Ghost Planet

By Don Holman

Almost 5 years after the last great battle that ended the 28 year long war, when the smaller Mad Scientist Fleet is annihilated, a newly graduated cadet, Olan Duraness, encounters a robot controlled battle cruiser, built by the Mad Scientists and programmed to kill, only surviving by chance. Able to repair his scout

• Language: English
• Publisher: Don Holman Author
• Release date: Jun 14, 2024
• ISBN: 9781960093332

Don Holman

Born in Alberta, Canada, Don always worked. His driver's license earned him the job of milking the family cow. His schooling, hampered by dyslexia undiagnosed until decades later, enhanced his problem solving skills, his interest in technologies and his voracious reading. With experience as an Engineer, a pilot's license, scuba certification and years in the military he went to graduate school and married. Five months later his wife suffered serious hidden injuries in an accident, never to work again, preventing completion of his PhD. Don's writing, started at age 13 stagnated until word processors were common. After 41 years of declining health his wife suffered a stroke and moved to a home. Don's writing; passion, recreation and therapy - now a seven novel epic, went to a publishing house. The novels, fresh and understandable let us live through the uncertainties and decisions of the heroes as they mature in a challenging background of unique and challenging worlds. Don a self-proclaimed generalist, knowledgeable about and able to recognize and solve problems, says his stories are meant to be interesting, fun and help the reader understand how science influences all our futures.

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Don Holman

Copyright © 2023 Don Holman.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without a prior written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review, and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by the copyright law.

Library of Congress Control Numbers:   2024908626

ISBN:   978-1-960093-32-5   (Paperback)

ISBN:   978-1-960093-56-1   (Hardcover)

ISBN:   978-1-960093-33-2   (E-book)

Some characters and events in this book are fictitious and products of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Introduction

PART 1

Chapter 1    Olan

Chapter 2    Contact!

PART 2

Chapter 3    Landing

Chapter 4    Who Am I

Chapter 5    Preperations

Chapter 6    The Landing

Chapter 7    Rescue

Chapter 8    VIP Decks

Chapter 9    Pierre’s Grand Plan

Chapter 10  Project Hercules

Chapter 11  Remembering

Chapter 12  First Recruit

Chapter 13  Planning

Chapter 14  Is Now

Chapter 15  Diversion

Chapter 16  Searching

Chapter 17  The Search

PART 3

Chapter 18  Living Aboard

Chapter 19  Searchers From Raynard

Chapter 20  Learning The Language

Chapter 21  South

Chapter 22  Humans v.s. Computer

Chapter 23  In Command

Chapter 24  Responsibilities Of Command

Chapter 25  Master Plan

Chapter 26  Rescue

Chapter 27  Burn In

Chapter 28  Inviting Trouble

Chapter 29  Breakout

Chapter 30  And Finally

Glossary

Appendix

INTRODUCTION

Habitable Planets

Perhaps the most asked question about space is ‘How are new planets found and settled?’

That question is one around which university courses and even whole Departments of Universities are established to award degrees on, but to simplify, it is a three-step process.

Researchers find potentially habitable planets. This is the bread and butter of explorers and many modern Astronomers: because a really good Goldilocks Planet – one that has abundant liquid water and an Oxygen Nitrogen atmosphere is potentially worth billions and usually a fat finder’s fee to the discoverer. Enough to pay for years of ships and fuel costs or for a fancy new telescope in space or on a suitable moon.

Once a potentially habitable planet is found comes a years-long planetary Investigation, which means investigating native bacteria, animals, plants, weather and much more, usually years of work by dedicated researchers and, done properly, it costs billions and takes a decade or more and hundreds or thousands of people. If it is suitable, how suitable is it? There are degrees granted to cover just the basics of this question. Results of such investigations are some of the most closely guarded secrets in the Universe today.

