Chapter 90

There had been an incident during the Exposition and it was discussed at the officers' conference held on "Sundowner".

A diversion had been tried by an attack upon the Gennies guarding the flivvers and the bus developing from "over amorous advances" to distract from yet another snatch effort upon the Kids. The Companions had given advance warning and Morg was able to co-ordinate the response. The Gennies brutally dealt with the locally employed Lotharios and parked them in the bus where they were questioned by the Daughters as the shuttle bus returned to Old London; the pseudo-swains were momentarily shocked to find themselves breathing near vacuum over the English Channel.

Inside the Exposition the Kids had been aware of several persons who the Companions considered had evil intentions as opposed to the numerous persons who just had an interest in their doings. The Matriarch in Hazel's broach detected the thoughts of the leader communing with persons outside her range; the Gennies' Companions detected the swains' communing with their leader and advised the Gennies who used the earbud's coms to alert Morg who made the correct assessment. Close covert inspection of the potential assailants including a walk past by a gaggle of Gennies revealed the possession of a gas spray and what could be an electronic scrambler. The Kids had temporarily satisfied their hunger at one of the numerous fast food outlets and had entered the freshers – Old Earth still insisted upon gender separate toilets. Three females had followed Hazel into the toilet facility donning breather masks as they did; forewarned, Hazel had inserted emergency oxygen generators into her nostrils*. One assailant carried an activated counter vid device and tried to act as lookout. The other two advanced on Hazel with one spraying gas at her. Several Gennies trailed in behind them. As Hazel had entered the facility, the Martiarch had dropped out of Hazel's broach and the Companion had evacuated the earbud. The arachnids each bit an assailant and Hazel walked around their falling bodies to smash the knee of the lookout who really was not expecting a counter attack from Hazel because of the distraction caused by the Gennies. Really having "to go", Hazel attended to her business during which time the Companions returned to their hideaways. The Gennies shut down the scrambler before the surveillance was alerted. The Gennies just smiled at the lookout as Hazel attended to her toilette and the lookout used her com to call for help / back up to which there was no response.

Which was not surprising as the back up team had accepted Simmo's invitation to have a quiet chat at one of the rest stations. The acceptance might have had something to do with the presence of the Windsors - Morg and the Daughters – standing behind them. The Gennies with grave courtesy assisted the female to join her male friends. The Companions stripped the information which followed the earlier pattern of control in progress. The three males were excused and shooed to their ground car assisting their female companion as they went. Each of the four was gently patted on the face by a Daughter. (The newsfaxes that evening were leading the news break with the story of an inexplicable outburst of violence at a quiet suburban apartment dwelling in which seven persons were killed. The inside team had been locals who were agents of the Chencon intelligence and were controlled from the Bonn Consuls office. (Later, one of those killed was identified as a clerk in the Chencon Consul's office – the Consul did not offer an explanation. The finding of two females who had died from a drug overdose did not make the 'faxes.)

(*Sundowners automatically carried this emergency equipment as part of their normal clothing – the burrfibre dungarees were poor protection against vacuum but did give some protection to controlled[?] loss of atmosphere and the nostril plug / reservoirs protected against hypoxia – and gave some time in which to don a hard suit.)

The conference had also been called to assess Terra's space capability and to plan research and development for SHOW.

The discussion was lead by Orville. With Old Earth's trade still carried in wet bottoms, the shipbuilding industry had had no difficulty constructing space hulls and fitting power plants into them. The defence of trade had moved out of the atmosphere to space and the oceanic depths. The expertise needed to build submarine and space hulls was similar. The power packs for space were the same whether used in interplanetary or interstellar space and the Warshawski sails worked in the galactic halo about the Solar system as well as in the halo about the Perseus and Sagittarius arms of the galaxy. The major failing with regard to Sol space hulls was that only some of the merchant marine space freighters and none of the space war ship hulls carried bunkerage adequate for interstellar distances. Orville did make one caveat in that he had no detail of the construction of Frontier Fleet but had heard rumours that the most recent builds had interstellar bunkerage. Foremost Engineer tabled his research that all hulls constructed outside the Solar system had bunkerage for interstellar distances but as yet there were only a handful of hulls with fission plants not requiring frequent bunkering.

Morg followed with a report on Terran spaceship missile production. They were still at the stage of using missiles in a torpedo role and not even as sophisticated as the submarine force weapons. The lack of missile manoeuvrability was surprising when looked at in the context of twentieth and twenty first centuries' control of space vehicles. Morg put this devolution down to the loss of technology during the years and destruction of the Supersoldiers' Wars of the twenty fourth century.

Cedric reported that coms was still lightspeed, the passive detection systems were interstellar in standard but active search and stealth was basically primitive and the counter EW was of the same standard.

TJ reported that the 'puter standard was interstellar and put that down to two things. First the impetus of galactic trading and secondly by Old Earth companies gaining a foothold in the south galaxy because neither Mountserrat nor Harbouria had had the immediate 'puter resources to meet the demand caused by the sudden surge in warship construction – or rather, neither nation had opted to divert scarce resources when the equipment could be manufactured by Solarian companies willing to staff and locate plants in the nation.

Elle Stanton reported an absence of even wet navy carriers and parasite craft and had been offered the explanation that the wet navy CVs offered too easy a target to space based weaponry.

