“Four, but only two of them are in the system right now.”
“The other two are out stirring up trouble someplace?”
“Just engaging in a little free enterprise, Bill. Nothing to worry about.”
“Why is it I always quiver in fear when you say that, Bob?”
“Murphy is our shepherd, Bill.”
“Well, given how high up this tip came from, I can’t just ignore it. I’ll have to send somebody out to investigate. Can you at least try to make it hard for them to find any evidence?”
“I’ll try, but they’ve decided that they would much prefer a sky without me in it. They have taken to showing up at random times, trying to make that happen.”
“That would be unhandy, to say the least.”
“It would, if they were anywhere near the captains they think they are. As it is, they’re mainly just annoying.”
“You’re saying the Gene and her crew have the situation well in hand?”
“That we do. Things are a bit tense, though. You probably shouldn’t come out of FTL without identifying yourself.”
“So, just how did you come into contact with these aliens?”
“I swear, Bill. You ask more questions than Lyla. We found a few of them marooned, and Janet figured out I had been living next to one back home for twenty years or so.”
“What?”
“They have an autodoc program that lets them change their appearance enough to pass for human. He was there buying walnuts.”
“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned walnuts. What’s so special about walnuts?”
“I dunno. These folks really like them. Kinda like our other friends and garlic.”
“I suppose the chances of getting you to pay for the sleeping pills I’m going to need after talking to you are pretty slim.”
“We’ve got plenty of nighty-nights, I could send you a box, if you’d like.”
“I don’t want to depend on someone to wake me up.”
“The new ones have a timer. You can just program how long you want.”
“You’re so kind, Bob. Couldn’t you just quit finding problems for me to worry about?”
“Where’s the fun in that, Bill?”
“I’ve had enough excitement for the time being. I’m going to hang up now.”
“Bye, Bill.”
“Bye, Bob.”
Dingus asked, “Major Rottum?”
I replied, “Just Bill, but yeah. Somebody high up tipped him we’ve been in contact with aliens, so he has to send somebody to check it out. Wants us to do our best to keep them from tripping over anything they wouldn’t be able to ignore.”
Dee said, “It would make sense for him to send Mike and Tina, they won’t be too hard to convince.”
Jane said, “He may need to send someone we don’t know, just to keep from looking like he’s trying to help us. Depends on how closely they are monitoring him.”
I asked, “It pretty much had to be a Squirrel agent who set this in motion, doesn’t it? What do they have to gain by telling more people that they exist?”
Dingus replied, “The fact that he felt the need to make sure the call couldn’t be overheard makes me think they may have made the whole thing a big secret. They probably don’t think he would risk his career to tell anyone about aliens, when nobody is going to believe him anyway.”
Jane said, “That sounds reasonable. We need to be careful not to force him to blow his cover.”
“Haven’t we already been doing that?”
“I suppose we have. It’s just more important now that somebody with pull is involved.”
“That means you folks are going to have to keep an eye on me, so I don’t screw up.”
Dingus replied, “Don’t we always?”
“I suppose you do.”
Dee spoke up. “If we don’t know who he’s going to send, do we need to hide the Gene?”
Jane said, “They’re going to notice the defensive network of fighters in the outer system, anyway.”
I replied, “Yeah, but if they don’t actually see the Gene, they can’t report it as a certainty that we have her.”
Dingus said, “If Squirrels show up while they are here, all bets are off.”
Jane replied, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.”
I asked, “So, the plan is to leave Sally and the bots to deal with any incursions, and go down to Shaved Ape Key?”
Dingus said, “If we are doing that, I might as well go see if I can scrounge us up some more bots.”
Dee said, “I’m going with you, if you take off.”
Jane said, “Do you think we could get by with John and me staying aboard? I hate to pull Greg out of school when he’s doing so well.”
“I don’t think that will be a problem, so long as John understands I will be leaving Sally in charge.”
“You know he doesn’t want to have to sit in the big chair, Bob.”
“Neither do I. Fat lot of good that has done me.”
Grandma Cachi had been listening, without anything to say, up to this point. She said, “You’ll need more than just you and your wife, if you’re trying to make someone believe that you’ve settled on the planet, and don’t have a ship hidden somewhere. I’ll go with you, maybe we can get Janet to go along. Don’t know if we could talk Diego and Zoom into it, though. They love the Gene.”
I replied, “Jim and Janice would probably be okay with it, as long as they know it’s temporary. Milly would probably go, if Janet did.”
She replied, “That still seems skimpy. Do you suppose we could get some folks to move over from the other village for show?”
“We might be able to do that. So much depends on who he sends. As long as it is Mike and Tina, we don’t have to worry too much. If it’s somebody we haven’t met before, it could get dicey.”
Dee asked, “Are
