Gibraltar Sun (30 page)

“It’s… striking. Does it wash off?”

“Hopefully not,” he said. “After all, we might get rained on.”

“Do you mean that you are that color forever?”

“For a few months, anyway. About the time our hair starts growing out again, the dye will fade and we’ll get our old complexions back. At least, I hope we will.”

“Is it really worth it?” she asked, mirroring the conversation they’d had aboard
New Hope
when it had been announced they would have to shave off all of their hair. “I mean, do you think the aliens will be fooled?”

He shrugged. “Since we don’t know the Broan capability for gathering information about us, the powers-that-be decided to make it as difficult for them as possible. We were orange skinned with blue hair at the last system we visited. Now we have stripes and are hairless. We’re not trying to look like some other species. We just don’t want to look like ourselves.

“In this form of camouflage, we use rather outlandish color schemes in the hope that these will be what stick in the minds of any aliens we meet. Hopefully, when they describe us to their masters, they will tell them that we are bipeds, as are some 80% of the races in the Sovereignty, and that we have a very striking skin tones and no hair. What is important is that they not link us with the visit to Klys’kra’t. That way, they won’t be able to see the pattern to our actions.”

“What if they send along pictures with your descriptions?”

He shrugged. “Then someone is likely to notice that beneath the outlandish skin colors, we and the Vulcan traders have the same features.”

“Vulcan traders?”

“That was our last masquerade,” Mark replied.

The blonde lieutenant looked puzzled. After a moment’s hesitation, she asked, “And if one of the aliens asks you why you have painted yourself when their scans clearly indicate that you aren’t striped and that your skin is covered with hair follicles?”

“That’s easy. We’ll blame it all on fashion. After all, you ladies have been painting yourselves for thousands of years. Why can’t we men do the same?”

Dinner was served while the various officers divided into separate conversations with their neighbors. Mark noticed Lisa laughing at the joke of a handsome, and too young, ensign. Once he caught her eye as she looked across the table at him, and a nonverbal message passed between them. Lisa’s look said, “Serves you right for talking to that blonde!” She then went back to laughing at the ensign’s jokes.

Eventually, dinner was done and the stewards had refilled their wine glasses. Captain Symes rose at the head of the table, raised his glass carefully so the wine would not slosh out, and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, a toast.”

They each raised their glasses as carefully.

“To a successful mission!”

There followed a chorus of agreement and everyone drank before returning the glasses to the table clips that secured them. By common understanding, the toast marked the end of the social portion of the evening. From here on out, it would be all business.

#

As if on cue, a holocube dropped from the overhead and lit up to show a long-range view of Pastol.

Captain Symes stood and strode to stand beside the cube. “Let us begin the mission briefing. Captain Harris, do you have any preliminary words for us?”

“I’ll save them,” Harris replied. “Proceed.”

“Very well.
Chicago
deployed her long range sensors as soon as we came to a rest with respect to this system’s Oort Cloud. We have been monitoring the planet for a full day now and have largely confirmed what the Delta expedition discovered. Pastol appears to be a largely agricultural world, with relatively small cities and a lot of ocean traffic. However, we have one bit of new information to impart. We seem to be in luck. There is a starship in orbit.”

“Broan?” Harris asked, suddenly concerned.

“Everything in the Sovereignty must be presumed to be Broan, Captain. However, if you are asking whether it is a warship, we think not. It appears to be a bulk hauler. We surmise that it is here to take on a load of whatever it is they grow down there.”

“Amazing,” Seiichi Takamatsu muttered under his breath from two seats to Mark’s right. His words had been meant to be sotto voce, but they attracted Symes’s attention anyway.

“You have a comment, Specialist?”

Takamatsu shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The silence stretched until Seiichi cleared his throat. “Sorry, Captain. I was just remarking on what an amazing transportation system the stargate network is.”

“How so?”

“Well, sir, they’re cheap! So cheap, in fact, that the Broa can actually ship food across interstellar distances economically. They allow commerce between stars as easily as between continents.”

