run up the course...'
'Not to get too out of line, Skipper, but a two-person crew is the standard minimum. It offers a much greater margin of safety if something exciting happens, two heads and four hands make a big difference. Plus, I'm expendable.'
I sighed. 'Ten, trust me, being expendable is not a good selling point. You might want to stress your decades of Patrol service in small boats investigating dicey things instead.'
'Same difference, Skipper,' he replied cheerfully. 'I'll get my gear. We should suit up before going aboard. It's a lot easier doing it here rather than trying to do it in a small boat – in a hurry.'
I wasn't going to win. No point being stubborn. He's the expert and my policy is to defer to experts, 'Right. Suit locker in ten minutes. I need to stop in the bridge and check with Rafe.'
Tenry gave me a casual salute and headed out. I took a calming breath and followed him out, rounding the corner to the bridge.
It was near the change of the watch so Vyn and Riv, the next watch, were on the bridge. All were gathered around Rafe and Kie at the sensor station against the aft bulkhead. They made room for me. Rafe had begun to isolate the image, building a much clearer image by overlaying timed stills. It became apparent that the object was almost round and surrounded by other large objects, the smallest several times the size of the Lost Star.
'Have a clue?' I asked as the image slowly grew slightly more detailed.
He shrugged. 'Well Willy, it's still too far to tease out the fine details. It's bright,
it's likely smooth ice or metal, more likely metallic. Seems to be slowly tumbling. I'd say it's approximately 5000 meters by 4000 meters, with several associated satellites, 200 to 300 meters in length, but they appear to have such an erratic movement that I can't be sure what I'm actually seeing. I'll keep refining the image and determine its relative course, but that will likely take an hour or more.'
'Any sign of an associated meteor stream?'
'Still too far out and too much scattered light to pick out objects much smaller than 100 meters.'
'That's what I expected. Lilm's cycling up the gig. Ten and I will run ahead and give you a better look.'
'Don't you have a drone you can send ahead?' asked Vyn beside me.
'Yes, I believe it's buried behind the flier and surface skimmer in no. 4 hold. Never had any use for it on our regular run. Remind me to have it turned out and refurbished during the long voyage. It'll no doubt come in handy in the drifts.'
'Well, I suppose Ten's the next best thing to a drone,' she said with a wry smile.
'He convinced me he's the ticket for this mission. Didn't give me much of a choice,' I replied, adding, 'Vyn, you're in charge of this packet until I return. Alert Miclae to the situation. She should be included in all our discussions.'