They’d lost their FTL capability, and most of their communications, and spent nearly all the elapsed time hobbling toward a nearby system at well below lightspeed. No real hardship for those who lived their lifetimes on board anyway, but it must have been tough on the “temporary” specialists who’d expected to be home in six months.
And, of course, for the ones left behind on Ireta. Sassinak’s hand hesitated on the console. Should she call Kai now, or wait until tomorrow? She glanced at the time, and decided to wait. They’d be getting ready for that gathering she’d heard about, and perhaps by morning she’d have a list of casualties so that he could quit worrying (or start mourning) his family. And those children - their parents on the ship would be old, or dead, by now. She could and did call upMazer Star to confirm that she’d received Fleet clearance for them.
“And you should receive some kind of official recognition,” she told Godheir. “There’s a category for civilian assistance. Depending on the tribunal outcome, it might even mean a cash bonus for you and your crew; certainly I’ll recommend it.”
“Ye don’t have to do that. Commander Sassinak…” Captain Godheir’s screen image looked appropriately embarrassed.
“No, but you deserve it. Not just for your quick response, although it’s in everyone’s interest to encourage honest citizens to respond to mayday calls, but for your continued willingness to help the expedition. I know you aren’t designed to deal with youngsters recovering from that kind of trauma. And I know you and your crew have spent a lot of hours with them.”
“Well, they’re good kids, after all, and it’s not their fault. And no family with them.”
“Yes, well, I expect, with the Thek here, this will wrap up shortly, and you’ll be free to go. But you have my gratitude for your help.”
“I’m just glad you weren’t the pirate I thought you at first,” said Godheir, rubbing his head. “When you hailed us, that’s all I could think of.”
Sassinak grinned at him; she could imagine that having something like theZaid-Dayan suddenly pop up behind him could have startled a peaceful transport captain. “I was just as glad to find that you weren’t an armed slaver escort. Oh, by the way, do you have as many dinosaur buffs as I seem to have brought along?”
“A few, yes. They’re convening at the main camp tonight, along with some of yours, I think.”
“That’s what I thought.”
His expression asked if she had a problem with that, and she didn’t, except to wonder if fanning the flames of the dinosaur enthusiasts had been such a good idea.
“I don’t expect any trouble from Captain Cruss, with the Thek nearby, but still - “
“I’m taking precautions. Commander,” he said quickly, not quite offended at her presumption. Sassinak nodded, glad he’d taken the hint, and willing to have him a little huffy with her. Better that than trouble in the night.
“I assumed you had, Captain Godheir,” she said. “But so many things aren’t going according to Regulations already…” He smiled, again relaxed.
“Right you are, and we’ll be buttoned up tight. I’ll tell my crew not to overdo the hospitality juice, whatever it is and wherever it comes from.”
Dupaynil was waving at her from the corridor; Sassinak signed off, and turned to him.
“Captain, we got the homing capsule stripped,” he said happily. “And a fine bit of imaginative writing that was, let me tell you. Imaginative wiring, too. We’re still doing forensics on it. We’ve got surface deposit / erosion scans going, another seven hours on that, and there’s a new technique for analyzing biochemical residues, but basically we’ve got Cruss and Co. in a locked cell right now.”
“In order?” suggested Sassinak. Dupaynil nodded, and laid it all out for her.
“A fake, of course: a clever one, but a fake. First the homing capsule itself, which clearly shows the pitting and scarring one would expect from some four decades of space travel. Except where the propulsion unit and so on were removed - not by natural causes, either, but by tools available to any civilized world. Then roughed up to a pretense of the distressed natural surface.”
“Which tells you that the homing capsule went somewhere, then was broken apart, and returned - “
“Probably with Cruss in his ship, although not certainly. It might have been placed for him to find. Now the message… the message was clever, very clever. Ostensibly, it’s the message Cruss told you, the one he let us ‘copy’ from his computer. It’s not a long message, and it repeats six times.”
Dupaynil cocked his head, giving Sassinak the clear impression that he wanted her to guess what followed. “And then another message?” she prompted. “On the loop behind those?” “Precisely. I was sure the Commander would anticipate. Yes, after six boring repetitions, which any ordinary rescuer must have assumed would go on until the end, we found a sixty second delay - presumably the number of repetitions coded the length of the following delay - and then the real message. The location of Ireta; the genetic data of the surviving heavyworlders, including the planned breedings for several generations; a brief account of the local biology and geology; a list of special supplies needed; a recommendation for founding colony size. There are, as you would expect, no destination codes remaining. We cannot prove, from the message alone, who were its intended recipients. For that we await the physical evidence of the shell; it is just possible that its travels are, in a way, etched on its surface. But what they sent was an open invitation: this is who we are, where we are, and what we have. Come join us.”
Sassinak could think of no adequate comment. Proof indeed that the mutineers were intentional planet pirates. She took a long breath and let it out. Then: “Are you sure they intended it for heavyworlders exclusively?”
“Oh yes. The genetic types they asked for all code that way. Besides, I’ve now got the old Security data on the mutineers. Look, Separationists, but not Purists. All of them, at one time or another, were in one of two political or religious movements.”
“And no one spotted this beforehand?” She felt a rumble of anger that no one had noticed, and therefore people had died, and others had lost over forty years of their lives.
Dupaynil shrugged eloquently. “Exploration ships do not welcome Security, especially not Fleet Security. They insist that their specialists must have the freedom to investigate, to think for themselves. Of course I am not against that, but it makes it very hard to prevent the ‘chance’ connivance of those whose associations cause trouble.”
“Umm. I expect that Kai and Varian will visit again tomorrow, Dupaynil, and I would prefer to withhold this until we have the physical data - or until something else happens. At the rate things are going wild, something else may indeed make disclosure necessary.”
“I understand. When you’re ready for me to arrive with the discovery, just let me know.” He gave her a very Gallic wink, and withdrew to continue his investigations.
The next morning, Sassinak was glad that she had made it to bed at a reasonable hour: the Thek abruptly summoned her, Kai, Varian, and, to her surprise, the Iretans and Captain Cruss. She sent Ford with the pinnace to pick up the governors and Lunzie and recall any crew from the campsite.