Depending upon a planet’s location, and results of the investigation, an estimate for the planet’s value is made and the Company decides what to do with it. That decision considers who (officially or unofficially) owns the planet, travel times, suitability of the planet as to resources, including agriculture, and much more. The Company’s decision will be carefully calculated to yield the biggest profit. It might be prepared and settled by the Company or sold to a single or multiple settler associations. If less suitable it may be exploited to grow plants for medical purposes or perhaps as a hunting planet with high priced hunt holidays.. Or as some say raped for its natural resources such as metals and other minerals, for its exotics such as pelts, saps or compounds that are useable as pharmaceuticals. Sometimes its existence is kept secret and exports may be sold in a way that avoids taxes or channels them into one of several illicit markets including the addictive substances market, the exotics market, or markets that have high duties imposed on them. Such worlds are sometimes sold, traded or licensed as duping grounds for criminals or political undesirables. The general term for any of the above is Ghost Planet, a planet that is never registered with the Federation of planets and never appears on the official books of the companies that develop and exploit them,.

Today we discuss habitable planets with features that make them less saleable:

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PART 1

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CHAPTER 1

Olan

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Olan had been anticipating this mission. He had started actively preparing for it a Semester ago. He might get one more trip after this one but only if fewer than expected new scout pilots were recruited, and it was becoming more difficult as fewer were volunteering and fewer were passing their medicals, having plumbing installed and being trained. But then the number of patrols being scheduled had also dropped. The scuttlebutt was ‘It’s been four years since the war ended, the threat from rogue naval ships has dropped so scout patrols aren’t needed’.

Of that Olan wasn’t convinced.

His trip up to POP - the Primary Orbital Platform - had been faster than usual. Instead of a shuttle ride he had been assigned to ride a scout fresh from overhaul. The shuttle mother ships weren’t set up to carry scouts so they were assisted to orbit using the electromagnetic launch facility. The electromagnetic launch system used 18,000 superconducting magnetic rings to accelerate cargo capsules at up to 100G acceleration, which would of course instantly wreck a scout and kill the pilot. Such an accident had never happened here but it made pilots nervous just thinking about the possibility, and the fact that he, and the scout of course, had to descend to 2,000 thousand meters below sea level to be loaded into the electromagnetic cannon’s breach made it worse. But at 11G it had only taken seconds to travel the 20-kilometer length of the launch tube. Of course it always seemed much longer, unless the pilot passed out. The only benefit he could think of was it gave him a chance to check out the scout before being stuck in it during his patrol, a minimum of three months, and to spend more time with Uncle Jock.

Reaching the Primary Orbital Platform (POP), a solid space wheel that spun to provide gravity for the inhabitants, he reported in, then went to the store high in the station where gravity was low. This was "Uncle Jock’s store. He had first met Jock, a friend of his father, when he was five, not long after his father had died in a fission containment accident. Jock was a retired, disabled spacer. And he had made his only, and he later realized pain filled visit to the surface, to convinced his mother to take him and Nicole his little sister, to live with their grandfather. His mother had not long outlived his father and it had been Grandfather who had raised them.

He had recently learned it would be Jock who, now that he had graduated, would sell him his Officer’s side arm. Owning a side arm was the mark of a career military officer on Raynard. Jock was one of only three licensed firearms dealers for Raynard and he had supplied almost every Space pilot theirs, when they graduated. After he had purchased his handgun, a blaster, and unexpectedly a second one, he took possession of the recorder he had ordered over a year previous. The recorder was compact but had considerable mass. Scout pilots were limited in the mass they could take on patrol and he was immediately concerned it would be too heavy. Jock told him not to worry and arranged to have him take it without penalty, then challenged him to a game of GO, the game his father had started teaching him and that grandfather had continued. He had played Jock remotely and was excited to play him in person.

