A Galaxy Unknown 10: Azula Carver (30 page)

"They're beautiful, Mama," Jenetta said.

"They both have your looks. Blonde hair, azure eyes, and fair skin."

"Like Arturo and Berl. All the kids are fair."

"The Carver genes, I guess," Christa said.

"Which was born first?" Jenetta asked.

"Your daughter was out ahead of your son by two minutes. Is that important?"

"It is in the Nordakian nobility line of succession. It means that she has first claim to the title. I hope Hugh isn't upset when he learns the boy doesn't look like him."

"He won't be. He loves you, and the kids look like you. I'm sure he'll love them."

"I have to tell him he's a daddy."

"That can wait until after the babies are fed. Do you feel up to it?"

"I feel wonderful, Mama. It's so great to be able to see my feet again."

"I know, dear. I had that experience four times. The most difficult time was with Andy and Jimmy. And like you, I felt wonderful when it was over, but the months of discomfort had been worth it."

"I'm glad it didn't prevent you from having one more."

"I had made up my mind that I was going to have a girl and wasn't going to stop making babies until I did. I guess you're lucky you don't have twenty brothers."

"I'm glad I came along in time to save you all that extra effort."

"It wasn't really an effort. I loved every minute of those years. Well, perhaps not every minute. There were times when you kids tried my patience. But you'll see what I mean. Now I can sit back and enjoy my grandchildren without suffering months of back pain."

"Okay, Grandma. Let's feed the newest Carvers."

"Wait, you have to name them. The doctor needs that information for the birth certificates."

"Hugh and I decided on Kyle and Kaycee. So it will be Kyle James Carver, and Kaycee Annette Carver."

"Carver?" Christa said. "Not Michaels?"

"Hugh insisted. Because of the prominence of the Carver name on Nordakia, Obotymot, and in the GA, he wants the kids to be recognized as Carvers wherever they go. James is Hugh's middle name, so Kyle
will
have a name link to his father, just as Kaycee will have a name link to her grandmother."

~     ~     ~

The tenants on the peninsula naturally knew of Azula Carver's pregnancy, and when they learned that there were two new possible heirs to the title, they celebrated the births. The celebrations weren't organized affairs, but the taverns and restaurants were busy with parties and revelers for two days.

~     ~     ~

"Sir, when we performed our flyby today we realized that one of the motherships is gone," Eliza reported from the SDB
Pechora
. "Since only one mothership appeared operational in the original images, that has to be the missing ship."

"Damn," Gavin said. "The AB has ordered half the SDBs in Region Two to rendezvous at our location, but it will be weeks before they can arrive because they've been operating at the extreme limits of GA space. You're sure the ship is gone?"

"We were operating at the maximum DeTect range, so I suppose it's possible we missed it, but I didn't want to risk another flyby without consulting you first."

"We need to know. You're authorized for a second imaging flyby, Commander, at a distance that leaves no doubt."

"Aye, sir. We'll commence the run as soon as I sign off."

"Contact me again when you've confirmed the situation."

"Aye, sir."

"Out."

Eliza returned to the bridge and issued orders for the imaging run, then sat back and watched the forward view being projected on the front monitor.

~

"It's confirmed, sir, the mothership is no longer at the site, and it appears that all activity has ceased."

"Damn. I hope we haven't lost the opportunity to destroy that ship. You saw no sign of
any
activity?"

"That's correct, sir. It looks like they've abandoned the unfinished ships."

"Transmit the images to us so our people here can examine them as well."

"Aye, sir. Transmitting now. They're on their way."

"Commander, we have to find that mothership."

"We have no idea which way it headed, sir, and they could have an entire day's head start. It will be like finding a minnow in an ocean, but we'll commence a search immediately."

"Maybe we'll get lucky. We have twenty times their speed capability, so we can cover a lot of space while they're still within a day's travel. In any event, we can't be any worse off than we are right now."

"Are you going to cancel the rendezvous, sir?"

"No. We'll need every ship we can assemble here to search for that missing mothership if we can't find it within a few days."

"Aye, sir."

"We'll begin searching as well. Coordinate your search with the
Ares
tac officer so we don't cover the same areas."

"Aye, sir."

"Out."

~     ~     ~

"The chairman of the Lower Council wishes to address us today," Chairwoman Gladsworth said to the members of the Upper Council as she called the meeting to order. "Chairwoman Shanara, you have the floor."

"I'm here today at the request of this council to report on the progress of our attempts to secure the cloning documentation. So far all attempts have failed. I've tried bribery, blackmail, threats to the individual, threats to the individual's family, and outright theft of the documentation. The main problem with the latter option seems to be that when Soroman authorized a mass assassination of the planetary leadership, he killed most of the people who might have known where the files were currently being kept and where any backups might be found.

"As you know, the Dakistians are rebuilding their world and government offices have been moving around like chess pieces as new buildings are completed. The key agencies that were being quartered on an interim basis in high-rise office buildings have moved out because the president declared that those buildings couldn't be properly secured for government activity. Those agencies have temporarily moved into small buildings intended for museums and schools where everyone even entering the building can be searched. In brief, it was a mess before, and Soroman made it ten times worse by killing all those government ministers and employees.

"I'm not saying we'll
never
get the documentation, but you have to realize that it will be a long-term project. We may not see any results until the agencies stop moving around, the president has a chance to rebuild her cabinet, and those new ministers learn to distinguish their rump from their elbow."

"How much time do you think that will take, Chairwoman Shanara?" Chairwoman Gladsworth asked.

