Chapter 2: Tiptoe Through The Tulips

It had been a long trip and Helva’s crew and passengers were ready for a break on a planet - especially a planet as beautiful from orbit as was Azahar.

Helva had been with The Good Ship Lollipop - Lolli to her crew and friends - when the two ships had returned their loaner crews to Nova Roma along with the thousands of new colonists promised as compensation for the loan of the two crews. During that portion of the voyage, Lolli and Helva had made several ports of call en route, and the time was used to sort out those extracted for Harrad Colony’s new Merchant Academy.

Helva and Inkie had also been tasked with fulfilling a promise. A contingent of graduates, cadets, and faculty from the two extracted merchant marine academies wanted to train with Confederacy technology, then return to Earth and fight the Swarm from sunken redoubts. Azahar was the colony where such training was available, and Helva was making that delivery along with two specialists requisitioned from and extracted by the Office of Targeted Extractions.

Helva’s crew quarters and modified passenger pods had been a little crowded, but now Inkie and the rest of Helva’s crew could look forward to stretching out during their landfall. There would be plenty of room while voyaging to catch up to Lolli.

Because Inkie and Helva had been charged with additional tasks, they planned to be in orbit for several days,.

As was becoming the norm for Harrad Colony’s two ships, they used Dora’s prior scans for suitable CAP scores. They were to acquire any inhabitants of the local colony’s brothel possessing a desired score - if the colony was willing to release them.

They were also charged with investigating a phenomenon*, discovered during Dora’s earlier search of CAPs, that was not fully understood.

<No Freaking Way! AI, how the heck did you miss this?> The tall dark man was livid.

<I did not miss anything. No one asked, > came the AI’s response. <The whole discussion was about who would be extracted with him, not who was a sponsor.>

<So now we have nine sponsors, all refusing to take concubines, and we committed to extracting them all without reservations... > He lowered his head into his hands. <This nanite idea was soooo stupid.>

<Do you think they were trying to put one over on us?> he eventually raised his head and asked the AI. <I can’t see why they would, but I have to ask.>

<No, they were telling the truth as they knew it, > answered the AI. <All the ladies were very close to a sponsor’s CAP when they met him. That must have been a factor that made them so compatible.>

<Preteens! Mister ‘Sees Patterns’ and his ladies want to take their quota in preteens. Not only that, he’s negotiating for a four-to-one ratio! Fifty-six kids between ten and thirteen. He has to be crazy. Are we sure he isn’t a pedophile?>

<You saw his sub-scores. Not a chance, > the AI responded.

Inkie reviewed the recorded scene yet another time. For a reason or reasons Dora had not been able to find, the name and CAP of ‘Mister Sees Patterns’ remained unknown and undiscoverable. She was pondering again how she was to proceed when Helva announced, <Little Love, you have an incoming call from a Martha Grayson. My records indicate that she is the planetary governor.>

Consulting her implant for the governor’s local time, Inkie opened the connection, and said, “Good morning, Governor Grayson. How may I be of service?”

“Good morning to you as well,” responded the pleasant-voiced woman whose hologram appeared. “I answer to Martha rather than Governor.” She smiled. “You could help by calming the ravening hoard of preteens, teens, and seemingly adults who started calling me within hours of your arrival in system. It seems they want a concert.”

Inkie blinked, but before she could respond, Martha continued, “And there is an individual of some importance to our research centers who asked that I obtain a meeting with you. He did not give a subject.”

“If you could oblige me in both areas, I would be more than grateful and could return to sanity and my work.”

“I’m amenable to both,” agreed Inkie. “I’m tasked with a mission that may require some assistance, but that can wait until your freedom is obtained. How many concerts are needed to ensure everyone who wishes may attend one?”

*Author’s note: Background for this segment may be found in the story Don’t Blame Me! http://storiesonline.net/s/13564/dont-blame-me

As it happened, four concerts were needed. Martha and her family attended the first. The governor was sufficiently impressed that she attended another one.

The second matter was almost anti-climatic. Instead of an individual, a phalanx of eight women transported aboard Helva. When a rather nondescript man also arrived, the ladies formed up around him and became his escort to the meeting. Inkie had planned to welcome her visitor upon arrival, but decided differently when he arrived with a cadre.

She moved to Helva’s wardroom and asked Helva to don an avatar and join her.

Within a moment, a graceful wave of beauty entered, parted, and allowed their man to step forward. He spoke, “Mistress Inkie and Mistress Helva, I greet you. I must ask - are you aware of me as an individual?”

“I both see and hear you,” Inkie responded. “Why do you ask?” She already had her suspicions but wanted confirmation.

“Until a nanite fiasco helped these ladies find me, women ignored me for my whole life - even my mother. Now they and our daughters - and apparently, you - can see me. As far as I know, you are the only woman outside my family who knows I’m alive and standing in front of them. Even Governor Grayson ‘sees’ me through an AI. We don’t understand the phenomenon, but it is very real.”

“But, then, I’m wrong, am I not?” he asked turning to Helva’s avatar. “How long since you wakened, my dear Helva?”

