Chapter 77

TJ had discussed it with Clare and the officers presenting it as a simple search for a lost colony; Morg had looked askance at his friend but didn't comment.

The Daughters had the job of calculating a sum for a year's charter*. It would take time to space to and from the area (it was conveniently forgotten to mention the new capabilities of "Sundowner" mainly because they didn't themselves know). By agreement, the loss of income was not to be taken as a factor in the calculations.

The Family agreed to the price without hesitation and funds were immediately transferred to Sundowner Inc. Those whose job it was to know about these things on "Sundowner" felt a quiet pride that the ship was so trusted even though TJ had made it clear, the ship offered no guarantee of success — just that the agreed region of the Sagittarius arm would be diligently searched.

(*Spacers of the modern era had reverted to the mentality of the early wet navy days of leaving family at home — wherever that might be — and sailing off for years at a time. Sometimes, they were accompanied by their women leaving children with relatives.)

Cedric collected copies of the astrographic charts from the Family and then spent considerable time with Derrin with all the known charts to produce charts of Sagittarius arm hard space and also the hyper over the Sagittarius — Orion gap — both sides.

Derrin pointed out that the original parts of "Sundowner" and herself had been made on Monteray and possibly spectrographic analysis of the metal would assist in the search. Cedric thought that was a good idea and from Orville's hoard obtained samples of "Sundowner's" hull which had been removed at Betelguese. Cedric utilised the clean room to get the spectrum and gave it to Morg with explanation — the information was duly filed.

The planning was complete well before the end of the New Chicago season and the executive spent that time reviewing it. Also studied were the preparations for a warp speed trial.

A small distraction was the arrival of a just showing Skinny whose smiling reaction to the congratulations was a shrug and,

"Peter needs an heir."

She defended(?) her decision to carry the babe by claiming she got great psychological satisfaction in doing so even though the physical discomfort of the last months was very exhausting — and that was the real reason for the visit but she would consider a few purchases from the House and the Jeweller.

Cedric, Orville and the Engineers spent anguishing hours with rad counters and the simulator.

Morg was dragged to the holo measuring equipment and shown several vids. He spent hours throwing holos and experienced great client curiosity as to just what he was doing.

Of course the story / news got out — not that it was any great secret.

The Enklanders had discovered a way to make the carrying of a pregnancy much more tolerable and the Sundowners had slightly modified the external power pack to eliminate every skerrick of radiation — the pads and wires had always been inert.

Anti grav pads not just for gravid breasts but also gravid abdomens.

The House of Tulip during its last week at New Chicago looked like an ante natal clinic.

Berryl made a visit to the House to collect the new drawings and specifications for the pregnancy kit. And then got a set for herself to make the carrying of TJ's sister more comfortable closer to term.

Eva Porter and Emily Jones reported aboard on the last day of the House season having very closely re-established their ties with Charles Lightoller. They were quickly back into the way of things but the Tulips noted the pair were even closer than before and strangely quiet about their extended furlough. Their friends gave them room.

...

TJ spent the last two days prior to spacing in almost a complete frenzy to the point of neglecting his rostered partners; it had happened before so there was a shrugging of shoulders and a promise to catch up. He dispatched a scout on a hard space orbit over the Geneva and Chagas orbitals. A quick com to Josh and Abe yielded the interest in the assault ship in the Chagas dock.

TJ subsequently reported that amazing little fellow, McCock, had voyaged from 'Pest to Sol in hard space to Geneva using one of the Riders and "Shriek" was over the Chagas orbitals. In addition, as far as TJ could make out, McCock had seeded hard space with rebro HACs centred on Settlement using them for FTL coms and possibly nav beacons.

There appeared to be some problem with in the rebro HACs as the range of the rebros was considerably less than they should have had with the known power plants — but McCock had just put up more HACs to compensate.

And TJ had tapped into their coms net.

...

The search went on.

Cedric and Derrin assisted Morg in developing more detailed charts of the universe "sky".

The use of the scouts allowed the search area to be doubled but after six and a half T weeks, nothing. Analysis of the collected data through Derrin, still nix. Spectrographic studies, still nowt.

While the other humans pondered, Orville had his robos out of limbo refurbishing the scouts.

While the search was in progress, Shirley had continued her training programmes but she was confronted with a serious problem which Dusty had brought to her notice. The Trainees, or at least those of the male gender, were not getting enough sleep and he suggested a cause. The Gennies, with the exception of the Engineers and Madame O, had an enhanced capacity for sexual intercourse and Dusty went so far as to describe them as being insatiable. The eye candy Gennies were always bright eyed and bushy tailed at all times but the male Trainees were becoming increasingly more haggard as the search went on. Dusty surmised that while "Sundowner" was around Old Earth, the Eye Candy had had other things to distract their interest. Fortunately, HAC operations were on hold in hard space as the HAC's protection against cosmic radiation was unknown (Derrin had promised to investigate this and report back.) for which Dusty was very thankful. When confronted with the problem, the young ladies and gentlemen became very formal in their interactions with their superiors — they were not going to alter their habits except to allow adequate(?) rest time for the Males. It wasn't quite a mutiny but there was a collective resistance to the desires of the commanders.

To minimise the problem, Clare and Shirley put their heads together and rearranged the rosters so that the Males got rostered time for sleep away from the Eye Candy. Clare and Shirley recognised the situation was hilarious — now; but wouldn't be when the search was complete and usual ship operations were resumed.

