Wildcatter

Day -9 was memorable. The last cargo boat taxied Seth to the Oryo station so he could take delivery of the shuttle that would carry him down to the as yet unidentified world of Cacafuego. After signing for it, he flew it back and docked it in Hind’s only docking port, in the center of the disk. Granted that computers did all the work, that little jaunt made him feel like a real spaceman. After that there could be no further cargo deliveries, but the shuttle added to Seth’s workload, because he had to check it out, inch by inch.

On Day -6, JC put them into overdrive, wanting to be ready to launch at a moment’s notice. Seth, for one, worked until he was ready to drop. He couldn’t see the urgency when no other ship on ISLA’s list was spaceworthy yet, but he was willing to accept that JC had more information than he did.

On the evening of Day -4 JC’s voice summoned them all to the control room. He was beaming like a newly-fed tiger, clutching a piece of paper, but he said nothing until they were all seated. Then he waved the paper like a flag.

“This is it,” he boomed. “The world of our dreams-Cacafuego itself. It scores slightly over nine on the Mew-Watson scale.”

Pause for wild cheering. Niner worlds were rarer than snake feet these days.

“Only 1,500 light years away! In case you’ve forgotten, AKG’s big strike is at more than three times that distance. The poor sods lost thirty-two years.”

“Virgin?” Jordan asked skeptically.

“Absolutely. Its star didn’t even have a catalogue number until last week.”

“Why?” asked Maria, who was going to give Seth hell when she discovered the hickey on her neck. “Why should a world so Earth-like and so close-close by today’s standards-go unvisited so long?”

“Weird sisters,” JC boomed. “Other planets screwing up the Doppler trace. Also, it’s in Orion. Dust clouds masking critical wavelengths.”

“But not a new star?” Maria again. There was a lot of star formation in that area.

The commodore scowled at their skepticism and consulted his notes. “Right on the main sequence, type G. Metals date it a little older than Sol, but not by much. Why so glum?” He peered around and fixed on Seth as the safest target. “What’s worrying you, sonny?”

“It’s not the end of the month, sir.”

“So?” JC demanded belligerently. “You look after the bug-eyed monsters and let me handle the politics.”

“So you greased palms to get that information, but how do we know how reliable it is? Galactic has a fleet almost ready to launch. They might pay more than you just to have us sent off chasing wild geese.”

The big man showed his teeth in a sneer of triumph. “You think I didn’t think of that? I have backups. I put a lot of important suits on Mite’s board, and two of them have checked out the coordinates for me, and they both confirm oxygen and chlorophyll lines in the spectrum.”

This time even Seth joined in the roar of approval.

“There’s also a bonus, of a sort,” JC said, still riding his wave of triumph. “A backup I’m renaming Armada. It should be only two or three havens from Cacafuego. Not so promising, still in the slime stage. It’s been staked before, but the claim will lapse soon, so I picked up an option pretty cheap. If we miss out at Cacafuego for any reason, we can go on to Armada and see if we can salvage something the finders missed.”

Better still!

“Course locked in, sir,” Hanna said quietly, and the babble died into shocked silence.

“Already?” Jordan exclaimed. “How did you manage that?”

The navigator looked smug. “The road to Orion is well mapped. There’s a good haven at 213 light years, confirmed only four months ago.”

“Then this is Day 1! Any idea how many days to target?”

Hanna took a few minutes, made more calculations. “There are listed havens all the way, but some haven’t been visited for years and may not exist in our time slice. Allow a month or so to sound each one properly. There’s lots of shoals around Orion, so we’ll be zigzagging… Say Day 425 as a best guess.”

Jordan gave her a victory sign and turned to Seth. “Is the shuttle ready?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re sure? It’s your lifeline.”

“I’m sure.”

“Anyone know anything that needs to be redone, rechecked, tied down? Nail clippers; bed socks; beads and mirrors for the natives? No? Very well.” The captain laid both hands on the table. “Control, reset clocks to midnight, Day Zero. Launch Jump One.”

Day 401, Continued

001.001 definitions. The following terms shall apply in these regulations and any subsequent amendments thereto.

001.095 master means the person in charge of a landing vehicle engaged in exploratory operations.

035.08 Notwithstanding anything else in these regulations, from the moment a landing vehicle disengages from its mother ship until it docks:

[a] the master is endowed with the autonomous authority of a starship captain,