“If one doesn’t mind being ruled by the Broa.”

“True, there is that. However, stargates are machines. They don’t care how they are used. The fact that the Broa rule a million star systems is just another measure of the stargate’s efficiency. They could never have grown that large if they relied on the stardrive.”

“An interesting philosophical point, Specialist. However, this is neither the time nor the place,” Captain Symes said, obviously impatient with the interruption. “Shall we return to our mission briefing?”

“Sorry, sir.”

Symes turned to the image in the holocube. “This ship in orbit is a godsend. We will be able to introduce
New Hope
simultaneous with its departure, much reducing the chance they will note that you didn’t come through the stargate.”

“Any idea when it will depart orbit?” Captain Harris asked, obviously thinking about the difficulties of approaching the gate without being observed by another ship in the vicinity.

“No indication, I’m afraid. We know they have arrived within the last month. The economics of shipping here should be the same as they are at home. That bulk carrier is expensive to operate. Surely it won’t stay in orbit any longer than is required to load cargo.”

“And if it does stay in orbit?”

“If it is still there next week, we will go in as planned and pray no one is monitoring the gravity waves too carefully.”

The rest of the briefing was taken up with the minutia required for a successful mission. Upon reaching the planet,
New Hope
would stay in orbit. The four assigned to the ground party would take the ship’s boat down to the surface. In addition to being a Broan linguist, Bernie Sampson was a trained pilot.

Once on the ground, Mark would be team leader, essentially reprising Admiral Landon’s role during the mission to Klys’kra’t. He would be a trader from a far-distant world, out on a mission to open up new markets. Lisa would be his assistant. Sampson would be their personal pilot. Seiichi Takamari would play a visiting scholar, along on the expedition, but not part of it. He would express an interest in learning what knowledge the Ranta possessed that his own distant world did not.

Mark would make a show of sampling the local agricultural products and choose those he thought might be in high demand on the fictional world of Troje. He would then bargain aggressively for his chosen delicacies.
New Hope
carried several of the Vithian power units and other devices they had salvaged from Sar-Say’s wrecked ship. They would use these samples as trade goods, along with several human gadgets that had been designed to betray no hint of their origin. Eventually, when a deal was nearly concluded, the “scholar” would express interest in purchasing the local planetary database, stating that it would be too much trouble to extract only the parts that were different from the Trojans’ own database.

Master Trader Markel would publicly object to the expense, but then give in reluctantly and ask their hosts for a quote on what the scholar was asking. Whatever the price, he would scream that he was being robbed, haggle a bit, and then give in.

Following Mark’s recounting of the basic mission plan, Captain Symes requested a review of contingency planning. What would they do if the landing boat broke down when the ground party was on the surface? What if
New Hope
were unable to leave orbit? What if either the ground party or the ship were captured?

Under what circumstances would either
Revenger
or
Allison
come to rescue them? The crews of both were decked out in the same masquerade scheme as was
New Hope
’s crew. It would look funny to have creatures with different paint schemes, but identical bioscans, suddenly appear, claiming to be unrelated to the Vulcans.

After nearly two hours of going over contingencies, Captain Symes called a halt. “I think we’ve discussed everything that has occurred to us. The question is ‘what hasn’t occurred to us?’ Captain Harris, any final thoughts?”

“No, sir. We all seem to be just about talked out.”

“Very well. You have my permission to proceed on your mission. I recommend an early departure. You’ll want to be relatively close to the gate when that big bulk carrier jumps outbound.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

#

Chapter Thirty One

Pastol was large on the viewscreen as
New Hope
sat in a close parking orbit and waited for clearance from the Ranta to allow them to disembark. Like most terrestrial worlds, Pastol was a “big blue marble.” Its seas were more extensive than Earth’s and its continents correspondingly smaller. At 10,000 kilometers diameter, it was slightly smaller than Earth and a bit farther from its G5 primary, Etnarii. As a result, the local gravity was about 90% standard and the temperature colder. In addition to its sparkling blue seas, the planet possessed two oversize polar ice caps, one distinctly larger than the other, the result of a 30-degree axial tilt as it orbited its star.

