Chapter 76

New Harriers seemed to have an invisible dividing line separating the expatriate clientele from the "local" clientele (it could be regarded as racist to use the term "native" or "indigenous" so I'll stick with "local". GD). The line however didn't extend to the "neutral areas" of the side boards and the measuring area. Somewhat surprisingly there was a crossover of demand of each other's style. Locals were wanting business suits and expats were wanting to look svelte — if they had the figure for it. Some of the locals even had enough mammary tissue to want anti grav — breasts were just as big a man magnet for Orientals as Occidentals apparently.

There was a complete absence of the male gender among the clientele and there was no evidence of anyone attempting to gather information; Clare and her officers didn't know whether to be relieved or insulted.

The deployed scouts, however, reported a surfeit of electro-magnetic probing from several fixed sites and also passing pleasure(?) cruisers. "Sundowner's" passives identified the sources and classified the equipment. There was no unrecognised equipment — security or no research?

A week into the Chencon season, TJ asked for an Officer's Meeting to discuss his assessments. The Companions kept the others briefed.

The Chencon had been formed from eastern mainland Asian nations; the 'Stans had been conquered and virtually rendered without population — shades of the Mongol Hordes — to act as a buffer to Russiberia. The 'Stans had been sparsely repopulated and turned into food bowls — made possible by the climatic changes of the last millennium. The food production gave Chencon a leverage in international affairs on the planet far greater than would be expected by even its population and industrial capacity. The command economy did have some benefits for a nation if not the individual citizen who were finding things a bit crowded on the ground. The Chencons had gone "to the stars" but not successfully as their government kept tight control on the star colonies. The only two successful Chencon star colonies had broken ties with the motherland (by revolution) but the others had literally died.

The Solar System planets could not be taken over without major conflict with the other Old Earth nations. The assessment of the Chencons was that they would have the last men standing but the destruction of infrastructure throughout the Solar System would doom survivors to the stone ages and there was no guarantee mankind would survive that fate.

The Chencon had established itself as a major player in the United Solarian Worlds and had kept the USW Battle Fleet (home fleet to Old Earth) to an absolute miniscule force while allowing Frontier Fleet to expand and act as a proxy for Chencon in the galaxy. Chencon maintained the largest Solar System naval forces. Their naval forces did not venture outside the Solar System — nor did other nations' navies — but there existed a large merchant space marine to trade with the Galaxy and their factors were in just about every port in the Galaxy.

Therefore why the continued building programme of space going warships? Old Earth strategy was determined by planet based missiles — still, after eight centuries, despite better defences. The Supersoldier Wars had again demonstrated the effectiveness of artillery against humans. Even the best defences trying to defend immobile targets could be swamped.

The Solarian System planets?

Mars was still the only one with any significant population but did not have any significant output to entice take over. Whether or not the USW would oppose a takeover of Mars by the Chencons was problematical but it was a certainty the New Martians would resist to the last man taking the infra structure with them — the cost of victory would be prohibitive and the spoils negligible. The prestige of the victory against the political cost? The Chencon mindset did not give any indication of other than material calculation except for the ancient concept of "loss of face".

Expansion to the stars?

The Chencons — and the Old Earth nations as individual nations — had not mounted any new emigrations since before the Supersoldier Wars four centuries ago. USW efforts, in the form of Frontier Fleet activity and probably at the instigation of Chencon, had been and still were being directed at gaining influence over already established but struggling small colonies based mainly in the southwest. The already established politically and economically independent star nations were being left severely alone except for trade.

Recent political events in the southwest galaxy had resulted in direct intervention by the Kingdom of Mountserrat spoiling a local potentate's attempt at supremacy in the southwest. Frontier Fleet's heavy hand had been proven subsequently by their counter intervention and a salutary lesson delivered.

TJ here paused and wondered aloud if indeed the delivered lesson had been salutary — the attitude of the USN, both Battle Fleet and Frontier Fleet, was that they were the eight hundred pound gorilla in the galaxy and officially, at least, did not regard the navies of the protagonists in the southern galactic war as being of great significance. Frontier Fleet was always a powerful force in being whereas Battle Fleet was only a nucleus requiring national levies for substance but conventional wisdom on Old Earth was that nothing existed in the galaxy to rival either.

Within eighteen T months the Chencon navy would in total double the Frontier Fleet and nothing on earth, even combined, could challenge it — but it was not an effective force in Solar n space as it could not dominate that planet. TJ used "Jane's Missiles" to support his contention that even second tier Old Earth consortia possessed arsenals large enough to destroy it (they wouldn't have anything left afterwards, but... ).

A force existed to either counter or give rise to a threat.

But the predicted Chencon force did neither in the Solar System; ergo it was aimed somewhere in the Galaxy and at worlds developed to a degree — exploring undeveloped space did not require, in the first instance, warships, or at least not fleets.

It was Mary Fogg who asked the pertinent question,

"Do the Chencons know what the Kingdom or, for that matter, the Peeps can do?"

"They should," TJ answered; "They get the reports of the USW naval attaches in Settlement and New Liege plus the Consular reports from Renmark and Amaranti."

Morg made a loud rude noise, and explained when Mary looked at him

"Some junior flag officers might read them but not many. We hear a lot in the Club and when the clientele do discuss the southern wars. It's dismissive. I'm getting the impression that, apart from a very small group of officers about TJ Senior and Percy, including some who have come in contact with us and the ex naval attaches, the USN officer corps don't think about much at all except time serving until the next promotion. There was a group of wives in the House just before we spaced from Old London who had shuttled over from New Chicago and they were moaning their husbands had to be away overnight at a conference; a conference for Deity's sake, not even an exercise."