But this time the game was an excuse. Jock had roomed with his father, as unlikely a pair as he could imagine, and become close. As they played Jock told him more about his father in a short afternoon than he had learned about him growing up. Jock also told him David, his father had been his heir, so now Olan, David’s heir was now his heir. And Jock gave him a chip with all necessary information to inherit his estate. The implications of Jock selling him a second handgun when he only had a permit for one hadn’t really struck him until, just after he left Jock’s store he saw preparations underway to Lockdown the platform. He managed to return to the shop where his scout was being prepared for patrol, seconds before one of the Special police, those called out to search for illegal shipments of drugs and other contraband, would have detained him.

During patrols Scout pilots were hooked into a DOC, an AI medical subsystem designed to keep pilots at the peak of health, so a scout pilot couldn’t be on drugs so by default he was allowed to depart on his patrol as scheduled. After exiting POP and hooking in the recorder, purchased to record his patrol, he went through the checklist confirming everything was operational and was allowed to accelerate directly out from the sun. Once far enough out he would pace the planet, then come directly back in to POP. It was a three month long ‘out-and-back’ patrol, the most boring of all missions assigned. It should give him lots of time to research the classified data he had recorded during the regular ‘semester break party’ when almost no students were at the Academy. When the party began he had one drink and pleaded nausea, and been laughed out of the room. Instead of going to his dorm he had spent hours copying data, using the high security password his roommate had boasted of obtaining and then carelessly left available. He forensically copied big chunks of official company archives stored on the Academy Computer system, using computers that were officially in storage.

After departing the station, he had time to think about the lockdown. He examined the second handgun he had purchased with so little thought and no permit. It was different, special. It had been manufactured by the Mad Scientists, the group responsible for starting the 28 year long war that killed or displaced so many millions. ‘These weapons are rare, very rare. How did Jock get it and why offer it to him at a price he wouldn’t pass up? Having it could be more dangerous than having the Information he’d copied. Could the lockdown have been to find the handgun? It looked rather ordinary, just heavier, even if it was very rare and valuable.’

However, it was the disks he had quietly added to the Scout’s standard library that he was much more interested in. He was convinced they would contain data about the Company that ruled Raynard and operated the Academy. Info even Grandfather didn’t know. He had only learned from Albert’s gossip that the Academy’s computer system was the backup for all Company computer records for the whole planet.

That Olan had actually copied the data, stolen it, seemed so out of character. He was usually so predictable, so milk toast, just like Albert said. He had written about it in his notebook diary. "I did it because I had Albert as my roommate for five years. He is an overbearing Company Brat. he regularly ignores rules and its ignored. If Albert can do it, why can’t I?

I think it was because of all those stories Albert tells, how he laughs at company executives’ actions and what he says are the even crazier things the Company has done. I had to prove to myself it is all true, that the Company is neither all knowing or all powerful. Being at the Academy, seeing what one is allowed to learn is based on birth, not worth, I want to learn more. Are Arthur’s stories true? I want to know more about the Company. Are all the whispered stories true? Why is everyone so afraid? I really want to know if Father died in an accident, or something else?

Knowing his entry was dangerous, he had torn it out and burned it.

His father, David Durineaus, an expert plasma energy conversion and storage systems technician, had been sent to work on POP when his sister was three. David and Jock had roomed together and become close. When the freighter Pinta arrived at Raynard with Plasma system problems David had volunteered to work on it. He had been on the ship when it left. He had told Jock. If I get the chance I will try to contact and bring back the Navy. Before the Pinta went Ghost it reported his father had died in a plasma breach. Olan remembered his mother crying for days and Jock coming and convincing her to take him and Nicole and live with grandfather. Her ‘Company’ family had disowned her for marrying a ‘local.’

Albert, who considered himself a ladies’ man, had tried to get Olan interested in some of the female students at the Academy. Based on their answers in class none of them were as smart as Nicole, ,his little sister, and of course they were all daughters of Company officials, but unlike his mother, distained talking to a local, ward of a research professor or not.

