Chapter 80

TJ refilled his bulb and continued,

"While McCock was in Scotchlan, there was an attempt upon his life. That is the official story but I got reservations; I think it was a snatch that didn't come off. Sema? Probably. His Ghurkha bodyguards are equipped with sleeve guns which appear to be quite effective. The street was ankle deep in blood and McCock saunters off with two more very interesting people in his entourage. An ex RAMC surgeon who specialises in "Aging", whatever that is, and an ex Royal Scots Regiment officer, Rosemary Peebles, and ain't she interesting. Both are in your PDAs. Peebles is going to make McCock's CI very interesting; so watch this space...

Assessment time...

The southern war is at a stalemate. Despite its great technical superiority, the Allies haven't the hulls to do anything with it. The Peeps have the hulls but can't seem to exercise control over them; the so-called self governing planets are becoming less so called and more independent...

The southwest keeps bubbling along with Frontier Fleet tripping over its feet all the time and the Mounties have made great strides there for little effort...

The Chencons are resisting any attempts at reinforcing the area with more USN hulls as that would mean a larger Home Fleet and Chencon doesn't want that for reasons I haven't yet discovered but my crystal ball is saying domination, note domination not control, of the Solar System...

A straw in that wind is they made an unsuccessful attempt to white ant the Noramcon naval command and block their rebuilding programme...

To close, Berryl reports Sundowner Inc has a new voting member and a stack of non-voting members and Deity bless us one and all."

Valerie noted the movement of crew members as some of them moved away,

"I wondered how they were going to do that" she murmured to herself.

...

TJ's scream reverberated around the accommodation,

"You called her what?"

Clare and Dorothy were trying to soothe him as Morg wandered in followed by 'Nita and Susan.

"You screamed?" Morg asked.

Berryl's voice answered from the 'puter com,

"All I did was tell him his sister's names."

TJ waved an angry hand (if such a thing was possible) at the com so Morg continued,

"Why the reaction?"

"I have no idea" Berryl said.

"Ask her what the kid's names are" Clare interjected.

"Elizabeth Ivy Dorothy Janice Clare Julie Gabrielle Strathlawn" Berryl explained smugly "the Elizabeth is for me, I always liked it better than Betty and the others for her brother's partners, her sisters-in-law. I could have added the Daughters but I though that too much and Julie could represent them. She's two months now and a beautifully mannered child; much better than her brother. Oh by the way, her sisters-in-law are to be her God Mothers. And to make it easy for you, Elle and Jo are to be christened together so you'd better plan on bringing the others to the Cottesmore Chapel. Do let me know when you can get them so Valerie and I can make the arrangements. I look forward to showing her off to you all. Bye now. Strathlawn clear."

...

Valerie was asked about "Elle Baby" — to distinguish her from "Our Elle" ("That kid is gonna kill me when she gets older" Elle Stanton was heard to groan.) — and confirmed the information. Berryl hadn't known of Valerie's visit and Valerie hadn't known TJ had been so casual about comming his mother. Of course the 'Pest branch had been informed by the Newark branch and by this time a Cottesmore branch had been added to the gossip net. Valmai was assured by Heather and Gerty that she would understand it — eventually; when they did.

With "Sundowner" waiting for "Shiralee", the Sundowners were somewhat at a loose end and Shirley relaxed her efforts. The off duty females attended upon the House to advise and assist and ogle and thrill at the wardrobes. Valerie returned home after only an overnight stay feeling guilty at abandoning(?) her baby. Heather and Gerty assured her they would look after her interests.

The next days were spent working upon the garments. It was not mind blowing activity so while hands were active, the talk spread over many topics one of which metaphorically "stopped the show" and that one was about the Gennies reproductive capacity which wasn't in any way manifesting itself in the presence of hyperactive fornication function. Had the two been genetically separated? Had the reproductive capacity been genetically removed? Were the Gennies even fertile?

Derrin had had one of his many "ears" on this conversation and, analysing the voices classified the matter as having importance, broke in announcing he would investigate; he would enlist Threep and research the subject before they would undertake testing / exploration. The matter would take time to resolve and patience was requested. Clare had felt some relief at Derrin's interjection as she had felt the tension under the questions. Clare, through her Companion, instructed Derrin to report three monthly on progress.

The other menfolk had removed themselves and apart from on watch, meals and sleep, huddled in Orville's cubby. Even Colin, usually as "norm" as any male could be, felt the edge. None of them really felt they needed to know.

...

"Greetings Don Juan, we are off to see our friends but we expect to see you in six days."

"TJ, it is always pleasant to hear your voice. My brother will be busy and he has asked me to organise the meeting here. I look forward to meeting you again. What are you doing afterwards?"

"We are due to return to our home base."

