Lastly came a sleepy Maria Chang, the planetologist, who had obviously taken a moment to brush out her hair. Even sleep deprivation and a hangover could not rob Maria of her poise or seductive walk; her gaze was still sultry as she assessed the others. Maria had no lack of interest in the mission, but she was a people-first person. She took her seat on Seth’s right, and then all twelve eyes were directed at the display.
This was Golden Hind’s full complement, each of the six having specific skills and duties. Off-duty all that mattered was that they were two men, two women, and two herms. That allowed a lot of different combinations.
Seth waited for someone else to say something. The silence was the sound of crumbling dreams. They had spent fourteen months bottled up in this starship, fourteen months cut out of their lives, with the return trip still to come. Wildcatting was the most dangerous of all legal occupations other than military combat, but it could be the most lucrative. Even Seth, the lowly gofer, could hope to become wealthy on his tiny share in the Hind’s voyage.
Back on Day 0, when Golden Hind left Earth orbit, Hanna had estimated 425 days out. She had beaten her estimate by twenty-five days. Yesterday she had plotted the last jump, promising it would take them right to the destination system. The crew had been gathered in the control room, tense with excitement. She had reported, “Ready to jump, ma’am.”
Jordan had laid both hands on the table and ordered the jump.
Everyone had checked the star fields around them. Those had barely changed, but above the consol appeared the holograph with Cacafuego shining blue, the color of water and oxygen and life. No further jumps required—four days’ coasting and they would be there. Even JC, ever cagey with praise, had complemented Hanna on an incredible feat of navigation. In minutes Control had reported that close scanning of the system showed no significant variation from predictions, and that neither ship or crew had suffered damage. JC had opened his secret hoard of champagne, and the ship had erupted in frenetic celebration.
That had been last night. This morning Seth was not the only one with a pounding headache, which was a bad condition for dealing with disaster.
He jumped as needle claws dug into his thighs, but it was merely Ship’s Cat Whittington seeking a friendly lap. She turned around and settled down, tucking her tail in carefully. A happy soul was Whittington, unconcerned by the total absence of mice within 1500 light years. Seth stroked her and she rumbled, flattering the Big One who fed her, ignoring the other Big Ones’ confrontation.
“Time slip!” Reese growled. “Welcome to the twenty-fifth century.”
Time slip was always a danger. It could not be predicted. People had returned decades after they had been given up for dead, finding the world they knew changed beyond recognition and their friends aged. Had Golden Hind lost a century or so on the way here?
“Flaming shit,” JC said at last. “We don’t need that. Control, who staked that planet?”
—No planet in this system is presently staked, Commodore.
“Then who planted the flag?”
—Beacon’s originator’s key is registered to DSS De Soto, exploration vessel owned by Galactic Inc., a company incorporated under the laws of…
Of course it would be Galactic. Galactic was the billion-ton gorilla of the stellar exploration business. Galactic ships had brought back scores of fantastic chemicals that could be synthesized into pharmaceuticals, supplying all humankind with herm drugs, cancer drugs, Methuselah drugs, and hundreds more. Galactic was Goliath, bigger and more successful than the next three exploration companies combined, thousands of times the size of a startup independent like Mighty Mite Ltd.
“De Soto was still in dock orbit when we shipped out,” Jordan said. “So the time slip may not be very great.”
“It could be a hundred years,” Reese countered. “Those beacons are built to last.” He enjoyed being devil’s advocate.
“We don’t know there’s been any time slip at all,” JC said. “We told Hanna we’d rather get home alive than be rich and dead. Galactic has better hazard maps than it ever releases, no matter what ISLA regulations say. It’s notorious for putting its crews at risk by cutting corners.”
If the planet had not been staked, what did the beacon mean? Seth was always careful not to trample on the experts’ toes. Either they all knew the answer already, or he was the only one who had noticed. Possibly they were all afraid to ask a stupid question. The gofer had no status to lose
“I thought staking flags were green,” Seth said. “Control, what does yellow stand for?”
—Yellow beacon indicates danger, will be recommended for proscription.
Nobody looked in his direction. The death rate among wildcatters was notorious, but most casualties were among the prospectors, the heroic few who actually set foot on exoplanets. If even Galactic thought a planet was too dangerous to visit, then it must be boiling radioactive snake venom.
Galactic sent out entire fleets, not solo vessels like Hind. Galactic included dozens of specialists in its expeditions. A tiny start-up company like Mighty Mite had to crew a ship with jacks-of-all-trades, people with multiple skills. Golden Hind carried only one prospector, Seth Broderick, who was also porter, janitor, and general gofer.
“I never heard of quarantine, or proscription,” he said.
“Quarantine’s from ancient marine law,” JC said. “When a sailing ship had plague or yellow fever aboard, it had to fly a yellow flag. In the early days of space travel, everyone feared that life-bearing worlds would harbor bugs or viruses that would be brought back to infect the Earth. So far as I know… Reese, has any wildcatter ever been infected by a local disease on an exoplanet?”
“Very rarely,” the biologist said. “It has happened, but exoplanet bacteria and viruses are usually so alien that you would be more likely to catch Dutch elm disease from a lobster. You are in less danger from the infection than from your own immune system over-reacting, but we can control that.”
JC grunted agreement. “Control, confirm that Cacafuego is virgin territory.”
—ISLA had no record of any previous exploration, Commodore.
Which meant only that the ship’s files had not been updated since first jump, and so were fourteen months out of date. The evidence showed that someone had beaten them to it.
Seth would kill for a cup of coffee and a long glass of orange juice. Sitting with his back to the mess doorway, he was in the path of all the stale scents of last night’s party treats wafting by: wine, chili, ripe cheese, onions, and a few recreational materials not listed on the official manifests. It was his job to tidy up. He should fetch and serve refreshments for the others. To hell with duty, this meeting was too critical to miss.
Jordan was drumming fingernails on the table. “Is there a posting date on the beacon?” she asked.
—Beacon is still too distant for us to query, Captain.
“Any ships in orbit there now?” asked JC.
—No transmissions being detected, Commodore. Target is too distant for visual detection.
Jordan said, “If they’re still there, they must have seen our jump flash when we arrived.”
“Not necessarily,” JC said. “Control, there must be a text message included.”
—Still too distant even for that. We are presently receiving only the wideband alarm signal, barely distinguishable from galactic background noise.
“If we left ahead of De Soto,” asked Reese, the biologist, “how far ahead of us could they have gotten here? I mean, how long, in time? Without allowing for any time slip?” Somehow his questions always sounded like sneers.