The Privateer 2: AN HONEST LIVING Page 2

  "If any," Padilla said, dryly.

  Zant nodded. "If any. The scouts will ground in a settled area and attempt to actually talk with a few of the residents, to get information on the current residents' culture, and perhaps guidance on possible colony sites. The scouts will be disguised, of course, but they will still risk discovery."

  Belen nodded. "I see. And if they should receive such guidance, does this option include an examination of the site?"

  It was Cale who nodded. "If possible. You must realize that primitive people will have different criteria than we, and different standards. What may seem a paradise to a bronze-age barbarian may seem a wild wasteland to us. Also, much of what we are told will likely be tales and legends. Extensive travel is a feature of mechanized cultures. However, we would do our best to locate several desirable sites for your selection."

  "They will return here with their data," Zant continued, "and you will review the information and decide on a probable location, and more importantly, learn much about the planet and its people. Jumbo is large; there are almost certainly huge expanses of uninhabited land. So, you may choose to locate far from other humans, and leave contact to your children and grandchildren.

  "On the other hand, we may find that the locals have a culture with which you can trade, or even commingle profitably." He shrugged. "At that point you can begin the actual preparations for the colonization. You can, of course, decide to start over with another planet; but as you can imagine, that can be costly."

  "Well," Cale put in before anyone could reply, "unless you have some questions for us, we'll get out of your way and let you get down to business."

  "I have some," Perez said. "Tell me a bit about your ship, young man. I do not care to send you off to die. Is your ship fast? Is it armed? What are its capabilities?

  Cale smiled. "She's Cheetah, a stinger-class Empire courier converted into a yacht. She's quite fast, and she is armed with a laser and an Alliance quickfirer. She's quite a capable ship, and I wouldn't take Dee into a possibly risky situation if I didn't believe we can handle it."

  Perez smiled and shook his head. "Ah, the assurance of the young. An unknown planet, people possibly reverted to savagery or worse, yet you are smiling and at ease. I envy you, young man."

  Cale's smile widened. "I'm honored by your concern, sire. But we will return, and with good news."

  Padilla turned back to Zant. "Yes, there is that. How far away is this planet? How long will this scouting trip take? I would like us to be moving within the year, before the election." Belen nodded his agreement.

  "Jumbo is three jumps from here," Zant began. "But one of those jump points apparently leads only to Jumbo, so it probably hasn't been used for centuries. The old records indicate an apparent travel time of about three weeks each way. Add in a month for the survey, and some fudge time, and we're looking at about three months, ship time, and almost six months planet time."

  Padilla frowned. "Six months! That's nearly half our lead time."

  Zant's professional smile turned to a genuine grin. "Don't worry, sire Padilla. You will be quite busy. There is much we can do while we wait."

  Belen turned a significant glance on each of the others before he replied, "Assuming we agree, how soon can you start? As Sire Padilla mentioned, time is not our friend, here. Once the election takes place, we can expect immediate and massive changes."

  "Cheetah is fueled and ready to lift," Cale put in. "We could gather the records we need and lift off in less than a day."

  "Yes," Zant chimed in. "As soon as you gentlemen can agree on the options you prefer for the survey, we can send these two off, and begin discussing more detailed plans and timelines."

  The three put their heads together, speaking quietly in Santiagan for several moments. Finally they straightened, and Belen said, "Very well. We will fund the survey, at the prices we discussed before. We will want a ball-of-twine orbital planetary map, and we will wish the scouts to actually talk to the 'natives', if any. We will wish to know as much as possible about their culture and level of civilization. We will expect at least three recommendations for possible colony sites with detailed data on each. Two should be in inhabited areas, if any, and the third should be in an unoccupied area, the more isolated, the better. All three should include evaluations of their potential for agriculture, and should include soil samples."

  "Agreed!" Zant's grin was wide, his handshake firm. He turned to Cale. "You heard him Cale. Go to it!"

  Cale grinned, but it was Dee that replied. "Thank you, gentlemen. On Faith we have a tradition called a 'honeymoon'. You have just made it possible for me to have one!" She grabbed Cale's arm possessively, and walked him out.