It probably all went back to the day he arrived at the Academy, alone, scared, keyed up, looking forward to pilot training but scared by that too. Albert, also a junior classman, had picked Olan to ridicule. Olan scared and frustrated had reacted physically and the minor scuffle had been seen and used as an example of what was done to those that didn’t behave and follow the rules, all the rules. They were assigned to room together as punishment. And if roommates fought, they were told sternly, both are expelled. So they had roomed together, learned to tolerate and at some level respect and like each other.

Albert’s father, a newly promoted manager had married a wife with aspirations to be in the upper crust of Company society, and had successfully campaigned and pushed her husband to ‘climb the ladder’.

So, Albert had grown up in a home where Senior Company executives visited. Being something of a gossip, though a careful one, he repeated stories of their preferences, habits and peculiarities, good, indifferent, and in Olan’s opinion, often bad. Albert worked no harder than he had to, unless he perceived it to be to his benefit, when he focused and worked diligently. He brow beat Olan into doing many of his assignments, whether Olan was taking that class or not. So Olan had access to class texts, lectures and seminars that no other ‘local’ had access too. Albert, especially when he had had an illicit drink or two, loved to talk, to affirm his superiority by letting slip things he knew but Olan wasn’t allowed to, so Olan heard many details of the workings of the company at many levels and Albert’s speculations of how such decisions came about. It had reinforced Olan’s desire to know more about the Company that ruled Raynard and its people as if they were privileged royalty.

Olan felt comfortable in space. It gave him a feeling of freedom he never got dirtside, especially at the Academy among the elite. And now, having finally graduated, even though he missed the formal ceremony, the feeling was greater. On this patrol there were no assignments to be submitted and assessed. This trip he was his own boss.

Yes, he had to do all the usual scans and reporting every scout pilot had to do during his patrol, but he had already set up the Scout’s computer to do them automatically. Also, having searched the standard scout library during previous patrols for information on the Company and built a lookup spreadsheet he expected it to be relatively quick and easy to categorize his new information. He anticipated learning about things never talked about in school: the Company, the Government, the occasionally referenced Outside Investors. After the many things Uncle Jock had so recently related to him, he was even more motivated to learn. He had copied 30 terabytes from the archives and while most of it would have no value, it had to include many things even Grandfather didn’t know.

Sleep and mandatory exercise took 10 to 11 hours a day, meals another hour or two. But he could study while exercising and eating, it was even encouraged ‘to reduce boredom.’ If they only knew, he was never bored. So, depending what turned up, he had up to 15 hours every day he could devote to learning. During this patrol, he would have more unscripted time to do what he wished than in all his years since age five. -

But until he was one AU from home, when the amount of data sent automatically by the scout’s pilot monitoring system was reduced by a factor of ten, he dared not access his illicit information. Instead he studied the manual and practiced using his new Earth made recorder, how to play one record while recording a second and how to utilize its multiple speed features. Then he dug into the information Jock had sent along on the memory coins in the recorder. One of the memory coins held reports and papers for his father. He found and read Prof Aunelson’s report on the Mad Scientist handgun that Jock had mentioned was included. The report was one of dozens Jock was sending to Grandfather. The report, named ‘Aspects of the Radiation Output of a Tunable, Stored Energy, Demand Operated, Energy Projection Device of Advanced Design with Possible Power Storage Modulation’ he only found because he knew Prof. Aunelson was its author. It was difficult reading, the math was beyond anything taught to Academy graduates, and the Academy was the only University on Raynard. Notably, no one reading it would know it was written about a hand weapon. It seemed more like the analysis of a remote industrial or radar power storage and utilization installation. Two other memory coins held movies and things for his little sister Nicole, who Jock doted on, and who was looking way more grown up every time he saw her. Jock had enclosed a box with jewelry as a graduation present for her.

It took three days to coast out one AU from Raynard, the distance that Raynard was from its sun, and when not otherwise occupied Olan remembered and analyzed what Jock had told him of his Father, and the Company. Thinking about such things was a productive use of time as he exercised in the igloo, the translucent bubble that extended from the airlock, more than doubling the habitable volume of the scout. The igloo was the only place pilots could perform a proper cardiovascular exercise routine.

