A Planned Improvisation (17 page)

“Well, you can borrow one of the base cars to get home,” Arn allowed. As he reached the foot of the hill that still covered the old base, Arn turned right and then after a few hundred yards made a sharp left and into the now much wider tunnel that lead downward to the new secret shipyard. “It’s not much to look at just yet,” Arn admitted gesturing to the wide open area in which several men and women were still cleaning out the debris that tends to collect for some unknowable reason in abandoned places. How do you like your new shipyard, Doctor Sheetz?”

“Yeah!” Ronnie breathed. “This will do for the factory floor. I’ll need a lot of stuff in here though. Building a ship isn’t like stacking up Lincoln Logs, you know.”

“Make a list of what you need,” Arn told her and if we can get it, we will. “Your office will be right over there,” he pointed as a large glass window with a heavy door beside it. “I figured you would want to keep an eye on whatever ship you’re working on while in there. We tested the power and data cables down here and they’re still fine so you can move in whenever you like.

“I’m going to need to keep my office in Port maintenance,” Ronnie considered, “but give me a desk and a digitizing drawing board and I’ll be fine. I’ll put that stuff on the list. “Do we have room for more offices?”

“Not in this cavern,” Arn admitted, “it’s one of the old salt mines that got excavated for us before Van Winkle went live, but if you’ll follow me up this ramp.” He led the way up a slightly curved ramp and they found themselves in a hallway filled with small rooms, ideal for offices. “This was supposed to be extra dormitory space if we needed it after waking up,” Arn explained. The rooms are bare, but we have plenty of extra office furniture upstairs, and we already put a conference room together for you here.” He opened a door into a room with a large computerized conference table surrounded by chair and with two large screens on the wall.

“Any chance of a white board too?” Ronnie asked. “I’m a bit old-fashioned and like to write as I lecture.”

“We’ll get one out of stores,” Arn promised. “It can be wirelessly connected to the table.”

“Perfect,” Ronnie nodded. “I may want to test new engines though too.”

“I thought of that,” Arn laughed. “We’re not far from the missile silo, remember? We’re putting blast doors in all the openings, but leaving the back vent open. You’ll be able to fire off just about anything in there.”

“That will show up on infrared from the Oort Cloud,” Park commented.

“No more so than any rocket engine,” Ronnie corrected him, “and you’re exaggerating outrageously. I doubt it would be detectable much beyond Luna.”

“You’re the expert,” Park shrugged. “I really ought to make sure I still have a home left.”

There was the beeping of a horn from the new shipyard area and they hurried down to see what the commotion was about only to find Marisea waiting for them beside Park’s car. Cousin was sitting on her shoulder but on seeing Park and Iris, the little primate jumped off and ran to climb Park’s leg. “I heard you were back,” she explained, “but when I got to the port you had already left.”

“How did you find us then?” Park asked her, picking up Cousin and tickling her gently.
 
“Yeah, I missed you too, furball.”

“I tracked you via your torc,” Marisea chuckled. “They’re good for that. At first I couldn’t figure out how to get down here, though, then I remembered all the construction that had been going on in the tunnel, so…”

“So much for top secrecy,” Park laughed, letting Cousin drape herself across his shoulders. She settled down and started making her happy purr-like sound.

“Is this supposed to be a secret?” Marisea asked. “Everyone’s been talking about it. What are we going to do in here? Everyone says it’s a secret spaceship factory.”

“I’m thinking of building a swimming pool,” Park lied.

“Hah!” Marisea laughed, seeing right through him. “This really would be a good place to build ships out of sight, you know.”

“And that’s what we’re going to do, “Arn admitted, “but don’t you go telling anyone, young lady.”

“I’m not that young,” Marisea shot back. “I’m an adult according to Mer and Human law.”

“And since you’re Park’s secretary most of the time,” Arn told her, “you would have to be cleared for this anyway. But don’t go confirming people’s suspicions when they guess correctly. In a month or two they’ll forget we were working down here.”