"TJ" Cedric interposed "I got Derrin to do an analysis comparing the Chencon new builds with Mounty and Peep line of battle and threw in Frontier Fleet for another comparison. The Chencons have badly missed the boat if they want to be a galactic fighting force — all the Chencon vessels have an endurance for only intra system spacing. Even Frontier Fleet carries bunkerage for galactic distances; and no they ain't gone to fission pole and pods — the engine spaces are too small for piles and there is only limited, well relatively limited, reaction mass bunkers. I made some table cloth calculations and the Chencon line of battle would make it from Sol to Settlement — using the hyper — and then they'd have to bunker. They could get across the gap in hyper, easy, from Settlement, if they bunkered in Settlement but on the other side they got problems. All that area is Harbourian and the nearest refuelling star is at Grenoble to the east and Sema to the west. Harbouria itself has to import all its reaction mass from Grenoble and does use it to maintain a port bunkering facility. Somebody didn't do their homework."

"Now where have I heard that before?" Clare muttered and then clearly "From memory, they have an awful lot of bulk carriers."

TJ closed the discussion leaving it still hanging

"And we still don't have any idea what or where."

TJ felt frustration.

The obvious assessment was a Chencon invasion into the Perseus arm taking over the Junction but even in their weakened states, the locals would make any such venture costly. But the planning for the Chencon build-up must have been going on for the last decade at least and therefore the political processes had to be in place some years prior perhaps from the time of southern hostilities commencing.

TJ felt he was missing something.

...

Derrin was again examining the locked "Décor" folder but still couldn't open it; if he had been human he might have felt a degree of frustration but he simply put the puzzle to one side and found something else to do - the McKinnons and their ilk.

(The instant folder was a miniscule part of the download from the Décor construct. Décor had no idea of its contents, either; he had just been the cabinet in which the folder had been filed. The code to activate and transform the DNA / RNA 'puters from being blunt instruments into complex constructs (sapient?) had also been stored in Décor's memory and its download had transformed Derrin from a mere navigational calculator to an aware 'puter construct. The transformation had not taken overnight as Derrin had to learn some things and he had not announced the changes because of an inherent sense of self preservation.)

Threep had returned to the McKinnons with the shuttle truck, assisted with the loading, set up the 'net set and gave instruction to the family heads on the Meteor PDAs.

Threep was able to collect buccal smears from the older members of the tribe.

The Schoolie was given a very well worn battered PDA to use with the N-409A and found it far superior to the Clan's Meteors. The Schoolie was not slow and he quickly realised the quid pro quo was The Agnes's use of the PDA to talk with that silver tongued Sassenach who only identified herself as "Derrin". Agnes became positively loquacious about the Clan's early history and after making numerous trips into neighbouring Clan areas to talk with the local witches (and collecting buccal smears), was able to give some history of the links to the Isles, Argylls, Gordons and the Lovats. The Schoolie was co-opted into helping The Agnes to prepare the smears for insertion into the viewing slot on the N409A.

The additional exposure to the N409A was helpful to the Schoolie in his teaching duties so he begrudged it not.

The McKinnon himself was kept aware of Derrin's researches and being canny survivor bred, he began establishing links to his kin (still kin even though by rape and pillage). TJ's picture of Scotchlan politics and events became broader. TJ considered the arrangement was "wool" worth it.

The House of Tulip's works of art were extremely popular with the locals as Threep too had done his home work and steeped himself in the styles of ancient Chinese calligraphy — he would often be found in the clean room gazing at a motif given to him as a model for what to a construct was an eternity before commencing his work. He developed a style of cutting motifs onto small medallions and a favourite of his was to construct a series of medallions almost identical but in differing sizes so the owners could use the works in whatever way they desired for ornaments to ears, neck, garments or simply as a seal.

Threep's 'puter processes, based on RNA, had a human mode which allowed him to reproduce object's almost but never identical; his mechanical mode would have allowed perfect copies but he got no satisfaction from that whereas Art's mechanical skills were used to decorate the backgrounds with fractals which gave it greatest satisfaction. Threep would often have to direct Art to complete the whole piece as it would become engrossed in the increasingly smaller area it was involved with.

...

After the closure of the season over the Free City, general leave was granted. Clare retained steaming watch plus at least four Tulips (beside herself) as overwatch. To have emergency transport to and on dirtside, Clare chartered six flivvers for the week. After Cedric and Art had checked the vehicles over, they were parked in the boat bay. Dusty gave check rides and the Sundowners dispersed literally to the four corners of the old Chinese Republic. The PRC had not suffered the heavy bombardments inflicted upon the other nations involved in the Supersoldier wars and therefore still possessed many of its ancient structures — and there were few nations other than the islands of Britain which could say the same. The Sundowners all reported that Governments personnel were so thick on the ground around them, it was as if they had their personal escorts and bodyguards.

The Gennies devised a game wherein every time an open area was encountered, they would scatter to all sides and then begin a complex pattern of crossing paths through the area; eventually they palled of the game as their "escorts" refused to play and simply stood about the area until the Gennies moved on. The Gennies declared the Chencons as being spoilsports; Clare and her executive knew differently — somebody on the Chencon side had their wits about him.