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Urle stared at the broken motivator on his desk, but he could not focus on it. The device was supposed to power the heavy doors down in restricted sections, but Cutter’s report suggested there was a flaw in their design, and under specific scenarios – specific very serious scenarios – the doors might be able to be forced with pressure on the wrong spot.
It required his serious attention; he needed to make sure that the ship was properly secure, but giving Cutter permission to tear out every door – which the Bicet wanted to do – just to fix this one ‘what if’ issue was a bit much.
Still, they were in port . . .
On top of that, and distracting him from the first problem, was the issue of the election that Zeela Cann was arranging. Urle had not expected anyone to seriously campaign against Brooks, but now a man on the ship by the name of Aoks Darhan was mounting a campaign.
He had put out a series of points suggesting why he should be the mayor rather than the Captain. First and foremost was that the Mayor was largely meant to help ameliorate issues between the crew and civilian population, which Brooks, he claimed, had a biased view of. He brought up their recent action against the Leviathan, and the decision to aid the Hev ship even when they had civilians on board.
Urle could see the man’s points, but it rankled him; Brooks had taken the ethical route, and even been willing to sacrifice himself to make sure the civilian population were safe. And beyond the Hev ship, it became a matter of trillions of lives who were threatened if the Leviathan had gone to Sol . . .
Still, Urle was currently Acting-Captain, and he could not get involved. The man had every right to propose himself as an alternative, and if the populace of the ship wanted him, well . . .
At least he wouldn’t have to listen to the man much right now. There were speeches to be given – Brooks had pre-recorded his – on the day of the vote, and then people would make their choices. Until then, there were only the ship sites to look at for the details, and reminders for everyone to cast their votes when the time came.
Zeela said that the preparations for the voting were nearly complete. Each time such an election was held, it was something of a ship holiday if the situation allowed; people were relieved of all but the most vital duties, with food and entertainment. It had been customary since the days of early socialism.
That made it resource-intense, and however much they might value their democracy, that fact remained. Ham Sulp had sent him the preliminary list of costs, suggesting numerous cuts in the name of efficiency. The man was miserly in the use of resources, Urle knew, but because on the Spacer fleet he’d come from, the rationing of supplies was a matter of life and death.
Urle ran the numbers on what supplies the Craton would need to request from the Sol government, the costs and availabilities of those resources of doing so, and found that they were all acceptable. Sulp had noted that, but still thought it was unwise to be quite so ‘extravagant’, as he put it. He and Cann got along well most of the time, but he often thought she went too far on these sorts of events . . . even if no one else agreed.
Urle made some notes, thanking Sulp for his thorough work, but then rejected his cuts. Every resource in food, time, and equipment was easily made up by utilizing their exchange units that the Sol Fleet made available for them.
The Craton was not directly involved in any major economic activity, though she did produce goods for her own use from her gardens; nevertheless, a ship was expensive to run, and technically she belonged to the Sol Fleet as much as her crew and civilian populace, and served as a Ship of Good Will, traveling about and representing the best Earth had to offer to the galaxy.
Being the first ship of her kind, named for the type of asteroid she was made from, she was something of a prize of Earth. Only a few others like her existed, and with the peculiar properties of the cratonic asteroid she was far more mobile than most ships.
Hell, most ships without less than twenty reactors couldn’t even hope to power their own zerodrive. That the Craton could was only because of the strange attraction between cratonic matter and zerospace, something that they could not yet explain . . .
Ah, but these stupid doors. He made a note to Cutter that he’d consider the matter and get back to him by morning.
His system told him that Hannah and Persis were returning from their lessons. He’d tracked them all their way back by their systems, and turned as they came in.
“Kiddos!” he said happily, opening his arms.
“Daaaad!” Persis said, dramatically flopping into his arms before looking up at him. “Dad. Have you heard of a giraffe? We were talking about how they evolved today, and they had looooong necks, longer even than a door!”
“Wow, did they really?” he asked with a laugh.
He noticed that Hannah seemed quiet. “How was your day?” he asked her. “Did you learn anything neat?”
She looked up, a frown on her face. “Oh, it was fine. I learned a lot about evolution, too. The way that genes mutate from transcription errors and external damage . . .”
“You liked the astronomy a lot more,” Persis said to her older sister. “You seemed way into that.”
“Yeah!” Hannah agreed. “But the giraffes were cool, too. Giant necks, dad. It’s crazy!”
“It certainly is amazing how animals can specialize and speciate,” he agreed. Hannah looked troubled again, though.
“Persis, why don’t you go get changed, I’d like to talk to Hannah a minute, if you don’t mind. Then we’ll go get some dinner. I think I feel like going to Watchito’s for pizza.”
“Yay!” the girl cried, flopping off her father to the floor, and only half-rising, running off with her arms swinging wildly.
Hannah looked nervous.
“It’s fine, you’re not in trouble,” Urle assured her. “But what’s wrong?”
She was quiet for a moment, then it all burst out. “Dad, is Iago okay? Because Elliot is acting weird, and I know his dad was hurt or sick after that last thing he went on, and I’m just really worried . . .”
The flood of words surprised him, and he sat back. He brought up all the information he had available on Caraval’s situation since the mission to Terris.
The man had had a tough time, but seemed to have much improved. His markers still noted elevated stress hormones, though, higher than expected, and his home situation seemed like it was going rougher, though not so much that it seemed necessary to intervene yet . . .
He looked over Elliot’s data as well, seeing that the boy had been late to class three times since his father had returned, though not seriously. He’d also had 12% more demerits and incidents since then, but that made sense, and his teacher was attempting to help him as much as possible. The AI Teaching system that handled most educational work noted a drop in his attention and correct answers. The boy was bright, but distracted and stressed as well.
Still . . . all of this was relatively minor.
Dr. Logus’s records were locked, and the man hadn’t had a session with Iago for a few days, since he’d been called into the inner system. Short of using a zerolink, the light lag was too much for a real-time conversation – over five hours.
It brought to mind Brooks’s trial. It had started by now.
But he could do nothing about that.
“I’ll check in on him, to be safe,” he told Hannah. “But let’s go get some dinner first, okay?”
Other Terrestrial 