"Two days?" Gretchen tasted something sour. "Well then. We'll be busy employees, won't we?"
Aboard the Cornuelle, Outbound from Ctesiphon Station
"Talk to me about the transmitter."
Space aboard an Imperial warship was at a minimum, so Gretchen was doing sit-ups hanging from a bar set into the ceiling. Working in the field was good exercise, but sitting in a three-by four-meter cabin for weeks on end during transit did nothing for her girlish figure. Magdalena was perched on her bunk, surrounded by data pads and printouts on quick-cycle sheets. The Hesht looked up, yellow eyes narrowed to slits over the top of amped-up sunglasses. The cat had an earbug as well, letting her hear the soft invisible voices of the processors riding in the pads. Gretchen had used field goggles before, with v-feeds and a sound interface, but they had been big, bulky units. Maggie's sunglasses were as sleek and dark as she was.
"It's an experimental unit, sister. A commercial version of the old military-grade Wayfarer ship-based transmitter. The Company is field testing it for Tera-Wave – according to the logs, it's a one-oh release. That means light encryption, no redundant power supplies or emitters, about a six to seven light-year range." Maggie made a chuckling sound like a hydrogen-powered chainsaw starting up. "Thirty or forty predefined channels – very primitive."
"But…grunt…not hand mirrors and smoke…grunt…from the mountaintop."
"No." Maggie clawed a pad and let some schematics drift past. "A little better than that. Each channel is identified by headers tacked onto the message packets, then thrown out in a single emitter stream. Sort of a faster-than-light telegraph. But it works and it's as cheap as you can build a tachyon unit. I've tested the connection myself by patching through Ctesiphon comm – they have a big industrial emitter and router – the unit on the Palenque does respond to a 'hello', but refused to open a conversation. I think the unit is actually in maintenance mode, on standby, waiting for the shipboard operator to reset the system." The Hesht paused, then held up a pad. Gretchen jerked her head and Maggie flipped the device upside down.
"That…grunt…still makes no sense to me. Plain Nбhuatl, sister."
Maggie laughed again, rolling on her back and lolling her head off the edge of the bunk. Now she seemed upright to Gretchen, though her ears were pointing off at a strange angle. "The Wayfarer has a manual mode, where the operator can pick and choose which channels are live. This is also used for maintenance, where you don't have to shut down the whole system. Specific components can be turned on or off, even removed from the chassis. When I send a 'hello' across the t-link, the refused connection message comes back with an error code. Of course, the code isn't documented yet, not on a test system, but it matches the older military code for 'standby'."
"So…grunt…there was a problem, they turned it off. The problem got worse…grunt…no one came back to push the 'on' button."
"That's what the momma cat said."
Gretchen finished her count of two hundred and eight, then swung down off the bar. The Cornuelle was accelerating out from the station on normal-space drive, chewing up antimatter pellets and spitting plasma, which gave them one g inside the habitat areas of the ship. A bigger ship, a commercial liner or an Imperial battlewagon, would have g-decking everywhere. The Cornuelle was not a big ship. Gretchen stepped carefully over the duffels and equipment boxes strapped to the floor. The Marine gunso they had bumped back to hot-bunking with the rankers already had their cargo allotments aboard, so there was very little room for the Company people. A two meter–high polyfoam crate holding spare transmitter parts occupied the space where a little table and seats were usually pulled down.
She frowned at the clothing spread out on her bunk. Playing in the dirt, as her father would say, did not require dress-up clothes. Unfortunately, this was an Imperial ship of war, which meant chu-sa Hadeishi would have a dress evening mess. Gretchen sighed, turning over her "good" shirt. It had stains. Ruin bugs had eaten a hole in one sleeve.
"A citizen is humble, simply-dressed, respectful, pious…" she mumbled to herself, fingers twitching her trousers straight.
Maggie laughed again, her tail twitching. "You're the kit who always has dirt on her nose and looks so surprised! Will this clan-lord Hadeshee nip your ears for a dirty pelt?"
"Yes. Miss Sho-sa Kosho has been very polite and accommodating, but we need the commander's good will. He is Nisei, too, which means he will be very proper and traditional. He may have guests – I can't embarrass him too much. Time for the ol' enzymatic cleaner."
Gretchen squeezed into the end of her bunk, found a clean cloth, then picked up her boots. They were good boots – her mother had had them fitted and built for her by hand, of realcow leather, with shock-soles and brass fittings – but the dust of Ugarit fouled everything it touched. She sighed, seeing the soles were beginning to separate from the uppers.
"No matter…" She shoved them to the back of the bunk. Aboard ship they went about in light disposable deck shoes designed to adhere to the walking surfaces when they were in zero-g. She spat on the shirt stain, then began to gently rub it between her fingers.
Two Imperial Marines in sharply creased black dress uniforms with crimson piping stiffened to attention as Gretchen approached a hatchway outlined in pale blue. Each Marine had his hands behind his back, but heavy flat pistols were slung on their belts and they had visors as sharp and sleek as Maggie's. The Navy rating escorting her bowed politely and thumbed a comm pad set into the bulkhead next to the hatch.
"Doctor Gretchen Anderssen, Commander," he announced in a stiffly formal voice.
The pad chimed and the hatch recessed with a slight chuff and then slid up into the bulkhead. Her mouth suddenly dry, Gretchen nodded to the young man, then stepped inside. The room was small, like everything on the Cornuelle, but managed to hold a low traditional table for six, dressed with crisp white linen and thin porcelain cups. A very short man, barely reaching Gretchen's shoulder, bowed in greeting from the head of the table. The five other officers – ranging from the petite executive officer, Sho-sa Kosho, down to a midshipman, or sho'i ko-hosei, with pale red hair – also bowed in place, their hands flat on the tatami mat floor. Their incline was slightly deeper than Hadeishi's. Gretchen kept her face composed, hands together in front of her, and managed a bow halfway between those that had greeted her.
"Welcome, Doctor Anderssen," Hadeishi said. Gretchen blinked in surprise – the Nisei's Norman was flawless. "Please, join us."
Gretchen slipped off her deck shoes before entering the room, turning the motion into a second bow.
The midshipman scooted a little to one side. Gretchen knelt, smiling politely at the boy. He couldn't have been more than sixteen. Like the other officers, he wore a perfectly white dress uniform, with the fire-snake emblem of the Imperial Navy worked in copper at his collar. Above his heart rode the sunburst symbol of the Cornuelle and a square glyph holding a running man.
The other officers remained still, heads lowered. The captain smiled down the table at Gretchen, and raised a thin porcelain teacup in polite greeting.
"Doctor Anderssen, welcome to the Cornuelle. I am Mitsuharu Hadeishi, her captain."
"Konichiwa, Mitsuharu-san. Thank you for making me so welcome."
"Your Japanese is excellent," Hadeishi said, smiling, eyes crinkling up. Gretchen felt an odd sense of dislocation. She had worked with many Nisei; at the university, on Old Mars, even on Ugarit. They were unfailingly polite but she had never encountered a Japanese man, particularly one her social superior, that had genuinely smiled at her.