As he neared one AU, communications with POP were losing clarity. After multiple requests, that he tried to make sound routine though he was feeling frantic, he received direction from Lt Sykes on POP to do an EVA to check the main antenna. Signal strength was 40% below normal but his gear passed its self-check so logic said it was the antenna.

He knew if communications didn’t improve his patrol would be cancelled, spoiling his only chance to learn the secrets in his pirated data!

Olan considered EVAs great fun, a rare chance to actually get the awesome feel of space. He loved the immensity and raw beauty, but since some pilots reacted badly to its overwhelming vastness, EVAs were authorized only when absolutely necessary and time outside was strictly limited.

The problem was warping of the collapsible main antenna by two short twists of the non-conductive wire used to secure them out of the way during overhaul. They were quickly removed, and he had to go in.

Problem solved. Yes!

Olan’s last clear memory of his father was his fifth birthday party, just before David left for POP. His grandfather kept a picture of David, in a drawer in his bedroom. Olan had been so young. He wasn’t sure whether he hated his father for abandoning him or loved him for trying to get word out about Raynard, one of the few things Grandfather had ever said about his father. When he asked to know more, his grandfather replied in his ‘you must pay attention voice.’ The walls have ears. Grandfather avoided questions about how he had come to Raynard or how his Grandmother had died, but he knew the Company was involved.

Using his ability to recall conversations he suddenly found what Jock had said triggered an association, a love for his father that caused a flood of tears. His shoulders shook sending drops drifting around the igloo. He had trouble breathing for long seconds but didn’t stop exercising.

Stopping would have shown something was wrong. That wasn’t the case. Something was right! He had established a connection with his father he never knew he had.

Then Olan remembered something else Grandfather had said. Your father left without approval from the Company. After his years at the Academy Olan knew the Company would consider that disloyalty, and the disloyal often met a dragon! Company bureaucracy also considered such attitudes to be hereditary!

That could mean he had been flagged as a flight risk. If so, he would never get back into space after his year of ‘seasoning’ that all Academy graduates were required to spend on the Frontier as a forester.

It shook him to his core. Even if his grandfather accomplished his dream of extending a modulated drive field over stellar distances and establish near instantaneous communications between stars, it wouldn’t make any difference to him or any locals on Raynard. Then he suddenly realized everything he had done, all he had gone through growing up and at the Academy, was so he could follow his father into space. His dream was the same as his father’s, to break the stranglehold the Company had on him, his family, on Raynard. This patrol was his best, possibly his only opportunity to learn enough that he might fulfill that dream!

Finally, when the one AU point was passed the data automatically reported decreased, and all data reported was transmitted thrice to insure clarity.

He started his research.

Olan had learned long ago that the scout’s computer read and reported the root name of every disk accessed, and how to spoof the computer by renaming the root directories of new disks with the same name as a disk in the scout’s standard library, complete with the hidden symbols that Grandfather had taught him to read, copy, and insert. That preliminary step had been done months ago and he settled down to find out what each of his disks held and condense what might actually be useful onto far fewer disks. It was boring, mind-numbing work, but he had had a lot of practice doing such work and it went surprisingly fast. He eliminated 90 percent of the data as having ‘no apparent value’ and overwrote and wiped half the disks before the scout reached its patrol radii. Then he started skimming what was left, only reading for content what actually struck him as useful, though there was a lot of that.

He did a second sort, transferring paragraphs, pages, whole sections and whole books and manuals onto a wiped disk he labeled ‘Reference." The tens of thousands of directives, reports and messages, divided by category, were copied onto two more, personnel data and diaries filled a forth. All financial, production, import and export data onto a fifth. Less potentially useful records were consolidated on others mostly because it was easy to do; including data on the educational system, marks, curricula, expenses, even talks by guest lecturers.

