The revelation about our daughter left me with a dilemma. I would certainly have to tell Sabrina that we were, effectively, parents. But when? Since landing on Earth that Is, she’d become fixated on learning all she could about the airships and how the survivors applied Steam power to their situation here. I didn’t want to distract her with something I knew she’d dwell on. Especially when she was so focused on getting a ride on one of the airships.
Worse, perhaps, was I didn’t really know how she’d react. We’d talked about having a child a couple times over the years we’d been together before leaving 34 Tauri. The only things we’d agreed on was that she was more likely to be able to carry a child to term, and neither of us really wanted to set aside our work to be pregnant. Of course, unless we used a surrogate or a tank, ‘Brina’d have to be the one to carry any child we had together. After what I’d put my body through, there was little chance I, or a child, would survive the pregnancy.
For the time being, the point was moot. Our daughter was safe where she was in suspension. If we decided to stay in Sol system and disembark the next generation, on Earth or one of the other potential recolonization targets, we would decide what to do. Same was true if we chose to head back to 34 Tauri. Either way, the tiniest dragon was safe.
It was the better part of two days before I was able to return to the temporary installation on the surface. I’d needed to update standing orders for the Sled and modify mission parameters for the field teams, but overall the mission was still going smoothly. But part of the problem was that we were still largely restricting ourselves to late night operations. While most of the landers had optical camouflage and would be hard to stop during the day, running the flights between midnight and 0300 dramatically reduced the chance of someone looking up in the right direction at the right time.
Conner met me at the small landing clearing as a couple of the technicians offloaded some equipment from the lander, including some raw metal we planned to use as a trade item. Engineering had managed to find some low priority spares, that could be easily re-fabricated if the need arose, and smashed them up so they looked enough like salvage that we’d be able to trade them. Some steel, some brass, a few bits of aluminum. Given what we’d seen so far, the brass would be most valuable. Or, at least, most useful.
“Welcome back, Cap’n. Everything shiny on the Sled?”
“Aye, Lieutenant. What’s our status here?” We’d been getting regular status reports from all of the surface teams and Conner had been especially thorough while Sabrina and Belize were here with them, but the question was expected.
The lieutenant briefed me on the short walk from the landing clearing to the command building. ‘Brina and Bel were back in town again with Palmer. Last Conner knew, they were close to arranging a ride with one of the Airship captains, though the matter of price was still being worked out. Hopefully, the metal I’d brought down would secure payment for ‘Brina’s joy ride. It should also be more than enough for me to acquire one of the Steeltree knives I’d seen on my last trip.
Palmer had called in earlier in the evening to confirm they were safe in the Inn we’d been using as an in-town base. For his own reasons, the innkeeper had evidently taken a liking to our little party. Now, several hours after the last report, they were all asleep as was most of the base camp here. Them with Conner’s briefing complete, I settled into one of the bunks to catch some sleep before taking the carriage into town in the morning.
On the way in, I was again amazed by the algae vats placed along the southern exposures. A sample the Science team had managed to analyze in the few days since I’d last seen them indicated the the algae was descended from a strain developed in the early 21st century. That older strain had been bred to live off of waste heat and concentrated carbon dioxide from the fuel burning power plants of the day. At least if you believed the histories. Somehow, its descendant had been tailored to live on sunlight in much smaller vats. Bio-reactors, the botanist called them. Not vats.
Whatever they called them, however they’d done it, those who’d missed the Exodus had kept the algae alive to use for fuel on a mostly used up world. Just went to show how tenacious we were as a species.
When I met Sabrina and Belize at the Inn, ‘Brina was absolutely ecstatic. While Palmer was trying to temper the enthusiasm, she explained, at some length, that they’d managed to make contact with one of the Airship captains and she, yes, she, had agreed to take Sabrina and Palmer for a flight on their next out and back. It seemed that our Engineer had struck up a conversation with their Engineer in a local tavern, which led to an introduction to the Captain, which led to the arrangement of a ride in exchange for some pittance of payment and a bit of Sabrina’s considerable Engineering skill. The flight was planned for early the next morning, and “please, oh please, can I go?”
