Chapter 79

'Aarrgggghhhhh. Mc Cock is right" Shirley wailed "This transition is as bad as translating into hyper. I'm so glad Threep handed round the patches and told us to have nowt but fluids for four hours before."

"Sundowner" with "Shiralee" in company had powered up and translated through the hyper and orientated herself for a heading to Sol. The position of the deeper stars was confirmed on the charts. The two ships went to slow ahead while rising through the hyper layers until the cosmic hyper layer was reached. The ships took power off and coasted inside the layer. Two scouts were transitioned outside the layer and coms established with the scouts orientated to Sol. Clare ordered "Sundowner's" bow up, a touch of power and "Sundowner" transitioned to everyone's discomfort but no loss of gastric contents. "Sundowner" found she was still orientated to Sol — gyros remained unaffected by transition. Clare established coms with "Shiralee" and called her through. TJ, in the EW seat monitored her progress.

Once through, Clare and Cedric confirmed the star charts both outside the layer and below them in the hyper. TJ had paid attention to McCock's comments on refraction. Both ships activated thrusters and stayed in company for several hours. Estimates of progress established an ETA at the Sol waypoint in cosmic as being seven T days and some hours. "Shiralee" had developed no problems and "Sundowner" surged into warp velocity with Clare admonishing Cedric not to get lost.

"Sundowner" immediately found a problem. Deploying rebro pods at that velocity was useless as the things just almost kept pace with "Sundowner" and after a three plus hour dash to the Sol waypoint, the pods were still with "Sundowner" and TJ had a very interesting time chasing after them using a scout to retrieve them.

Stopped over the Sol way point, Clare raised Cedric on FTL without difficulty using a directional antenna and explained the position. Cedric came up with a solution: drop off another pod and set it for continuous nav beacon and rebro coms; programme the scout to retrieve the pods and return to the waypoint and "Shiralee" would gather them in; meantime "Shiralee" would programme a scout to return to the Monteray waypoint, drop off a pod and then use its warp capability to catch up. Also "Shiralee" would hold at the Sol way point for only five and not the seven days and then transition into hyper to head for 'Pest as planned. Clare agreed except "Shiralee" to hold at the Sol waypoint for the planned seven days.

Clare ordered "Sundowner" through the layer and then traversed the hyper at SOL2 to turnover and hold at the hyper over the Sol's south pole. TJ put a scout and a pod through; holding the pod in place, he sent the scout scurrying off to Old Earth. The area was reported clear and "Sundowner" translated.

TJ's PDA went berserk as message after message was downloaded into his mutie com 'puter in his quarters and it sent signals to the PDA indicating incoming messages. An embarrassed TJ had to explain to Clare and she excused him to see to his mail.

"Sundowner" was in full stealth with Dell closely monitoring the tuning as the backgrounds kept changing until the ship came to a dead stop above the Azores orbital hovering just below the hyper layer. Clare ordered a scout a scout above the layer and a pod immediately below on a wire so there was virtually no delay in transmissions nor falloff in clarity. It was a good site to park as no ships came through the hyper above an orbital and the spaceways avoided the larger orbitals. Arrivals and departures were in the horizontal plane so "above" should be safe; but Clare kept a spacing watch with EW closed up.

"'ello?"

"Good day to you sir. My name is Clare Gillard, I wish to speak with the Marquis Alciente about some relatives of his."

"Speaking."

"Go encrypted please."

There was an exchange of keys and within seconds the encrypted burst signal was on the Marquis' PDA.

"Your Grace,

"Sundowner" departed Old London on 18 Nov 2847 for Monteray which was reached on 26 May 2848.

Your goods were delivered and we have given passage to Don Juan, Dona Dorotea and her twin daughters, Isabella and Maria (10) and two wards Rayhmond(16) and Gerrard(14) Morgan.

Certain valuable items which we have on board are to be placed in a secure repository. Don Juan has the details.

Please reply giving point of delivery for your kin. Be advised, transport is by assault shuttle.

Sgd C Gillard, Master and Commander."

"Sundowner Incorporated Merchant Bank, Good afternoon, can I help you?"

"Yes, you can. My name is Clare Gillard and I wish to speak with either Sir Peter or Lady Valerie; I don't have their private com."

(Morg did; but he was off watch, sleeping[?]. Clare was being considerate.)

"I'll put you through to his Secretary. Hold please."

"Good afternoon, Wilma Cartwright speaking, Can I help you?"

"My name is Clare Gillard and I need to speak to either Sir Peter or Lady Valerie as a matter of urgency and I don't have their private com."

"I'm sorry neither of them is in the office at present. I'll transfer you to Sir Peter's Personal Assistant. Wait please while I transfer you."

"Good afternoon, Valmai Wilson speaking. Can I help you?"

"My name is Clare Gillard and I wish to speak with either Sir Peter or Lady Valerie and I know neither of them is in the office but it is urgent and no! you can't be of assistance — its way above your pay scale and I suggest you contact them to pass on my message and if, perchance, I don't hear from them within ten minutes (and Clare's demeanour changed as she snarled) I'll come down there, tear your arsehole out and strangle you with it."

Clare stabbed the disconnect stud and as she sucked the paining digit,

'It must have been satisfying when you used a handpiece to be able to slam it down.'

Her Companion wisely said nothing but there was the slightest hint of a scratching.

"Clare, I do wish you wouldn't do that to my staff; it took me years to train Valmai and you undo it with one com; the woman was near hysterical. Anyway why this? You've got my com?"