While checking and copying the educational financial records the multitude of entries for ‘information gathering’ caught his attention. Investigating, he concluded that most or all company expenditures for its seldom mentioned but widely feared secret police and their informers were channeled through accounts listed as educational expenses. The Company was spending a lot on spies and informers. There were thousands of individuals listed and most received regular payments.

Of special interest to Olan were manuals on ‘Information Dissemination,’ a topic Albert had referred to several times. These manuals didn’t talk about news stories except as examples. They taught how to use ‘news’ to guide thought, boost respect for the Company, and distract people from stories the Company thought the people shouldn’t be interested in or informed about. They called it ‘narrative control,’ how to establish background awareness so stories they used, or might need to use to distract people, would fit in and be accepted. This means, one of the footnotes stated, "a minimum of 25% of all news and information stories shall be ‘tailored news’ and allow additional news and events to be presented to ensure the Company narrative will dominate any ‘sanctioned’ stories so they could be easily overshadowed by prewritten off the shelf stories. Suggested topics for such stories included ‘new’ information. discoveries, news of disasters of multiple kinds and news of heroes or leaders previously in the news accomplishing new things or dying tragically or even better dying heroically doing what the Company considered set a good example. A short section on ‘typical news stories used on a subject world’ showed how, depending upon the normal news cycle, up to 65% of news stories at critical periods were written or prewritten (often by AI programs) to ‘guide’ narrative and keep the population ‘informed.’ Olan thought indoctrinated.

Olan had to reread the section to fully realize this meant that on Raynard, 25% of all news was false or at least doctored, made up or slanted, and if something happened the Company wanted to play down, up to 65% of all news and stories would be written specifically to control what people thought. From the ‘illustrative’ stories provided, he recognized patterns he had heard in broadcasts and seen in newspaper stories while at school. This was confirmed when he found a news diary for Raynard. It listed actual news stories from other planets that could be expected to affect Raynard if disseminated and how those stories should be handled. Most of the ‘real news’ had never been made public and the stories that had been written, were ‘spun’ in the 25% used to ‘match’ the Company’s narrative for Raynard in case some real news leaked out.

There were a few select courses that Albert had never asked Olan’s help with, but had made verbal references to. One was a Special course I was privileged to take. The title of a short manual triggered a memory. It was a manual on condensing news (and unpacking condensed stories) so the general public wouldn’t understand their actual meaning.

A training manual for select staff; meaning Communications Staff and Senior Administrators only.

When grandfather sent a facsimile of his graduation certificate he appended the last few company ‘Fast Facts’ newsletters, the single-fold biweekly report the company sent to most company facilities. It included stories company officials should be informed about.

Olan, reading through them, realized certain stories were condensed news. By rereading the News Condensation Manual, he was able to unpack most of them. The result was eye-opening. A seemingly boring note about an investigation being conducted on records was actually an update on a major investigation that implicated local people and could even be the prelude to a purge. A second innocuous sounding story on community outreach was news about the leadership of local gangs. In the next Fast Facts the stories changed. The reference to local people changed to criminal gangs, meaning the Company witch hunt for conspirators had only found a few criminals, who were probably gotten rid of without raising much fuss. The other story now included a mention of funerals. Interpretation, the gangs were fighting each other and some of the gang leaderss had been killed. Later when grandfather sent additional Fast Facts along with a digital copy of his yearbook the same threads noted an uptick in accidental deaths at some plants and also in funerals.

Correlating the industries where the ‘accidental’ deaths happened with the responsibilities of the various Deputy Directors, he concluded the recent death of a Deputy Director might not have been an accident. Interestingly he couldn’t find the usual VIP burial notice. Had the Deputy Director survived? If he had, was he now involved with the gangs? Perhaps joined or taken over one? That might explain the uptick in funerals.

Olan was reminded of some of the less believable of Albert’s stories, and realized the stories might not only have been true, but toned down. The realization made him feel he was treading dangerous waters.