“I doubt that!” Marisea laughed again. “Are you planning to lock up all the ship-workers so they can never see their friends outside? They are going to talk. I mean really! You can instruct them not to, but they’re going to need a cover story. Somehow saying they are working on a new sort of hair salon isn’t going to cut it.”

“We’ll give the project a code name,” Arn decided, “and admit to some of what’s going on.”

“I think it would be safe to admit to engine testing,” Park pointed out. “Everyone is going to see the exhaust in any case.”

“I’ll think about it,” Arn told him. “Weren’t you two headed home?”

“Trying to get rid of us so soon?” Park shot back.

“I promised to tour some of the new buildings in town,” Arn admitted. “You know, I think we ought to let the colony have its own government. I’m not really all that comfortable as a king and I think the time has long passed when we could think of this as a military base.”

“To tell the truth I was thinking along the same lines a while back,” Park admitted, “but I think forcing the colony to change how it is run would be just as bad as making it your little kingdom. Why don’t we convene a meeting of all the department leaders, including the Mer and the Attackack who have established residency here and let them decide how they would like to reorganize the colony. Then we can poll the entire populace and see if they want any of the proposed changes. I suspect we’ll adopt a democracy since most of our people came from democratic republics of one flavor or another, but this way everyone will have a say.”

“They liked the idea, but told me unanimously that this was not the time,” Arn told Park two mornings later. “I suppose they were right, but…”

“It would be nice to pass off the responsibility for the clean-up?” Park prompted him sardonically.

“It would be nice to be able to delegate more,” Arn admitted. “And there’s no reason I should have to be concerned with road repairs and similar city hall matters.”

“I’m more concerned a new town council will decide they need to levy taxes,” Park pointed out.

“Why should they?” Arn asked. “We haven’t had to collect taxes from anyone so far.”

“The military doesn’t collect taxes,” Park pointed out.

“This has never really been a military base,” Arn shook his head. “Oh I know I’ve treated it like one and called it that from time to time. But none of us has been active military since we woke up. We’re really a colony.”

“And you are the governor-general,” Park pointed out.

“Is that my title?” Arn laughed.

“I think we were remiss when it came to coining titles,” Park replied. “Your title is still Colonel, but your job is that of governor-general. We both know Project Van Winkle was organized with you in command and we expected to come out of stasis either a week to a month after we went under or else a century to a millennium later. Had it been sooner it would have been because all crises had passed and we were no longer needed. Later and we’d be looking at apocalyptic conditions and it would be our job to provide the kernel of a regenerated civilization.

“The problem is, someone forgot to set the alarm clock and we overslept a quarter of one billion years,” Park went on. “When we first woke up we thought we had the world to ourselves so we went forward with the apocalypse scenario with you in charge of the team.”

“Except for you and your explorer corps,” Arn replied.

“Well, yeah,” Park nodded. “I was a bit surprised you let me get away with that.”

“I know you well enough to know you do your best without a boss breathing down your neck,” Arn admitted. “I also know that no matter how autonomous you were, you would never undermine my chain of command. I do admit that I never thought I’d be leaving you in charge of Space Exploration and world-wide defense.”

“My job just grew into that,” Park shrugged. “I never wanted to be in charge of the Space Force, if you want to call it that, but when exploration turned to space, I was in charge of our only ship. Then we learned that it was a good idea to arm any ship we had. Never mind that, or were you planning on taking over the ships next?”

“What?” Arn asked. “Are you joking? Why would I want to do that? I just said I wanted to farm out some of my responsibilities, not increase them.”

“Well, for now we have what we have,” Park replied. “If you want to change the way the colony works, maybe you should propose an actual charter, rather than let everyone argue it out for themselves. It’s safer that way.”

“There will always be changes,” Arn pointed out. “Just look back on government in the Twenty-first Century. Politics swung back and forth like a manic pendulum whenever there was a new election.”

“So this is our chance to design something a little more stable,” Park told him. He was about to say more when his torc chimed. “Hello?” he activated the communications circuit.

A Mer male face appeared a few feet away. Park instantly recognized Garnor Theens, the head communications officer. “Park,” Garnore spoke. “We’ve picked up the emergence of a task force of ships just outside Saturnian orbit. They’re headed toward Earth.”