"Please drop in when you return. My brothers will want to renew acquaintances."

...

"Alistair, TJ. I'm going to be in your area in two days time. Can I drop in and say hello? Don't want to upset some important exercise so I thought I'd com ahead."

"Never a problem, old man; you are always welcome, you know. I'll let the Gatehouse know you are coming. Cheers!"

...

""Shiralee", "Sundowner", have you visual. Please retrieve the scout and come on down. Just follow the pods. There is no traffic. Over."

"TJ, stop farting about. Where the Hades are you? I've got the scout and the pod on active, passive and visual and that's bloody all. Stop playing games!"

"Temper temper. Ease down, Cedric. Shirley came up with this idea — she doesn't like transition any more than translation. We don't really have to be up there to hold your hand when we have scouts in place, Normal line coms from n space to hard space suffers minimal attenuation thus we had you on FTL all the way in and passive and visual came in at about twice n space range. We're still in n space waiting for you. All you have to do is follow the beacons; the scouts report hyper is clear."

"I am going to get you for this TJ. I'm near a nervous wreck worrying what might have happened to you."

"Sorry Cedric, our only excuse is that Shirley came up with this idea ten minutes ago. We were all set to power up. The mob is still at stations. Anyway, come on in, the water's fine. Send your visuals through to scout four and you'll see us."

There was a pause of a minute before Allie was heard,

"Got them. And might I add my threats to those of my revered commander. A bit of warning would have been nice."

"Sorry Allie" Shirley grovelled "I was not looking forward to four passes in quick succession and the idea only came to me when I looked at the EW screen."

"Suits; but you still owe me one."

Clare interjected

"How about when you come through you follow us to Sculthorpe, full Dune, and we send over a working party when we get there to release the shuttle and we look after the shuttle operations. TJ will supervise the removal of the main cargo — all you will have to do is open the hatch. You can relax until they're done and on past performance it will be a two day job. Suit."

"Suits" Cedric agreed "we'll need ten to retrieve the scout. No! I got a better idea. I'll send her through ahead of us and you can retrieve it. We'll send it through in about ten — we gotta get organised here. I pulled our scout in as soon as I got the other visual. How long does it take to cross the hyper?"

"The slower the better across the layers; about one fifty gravs across the hyper. Should take fifty five or so."

"See you then."

"Shiralee's" progress was closely followed on "Sundowner" as she nosed her way down.

"Hello Alistair, TJ, things went a bit quicker than anticipated and I'll be arriving in about two hours. If you are tied up, I'm sure the mess will get me a cup of tea or something."

"Not to worry, old son, I'll join you for tiffin. Cheers. Woolaston out."

"Shiralee" formed up and with two additional scouts deployed, the convoy, in full stealth, threaded its way through the spaceways by a circuitous route over western Eurocon and then back to heave to over Sculthorpe.

TJ and a crew for the shuttle went across to "Shiralee" in the shuttle truck — all were in hardsuits. Elle Stanton commanded the shuttle crew with Madame O as co-pilot. There were ten crew assigned as half the load had to be removed for the shuttle to safely land in Old Earth gravity. While Elle and company were swarming over the shuttle TJ had gone EVA to the bow,

"Open her up, Cedric."

"Opening now" Cedric acknowledged. "Do you want the force field?"

"Negative — leave her open to space. Any sign of Alistair?"

"There's a flivver heading for us; probably him."

It was. The flivver came alongside the open maw of the hatch, the canopy slid back, a very large hardsuited figure which could only be Alistair jetted across to TJ and handed across a leash which TJ plugged in. Alistair waved the flivver away and then turned to TJ

"Everything under control TJ?'

"Yah. You didn't waste any time getting up here. How'd you get us? We didn't break stealth until Cedric open this hatch."

"Planned it. We got you visual. We knew there would be nothing on the passives and we prefer no using the actives if we can help it. We surmised the actives wouldn't tell us anything either."

"Might have at this range. We are close."

"You are in space terms but my lads don't usually play in space so we set up the vids. Got you as you came up over the horizon and only because you masked a few stars. Sunlight and we'd have had no problems. Are you planning on unloading all this?"

"About half."

"Should hope so. For a minute there I was thinking we'd have to put some of it under tarps while we dug a new hole. You aren't going to do this again, are you?"

"Probably not."

"Please give us warning if you do — about two years would be nice. What are we taking?"

"All the white stuff and about a third of the yellow. Our shuttle will help with some of it."

The two moved out of the hatchway to look at the shuttle while it unclamped, powered up and stood off.

"My goodness, where did you get that? Can I get one please, mummy? TJ, what do to plan with her?"

"We are looking at selling both the ship and the shuttle to Charles Lightoller. Well, we'll give him first offer; we haven't spoken to him yet."