Chapter 10

"It's what, only five minutes to the hospital from there?" asked the Chief Constable.

"Two; more like two minutes" DCS Oscar corrected his superior.

"And where were they for the other twenty five minutes?" the Public Prosecutor demanded.

"I don't know; ask the Windsors" DCS Oscar replied.

"I've tried and I can't get within fifty metres of them for bloodsucking defence lawyers" was the riposte.

"Why are you bothering anyway?" asked the Chief Constable reasonably "we can't prosecute them — we'd get laughed out of court. The media got that Traffic Control vid on the networks before we even knew it existed."

DCS Oscar restarted the vid and gave a running commentary,

"Here we see Ms Windsor cutting backwards and forwards across that street and it's very obvious even without the testimony of the eyewitnesses that those five were after her. We know there is a dead 'un behind them and by the way the 'post mortem' says he died as a result of the shuttle impact. Here you see Ms Windsor speed up and go past her son who alights from the shuttle truck and starts after his mother; these two grab him and you will miss it if you blink and their skulls are smashed. The third one runs into him and he reacts — after all, the clown had just been attacking his mother. Go back a bit a now look at the three going for Ms Windsor — she hesitates, her son is behind her being attacked and watch now, two of the men grab her, huddle and then reel back staggering ... falling ... convulsing and mother and son depart with survivor."

"What in Diety's name did she use on them" screeched the Prosecutor.

"Nail polish" said the Chief Constable.

"Nail polish? repeated the Prosecutor incredulously.

"Nail polish;" reiterated the Chief Constable "the back room boys did a quick and dirty analysis and that's what they are saying. They wont go official until the definitives are done but they are betting on nail polish."

"Would you expand on that?" the Prosecutor demanded sourly.

"Microscopic examination of the wounds and scrapings from the scratches of the three corpses reveal only nail polish — an exotic and expensive brand, I admit, but non toxic. And if that stuff is toxic we should have lost half of high society's females;" DCS Oscar expanded, "those six had records so long, it gave me a headache to have to read them. They attack a lone woman who calls on her spacer son for help. He is attacked three to one and he takes them out; it appears he makes a habit of forcefully defending himself..."

In response to the Chief Constable's raised eyebrows, Bill Oscar diverged for an explanation,

"Bill Sorensen wrote me; a 'Royal' trained by 'Mad Dog' Logan personally (the Chief Constable winced), Gunner Windsor and daughter Ivy were the object of a PE lesson given by nine instructors. The 'Royal' killed two and Windsor and Ivy accounted for one each, killed them that is and then the other five got put into hospital. That PE section is now shut down for lack of instructors. The 'Royal' called for backup and the cavalry, in the form of 'Mad Dog' himself and an armoured troop of PGS, arrived in an assault shuttle just as the dust was settling and whisked the 'Royal' away — you might say the lad had friends in very high places so you aren't going to be able to hang "unreasonable force" on him."

The Prosecutor looked from one copper to the other and received bland looks in return; he threw his hands up in resignation and as he was going out the door,

"I'll go back to my office and chase repeat traffic offenders — it's more rewarding."

"So, what was the motive?" asked the Chief Constable.

"Kidnapping, white slavery, off system brothel is my guess" DCS Oscar informed him.

"In the CBD?"

"Yeh, that is was or whatever their modus operandi" Oscar shrugged "the females in the Stews are not as well nourished, they are surrounded by protective males who are not averse to a bit of bloodletting particularly in defence of one of their own whereas out in the CBD the female is usually on her own and of better physical quality."

"Suits, Bill. Get it written up and handed off to the Prosecutor" the Chief Constable nodded his dismissal.

Julie et al were quite happy to let the Constabulary think it had been a random attack but their close questioning of the survivor — and it's amazing what a willing informant can tell particularly when broken bone ends are being rubbed together — led the family to believe that an enquiry had been made from Bhute following the publicity surrounding a massacre involving a 'Royal' reaching across the local galaxy.

...

Julie formalised the thoughts which had been so rudely interrupted by the attack. Firstly, Morg's PDA was replaced by a similar model wth the information backed up onto yet another PDA. Great Aunt Gabrielle was let loose on the files etcetera on the original and in the fullness of time, the accounts and information were accessed. Secondly, Julie purchased the Sloan Square mansion accepting Teddy's proviso that his suite remain for his and his family's use when they visited Gorgipest. Once the deeds were in Julie's hands, certain strange people moved about the building, making alterations and additions according to a master plan existing in Julie's brain; a mansion became a defensible castle and was secured by rostered family which now included Gabrielle Comminantes.

...

Morg put together his electronic tuneable antenna circuits and positioned them in the breeches of the line throwers. He modified the power input to the first line thrower to accept the full output from a yacht's power plant taking it for granted that only manoeuvring power would be needed in the parking spot in the Polar Marina. The second line thrower was modified to accept a capacitor powered by photovoltaic / battery generated output with which the house had been originally fitted. He set the second thrower in the basement, attached a counter to the apparatus and allowed it to continuously fire (depending upon available power) into the ground on the other side of the basement wall; this was a test in place for the circuit's endurance in number of discharge cycles.

Julie sent a factor from Level, Straight and Upright, and Square Trustees to successfully bid for the (very classy indeed) space racing yacht and Bill Oscar organised a slot in the Marina.

