An Accidental Alliance (25 page)

     
For the next half hour he described the goal of simplified and economized world communications via the placement of geostationary satellites as well as rewording in as often as he could the hope they could fix the problem shortly.

     
Finally, toward the end of the session, one reporter asked the question he had been trying to evade. “Mister Holman, your Project Van Winkle has a spaceship at its disposal, does it not? That being the case,” the man went on without waiting for an answer, “are you planning to go inspect the malfunctioning satellite in person?”

     
“That may be necessary,” Park admitted, “but…”

     
“Are you aware,” the man cut in rudely, “that would be in violation of the Covenant?”

     
“Project Van Winkle is not signatory to the Covenant,” Park replied firmly and calmly.

     
“But since the Mer nation will benefit from these satellites of yours, that makes them
 
subject to all the terms of the Covenant,” the reporter shot back. Mer journalists were for the most part a politer breed than the human ones Park had known. This one, save for his dolphin-like tale would have been indistinguishable from the vulture flocks Park had dealt with in the past.

     
“Have you actually read the Covenant, sir?” Park retorted.

     
“Children are required to in grade school,” the reporter replied smugly.

     
Park was tempted to ask, “And did you graduate?” but instead he swallowed that retort and asked mildly, “And where in the Covenant does it actually say anything about satellites or orbital flights to maintain them?” After all these months, Park knew full well all such restrictions were Galactic-imposed interpretations of the clause that disallowed Mers from leaving Earth’s gravity well. Satellites, it might be argued, were still in that well, just near the upper rim rather than down in the actual water. Park went on to shove that particular metaphor down the reporter’s throat along with a repetition that the Covenant did not apply here. Eventually after several harangues from the reporter, Park lost his temper just enough to say, “and if we must go up to repair the satellite, we most certainly will and no one, sir, neither you nor your Galactic buddies has the power to stop us.”

     
The rude reporter tried to protest Park’s accusation that he was in league with any of the Galactics. He seemed to be demanding an apology, for that matter, but the rest of the press corps was applauding so loudly, Park was able to tune him out. He used the commotion to close the conference.

     
“That was exciting, old boy,” Taodore chuckled just off stage when Park approached.

     
“If you want exciting,” Park retorted, “wait until that moron broadcasts that we not only launched the satellites but intend to go repair one in situ. I was really trying to sidestep the whole issue, you know. The point was to go up quietly, do what we had to and slip back down before anyone on the Moon noticed us. Even Terius agreed the satellites alone weren’t likely to arouse the Galactics much. Going up in the ship might. I should have kept my big mouth shut.”

     
“It would not have made much of a difference,” Taodore assured him. “I know that one. He just likes to make trouble and the other reporters resent him because he makes their jobs all the harder. Telling him off in there got the rest of them on your side. I’m sure the favorable reports will outbalance anything he comes up with.”

     
“I hope so,” Park sighed, “because we have already started the launch countdown for the
Hendrick Hudson
’s repair mission. Unless we can get that satellite working from here, we launch in five days.”

     
Two days later it was official, “They’re going to have to go up,” Arn told Park in their daily briefing up on top of the Van Winkle installation.

     
Park looked down at the aerospaceport they had built and replied. “I’ll head the mission personally.”

     
“Is that wise?” Arn asked. “Space is dangerous even in a Mer ship.”

     
“I won’t send anyone where I’m not willing to go first, Arn,” Park replied.

     
“Okay, so you’re willing,” Arn shrugged. “That doesn’t mean you have to go.”

    
 
“Well, it’s complicated,” Park admitted. “A large part of me wants to go no matter what.”

     
“Every little boy wants to go to space,” Arn noted.

     
“Yeah, that’s the part,” Park grinned. “But that’s not all. I feel compelled to go. First of all it may require split-second decisions on my part. If that’s the case, I’d better be up there to make them rather than hearing about it all through a radio.”

     
“You’re expecting trouble then?” Arn didn’t really ask.

     
“Expecting?” Park echoed. “Well, maybe not quite expecting it so much as desperately wanting to be fully prepared. In all likelihood we’ll get to the satellite, find all we have to do is manually unfold the solar panels and then come on back down. If the Galactics have even noticed the satellites they’ve been amazingly quiet about them. I really doubt they know they are there and if so, probably won’t see us up there either.”

     
“I thought you wanted to break Earth’s quarantine,” Arn commented.

     
“Just as you do, but doing it one small step at a time is more likely to work than just booking a flight to Jupiter, don’t you think?” Park asked.

     
“That depends on whether I can get a reservation at the Ganymede Hilton,” Arn laughed. “Still you’re right. We only have one ship so far. That’s not enough to demand our place
 
among the stars. I’m in negotiation for a second one, you know.”

     
“I didn’t know,” Park admitted. “A sister ship to the
Hudson
?”

     
“About half again the capacity,” Arn replied.

     
“Do we need that?” Park questioned.

     
“We may eventually,” Arn replied. “Terius doesn’t think so and points out that ships like the
Hudson
are actually optimal for those that must land on Earth.”

     
“Well, he would know,” Park replied. “So would the Galactics consider the
Hudson
a tender, do you think? A ship that carries passengers and crew to larger ones that never leave orbit?”

     
“How did you know that?” Arn asked, surprised.

     
“It seemed like a logical extension of what you said,” Park shrugged. “If the internal floor plan were redesigned and part of the cargo hold used for more passengers, we could probably fit seventy five to one hundred people on board, assuming they stayed in their seats from ground to orbit. Two trips would man the more common Galactic fighting ships.”

