April 5: A Depth of Understanding (40 page)

"Mr. Alexander, on com," Muños invited to speak.

"I agree with the arguments to keep it. So far it has been a positive and I say it is worth it even acknowledging it is a personal risk. I'll take my chances on getting challenged and not being a crack shot I'd take a different choice of weapons, likely baseball bats, as I was quite the solid hitter back on Earth." He smiled, light hearted about it, but they all took it for truth.

Dakota looked at Alexander's image on the screen with a very odd expression on her face. She looked around as if she expected someone to contradict him, but they didn't.

"Your point is well taken, Mr. Alexander, but basically you are agreeing with previous comments. If we are to the point of agreeing or dissenting  on the points covered let's do that with our vote. If nobody has any major points to raise on the issue let's proceed to a vote," Muños suggested. He waited for perhaps a dozen seconds with no input.

"On the matter of dueling being a fundamental right and extended to all people without regard to citizenship. How do you people say?"

 He visibly sat back, letting the vote come in. The screen behind him tallied it.

The vote took about five minutes to taper off until there was a dead pause long enough to cut it off. The yeas were 977 versus 323 nays. More people had joined the discussion since the first vote, or withheld their vote until the one that actually decided something. The late comers were more nays. April wondered if that had any significance.

"Ms. Benton, the Assembly of Home has decided that you have the fundamental right to engage Mr. Wycliffe in a duel. I note that you have over an hour to meet him and I assume he has sufficient interest to have followed this on com, although he chose not to speak."

"Mr. Wycliffe is actually Jesse Silverson, one of the previous USNA administrators for Armstrong. Adapting an alias shows guilt to me. I just happened to run into him in the corridors and knew him by sight."

Muños acknowledged that by a nod, neither agreeing nor disputing it. "If he should fail to show and meet your challenge we shall expel him from Home, as is our custom. If you would care to call us on com, Mr. Wycliffe and inform us if you intend to meet her, it will probably result in more witnesses and it would be a kindness to the rest of us who are curious."

John called in and Muños routed his face to the screen.

"I am at my end of places where I am welcome," he told them. "I don't have any particular desire to kill Ms. Benton, but necessity is forced upon me. I'll meet her at 0800 as she demanded and give her satisfaction one way or another. I'll have exactly equal weapons for us, you or any others can inspect and give her the choice of them, I have nobody standing second to me."

"What did you choose?" Muños asked.

"I had a fabricating shop cut twin lengths of heavy wall steel tubing, a meter long by three centimeters diameter and had a third of their length knurled to give a good grip."

Dakota didn't look happy over that, but she kept her mouth shut.

"Thank you for calling in," Muños said and John nodded and disconnected, leaving Muños and Benton on the split screen again.

"The twelfth Assembly of Home has concluded urgent business and I urge all of you to let other matters wait on a more convenient time to address them. Are there any objections?" He waited again, very briefly. The fellow who always wanted to suggest Home should build a park tried to speak. Mr. Muños refused to acknowledge him today, not even to let the Assembly cut him off in fifteen or twenty seconds as they did commonly now.

"That concludes our Assembly then, thank you for your participation."

Dakota stood up ready to leave, but Muños held up a restraining finger. He hadn't cut the screen off or the feed either.

"Ms. Benton, a word with you. I won't delay you long enough to matter. In the matter of your duel I have discharged my obligation as a moderator for the assembly. On a personal level however, I find it offensive that you are using the duel in this manner. It seems to me a bad precedent to issue a challenge that the target can't resolve by apology or a change in his actions. As far as I can see the only resolution you'd accept is for Mr. Wycliffe to commit suicide or flee the habitat to certain death and ruin. Therefore be advised if you survive your encounter with him you are welcome to enjoy the day of life you gained, but you will be required to meet me at the same time and location tomorrow and test me with whatever weapons you may choose."

Dakota stood mouth hanging open, unable to frame a reply. Muños just waited on her.