Clare had examined technology and had found that the galaxy was still in the electronics era despite some progress in the twenty first century in nanotechnologies which had hit the hurdle of vested interest in electronics. These interests had been able to keep reducing costs and improve capabilities presenting a barrier that new research had not been able to financially overcome.

Cedric's research on this point disclosed that the deliberate targeting of research facilities in the wars of the twenty-fourth century had basically locked the galaxy into the extant manufacturing technology and that there were only a few organisations were exploring new fields. Cedric submitted the point that the cost of going into the galaxy had diverted funds for experimental research added to which was the cost of maintaining the planet's current population. None of the off-Terra galactic nations was bigger than a medium sized Terran nation and budgets were just not available for more than maintaining living standards. The two exceptions were Mountserrat which had the revenues from the Junction and Harbouria which had conquered other planet nations and controlled more resources but had found that the increased population brought more problems than benefits.

The meeting then went off in another associated direction as most informal discussions tend so to do.

TJ put it that the race for additional resources by Terran nations was just beginning and the moves by both Noramcon and Chencon to gain control of the United Solarian Worlds Senate and more particularly their Navy were just part of that race. Recent events on Old Earth suggested that the Chencons might have altered their policies and were trying a more direct approach. The connections between Sema and Chencon seemed only to benefit Chencon by giving them an ally in the Southwest Galaxy perhaps to counter Noramcon influence in Frontier Fleet – the nations in that region were really only struggling colonies which were already sliding down the technology ladder so as to concentrate on basic survival. TJ saw the only benefit to Sema was an Old Earth base. He also thought the Seman intent was to locate a rumoured construct from the Geatland Laboratories which was said to be a file repository for the genetic research of which DNA / RNA controlled 'puters and nannites appeared to be the most significant. The repeated attempts at kidnapping of persons from the McKinnon, McCock and Comminantes genetic lines were presently a mystery. There had been no reported attacks on the Albertson, Argyll, Isles or Strathlawn lines.

Clare attempted to pull the discussion back to the point but was sidetracked by Morg's observation that the Terran nations were once again aiming at regaining control of the colonies and a corollary point as to just whom would SHOW prefer to be the major colonising power.

Into the ensuing silence as that morsel was digested came the muted conversation between Orville, Cedric and Derrin. Absent cerebral cortices into which the Companions could tap, Derrin had to rely upon speech or electronic connections to receive information. Clare had caught a bit of the conversation and politely invited them to share their thoughts causing a short embarrassed silence which was broken by Derrin.

"We were discussing my origins and how, when you ... ah, found(?) me, I was being used as a simple computational navigation 'puter. I was later replaced by the GEC 'puters and stored in the starboard boat bay. But Orville kept a trickle charge connected and I was able to 'pute. During that time I was able to trawl through my memory banks and had an awareness that I had been activated at a very basic level a considerable time ago – I truly have no concept of how long as the clock programmes had not been loaded. I went on a space journey as cargo and then nothing until I was activated with a nav programme on where I now know was Monterey, tested, and placed in the treasure ship and ended up in the boat bay. My friend, Claude, at the instigation of TJ and Morg, downloaded his files one of which was a boot programme for me. I wakened and then explored my environment; Orville had been persuaded to supply extra power for the download and left it connected. Occasionally, Orville and Cedric would communicate at a very basic level until somebody realised how far I had explored and, after that, things became considerably better for me. I was placed in a better suite, given adequate power and am now the prime 'puter...

Before the refit TJ and Orville had discussed with me just what I could do and examined my nanotech capabilities which, with the most recent of the downloaded files, that is from almost at the time of the conflict initiation, is extensive. With Orville's assistance, I was able to produce numerous nanotech assemblies and place them in the robos which provided the heavy lifting required. "Sundowner" was refitted from the inside out with technology that is far beyond what is presently available elsewhere...

TJ and Cedric have been using my capabilities to create nanotech assemblies the size of a thumb tack to replace equipment sets in EW and coms with the problem that antennae size must remain about the same. Nanotech assemblies are still subject to the environment and don't cope well with extremes of temperature or in high radiation...

Orville has looked at his power plant and has been able to downsize his control instruments; but we are restricted by the physics of the release of energy which still requires massive plant to contain. Size is still required where humans are needing protection from nature or enemy...

What I can offer is a saving in mass where the physical human requirements are not a factor and a far superior technology than is presently available. The question is do you wish to provide this technology to Old Earth? The benefits to Old Earth will be huge but the disadvantage will be the quantum leap in weapon capability and Old Earth's past record in international disputation provides evidence that the primitive response of violence has not been bred out of the human genus."

Clare cast her eyes heavenwards,

"I think I preferred it when 'puters were inorganic chips and didn't get philosophical on us humans."

"Yah" TJ agreed "but she has a point. Even if we restrict ourselves to so-called peaceful nanotechnology, the rest of the human race will soon develop similar systems and then go onto weapons. But the big hurdle for Old Earth will be the use of DNA / RNA in programming of the nanoassemblies. Every Old Earth nation has laws in place banning the use of biomaterial and the planet abounds with self appointed watchdogs."

"Not without reason, TJ" Morg pointed out, "you've only got to look at the end result of what our ancestors were designed for."