     
“Logic,” Arn mused. “I’ll have to try it someday. So you think I should just ask for another ship like the
Hudson
?”

     
“Let him talk you into it,” Park advised. “You’ll likely get a few concessions on other matters that way.”

     
Arn nodded. “So, you’re going up. Who else is on the mission?”

     
“Well, Iris, naturally,” Park chuckled. “She would kill me if I tried to ground her anyway and she’s actually our best navigator. Velvet and her team will be doing the actual on-site repairs. As for the rest of the crew, I figure whoever is next on the rotation will do. They’re all good, so there is no need to play favorites.”

     
“Taodore came to me about that yesterday,” Arn told him.

     
“Did he?” Park asked. “I thought he might. Is he still insisting that he be allowed on board as an official Mer observer? A quarter of my crew will be Mer. All of Velvet’s repair team will be all Mer saving herself. They are ideally adapted for working in free-fall. I told him that yesterday and he still wants to sit in.”

     
“He has a little boy living inside of him too, you know,” Arn pointed out.

     
“Don’t we all,” Park laughed. “Well, we have the room and he isn’t exactly dead wood. He’s been in the pilot program too. He’s worse than me when it comes to specialization, you know.”

     
“Heh! I wouldn’t say worse,” Arn chuckled. “Neither of you has a sense of ‘beyond my abilities.’”

     
“We both have our limits,” Park retorted. “It’s just that we keep stretching them.”

     
“I used to be skeptical about those who refused to specialize,” Arn admitted. “Now I see that you guys are essential to progress.”

     
“Nice of you to think so, Arn,” Park told him, “but so are specialists, you know. Many, if not most, of our technological breakthroughs over the ages have been made by those who had some training in two or more specialized sets of knowledge. Most of the inventions they came up with, however, were later refined and made more valuable by specialists. Both types are needed for constant and healthy advancements.”

     
“I’d like to meet with your mission team as soon as possible,” Arn told him.

     
“Going to give us a rousing pep talk?” Park chuckled.

     
“Something like that,” Arn replied. “I’m just jealous of the lot of you is all and this is my way to at least be a part of the mission.”

     
“Arn, you’re project leader,” Park pointed out. “You are the leader of every human on earth. When was the last time anyone could say that?”

     
“Never,” Arn admitted. “Of course I never thought of it that way.”

     
“Well, good!” Park laughed. “It would only go to your head and the last thing we need right now is a megalomaniac. Seriously, Arn, you’ve learned that being in charge is a responsibility and a burden, not a prize, and it doesn’t matter if you’re the leader of a small project or the king of the world, at least not if you do it right. Well, I’ll look though the duty roster and get everyone ready for your troop inspection.”

     
Park still had an office in the main installation but he hardly ever used it unless he was making phone calls. It was, however, where his desk was. Whether he liked it or not this was where memoranda and various official paperwork were left for him. In Van Winkle Base proper he need to use his computer pad. That was something else that didn’t get as much use as its manufacturer had anticipated. Park had no aversion to the pad. He had customized the instrument to his personal preferences and brought it with him from the Twenty-first century in his stasis tube, but he did not need to sit in a single office in which to use it. However he had come to prefer to use the torq the Mers had given him on his first visit to Ghelati. It had taken him over a week to get used to wearing it constantly while awake, but he found it an invaluable tool. The only thing it could not do for him in most parts of Van Winkle Town was to provide a printout. The device could easily send data for printing when he was in a Mer settlement, but in spite of the linkages between the human and Mer networks, to date no one had managed to devise a protocol that would allow a torq to send a job that would be compatible to a human printer.

     
Park had meant to request a Mer-built printer for his office several times, but so far had yet to actually do so. He had a small one at home, mostly for Marisea’s use, and there were several around the town, including in the aerospaceport, but Park needed the privacy his office would afford, so made his way inside and then took the restored elevator to the command level.

 
    
Park stepped into his office and picked up a thick stack of paper from the seat of his chair. He actually detested finding things left for him like that, but the base staff seemed to think that was the best way to bring something to one’s attention when they could not report directly. He let the pages thump down on his desk and then turned on his computer pad. While waiting for it to boot up, he picked up the paper pile and turned it upside down so he could start with the oldest items.

     
Had it really been three weeks since he was in this room last? He started making piles of the paper and completely forgot his terminal for the next half hour. Over half the items that had been left for his attention had already been handled and a second pile was composed of items that were in progress. He may not have seen the memos but he had been handling the problems anyway. The remaining five memos were about things he had to sign off on.

     
Park noticed that almost everything had been left on his chair by Arn’s administrative assistant. He wondered if he should hire someone to do a similar job for him. He had just decided against that when Marisea hop-stepped into the room.

     
“Hi, Park!” she greeted him cheerfully. “I heard you were in today and I hadn’t seen your office.”

     
“Not really my office,” Park laughed, “or rather, it isn’t where I work.”

     
“I know that,” she laughed in turn.

     
“What are you doing in the base?” Park asked curiously.

     
“Class assignment,” Marisea replied. “I was doing a paper for Human History and my teacher suggested I use the library here since we didn’t really have much about Alexander the Great in the town library. At least nothing beyond the school texts and an encyclopedia article.”

     
“We ought to move all those books into town,” Park remarked, “and link the base computer to the rest of the net as well.”

     
“The computer is linked,” Marisea informed him. “It was the books I wanted to read. Moving them to town is a good idea though.”