Elle came up with a solution but its implementation did raise some problems.

Elle had considered her own situation and had then held discussions with Mrs Smeaton, Tilly, Lyn and Shirley — you know, girl to girl chats. She had then confronted(?) Bert and Dusty and had a rather embarrassing talk with them about the facts of life and associated aspects. She then asked for an officer call and announced the solution,

"Infect 'em with the Comminantes' whatever! C'mon people; we know the Comminantes whatever is a targeted beneficial thing. We may not know how it works but we do know what it does. It modifies the recipient's genetic codes towards the Comminantes enhancements."

Elle's solution was not held tight and open discussions raged(?).

Surprisingly it was the Eye Candies who were most resistant* to the idea of using natural means to pass the "infection". With their new found freedoms, they no longer did sex-on-demand - just seriously considered every request almost always agreeing.

(* "resistant" was actually a very mild description).

Derrin put the problem into his system while doing the spectrographic studies of the search data and multi tasked it. He was fortunate in having on his memory chips the inventory of all the equipment held on board "Sundowner" plus the encyclopaedic knowledge downloaded into him from Décor which included such esoteric information as the laboratory equipment for serology work.

When the request for a tissue sample was submitted to Morg, he baulked, leading to his sisters scorning him as "piker", "chauvinist pig", "coward" and other loving terms. His sisters asked if vaginal fluids would suffice and Derrin was guardedly positive having reservations about volume. Bet laughed that one to scorn.

A depiction of a black pointy hat riding a scout missile through a star filled sky appeared on the hatchway of the lab in the hydroponics unit where the Daughters held their sessions about the cauldron under Derrin's supervision.

(No one looked closely at the stars; had they done so they would have found the star pattern showing "sky" from Monteray looking towards Sol.)

Cedric vehemently denied the art work and Derrin refused to name the artist citing peace and harmony. The Daughters not only did not remove the work but appeared with similar patches on their work dungarees. ('Broidery was still the major relaxation.)

To prove the inoculation's safety the Daughters stabbed themselves. Six weeks later, the "uninfected" male and female Sundowners were exposed. A development of this was that Lyn and Tilly joined 'Seph, Juliette and the Engineers as their libidos strengthened and more scratching of itches was desired.

...

By the time all this went down, "Sundowner" was well into a search from the hyper. Because only SOL2 could be used, the pattern took sixteen T weeks.

Nothing definite was found. Spectrographic studies yielded nine possibilities — star systems with life supporting planets (after a fashion).

Derrin plotted best possible course and "Sundowner" headed off. The time in hyper had been relatively strenuous on the Sundowners, and continued to be so, as Clare maintained a mid level bridge readiness with Nav and EW both fully closed up. As each possibility was reached, "Sundowner" translated into n space; the activity was increased as all the scouts were deployed and visual, IR and electronic analysis was performed by the other officers. Any sites of interest on the planet were investigated by HAC flyover in n space. It was busy times.

By the time human life was found, at the seventh star, the bridge officers' collective arses were dragging along the decks.

A HAC reported carrier wave transmission on international guard frequency and located the remains of an industrial complex dirtside with the signal originating from what looked like a crashed orbital some one point seven kay clicks away. Six scouts were deployed on low slow orbital sorties over the area centred about the industrial ruins.

While the six scouts began an intensive search of the planet, Clare deployed the two remaining scouts in lazy orbits about the ship and had Cedric retune Dune stealth shields which were activated.

AB Petra S.Downer looked out of the corner of her eye at the full breasted woman in gym clothing as she performed her stretching exercises and then moved to the pads where she engaged the fighting bot. Petra thought the woman was good but not quite as good as herself. At the end of the bout, the woman approached Petra,

"You have a question, Miss Petra?" (Clare giggled as the girl's head jerked to face her) "You have been staring at me and not concentrating; you missed a couple of sequences in your warm down. How about we do the warm downs and hit the freshers while we discuss your problem?"

They did just that while they did the routine.

"So? What's the problem?"

"Ma'am, why are we always nearly at action stations for the bridge people? We new people aren't trained up enough to do that duty and it's gotta be a strain on you."

"You have probably heard suggestions that I am paranoid."

"Ah, yes Ma'am (reluctantly), I have heard the occasional talk."

"Hah! Occasional talk? Don't give me that line! TJ and Morg accuse me of being paranoid every time they see me."

"Well, it is a bit hard not to hear your discussions in the mess, Ma'am."

"I wonder from time to time if I shouldn't ban talk of work, politics or religion in the mess but it's a time when we are all together and we can informally discuss matters. Crew Conferences and Officer Calls tend to be more restrictive. You know the history of "Sundowner"?"

"Yes 'm"

"There had to be somebody to organise that attack and there was an insider planted on the treasure ship. He had been sent from Sol to Monteray where others connived to get him onto the ship. Therefore there are at least two organised factions with people in Sol and here wanting control. There is little contact between Sol and Monteray so the factions each has to have an established agenda. The usual procedure, as far as I am able to work it out, is that the treasure ship arrives in Sol, unloads its cargo, loads up stores for Monteray and returns. It has happened in the past that the treasure ship has been lost so no contact but the next treasure ship still arrives. The possibility is, of course, that the ship was lost because of an act of the Deity but the likelihood of it's never departing because of problems in Monteray can't be dismissed. I don't know what has gone wrong but I have no desire to be caught out. A bit clearer, now?"