the subject but we are in agreement. Even if you were able to convince Karpinen to work for the government, the simple fact that he was hired in a government job would stifle his creativity. We have even gone a step further and analyzed how his works affect on the scientific community as a whole. Using the super computers at JPL, we ran a chaotic system analysis of the scientific community's work since Karpinen's first announcement. Working independent of the formal scientific community's environment, Karpinen has exponentially accelerated the advancements of the community as a whole.
“In layman's terms, he does more for everyone as long as he stays doing what he is doing now.'
“Damn. Is there any way your data could be wrong?'
“Nothing is one hundred percent certain but I am willing to bet my doctorate that we need to give Karpinen as much independence as possible.'
Riley didn't enjoy the arguments with the other bureaucrats but he would ask for an increase in funding to protect and keep supporting Karpinen's work. Bureaucrats were the same everywhere. They wanted control. Riley had to convince everyone that as little control as possible was the only course that they could take.
Chapter 14
Revenge
Ship Captain Ree and Mission Commander Zblot planned.
“The Regional Command has limited our response to just your ship but this mission worries me. I want as much equipment and personnel that I can get.'
“With the remotes that you want to bring, I can only supply one landing vessel and one high cover protector. We have the standard crew of six for the main ship and the four needed on the landing and protector vessels that leaves room for only nine more individuals. With a five man assault team, science specialist, xenobiologist, and yourself, you are left with just one more individual.'
“I know. I know. More equipment or another specialist...'
Assault leader Ed hated the two infiltrators in his squad. He was always queasy working with individuals who would disappear in the infirmary for a day or two and comeback looking completely different. The infiltrators new four-limb arrangement of this planet was unusual but not overly. Most creatures had pairs of appendages. Four was the basic starting pair of limbs. But what was strange was the use of only two for movement and two for manipulation. The limbs just made Ed queasy. Maybe it was his love of his own six multi-use limb arrangement or maybe it was the knowledge that the legendary Chameleon had been killed on this planet, but Ed was worried and drove his team endlessly through assault exercises and technical details of the planet they were to land on.
Grup, the heavy weapons specialist was easily the most intelligent member of the team. Ed could tell he was worried about the assignment as well. Grup spent all of his wake cycles reading up on the planet or cleaning the weapons that would be taken planet side. The sound of Grup's six strong limbs taking apart and putting together the team's blasters and needlers gave the quarters the only familiar sound. Commander Zblot had started playing during all wake cycles video and sound recordings from the strange planet they were heading for. The team had been on enough planetary landings to know that recordings seldom had anything to do with the reality they would find but the videos seemed to have an inordinately large number of killing and maiming between members of the dominate species. This did not bode well for the success of the mission.
Trreee, the team clown, came in complaining about the lack of information about wind conditions on the planet. Trreee's wings would normally be in continual motion but they now barely fluttered. If he was nervous, the team was in trouble. Maybe if Ed talked to Commander Zblot, they could replace the planet videos with Fleetec Lives or the finals of the inter-quadrant disk ball matches.
Uubee was glad that Commander Zblot had included a second science specialist to the team. From the Chameleon's last communique, they knew that the inhabitants of planet H14-D102, or earthlings, had discovered a way to control gravity. Currently star travel was accomplished by using the gravity and energy fields near stars to form small tears in the fabric of space. This meant that space travel required heavily armored and expensive ships traveling from a near obit of one star to a near orbit of another. A solar system could easily be blocked from access just by surrounding their star with a few weapons platforms. The Users needed this new technology. Unfortunately for them, all they had from the Chameleon was the formula that the earthlings had discovered, the fact that earth used a base ten numbering system, and the cultural recordings needed for the next infiltrator to use to blend in with the locals.
The number problem was fairly easy. Being a scientist, required the ability to translate numbers from any known base to the ideal base eighteen, six limbs three fingers per limb. But the equations were a different matter. They were filled with symbols that were not numbers. It was easy to discover that ‘=’ meant that the information matched and that ‘+','-', ‘x', and (division) were simple operations on the numbers but what in The Hell ofthe Lost of Debon were (Greek alpha), (Greek beta), (Greek delta), (Greek pi), (Greek sigma) ... And were letters sometimes used for what appeared to be variable names and at other times used for something else?
No physical artifacts from H14-D102 made it back. And the recordings showed little of the internal workings of the technology and science on the planet. The video used to transmit information around the planet was not compatible with the standard recorders so the Chameleon just recorded the transmitted pictures. If only, the Chameleon had taken apart a few devices and recorded what was inside. They had sorted through recording after recording trying to find enough matches between the local science and real science. Debon! The earthling science didn't even use a consistent grouping like the ideal three.
The klaxon sounded. Time to seal up for the dimensional jump to the next star. Only three more shifts to planet H14-D102. Maybe, he could talk Commander Zblot into staying hidden on the near by planetary satellite until they were able to fully translate the equations. But Zblot had made it clear early on that she would only permit data collection during the time it took to eliminate any evidence of the Chameleon's stay and to serve revenge on those who killed the famed infiltrator. The Users code for self-preservation required revenge for killing one of their own. The code was important. The Users had outlasted hundreds of other interstellar civilizations by following it.
It was just possible that Zblot would finish the cycle change between female and male before the mission started. Civilized people were always more agreeable after the standard seven year gender change. If Uubee timed the next request for observation to just before the last planet jump, maybe Commander Zblot might be finished with the sex transformation and put science before revenge. Uubee hoped so, because until they got a key to translating the equations he suspected that artificial gravity would stay with the inhabitants of H14-D102.
* * * *
We had told everyone that they would be on their own for the day so it was no surprise when the dark full- size SUV followed us from the farm. Since I didn't see a canoe on the vehicle, I assumed they would try to follow with an inflatable. Pulling into the landing, I pulled the stern of the canoe out of the pickup box and Tabby grabbed the prow when it came to the end of the tailgate.
“Listen carefully. Since they didn't come to the landing, they are going to have to go through the woods to the river. Everything near by but this campground is scrub second growth woods. It will be a bitch just walking through let alone carry anything.'
Tabby swung the prow into the water. “They must be getting better. I can't hear anything.” Just then a small flock of ducks took off from the river one bend upstream.
I dropped the stern in and tied a line from the gunnel to a near by tree. “I guess they made it to the river's edge.” We finished loading the canoe, untied and paddled downstream. We could hear an occasional splash of water coming from behind. When we got to the woodpecker tree, I was not surprised to see Ben in his old canoe floating in a backwater eddy. We drifted down behind him and followed him to the
inlet of his small floating bog. I don't know how he did it but the mouth of the stream that Ben's cabin was on was now hidden with a small island of floating marsh grass. We slipped behind the island and waited.
The same three-man team we had seen before appeared on the river in a dark green inflatable raft. They were not paddling but were using a small electric motor. Ten minutes after they passed, we paddled up stream to Ben's cabin and unloaded his supplies.
Tabby's first comment about the cabin was, “How cozy.'
Fighting back laughter, “It is, isn't it.” I couldn't tell what was cooking in the pot because Ben had it covered.