"I have no desire to harm you!" she finally managed. After thinking a little she added. "You are very well liked and respected. If I kill you I'll be a stink to most of Home's inhabitants."

"Well, you are a resident of Central, that certainly is not as great an issue as if you intended to
live
here. I didn't observe you inquiring how the local opinion of Mr. Wycliffe runs. It may be he has friends and business associates who will resent his death too. I don't know him, so my concern is entirely a matter of principle, not friendship or personalities. I hate to see the duel used over political matters and things long past that have created implacable hatred. We are inviting feuds. We could have Jews and Arabs, Turks and Armenians and every other such pairings taking out generational hatreds in our corridors. No, I'm firmly opposed to this."

"But, I don't
want
to. What can I do to appease you in this matter?" She was so dismayed the obvious solution escaped her.

"You can sue Mr. Wycliffe for an agreement to not meet, as he has already publically agreed to do so, or you can flee Home after killing him and know if you try to return you will certainly be expelled for failing to meet me."

"I have no idea what he'd demand of me or if anything would satisfy him now," Dakota admitted.

"That's between you two. It no longer concerns me," Muños said quite calmly. When she stood rooted to the floor and in shock he did remind her, "but of course you have quite a limited time to pursue that or take the field, one or the other."

Dakota nodded her acceptance of that and exited the cafeteria, briskly.

* * *

"Are you going to let her off the hook?" Fred asked John.

"Do I look stupid? Of course I'll agree to not meet. If she just asks."

"If I may suggest, make sure it is a permanent agreement and not something she is doing today and will regret and stew on it and challenge you in the future."

"She is a bit emotional isn't she? I'll take that advice and make the terms clear," John agreed.

* * *

- ALL addresses / system transmission –

Regarding the agreed duel between Dakota Benton and John Wycliffe, both parties wish to make a public announcement that Ms. Benton has agreed to withdraw her objections to Mr. Wycliffe on a permanent basis and he makes no counter claims. The matter is closed.

* * *

"Good, some sense prevailed," April said at the announcement.

" I knew Muños was smart, but that was brilliant," Gunny said.

"Yes, now if we could only get a couple billion Chinese to show as much sense," Jeff said, waving a hand at the screen in disgust. It was chaos and destruction on a scale almost as bad as he feared he'd have to inflict himself at one time. The flood of the Yangtze river course was a minor slap at the Chinese nation compared to what they were doing to themselves. At least he didn't have to feel guilty about it and when they were through he doubted they would have the capacity to bother Home again for some years.

The door buzzer sounded and Jeff checked the hall camera, throwing the image in a separate window on the screen. It was the young man Gabriel who Jeff had seen hanging around the cafeteria. Ruby seemed to use him for various errands, which was a recommendation. he called the door open and invited him in. He stepped in and amused Jeff by casing the place. Not that he stood and stared, his eyes swept the room and them corner to corner in two seconds. Jeff was certain he took a good inventory of who was there and certainly the huge overlay map of China on the wall.

"Mr. Singh, Joan Morgan sent me with this note for you," he said offering a sealed envelope.

"Did she want any sort of receipt or a reply?"

"No sir, she didn't ask for any, but I'd be happy to wait for you to look at it and take a reply if you care to send one."

"Did she pay you?"

"Certainly, I don't do courier work on credit," Gabriel said, surprised.

"Smart man. Let me look at this quickly and I'll send you on your way." Jeff walked to his seat ripping the envelope open and unfolded a single sheet of paper.

"No reply needed. Thank you for your service though. Here's something for delaying you," he offered, extending a USNA fifty dollar bill.

"No sir, thank you. You didn't keep me from anything at all. If you have work for me some other time I'd be happy for that," he said, letting himself out.

"It's up to you to consider," Jeff told Chen, but I think that young man has possibilities if you'd look into recruiting him."

"Do you have any information on him?"

"I suggest you go ask Ruby. I know she uses him."

"The cook in the cafeteria?" Chen asked, dubious.