"I don't personally; and everybody's flaked out except for the watch. We have had a hard day — a three hour full power run, through two layers and a dash across hyper — all in a day after six months of just stooging about and it is a bit tiring. Apologise to her and buy her a nice present charged to me. To work, me lad. We have a load of goodies for the store ... Aaahh, about three times last time."

"Satan's teeth, woman!" Peter exploded "where the Hades am I going to put that; I know I said there was still some room but that's bloody ridiculous. Where did you get ... no, on second thoughts, I don't want to know."

"How much can you handle? I might be able to get the owners to take their half."

"That would help. Off the top of my head, we can take the rest easily. You aren't planning on getting any more, are you? That would do nasty things to the price of things."

"No, Peter. The source is still there but it would take a couple of years to get there and a couple of years to get things started ... so you can rest easy for a decade or so."

"Suits. How much time have I got? I'll need to warn Harold and get Alistair and his minions warmed up. It'll cost you — probably petty cash to you."

"Ten days. I can confirm at three days notice."

"Suits. Can you let me know about the load soonest? Meantime I'll get the Head Keeper onto just what we have empty. Here, Val wants a word."

"Clare, I need a whole new wardrobe; I'm back to my old skinny self and I haven't a thing to wear and the Hunt is having another Ball in a month's time. Please tell me Morg can fit me in?"

"Of course, the baby. What is it? We have been out of touch for a while."

"Yes, we did notice you weren't answering your coms. Joshua said you had a rescue charter and would be out of touch for a while. A girl and she is the darlingist thing you ever saw. Two months now with the most gorgeous smile but she is truly evil — she has this charming habit that when a stranger picks her up to cuddle she regurgitates all over them and starts laughing. So be warned. Name? Don't ask! We ended up with seven forenames. The last one is Josephina so we call her "Jo"."

"I can't wait to see her and I'll get Morg working on some creations for you. But I got to go. Duty calls. I'll call when I can. Ah, we might not answer our coms at times but leave a message. Bye now.

"You do take care, Clare. You are down as a godmother for Jo. TTFN (gurgle)."

"Don Juan, thank you for coming. Your brother has asked us to drop you and yours at the Quadelmallato Hacienda. This is the reference he gave me (pointing to a holo map). How populated is the area? I ask because I don't want to attract undue attention to a space shuttle."

Don Juan rose and pointed to a pad extending out into the reservoir at the junction with a large river,

"If you land there at early evening, it has an excellent infra red landing system, or it did when I last used it half a century ago and I don't see Francesco letting it go, the neighbours shouldn't see the craft and there used to be sufficient traffic that no one would take much notice."

"Thank you. Help yourself to the coffee — this ship spaces on it ... Don Juan, I informed your brother that we had some property of his which we were going to ... no, please, hear me out. And this is not for discussion. We had intended to provide a safe repository for the property but as the poet said the best laid plans of mice and men oft gang algly. I hope I got that right. We have to alter our plans. Tell me, was "Sundowner", when she was the treasure ship, I mean, meant to be where we found her?"

"Si. Probably. There are several areas in the Solar System that were used as transhipment sites. The treasure ship would make a rendezvous in a locale sent back with the previous ship. The treasure ship would enter n space and send a coded signal to the Clan and proceed to the rv. There would be a freighter on stand by at the Azores orbitals and we covered this by having her there for a major refit to be completed a month before the treasure ship was due to arrive- the family always insisted on the last work being refurbishing the quarters and we were, ahh, fussy?, about it. When we received the signal we suddenly found that an urgent charter or something had become available and she sailed two days later crewed by family members who all shouldered their responsibilities to honour the contract. The treasure would be unloaded and the crew exchanged. Another freighter with supplies for the colony would arrive and load the treasure ship and they would return to the colony. It didn't always go to plan and it didn't on this occasion as you are a decade late and you aren't family."

"I presume that it would be very likely that your family would have a ship available for transhipment even after three years?"

"Almost certainly; this is not the first time the treasure ship has been late and the family never abandoned hope entirely. We would have taken the ship out of the Azores dock and berthed her somewhere with a skeleton crew to keep her ready to space at a day's notice. You understand that over the centuries we had a procedure worked out to cover as many eventualities we could think of. I concede this is the first time the treasure ship got taken as a prize although we suspect at least one other was taken by pirate."

"If I were to ask your family to have a ship at that rendezvous with seven days notice, it could be done?"

"Si. And what would we be transhipping, Madame?"

"It is Miss actually; "Ma'am" is the navy feminine of "Sir", so outside the rank structure I am Miss Clare Gillard and no! I'm not going to explain; it's too complicated. I presume you ask so that you can plan the crew numbers? (Her guest nodded.) Crew your ship as you would have for "Sundowner's" voyage. We will be taking "Shiralee" and the shuttle as salvage so you don't have to crew them. Your brother will understand."

Clare smiled gently and continued,

"I am sure your brother will inform you of our contract and he will protest mightily but if that ship doesn't come, your brother will find the load dumped in his back yard; we'll just overfly the Hacienda and dump it out. Probably start another gold rush and that would wreck his property. This chip is the report of the status of the mine and this chip is the starmaps through the hyper on both sides of the disc. If you would gather your family, Sir, we'll load you aboard our shuttle and take you home. Your goods have been loaded while we were talking."

Clare escorted the refugees to the boat bay and saw them safely aboard 737. TJ was pilot with Madame O in the right seat and Irene, Ruth and Petra as cabin crew.

Clare returned to her office and sent an encrypted com stating the ETA.