Olan kept updating his quick access spreadsheet, a reference that among other things tracked every ship that visited Raynard as well key crew and key company officials; who gave orders; information on previous port or ports and destination ports when such information was available. He kept having to add new categories and relationships to his spreadsheet. He also began to understand that the Company was not monolithic. It was a conglomerate of hundreds of sub-entities.

New names kept popping up and he was glad he had taken the time during a previous patrol to prepare a spreadsheet that could accommodate and show almost unlimited relationships.

So far there was only one entry for the freighter Pinta. Maybe it had been lost. It suggested his father’s death might have been accidental.

He was now dedicating most of his time going through the information on Ships, trade and financial transactions. It was totally absorbing. He was often at it so late he didn’t have time for his nightly prayers before the DOC put him to sleep.

He finally followed a reference and found the files on his family and Jock. The entries were shorter than he had expected. They didn’t include how his grandfather had been brought to Raynard but, having learned to interpret the code letters after the names of everyone listed, he saw that Grandfather had been ‘imported’ and all of his family had a ‘flight risk’ tag.

So much for my ever working in space. Was his sad but angry mutter. Olan’s father was listed simply as having died in an accident. There was nothing negative in Jock’s file, but it contained nothing precluding him from losing his handgun selling license and therefore his shop, as Jock had told him he expected would soon happen.

Eventually Olan found himself concentrating on four categories of information. Financial records, manuals, directives and diaries. The millions of routine messages and external Company communications he had transferred to a disk he thought of as the ‘If I have time file.’

Olan was assimilating decades of information, concentrating on the annual summaries. They proved there were many times more exports than imports by mass, but somehow the numbers said Raynard operated at a loss! Olan knew the cargos that went into space were valuable, some very valuable, and he knew that imports, while needed, were mostly things that could have been produced on Raynard. The values of all imports were obviously being inflated to make it appear Raynard was breaking even, or since the war ended losing money.

A section on the Balloon Patrol, that used dirigibles to find and transport capsules of imported goods to the Academy or the port, included inventories of the cargo capsuled they transported. Olan had wondered why more things weren’t manufactured on Raynard. So, as Jock had advised several times and having access to the records, he followed the money.

Among the goods that Raynard was chronically short of was quality paper. He found it was a major import by mass. So he searched for references to paper manufacturing.

In a news archive he found a small reference to a proposal for a paper mill submitted by local businessmen. Searching for information on those businessmen who had proposed it he found that within a year most associated with the proposal had had accidents, many fatal or had gone bankrupt. Apparently, no industry that would reduce the value of imports was allowed. Goods such as steel that had been (for the railway system) and still could be produced in volume and cheaply on Raynard, were overpriced. Steel buildings, vehicles and even cookware were expensive, reducing what local businesses could earn and families could afford. The problem was systemic. Only company-run schools and businesses seemed able to obtain new textbooks or imported materials. Local industries were so heavily taxed they couldn’t expand unless the Company wanted them to. Ships that came to Raynard were all lightly loaded, but were credited enough for their scanty cargos to leave with full loads.

But the financial records he was reviewing only hinted at the Company that ran, or perhaps the word should be administered Raynard. As he continued to dig it eventually became plain. All companies involved were interconnected. He researched selected Companies which led to other Companies, which led to still other Companies, which often led back to Companies he had already researched. It began to seem that everything was connected and controlled by a small number of individuals from ultra-rich families. The large number of companies involved meant a huge bureaucracy on multiple worlds, and from the way the manuals, directives and memoranda were written, they were hidebound and not accepting of change in anything except technologies that promised to increase profits. The reading was often heavy going, seldom entertaining, but to one really after the facts, intensely interesting. Grandfather’s periodic letters continued to have the latest ‘Fast Facts’ attached so he learned the Planetary police, after a hectic month, were enjoying a break, but there were undercurrents. The mention of a missing person in a condensed news story probably meant there was a rash of missing persons and a report of deaths meant additional bodies were turning up. A new Boss related to illicit goods was mentioned, a clear reference, if one understood the code, to the black markets for diamonds, drugs and illicit weapons.

