Surebleak Orbital Influence Zone
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
The Clutch ship was down.
Bechimo had not given the port the first report of the anomaly, nor done anything more than confirm other reports on the sighting. They did share the information that the rock was piloted by Emissary Twelve, bound for an urgent meeting with the Delm of Korval. The setdown in the Road Boss’s drive—that by itself would be gossip for a week; no sense adding to the river of chatter.
“Now that we’re all at stations and awake,” Theo said, offering Win Ton a wry grin, “let’s take a couple minutes to go over the form and substance of this first report we’re supposed to be submitting to Portmaster Liu in a few hours.”
“Portmaster Liu,” Clarence commented, “has had an unusually hard day, I’m thinking, even for the master of Surebleak Port.”
“She has,” Theo agreed, “which is why we should take some time to make sure our report is clean and professional.”
“And perhaps soothing,” Kara murmured, “to a pain in the head.”
“Right,” Theo said. “Kara, you were working on the libration point scans, we’ll want to deal with them first in the body of the report since those are effectively Surebleak orbital situations. I know Bechimo’s given you a lot of current information there…”
Kara nodded, began to move toward her screen controls—
Theo fingered not yet in pilot-sign, and Kara settled again into her chair.
“Win Ton’s writing the intro since he’s got so much experience writing reports—” Theo continued.
The former Scout snorted. Theo ignored him.
“There’s vocabulary. You and Win Ton will want to make sure we’re using consistent terminology. The old reports he’s using as background were made by a mix of first-in Terran contractors, then ongoing piloting reports for the seventy years or so of heavy traffic. What we use to pull these together will probably set the standard for long-term report formats.”
“No doubt there,” Clarence said agreeably.
“On Surebleak,” Kara amended. “Perhaps.”
“Surebleak could use some consistency,” Theo said.
“Now, that’s so, Kara,” Win Ton said. “We serve the port.”
“Very well. Joyita ought to also be in the vocabulary loop.”
“Good idea. Joyita?”
“I am eager to assist,” the comm officer assured her from his screen.
“Good. Now, Clarence has been reviewing the incident reports from the early days; he and Bechimo have compiled a grid of incident types by distance from the sun and orbital plane as well as the Jump run problems. They’ve discovered evidence of two unreported meteor streams so far. So Clarence will write a pilot-side on that and Bechimo will put together the technicals.
“Bechimo and I will be lead co-authors, since we were called on the portmaster’s carpet and fined; that’ll just keep it simple. If anybody else wants their name on the report as co-author, speak up.”
No one spoke up. Kara went so far as to shake her head.
“I think simplicity serves us all best,” she said and sighed, apparently struck by a thought.
“I do wish that we had time to do a rush test on one of the libration points so that we may be certain of the density of the dust…”
Theo signed understood.
“While we can visit the libration zones, it would be good to be able to get more hands-on at four and five, so that’s for later.
“Joyita, please put together a common work area where we can grow this.”
“Yes, Captain.”
A flutter of fingers in peripheral vision. Theo spun her chair.
“Win Ton?”
“I wonder if we may properly invite TerraTrade to search their archives for old trip reports and incidents—crew reports from outgoing Jumps often do not come back to the planet of origin, you know. It would be interesting and perhaps informative to all parties.”
Theo eyed him.
“And it would let the TerraTrade survey team know that Surebleak Port is working to clean up its situation.”
Win Ton opened his eyes too wide, feigning innocence. “Surely they could not object to such a laudable project?”
“Port Surebleak has lifted the space weather alert.” Joyita waved a casual hand at a screen in his comm center. “All ships are advised to proceed in an orderly manner.”
“Good advice wherever you find it,” Clarence said, and spun his chair to face Theo.
“Now, lassie, tell me what you think o’them maize buttons.”