Wildcatter by Dave Duncan Read Free Book Online Page B

this is Day 1 ! Any idea how many days to target?”
    Hanna took a few minutes, made more calculations. “There are listed havens all the way, but some haven’t been visited for years and may not exist in our time slice. Allow a month or so to sound each one properly. There’s lots of shoals around Orion, so we’ll be zigzagging… Say Day 425 as a best guess.”
    Jordan gave her a victory sign and turned to Seth. “Is the shuttle ready?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “You’re sure? It’s your lifeline.”
    “I’m sure.”
    “Anyone know anything that needs to be redone, rechecked, tied down? Nail clippers; bed socks; beads and mirrors for the natives? No? Very well.” The captain laid both hands on the table. “Control, reset clocks to midnight, Day Zero . Launch Jump One.”
     
     

 
     
    Day 401, Continued
     
    001.001 definitions. The following terms shall apply in these regulations and any subsequent amendments thereto.
     
    001.095 master means the person in charge of a landing vehicle engaged in exploratory operations.
     
    035.08 Notwithstanding anything else in these regulations, from the moment a landing vehicle disengages from its mother ship until it docks:
     
    [a] the master is endowed with the autonomous authority of a starship captain,
     
    [b] to be more specific, the master is not subject to the overriding authority of the mother ship captain, a ship commodore, or a flotilla commodore, as set forth in Sections 04 and 06, above.
    General Regulations  
  2375 edition 
     
    Busboy-janitor-gofer Seth tidied away the vacuum cleaner hose, wondering as always if the system vented directly to space. Galley and mess were sparkling clean now, but he wasn’t. He went along to the showers to wash his hands and scowl at his stubbled face and tousled hair.
    Normally about this time he laid out dishes for breakfast and loaded the chefs with the correct materials, but he expected everyone to be late appearing today. He also had some questions to put to Control, which never slept, constantly gathering and collating data.
    The camel caravan had advanced into the control room under a cloudless blue sky. Going to be fine day—that had been his personal joke for the last year.
    “Whittington, I know you own the ship, but this is my seat.” He scooped up the furry squatter and put himself between cat and chair. “Control, show me the hologram of the system again.”
    Camel steppe vanished and the planets appeared above the table as before. As sponsor, JC had naming honors, so the gas giant had become Hades, the two ice worlds Niflheimr and Jötunheimr, and Cacafuego’s little satellite was Turd.
    “Orbital parameters for the Cacafuego satellite, Turd?”
    —Preliminary estimates only, Prospector.
    “They’ll do.”
    —Mass 1.8 times 10 23 kilograms… Semi-major axis unknown, current distance from planet…
    Smaller than Luna but at about the same distance. It would appear as only a very bright star and could not raise significant tides. Then came the data point he had been waiting for:
    —Inclination to the ecliptic, between 84º and 85º.
    “Stop. Have you estimated Cacafuego’s axial tilt?”
    —Observations so far are too brief for an accurate estimate, Prospector.
    “Set limits.”
    —Between 87º and 92º.
    So Cacafuego was a sideways world, tilted over, with its axis in the ecliptic plane. Worlds like that could grow ice caps around the equator, while the poles would have perpetual sunlight for half the year and perpetual darkness for the other half. Life might survive on such a world by hibernation or migration, but conventional theory held that advanced, multi-cellular life forms could not evolve there, meaning that the crew’s dreams of untold wealth were doomed to disappointment. Even primitive slime worlds could provide interesting new compounds, but they rarely repaid their finders’ costs or tempted people to go back for more.
    Conventional theory often turned out to be wrong.
    Any