The approach everyone worried about had been without incident, almost boring. They crept to within ten thousand kilometers of the stargate before powering down everything but essential life support, imitating a hole in space. Then they waited. As predicted, the bulk hauler departed Pastol orbit a few days later.

They watched the alien climb toward them for a week. When it reached the stargate, it disappeared. As close as they were, the resulting gravity wave rattled every dish and stowage compartment door in the ship. What had been a theoretical subject for most people became very real.

“Did you feel that?” dozens of crewmen asked simultaneously.

“Sure did,” came the myriad awed responses.

They had wasted no time. Powering up the normal space engines, they swept close to the gate before sending the standard Broan arrival notice. The response came promptly once the radio signals were given time to cross the intervening gulf of vacuum.

“What ship and where from?” the terse message asked in Broan trade talk.

“Trading vessel
New Hope
out of Troje, Hass Vith, commanding. Owner, Master Trader Markel Sinth, aboard.”

Half an hour later, had come the demand, “What is your purpose here?”

“We are on a trade mission to open up new markets. We have heard of your delicacies and have come to taste them for ourselves. Request permission to approach the planet.”

Again the long wait, followed by, “Approach approved. Take up equatorial parking orbit at 12
3
kel
and wait to be inspected.”

The voyage to Pastol had taken five days and had been utterly uneventful. At the end, they took up a parking orbit as directed and now waited for inspection.

“Ship coming up from the planet,” Emily Sopwell reported.

“Armed?” Captain Harris asked.

“Not obviously so. Small ship. About twice the size of our landing boat.”

“Probably local health inspection,” Bernie Sampson said over the intercom.

“All right. Communicator, announce that we are about to receive visitors. No speech other than Broan trade talk from here on out. All hidden spaces are to be locked down. All false doors to be closed as of now!”

“Yes, sir.”

The communicator made the announcement. Within a few minutes, various symbols began to appear on the main viewscreen in Broan script. They signified that all ingress and egress to the classified parts of the ship had been sealed. To the casual observer, the holds would appear stuffed with merchandise. In fact, the actual trade goods were only stacked two layers deep. What appeared to be additional goods behind them was actually a cleverly camouflaged bulkhead hiding the part of the ship where weapons and the stardrive generators were housed.

The ferry craft matched orbits efficiently, and was taken aboard through the hangar bay hatch. The hatch was sealed and the bay pressurized with air containing a touch of ozone. At the same time, a similar mixture was pumped throughout the ship.

The ozone was part of the masquerade. It would hopefully convince the visitors that they were from a hotter star than Sol, one with sufficient ultraviolet output that it would drive the ozone layer all the way to the ground. Personally, Mark thought the masquerade planners had gone a little far with that touch, since it caused his eyes to water. Still, one never knew what clues to Earth’s location might turn out to be important, and therefore, misinformation was the order of the day.

Two Ranta emerged from their ship, to be met by Lisa in her yellow jumpsuit. Virtually every viewscreen in the ship was tuned to the hangar bay cameras for the meeting. Sure enough, the Ranta were easily three meters tall, dwarfing his diminutive wife. One was covered in fluorescent green feathers while the second visitor’s covering was more blue-green.

This was one world where their gaudy yellow-black striping scheme would not stand out, Mark thought upon seeing them.

Lisa spoke with them for several minutes before gesturing for them to follow her. The ship being in zero gravity, they were forced to pull themselves hand over hand along a guide line.

When they arrived at the spacious, palatial cabin of Master Trader Markel Sinth, Mark was ready for them.

“Master, it is my pleasure to introduce ValikSanMor and SerBis(Dek)Fos, of the Ranta Organization for Out System Trade. Gentlebeings, may I present Master Trader Markel Sinth, leader of our expedition and owner of this vessel.”