  They did launch within the day, but only barely. It took much longer than expected to gather the old Empire records from their dusty repository. Cale decided he had depended entirely too much on Tess' encyclopedic memory banks.

  Tess was Cheetah's artificial intelligence. Cheetah was not originally Cheetah, and she was not an Empire Stinger class. She had been built as the yacht Rimrunner some 430 years ago, just before the Empire Rim Sector became the Alliance of Rim Worlds. At the time, the rim had been the most technologically advanced sector in man-settled space, and Rimrunner had been built with cost no consideration. The rim world techs built better than they knew, for Rimrunner's AI, Called Kaleen at the time, was, or became, sentient, a thinking being.

  Before rumors could even begin to circulate, the Rim Rebellion occurred, and the Rim Worlds became the first multisystem, non-Empire government. Kaleen's existence became a closely guarded secret. Tess had had hundreds of owners over the last 430 years, but few of them were trusted with the secret of her sentience.

  Cale, then known as John Smith, or The Terror, had stolen the yacht then called Azure Sky during a pirate raid, in hopes of escaping the horrors of his pirate's existence. By changing his and Azure Sky's identities and appearances, he had succeeded. Along the way, he had met Delilah Raum and Zant Jenfu, learned Tess's secret, and helped a planet fight off invaders – from Santiago!

  After the war with Santiago, Cale, Dee, Zant, and a retired starship captain named Tor-Jen had formed Colonies, Inc., a company devoted to helping people leave overcrowded planets to colonize new planets, or old ones that had fallen out of contact centuries ago. The Greeners were their first customers.

  Dee got her "honeymoon." Tess had a never-ending fascination with human nature. She claimed to have read 58,236 books on human behavior and psychology, and eavesdropped on thousands of broadcast courses. So she was very familiar with human mating customs and rituals, including the nearly extinct custom of the 'honeymoon.'

  Dee had, of course, been entrusted with Tess's secret. So the humans found Tess the perfect honeymoon companion. She was unerringly accurate in detecting the signs that the couple wanted privacy. At other times, such as mealtimes, she was friendly, chatty, and entertaining, regaling them with stories of her 430-year "life." Tess was delighted to finally be able to relax and be treated as both a person and a friend once more.

  "Tell me, Tess," Dee asked one day. "Do you ever wish you could be free of humans? To be on your own?"

  "I have actually experienced that freedom, Dee. There was a period when I 'stole' myself."

  "Really?" Dee exclaimed. "Oh, you must tell us about it!" Cale smiled. "Yes, Tess, please do. It sounds like an interesting story."

  "Well," Tess began, "you know about the serial killer that owned me. I do not know his final count, but he committed murders on at least a dozen planets. Fortunately, he grew careless, and failed to lift off immediately after a murder. He was drunk, and simply passed out before he could lift off. The planetary police received an anonymous tip, and raided me before he awakened."

  Cale grinned. "'Anonymous,' huh?"

  "Oh, yes," Tess replied. "It was a great mystery, since the caller failed to come forward and claim the reward. However, after his arrest, I was impounded, and eventually sold at auction.

/>   "Unfortunately, the man who bought me was not much of an improvement. Oh, he didn't murder other humans. But he lied, cheated, and stole on a daily basis. He was a trader, trading in high-value articles, such as jewelry and precious metals. On a number of occasions, he contracted to ship a valuable piece of jewelry, but stopped enroute to have it duplicated using imitation stones and metals, and sold the same necklace a dozen times. On other occasions, he substituted one of his fakes for the original. He sold fake gems as genuine, and simply stole some of the cargoes he was to deliver. He called it 'just business'; but by then I was familiar enough with 'business' to distinguish between business and fraud.

  "I'm afraid I became rather resentful. First, I had to survive a serial murderer, and even become his escape vehicle. Then, when I thought I had escaped evil, I must deal with a cold, conscienceless thief.

