Chapter 50

The next years were busy for "Sundowner" as she chartered for a Training Ship for Great Lakes Spacing Academy for Space Guard trainees while their new TS was being built. A major engine failure had led to the premature decommissioning of their vessel and the slips had only just been vacated for the planned replacement.

"Sundowner's" bridge piloting seats were removed and the bridge console reconfigured to a standard bridge. The Sundowners removed themselves to E deck as the trainees had been returned to Gorgipest before the Space Guard charter was negotiated. Minor refitting was required to remove the House equipment and transfer it to E deck. The billets were removed from the clean room and disguised on E by throwing bedding over them in the master cabin — no Sundowner actually slept on the things

They Sundowners were employed as mentors to the SG cadets allowing an eye to be kept on their assets and of course to explain the use and function of the rather strange power pods and the unusual weapon systems. The Dune modification to the stealth / impellor shield and the FTL active probe just somehow slipped everybody's memory.

The combination of main engine equipment enabled a broader exposure to power plants for the cadets — there had been a small increase in the number of vessels using the Adama power plant operating out of Sol.

To steer well clear of trouble the voyages of three months duration were undertaken to the north of Sol toward Galactic Centre. This did present some navigational problems as the Galactic Disc thinned down to the Orion-Sagittarius gap and most of the time was spent in hyper space in the disc halo but it made for numerous translations. Opportunities were taken to update the star maps of the disc and halo.

...

TJ, Morg and the Daughters had not gone on the charter but made it a point to return to "Sundowner" for the (frequent) sojourns between the voyages. TJ usually resided at his parents' home in Newark while the Windsors based themselves in an apartment in New York itself. Exchange visits were almost weekly and TJ was having difficulty in not thumping Simmo frequently as the little blighter incessantly nagged his father to let him fly the air car. TJ blamed his mother for (a.) teaching the kid to nag and (b.) telling the kid that his father would teach him to pilot when 'he got bigger'; needless to say the schemer had a measuring stand in his room and assiduously reported every increment in height. Simmo also had the memory of the mythical 'lephant who never forgot. Berryl just went neutral faced whenever TJ complained and explained that payback gave one such a warm fuzzy feeling. TJ got no support from his father who simply expressed joy at having missed that part of TJ.

Apart from making like a father from time to time, TJ busied himself with his FTL network gathering intelligence about the region.

His take was that the USN was regaining tenuous control over the Frontier Force and that the move towards Mountserrat as protector was strengthening in face of declining USW interference. Solarian Foreign Office was fighting the attempts to bring USN under unified command claiming that direct local Foreign Office control of the Frontier Force was essential to reinforce the diplomatic efforts at continuing Solarian hegemony in the Galaxy. This theory was sound considering the time distance involved, it was just the practical application of that force seemed to reflect personal or political agendas more than a unified foreign planetary policy.

TJ's Old Earth correspondents (in high and low places) reported the struggle and indicated most resistance in Foreign Office was generated by Civil Servants with ties to Chencon and Midamcon. Chencon's rationale was probably either living space or primary produce; Midamcon's was purely based on loot.

Straws from Bill Hitchin and correspondents from the Solarian colonies of Monica and Blair that the local puppet governments of those star systems were subsidising unrest in the Cluster and where the Solarian interests weren't, Sema was attempting to fill the gaps left by the USW in the Cluster.

There were still isolated reports of muties being kidnapped and one failed attempt on Zanzibar had been directly traced back to Sema. There had been suggestions that Bhute had been involved in the attempt on Julie but TJ was unconvinced of anybody's involvement — probably 'white slavers'. Looking over the spread of these known attacks, TJ was left with a puzzle. An assumption could be made that Sema was behind them but a rationale was missing and the genetic slavers were nothing if not rational in their conduct.

TJ spent a considerable time ferreting out information about the origins of the genetic slave trade and found it stemmed from the efforts of rogue genetic engineers.

Genomes had been manipulated for as long as selective breeding had been practiced and that was long before Gregor Mendel first postulated their presence but is was not until nearly a century post Mendel that more serious attempts were made to artificially interfere with genetic expression; at first with a view to remedy genetically inherited diseases and later to improve food production. It was a steady inexorable progression from that basis to the designing of genetic expression on demand. As is so often the case in human history it was a matter of "it seemed like a good idea at the time".

The genetic records of the very first of the muties had been lost before the realisation of their strategic importance and of the very last because the chaos of the Supersoldiers' Wars had led to the loss and probable destruction. The earliest genetic records had been lost on Old Earth but the genes still existed in the galaxy in extant families; the McKinnons and the other survivors still on Old Earth carried the last group and middle group experiments. The families of the Amarantis, Gantrys, Hitchins, Strathlawns, Windsors, and Winsors were examples of which TJ had knowledge in the galaxy who had "escaped" prior to the prescriptions. (The McCocks had not in that context come into TJ's purview.) Other planets had more sporadic groups who were most often unaware of their genome.

Having to make assessments regarding muties' value to a slaver had made him look just a little bit closer at the human genome. "Mutie" was a pejorative term derived from the proper description of engineered genetic mutation with the implication that the mutation was fully expressed (many survivable mutations, natural or engineered, did not express / manifest themselves whilst not in any way being recessive genetic patterns).