<Not very long, > Helva informed him silently, but including Inkie. <Only since the start of this voyage. But then, I’m not very old.>

“As I expected,” he replied. “But I anticipate there are other Tuull AIs who awakened and are older than you.” The avatar nodded.

“Let me explain my need to see you,” he began. “I see patterns and relationships - faster, more accurately, and more completely than others, if they see them at all. I was requisitioned and extracted with these lovelies, because the local weapons research teams wanted me to help organize and optimize their efforts.”

He sighed. “That’s done, and I now feel like I’m twiddling my thumbs. Your colony is going to be in contact with Tuull AIs; is in close contact as I can see. I and my team can provide the same organization and optimization as we’ve done here.”

“I’m pretty sure that you are the person that I was sent to find,” answered Inkie, “But what to do if - make that when - I found you was left open. ‘Patterns.’ Let’s talk about patterns.”

Then she held up her hand to forestall an answer, “What do I call you? Do you have a name? Our AIs could find nothing personal on you - not even a CAP score.”

“Why not call me ‘Pat’ for the patterns I see?” he responded. “My real name is sequestered, and I would prefer it stay that way. If we seem to be in agreement, and I predict we will be, then I’ll have our AI release it and my CAP score to you. For many purposes, my CAP score is moot, because my abilities would let me subvert its purpose.”

“All right, Pat it is,” Inkie replied. “I infer that you have the same trusting relationship with your ladies that Governor Michael has with his, and that I have with Helva. If that’s true, let’s do talk patterns.”

“Your analysis of my relationship with my ladies is correct,” Pat proceeded. “In addition, they, along with my team down planet, serve as translators and implementers to enable others to make efficient use of the data, information, and analysis I provide on a given situation.”

“Give me a verifiable example of a pattern you saw that others were unaware of.”

Pat started by saying; “Martha Grayson can confirm that I foresaw that the Tuull would increasingly involve themselves with humanity to the extent that they would sponsor one or more colonies. The Darjee are clearly not optimizing humanity’s ability to thwart the Swarm expansion, and the Tuull never had much respect for the Darjee to start with.”

He continued, “I told her some time ago, that when they did, Azahar would be an early port of call. I did not tell her that it was to recruit me, nor that I saw a need for me to join your effort.” Pat looked at Inkie and said, “I know, I know, I haven’t demonstrated anything yet, but I’ll get there.”

“Actually, Michael is darned good at analyzing and seeing patterns himself,” Inkie replied. “That’s why he wanted one of us to talk with you after Dora surfaced your existence and he thought about the associated implications. Let’s talk for a while about why you want to leave a valued role and join us.” In an aside, “Dora is the colony’s and Michael’s AI - She’s Tuull as well.”

Pat began his answer, “I see a real possibility of the humans of the Confederacy jumping the tracks. There are three sure ways to ruin a soldier’s morale - screw with his women, mess with his alcohol, and foul up his letters from home. That’s a simple but chauvinistic way of putting it.”

“So let’s look at the way a Marine might perceive his or her reality,” he continued. “First women, men, concubines. Our Marine is on extraction duty and sees exceptions made to the number of authorized concubines - seemingly arbitrary exceptions that were unavailable to him at his own pickup. Then he sees concubines mistreated in various ways - especially when his buddies are killed and concubines and kids are dumped in a brothel. He can’t be sure his concubines, or his children for that matter, will be well treated if he is killed. It’s clear to him that the Darjee AIs don’t give a flying fuck.”

Pat smiled at his women, then moved to his second topic. “Booze. You know, the British navy understood the importance of a daily tot of grog. With all the experiences of replicator alcohol tasting like swill, and everything else replicated fine, it’s hard to swallow,” he grimaced an apology, and proceeded, “any explanation other than a forced Prohibition Era enacted without a vote. And whether it is deliberate or accidental doesn’t matter, nor whether it was done by the human or the Darjee administration; to the ‘sailor’ someone is messing with his tot of grog. Just look at the efforts made around the colonies to make their own alcohol.”

“Mail!” Pat almost spat. “There’s damned little. Individual humans are almost totally isolated from their anchors, their families, either on Earth or scattered in a Diaspora. Some few manage to communicate, but they are rare. Marines worry about those left behind - wives, children, friends, you name it - and they can’t find out what’s going on with them. In wars past, there was the anticipation of returning home that gave both hope and stability. In this one, there is no such anticipation.”

“Humanity is divided into fiefdoms; fiefdoms with little control over their leaders. Our Marines come from democracies. They know about medieval history. With that background, it’s hard to trust higher levels, and particularly the aliens. Without the Sa’arm to bind humanity, we face a split into a plethora of individually-run islands.” He looked steadily at Inkie. “Of course I want to bring my family with you to Stars’ End!”

Recognizing the reference, Inkie made a decision, “Okay, pending a CAP retest by Helva, you’re in. So tell me your name.”

“Harold. Harold Seldom,” he supplied with a shrug. “Dad had a horrible sense of humor. Please don’t call me Harry. I much prefer Pat!”