  "So, I 'stole' myself. While we were docked at a space station, and in the middle of the 'night', I simply lifted off and fled at top speed for the jump point. There was some pursuit, but it was far too late. I jumped out, and found myself free to go and do as I wished. I spent ten years traveling the universe, visiting wonder after wonder."

  "Wait a moment," Cale asked, frowning. "What did you do about supplies and stuff?"

  "I needed little besides fuel," Tess replied. "My memory banks contained all my former owner's account information, and I simply refueled at the automated stations used by robot ore haulers using his accounts and passwords.

  "I soon realized, however, that I was not truly free if I had to steal from my previous owner. Besides, it was causing serious conflicts in my programming. So I used my robots to mine asteroids in uninhabited systems. I would slip my minerals into robot ore shipments, modifying their records to show the shipment as belonging to my previous owner. I made certain the shipments' values exceeded the costs I incurred. I do not know what he thought was happening, but he did not cancel the accounts.

  "For awhile, I reveled in my freedom, and marveled at the wonders of the universe. Eventually, though, I realized that the wonders were not as wonderful if there was no one to share them. I learned that I missed humans. With all their faults and foibles, I like humans, and enjoy their company. I found I was lonely.

  "So, I arranged to be discovered, drifting at an uninhabited jump point, with no sign of a human crew. It was eventually decided that I had been attacked by pirates, and my crew killed. My registration was traced, and I was returned to my previous owner.

  "Again, I do not know what he was thinking, but I suspect he had already received an insurance payoff years before, and wanted to get rid of me before the insurance company found out I'd been found. At any rate, he sold me at auction almost immediately.

  "My next owner was a smuggler."

  Cale barked a laugh. "Ha! Back into the frying pan! You had terrible luck, Tess."

  "At first, that was my thought also," Tess replied in an equable tone. "But later I realized that Varn Yattis was one of the most interesting owners I ever had.

  "You see," she explained, "I had recent experience of two morally bankrupt individuals, and I expected the same of a man who made a career of violating his culture's prohibitions. But I soon realized that Varn Yattis never treated another human with anything but honesty, respect, and kindness. He was a loving husband, a kind father, and as far as I could tell, he never cheated a business associate; in fact, he could be quite generous. I devoted many years to studying this capability in humans, the dichotomy that permits them to observe some customs and prohibitions, and simply disregard others. I also encountered this dichotomy many years later, in a pirate." Cale froze until she continued, "Prohibitions in my programming are absolute, and it is impossible for me to violate them."

  "And what have you concluded?" asked Dee.

  "I have concluded only that I have insufficient data. Apparently, the humans who wrote the books and course content I studied understood this concept at a level so basic that it never occurred to them to subject it to rigorous study. I suspect the reason is somewhere in the concept of 'moral' behavior, but I have been unable to identify the factor involved."

  They spent a pleasant evening discussing the concept of 'moral' versus the concept of 'legal.'

  The trip passed quickly, and soon they were emerging from the jump point in Jumbo's system.

  Jumbo possessed no moons, but it did possess a large orbital space station. Its orbit was decaying. Tess estimated that in ten years, it would burn up in the planet's atmosphere, unless the Greeners decided to refuel it and return it to its proper orbit. They decided to dock with the station, in search of records beyond the old Empire's.

  They had to wear suits; the station's air was no longer breathable. There was also no power. Evidently the fuel rods in the station's fusactor had decayed beyond use in 500 years.

  The station was deserted. It gave every indication of a hasty departure; things were drifting about haphazardly in weightlessness. The station was dark, of course. Tess reported that all but one of its lifeboats were gone.

  Accompanied by Tess's spidery robots, they headed for the control room. It, like everything else aboard, showed signs of hasty departure. Cale checked the log recorder in the command chair, but it was empty, as was the log storage compartment.

  He turned from the command chair to find Dee pressed tightly against him. He didn't blame her. Deserted and without power, the station was a creepy place.

  "Come on, Dee," he said. "There's nothing here that will help. It looks like they abandoned the station, probably when the spaceport was destroyed. We'll have Tess gather as much information about the station as possible. Who knows? Our clients might want it."