"Believe me, Ruby has an informal intelligence gathering network all her own. If you ask her a few questions you'll be surprised at its depth."

"But she doesn't give it away," April spoke up. "Be prepared to trade for it."

"And don't
cross
her, or her husband will kill you and we'll never find the body or know what happened to you," Jeff warned him. "You will just, vanish..."

"That wasn't dark humor was it?"

"Not even a little bit."

"Is the letter of any concern to us?" Chen asked.

"Ms. Morgan regrets the network informs her my mailbox is blocked to her and wished to inform me she told her editor I had not bombarded China, exactly as I said. They had what she described as 'Quite a row' about it. The editor asking why she'd believe me. She informed him I had little motive to lie, because if he talked to me, he would find that I don't give a damn what China, the BBC, Joan Morgan or most anything Earth based and tainted thinks of me."

"Why should you?" Gunny asked."

"You..." Jeff accused, "are totally acclimated to Home."

"I suspect she is hoping to praise you or irritate you into talking to her again," April said.

"I think so too and I have much better uses for my time. She has nothing I want and she has already irritated me. It will take much more than a lame note to get back in my good graces."

"Want me to roll a fake grenade at you in the cafeteria and see if she'll throw herself on it?" Gunny offered.

That finally took the scowl off Jeff's face. "Only if you get video from three angles."

"Have you let Jason Dia know what is happening in China?" April asked.

"I sort of assumed he had his own channels to be informed," Jeff said.

"I don't think so, that was the whole reason for him acting as a courier, they were afraid any communications might be intercepted. I doubt they thought that far ahead to provide him a way to report
after
the fighting started. He did do you a favor warning that this was coming. It would be a nice gesture to let him see what is happening instead of depending on sources like Ms. Morgan. He might have some insight on what's happening too," she said gesturing at the screen. There were long plumes of smoke and other signs of fighting layered one on top of another on the map. The detail was too much to see without zooming to an area.

"Fine, call Jon if you will and see if Jason would like to come talk to us," Jeff allowed. "We'll show him what his people have started."

Chapter 26

"My mom is getting so many commission offers she raised her prices," Barak said, reading bits of his mail from home to Deloris. The speed of light lag was so big now nobody tried to have a conversation, but Barak dropped a note of some kind almost every day to his mom, April and Jeff. He'd been pleased to get a few from the students at Faye's school, Jon Davis and even Mr. Muños, which he considered a particular honor.

Barak had decided Muños was at least as smart about people, as Jeff was about micro-assembly and systems. He might not get as smart about people as Muños, nor the engineering wizard Jeff was, but he'd like to have a little of each and several other disciplines. It wasn't very attractive to him to be too narrow a specialist.

"You said your mom is an artist," Deloris remembered. "Do you have some pictures of her work?"

"It's really the sort of thing that photographs poorly. It's like a cut gem or a piece of ice. If the photo comes anywhere close to showing what you remember the object really looks like it's a marvel. She makes sure her customers understand what they buy has to be displayed correctly or its impact is lost. Most of them have to be backlit and she'd worked with architects before to make sure they are supported properly and lit at a certain angle and brightness."

"Still, I'd like to see something and some pix of your mom too. I've only seen vacation pix of your friends."

"Here, I'll show your her sales site. She has a nice formal head and shoulders shot of herself and some pix of her past work, but I still think they don't do it justice." He sent it to her pad.

"Wow, one of Heather's people from Central challenged a Home guy to a duel. Mr. Muños, I've mentioned to you, nipped that in the bud. He said she'd have to meet him the next morning if she won. She decided to call it off."

"Isn't he older?" she asked.

"Yes, but he's
smart
. I'd rather fight young and stupid, than old and smart."

Deloris was propped up on one elbow, stretched out and relaxed as a big old cat. They both could just barely fit on the bunk with a reader between them if both lay on their sides. Barak's analysis of who was dangerous got a thoughtful raised eyebrow.

"So, you like smart young girls and wise old men," she said, amused.