Palmer’s take was that ‘Brina transferring knowledge wouldn’t alter anything in the culture here enough to matter. While they were technologically backward, it wasn’t like dealing with some kind of primitive tribe they still referenced in the sociology texts. Their technology was limited by available resources, rather than base knowledge. Though, apparently, their knowledge of electronics was limited to folktales and a few history books.
“Yes, ‘Brina. You can go,” I told her. “But we’re adding a recorder to that ensemble of yours. Palmer’s too. And when you’re talking to their Engineer don’t get carried away, you hear? He gets you started on steam turbines, next thing we know you’ll be telling him how to get fifteen percent better efficiency out of a Radion Pulse Drive.”
Sabrina snorted with laughter and smothered me in a hug. We both knew there was really no way I would deny her permission to go, provided we took appropriate precautions to make sure she was safe. It wasn’t just a matter of her being my wife, or even my crew. She was the Sled’s Chief Engineer. The long term success of our mission depended, in no small part, on her ability to keep Children of Earth operational. While her staff could, collectively, do the job, no one else knew the ship’s details as well as she did.
For her part, Belize was perfectly content to not take a ride on the airship. Something about not really trusting her life to sticks, strings, canvas, and steam: an attitude that elicited a bit of friendly ribbing from ‘Brina. I did see her point though. The airships were a throwback to another time. A time before you could hop a flight on pretty much any transport, and have a very high probability of reaching your destination alive in a fully functional vehicle. While we hadn’t actually witnessed any failures, airships really were built mostly from wood and fabric. Carbon nanotube and boro-silicate they weren’t.
After settling my kit into one of the rooms we’d hired, we set out again into town. We’d made a policy of not leaving anything incriminating in the room, where incriminating meant obviously not of local or contemporary manufacture. But travelling with nothing at all would have been almost as suspicious. If someone inspected our kit, they wouldn’t find anything obviously out of place.
I had a specific mission to return to the shop I’d seen the Steeltree knives, while Belize, Palmer, and Sabrina, had their own errands. While we spent much of the morning together, Conner shadowed me when our errands took us to separate parts of the town. He took my personal safety seriously. As leader of the ORCA, it was his job. But we’d established a good enough working relationship that it was personal, something I appreciated at both a professional and a personal level.
The keeper at the knife shop seemed pleased to see me when I returned with Conner in tow, asking politely about my day, my trip, and the disposition of Palmer who’d been with me before.
We talked a bit about the blades again, picking out several from his stock. Fighting knives for myself and Conner, utility blades for ‘Brina and Bel. Payment was in the form of some of the brass. Weight for weight, it seemed a good deal more valuable than the Steeltree. And, perhaps strangely, I didn’t get the sense he was going to try and take more in payment than the knives were worth.
There were worlds in 34 Tauri that were like that, particularly on the smaller colonies in the Border and Rim areas. Labor was much less valuable than materials. Without mass production, craftsmanship became the norm rather than the luxurious exception. Here, on Earth that Was, Craftsmanship seemed to be the norm rather than the exception.
With the knives out of the way, I let Conner show me the rest of the town I hadn’t seen on the first trip. We crossed paths with the rest of our group a couple of times, shared the noon meal at the Inn, then continued our explorations. The plan was, that night, we would meet with the Airship captain and finalize the arrangements over the evening meal.
I knew ‘Brina was practically coming out of her skin to go on this ride. As her wife, I wanted her to be happy. As her Captain though, I had to worry. But I’d let her go. She could have her airship ride, but she’d have a shadow too. Like it or not, there’d be eyes on that stick and string contraption which would, hopefully, be close enough to make a difference if something went wrong.
I had to have faith that nothing would go wrong.