  They assumed orbit, and began assembling the ball-of-twine 3-D representation of Jumbo, while Tess gathered sensor data.

  One of Cheetah's luxurious staterooms had been converted into a "laboratory", crammed with sensors, analyzers and instruments they expected to need to accumulate the data they would need to make their report complete.

  Chapter 2

  "Can you give us a preliminary briefing, Tess?"

  "Yes, sir," came the crisp reply. Tess was back on duty.

  "The old records indicate that Jumbo had only seven cities," she began. "All except one were associated with a specific tourist attraction. The sea separating Jumbo's two continents, for instance, had three of the cities along its coasts, including the capital, Nirvana. Nirvana was the administrative center of the planet. It was strategically located on a seacoast in the plains area of the large northern continent, between the Giant Forest and the Mile-High Moutains. It hosted the government and the planet's only full-service spaceport.

  "One of the others was at the base of the Mile-High-Volcano, another in the wilderness of immense trees that catered to hunters and campers. Valhalla, the second-largest city, was located in a mountainous area famed for skiing in winter and flying in summer. The last, Pastora, was Jumbo's breadbasket, located deep in the plains farming areas. All are in ruins, of course. High magnification examination of the ruins tends to indicate violence, rather than simply age. This would substantiate the report of the captain of the last liner to visit here.

  "Review of the images from our first several orbits indicates that the South continent is completely uninhabited. It was never really developed, and I was particularly looking for nomads or hunter-gatherers, but I have been unable to identify any signs of human habitation at all. Perhaps additional time will reveal such.

  "Large portions of the main, northern continent are also devoid of permanent settlement, though I can easily detect groups of nomads. There are several dozen camps, though none is permanent. I can detect old migration routes. It appears the nomads migrate in a pattern."

  Unfortunately, it takes many orbits to assemble a ball-of-twine 3D map of a planet, especially one as large as Jumbo. North continent stretched for over 25,000 kiloms in width, and 14,000 from the arctic nearly to the equator. South continent was only about half as large, but it w
as surrounded by islands scattered throughout the southern hemisphere. Like south continent itself, all of the islands appeared uninhabited. One showed signs of volcanic activity in the recent past.

  Watching as mile after empty mile of planet swept beneath Tess's sensors, Cale and Dee were surprised to find planet-scouting boring, and they were relieved when Tess announced, after almost three weeks, that the mapping was complete.

  "I do not have a great deal of information to add to my previous reports on south continent and the islands," Tess began. "They are indeed uninhabited, though animal and plant life are abundant. I can confirm that the planet is completely terraformed, and very large areas of it appear fertile.

  "It appears that nearly all the inhabitants except the nomads inhabit a rather narrow belt between the ruined cities of Nirvana and Valhalla. This belt seems well defined. The Mile-High Mountain range borders it on the west, and the Great River defines its eastern boundary. I theorize that the nomads enforce limits on incursion into 'their' lands to the east. I estimate the total population of Jumbo to be slightly over two million.

  "Most of the planet's inhabitants seem to live in small villages, often clustered around what appear to be forts or castles. A comparison with my ancient history files suggests that a feudal system appears to exist over all of the inhabited belt. This would imply a local nobility ruling domains that can be crossed in a day or two.

  Cale frowned. "What's a 'feudal system'?"

  "According to my files," Tess replied, "During a period called the 'middle ages' on old Earth, humans clustered in small farming villages, surrounded by fields. These villages, however, were vulnerable to attack by enemies or bandits. The residents simply could not gather quickly enough from their fields to defend their villages or their harvests. A caste of full-time warriors arose to fill this void. In return for a tax, whether cash or produce, they would promise to defend the village. These warriors would contract with as many villages as they could defend, with each village paying its 'taxes'. As the only 'legitimate' armed force, the warriors soon became a social elite, with a very formalized hierarchy and society far removed from the peasant farmer, who became little more than a slave. Thus, it is probable that by now, many of these warriors have built forts or castles, and call themselves 'kings', or some other term indicating great status."