"It's impossible to tell. Most political appointees who are placed in positions of power that didn't require any special education or training for the job are often political hacks whose only skills are fundraising and/or sucking up to higher ups. Most of the ambassadors on Earth, as an example, are people who bought their jobs by making enormous contributions to their president's election fund from either personal wealth or their talent for squeezing money from the president's political supporters. Take the U.S. as an example. If you've ever seen a committee hearing where ambassador nominees were being questioned before their nomination was approved, you'd know what I mean. I remember one where the nominee had never even been to the country he was being considered for and didn't even know what form of government was in place in that country. In another hearing, the nominee being considered for the top ambassadorial position couldn't even identify where the country was located on the map."

"Yes, those are the kind of dolts we can usually turn," Councilwoman Stengel said.

"True. Those are the types of people most susceptible to bribery because that's how they got where they are, and once they get there, they're more than happy to take money instead of giving it. But at the same time, the individual has to have knowledge that we need or power we can corrupt and manipulate. I'll continue my efforts to corrupt people inside the Dakistee government, but it will take time before they learn enough to be worth the bribery money I'll have to pay.

"The other alternative is to develop a procedure where we produce our own clones without the Dakistee documentation. That will not be difficult at all. Scientists on earth had already succeeded in cloning animals before governments began making it illegal for anyone other than government agencies to continue such research. The old research is available and we can simply start from where it was dropped and complete the process. However, we don't have the growth secrets that will age them in a week's time so they'd be useful right away. Again, that's something we can work on and possibly develop within a decade or two. The real problem is finding a way to duplicate the contents of the cloned individual's brain in a new body. We can selectively wipe a person's mind at present, causing a condition such as amnesia going back as far as we wish, and we can insert new thoughts that they believe were acquired on their own. But to copy every thought and memory in the original's head, hold it in long-term storage until needed, and then create an identical clone of the original is well beyond us at this time. If you wish me to begin work on such a project, I will start immediately, but I wouldn't expect any kind of results for at least twenty years, and more likely fifty."

"Thank you for the update, Chairwoman Shanara. The council will discuss it and tell you of our decision or perhaps call you back if we have more questions."

Shanara stood up, thanked the Upper Council members for the opportunity to explain the situation, and left the room.

"She certainly sounds just like the old Strauss," Councilwoman Stengel said. "It's refreshing after that fool Soroman."

"I agree," Councilwoman Whitely said. "But it would be a shame if we had to wait fifty years before we could make our own clones."

"Shanara isn't going to give up trying to get the documentation from the Dakistians," Gladsworth said. "That was another of Strauss's endearing qualities. He had the tenacity of a bulldog protecting his bone, and now we have him back as Shanara. I must say, though, I didn't care for the dress she's wearing today."

"And she had a little too much rouge on her cheeks," Stengel said.

"I don't care for her hairstyle," Whitely said. "The bangs make her look less intelligent."

"And she's tall enough that she doesn't have to wear thirteen-centimeter heels," Overgaard said.

Council members Kelleher, Fazid, and Blosworth, the only male members on the council, and three of the four most junior members, sat back and tolerated the ensuing discussion of clothes and makeup that seemed so important to the nine women on the council.

An hour or so later, the council finally returned to work on the day's agenda.

~ August 22
^th
, 2289 ~

"The crew of the
Ares
welcomes the crew of the
Koshi
," Gavin said to Lt. Commander Ellison when the GSC-SDB116 arrived at the rendezvous point.

"Thank you, sir," Ellison said. "I guess we lost an opportunity to bag a mothership because we were just too far away."

"It couldn't be helped, Commander. We never expected to find a mothership this close to Quesann. The other ships were turned back when the
Ares
and
Pechora
couldn't find it after an exhaustive search, but with the
Koshi
and the
Pechora
watching our backs, the
Ares
engineers can now enter those motherships that were being built and determine how far along they were, and try to figure out how long it takes them to build one of those monsters. We couldn't do it before because if the Denubbewa mothership returned, we'd have to vacate the area and possibly not have time to recover our people. With two SDBs patrolling the area, we can blow them away before they know what hit them."

"Yes, sir. When do you wish to begin?"

"It's 1426 GST right now. Contact Lt. Commander Carver aboard the
Pechora
to establish your bombing linkup. We'll move to the Denubbewa shipyard and my engineers will leave the
Ares
in a shuttle at 1500 and proceed to the most complete of the three motherships. You'll have to be prepared to take on any Denubbewa that show up."

"We'll be ready, sir."

"Very good, Commander. Carry on. Out."

The
Ares
left the rendezvous location and moved to a position near the most completed of the gargantuan Denubbewa motherships. At 1500 the
Ares
cancelled its envelope and a shuttle left one of the bays. Ten minutes later the shuttle was sitting just outside the mothership. The ship was so enormous, the pilot wasn't sure where to bring the small ship to a stop. The officer in command of the investigation team suggested they enter the tunnel leading to the interior of the mothership as if they were a Denubbewa warship returning to base. The pilot agreed that might be the best solution and entered the tunnel. It was the last decision he would ever make. Before the shuttle had flown a dozen kilometers into the tunnel, powerful laser beams flashed out from the sidewalls, neatly slicing the small ship in half. Because it happened well inside the tunnel entrance, the
Ares
was unable to see the defensive action.

"What's happened?" Gavin said from his command chair. "What happened to the shuttle signal? Is it being jammed?"

"I'm not sensing any jamming signals, sir," the tac officer said.

"Then are the Denubbewa blocking it somehow?"

"I'm not getting anything, sir. Nothing at all."

"I see something floating out of the entranceway tunnel, sir," Commander Gates said.

"Tac, maximum magnification on that object."

"Maximum magnification, sir. It looks like— the shuttle, but it's— in two pieces."

"It
is
our shuttle. You can see headless bodies still strapped into their seats, from the pilot back. Who was piloting that ship?"

"Lt. Ben Parksman, sir," Gates said.

"Is that mothership occupied? Was that a deliberate attack?"