“Have you hailed them?” Park asked immediately.

“Yes, of course,” Garnor replied, “but it will be at least two and a half hours before we hear their response.”

“Light lag,” Park nodded. “Okay, spread the word to the Mer and to Luna, I want every ship at battle stations and ready to lift in two hours.”

“Aye aye, sir!” Garnor replied and signed off.

“That’s not a Space Force you have,” Arn told Park, “it’s a navy.”

“That’s probably Tina’s influence,” Park admitted. “She was a Navy Air pilot and one of the active military personnel in the project. She aye-ayed me and the others picked up on it. I imagine you have preparations to make too.”

“Yeah,” Arn grumbled, “and we’re not ready for another attack.”

Earth and Luna were fully on alert two hours and forty minutes later when the reply came in, “This is Captain Arcto Morth of the Alliance Space Navy, requesting permission to approach Earth and land at Van Winkle Town Spaceport. I bring news and greetings from Lord Rebbert of Dennsee.”

“With your whole task force, Captain?” Park shot back from the Van Winkle control tower. “Van Winkle’s port does not currently have the ability to host your entire task force. Please bring only one or two ships down here and divert the rest to Collins Base on Luna.”

There was another two and a half hour wait before Morth’s response came back, “Acknowledged, Van Winkle. One ship only will land at Van Winkle the rest go to Collins.”

“Tell the ships to stand down, sir?” Garnor asked.

“Not just yet. Keep them on alert until we have visual confirmation of those ship’s drive signatures,” Park instructed. “See if Luna has anything on that.”

It took another hour but eventually both Earth and Luna were able to come down from battle stations and await the approach of Captain Morth’s task force. Over the next day, Morth expressed his desire to meet with Park, Arn, Prime Terius, Taodore Waisaw, Sartena and Dannet.

It was less than a week later that the Alliance battleship
Diligence
arrived at Van Winkle, rolling majestically down the newest runway. Captain Morth came from the planet Meeralon where the suprahumans had adapted themselves to the frigid conditions that were only survivable in a narrow band around its equator, by growing fur composed of long hollow tubes, similar to that of a reindeer, all over their bodies except for on their faces which were entirely hairless.

As he debarked from his ship, Morth took a look around and saw the hastily patched damage to the tarmac all around the port terminal building. “I see what you mean about not being able to host the entire task force,” he admitted. “What happened here?”

“Welcome to Earth, Captain,” Park greeted him. “The official committee is inside the terminal. We’re still cleaning up from a visit from some of those mystery ships.”

“Here too?” Morth asked. “I’m not too surprised. We think it was your emergence as an interstellar planetary system that set them off.”

“We haven’t actually left Sol System yet,” Park pointed out, “and this latest attack occurred during our first successful test.”

“Congratulations,” Morth told him seriously. “You should have received a better welcome from the Alliance than this.”

“I’ve heard the Alliance has had problems of its own,” Park acknowledged as they approached the terminal. “You can tell us all about them at once though. You caught us during the wet season, so everyone you asked to meet with is waiting inside.”

“This is the wet season?” Morth asked drolly. “I think I could have guessed. It’s rather warm out here for me. What’s it like the rest of the year.”

“Hot and dry,” Park replied. “That’s due to start any day now actually.”

“Okay, not my ideal vacation spot then,” Morth decided.

“Well, we have air conditioning inside the terminal,” Park told him. “I’m sure you’ll find that more comfortable. This way.” He held the door open.

Captain Morth had brought a thick
 
packet full of messages, but they were personal greetings for Terius and Arn, for Dannet and Sartena and even one for Park, but the real news could not be trusted to either writing or recording. That Morth had to deliver personally.

“Not to put too fine a point on it,” Morth began, “the Alliance is in chaos. You call them the mystery ships, we’ve been calling them dark ships. Whatever you call them though, they seem to be everywhere. Infernally hard to hit…”

“Hard to hit?” Arn asked. “We got two of the three that attacked here.”

“Compared to the rest of us, you got lucky,” Morth replied. “Targeting computers slip right off them. They won’t hold a fix.”