Morg programmed a stand alone 'puter to automatically encode a key board's input into Morse Code and to decode received signals and display same onto a screen. The output from the keyboard was retained until the 'enter' and then transmitted as a burst. The 'puter was fitted into the yacht's control station where it did not look out of place; Morg got into his skinny and fitted the line thrower to the hull of the yacht where it did look somewhat out of place but the eccentrics and playboys who built these toys had been known to have all sorts of weird and wonderful attachments hanging off the hulls so nobody asked any questions. It took several days for Morg to finally give up on the idea of hard wiring the connection and he finally settled for a combined power / communication leash from the thrower to a hull plug connection. This would enable Morg to remain inside the hull and unobserved. With the connivance of DCS Oscar, Morg was able to work on the yacht in the Constabulary Yard thus solving the need for a local parking bay.

Julie's children began to feel their mother no longer loved them because in addition to the work the girls were doing at LUSTrustees and Morg was putting into the project, she required them to put in two hours a day, every day, at the Club's gym toughening up and undergoing instruction in unarmed combat. From within the depths of the Stews, Julie had found an instructor in those arcane skills from the same school as the "Monteczuma" of legend. The instructor was interested in what Morg had learned from TJ and she looked forward to making his acquaintance. Morg mentally wished TJ and her well, recollecting the bruises inflicted upon his body by TJ and having to suffer similarly again. Despite their complaints the girls took to it as if born to it — as indeed they were. Morg had in the past and still did rely to a certain extent upon his sheer size; the girls on the other hand were frighteningly fast and Dell who most followed Julie's petite figure was blindingly so — Morg mentally noted not to get on the wrong side of his sisters at any time in the future unless he could get off planet before they caught up with him. He also noted how the sisters now seemed to be a unit in their own right which remained loosely attached to Julie.

Bill Oscar wangled some leave from the Academy to join Morg as his 'crew'. Morg has sailed, metaphorically speaking, through the licensing exams for yachts and whilst he was restricted to planetary space that was all he wanted — at this point anyway. A taxi shuttle took Morg, Bill Oscar(in Constabulary issued skinny which drew a stare or two from some in the Yard) and supplies for a week to the Yard. They loaded up the yacht, sealed the cabin and made their way out into n space for the Polar Marina. Their parking slot was one of the least popular being out on the rim of the Marina; but that suited Morg perfectly as there was unobstructed line of sight to Mountserrat - if your telescope was powerful enough.

Morg did an EVA in his skinny using an umbilical line and plugged the line thrower to the power plant; he then focussed on the weeks' old transmissions from Mountserrat to point the yacht as close as possible to the Mountserrat line. They had almost a day's wait for the test and Morg spent that relaxing looking out to the black of deep space with its scattering of the silvery pinpoints of distant stars. The other view was of uninteresting unremitting sunlit planet.

At the four hour mark, Morg began the start up sequence of the yacht power plant, progressing onto the check list for the line thrower and it's augmented power supply. At the mark minus five minutes, Morg warmed up the circuit and at one minute commenced the CQ transmission. Within seconds, the receiver received the CQ signal from Mountserrat. Bill Oscar commented

"Presuming they started at the same instant as you, transmission time has been cut from weeks to seconds."

Morg nodded absently as he typed "IU" followed by the Marina's weather information and time coded the transmission on entering. As he was making his transmission, the Mountserrat signal came in and scrolled onto the screen. He then made a signal regarding Sarnt Oscar's request to be a shareholder. The two stations rapidly swung into the pattern of transmission and reception establishing a real time link. Agreement on Oscar's request came down.

TJ proposed leaving the yachts in the Marinas and setting up a rebroadcast from the yachts' 'puters to planet based PDA. The stations shut down with arrangements to reopen in a day to enable the further development. Bravo tango closed the link.

Bill Oscar had been hovering behind Morg (literally) and had read the messages as they had come in. He noted the times on the signals and was somewhat shaken by the knowledge (apart from history being made) that real time coms across the galaxy was now a fact; restricted by availability of stations but available.

Morg sat pondering for hours deep in thought, even eating Oscar's cooking without comment as his neurones exercised on the desires of their owner.

Bill Oscar had a purely selfish thought which he nutured tenderly and then presented to Morg, developing the idea further as he spoke,

"Morg, you are away with the Navy in three, four weeks time. This link has got to remain even if only as a demonstration exercise. I can get the yacht moved close to the office here for security and you can put in security locks etcetera. I could come up every so often — talk to Bill Sorenson or something; you'll have to teach me how to set it up; leave the instructions on the 'puter or better still put them on my PDA. Yes, that way no one is likely to connect the PDA instructions and this 'puter..."

"Sarnt Oscar, why am I thinking dark and suspicious thoughts about you? I never put you as a schemer. Seriously though, what TJ has suggested would have the link full time on, say, your PDA; and that does have some difficulties, not least leaving the yacht with a powered up plant. Here, let me set out the details on the 'puter..."

Bill Oscar followed Morg through his list and both thought about the problems. Oscar pondered,

"Morg, you are making too much of it. There is commercially available a remote activation mechanism for building emergency power plants. I presume the receiver is not the thing which needs the power? Good. Leave the receiver on ... solar powered standby and up here that is uninterrupted, a PDA coded signal received from local or distant brings the yacht's power plant on line. Let it warm up. Tune to the distant station as you did originally because planetary movement will put them out of alignment..."