Occasionally Olan relaxed. There were many movies in the scout’s library, but they had been picked by the Company, had probably been made by the Company, to indoctrinate. He had programmed the computer to randomly report the number of a movie disk whenever a query came in as to how he was spending his evenings. Another trick he had learned from Grandfather. The two coins in the recorder labeled Nicole held a collection of animated short stories, cartoons grandfather called them (and dismissed them as kid stuff), complete with surround sound and a choice of language tracks, compliments of Uncle Jock. Olan watched several on the scout’s main view screen.

Some were funnier than others. One bunch featured a skinny bird that beep beeped, ran instead of flying and was always being chased through dry-lands and mountains by a skinny four-legged dog-like creature called a coyote that, despite all kinds of gimmicks, never caught it. Kid stuff, but a way to relax, and doubtlessly banned by the company for poking fun at everything.

Olan’s sector, as predicted, was quiet, giving him time to read endlessly, making notes, automatically organizing key material into report format, a report more complex than any of the dozens he had written on other patrols. He obviously wouldn’t get to any of the other tasks he had tentatively lined up to study, he wouldn’t have time.

He felt pressure to finish. More pressure than the only time he had told Albert No. At school he had often worked late to complete his own assignments, after doing Albert’s. But senior year final reports were too important, and when as usual Albert demanded his help his response had been different.

Albert, you’ll have to do it yourself. I don’t have time.

Make time!

No. And Albert had learned that no meant no.

No. Ha. said Albert with a glare and stalked off, and attended fewer parties, but for the next week, the last week before Albert had left on his ‘graduation’ patrol, he treated Olan almost as an equal. He even said,

You let others push you around too much. You are the shy retiring type, stand up for yourself, or everyone will always just walk all over you. The only reason you’re graduating is you’re tenacious as hell.

If Albert only knew how hard it had been to learn tenacity. He had the journal Grandfather had told him to write about the training Grandfather gave him to withstand pressure and to avoid talking about things theCompany, or the teachers at The Academy might consider inappropriate. He had written about how he hated sleeping in his closet, in the dark, until he no longer feared the dark or the isolation.

The more he studied the information from the archives the more inconsistencies he spotted. He already knew news and finances were manipulated. Now he began to see other things in the Company’s operations that seemed inexplicable or at least odd. He wasn’t yet sure how what he was seeing might give him an advantage, but he sensed they were weaknesses, flaws in Company operations that regularly led to problems. He was reminded of minor things Jock had mentioned. He added notes to his report as he studied. Things started to came to him and he was reminded of Albert’s play he had been drafted to help with. When he watched it up close from backstage, he was conscious of the flimsy scenery and the patched and pinned costumes. Then he had watched the final performance sitting in the audience. Knowing all the flaws and patches there were he hadn’t expected to be impressed. But at a distance the flaws didn’t show and the way it was lit it looked great. He had the same feeling now. Like he was in the audience looking at a production that was patched together and might at any time fall apart. He just needed to learn enough to figure out the flaws and weaknesses the Company had that he wasn’t recognizing.

It gave him a lot to think about.

Figuring out alternative ways of doing things was a mind game Grandfather had taught him. New uses for old knowledge, how to use new technology to do things more efficiently, faster, smarter with greater safety, but only if appropriate. What-ifs, one instructor had called them. What-if his scout was struck by a meteor and disabled, or his communications were knocked out? What-if they were invaded? What-if one of the Company ships, turned out not to be a Company ship (which was why the scouts were armed with such a powerful offensive missile as well as the laser used to automatically vaporize micrometeors encountered on patrol). It was why the Company had scouts going out on patrol at all. And why he had purchased a lightweight space suit; what-if his main suit was damaged? Now