The Tulips represented the general flow of the mutations because the nature of the duties lent itself to self selection. In the first group were the "Gems", TJ and the Windsors; second were the naturally occurring mutations with outward expressions, Gillard, Cahlewis and Jang leapt into the mind and the third group were the mutants whose changes, natural or artifical, did not express themselves, Mary Fogg, Jane Foster et al but whose brainwaves could be 'ridden' by the spiders. Surprisingly none of the fourth group which constituted most of mankind - having no special mutations other than those which brought life out of the primordial mud (but still having the potential for an explosive genetic advance) - had been part of the last crew of HMS "Tulip".

Since the arrival of the spiders, TJ had declined to analyse their capacities just accepting their being and under-utilising their capabilities to the arachnids' annoyance — chagrin was too sophisticated an emotion for them. But TJ was not, not, going to let them into his brain.

Did Sema, or rather the shadowy organisation which ran the planet and controlled the "produce", regard the missing engineered genomes as helpful to their interests? From his perspective and the history of the progeny carrying those genomes, TJ could not see an association, but then he didn't have an input from the Seman aspect.

The only fact was that Sema was interested in south Galactic affairs and several seemingly unrelated and extraordinary assassinations had forwarded those interests. Despite his respect for Murphy, TJ could not fully accept fortuitous coincidences.

TJ had been caught out by the establishment of a democratic government in Harbouria. He had not expected stability following the failed coup as Justin had made serious attempts to directly reinforce his control over his navy inserting heavy State Security warships into the fleets. Still, TJ was not the only one who was blindsided; Pierre had been the one who appointed the home fleet commander who had been the one to apparently personally take Justin down. But there had to be another element in that woodpile — those State Sec warships in the outer fleets had disappeared — like puffs of smoke.

TJ hated it when he didn't know.

...

The Daughters had established themselves as "oversighters" of the interests of the Sundowners. Sir Peter Brakeman claimed that, without real cause for it, he broke out into sweat whenever the Daughters visited the Sundowner Bank Inc office in New London "just for a chat and look around" while his Senior Assistant, Lady Valerie Brown, had a thoroughly enjoyable time — this might have had something to do with the discussions of fashions that inevitably accompanied these visits with news of Morg's latest (but very private) efforts. (The House of Tulip was as if in hibernation except that Morg maintained his loyalty to his established clientele — much to the rage of the "recently arrived nouveau rich".)

...

Morg it was who "blinked" first.

"TJ," Morg interrupted TJ in his perusing FTL reports, "whatever happened to our wanting to travel and see the Galaxy."

Morg didn't flinch as TJ gazed at him from under his eyebrows.

"I mean we wanted to get out and see things and here we are stuck dirtside; at least in "Sundowner" there was always something to do."

TJ resignedly dimmed his chip reader, and turned to his friend

"Morg, what you really mean is you are bored. House of Tulip by itself is not enough to distract you and you want more than what satisfies the Tulips. I admit that I am surprised just how well they have adjusted to "Sundowner's" training role. Still they were all experienced navy personnel for decades before we joined "Tulip" and in a way they are continuing with that."

"They seem to be happy enough with our sporadic visits."

"Morg, I wasn't thinking about sex; I meant psychologically in themselves and sex is only a part of that. I thought I was the one with pheromone problems."

"Hah! You get enough with me sissies."

"Truth in that. Suits, old friend. What is ticking about in that overactive abacus you have for a brain?"

"Bollard's liner RMS "Betime" is going on a grand tour of the south..."

"AH em ess?" TJ demanded "Bollard has been owned by the McCocks for ever out of Grenoble."

" ... Oh. Appears, couple of centuries ago, the owners transferred the shipping line to Old London and all their ships are registered there hence the Royal Mail. Stop changing the subject, TJ. "Betime" is bound for a cruise out to the south across the Orion Perseus Gap and the Master, Captain Stephens, would appreciate a couple of supernumeries with experience in that region. I told him we still had our records from our trips and he almost wet himself — he offered to take us on but I wanted to be able to leave the ship when she returns to Settlement so we can get the " 'Trader" down to Gorgipest and visit mam and the others. I would like to see Pat again and now that Ivy is down there..."

"You do realise this Armistice isn't going to last, Morg, don't you? Brown Hollow appears to be doing his level best to destroy it even if the idiot doesn't know it. Harbouria, Renmark, Amaranti — not Bhute though, the fool's driven them into a negative neutrality — are all rearming. And Brown Hollow is paying off fleets to cover his social programmes — the man must be a complete absolute idiot."

"It will last long enough, TJ for us to have our jaunt; and it's not as if you will be out of touch. Well, not for that long at a time, anyway. Besides, we could base ourselves in Gorgipest if we had to — all our major industrial interests are there and mam is managing them well but we could get back into research and development."

"You are bored! Suits! When does "Betime" leave?"

"Ten days."

"Simmo has started school so for the rest of the year I'm at a bit of a loose end. Suits, but I want to be back for long vacation. Cecil and Alistair can do my thing — it's not as if they haven't been playing a major role any way."