Confederation -- 42

Chapter 42

The next day shift, I happened to find Kasm in the hall outside the cafeteria. This was probably as good a time as any to talk. I restricted myself to mental communication in case someone happened by.

I didn't waste any time on formalities. "I noticed that you and Hattie seem to be working on some kind of relationship."

He looked at me, communicating a feeling of mental satisfaction as he did, "Yes. She reminds me of those I've lost. You know she lost her family, also. We have something in common."

I replied, "I can see that. What I'm curious about is how you see your relationship with her developing."

"Dec, you and I have a strong relationship. You know I'd do anything to protect you and your family," he sent. "I have killed to protect you, and I'd do it again." He paused, thinking, "I guess Hattie is like that with me. In some strange way, I think she's a lot like my dead mate."

He hastily added, "I mean mentally, of course."

I wasn't fast enough to edit my thoughts, and he got an image that I didn't intend to send.

He looked at my face in return and sent, "You know, don't you that she's been sleeping in my cabin?"

"No, I didn't," I replied, "Are you, uh, can –"

He interrupted, "No, I know what you're asking, and the answer is we both enjoy the other's presence, but we've made no effort to be physically intimate."

He paused, then continued, "I believe that we could be. I mean, I've seen you, and my physiology is not that different in that respect. But she's content just being near, and so am I in some strange way. She fills a void in my heart that I never thought would be filled."

I was first shocked, and then I thought it over, and maybe it wasn't so shocking after all. What was important here? They were both sentient, capable of deciding what they wanted and making emotional bonds. Maybe physical differences were the least important part of it. And, besides, maybe it wasn't any of my business as long as they were both happy about the situation.

"Look, Kasm, I don't want her to be hurt, that's all," I said.

He responded, "That's not my intention. It's the last thing I would do. I was a little hesitant about her moving in with me, but I decided that if she could put up with my alienness, I could put up with hers. It's not like you humans smell bad to me."

He grimaced at me with his lips pulled back, "At least most of the time. You could try to avoid passing gas when I'm around."

That wasn't fair, I'd only done it one time when I was feeling a little under the weather, but it hadn't made a favorable impression on him.

I answered, "I'll try to restrain myself. It doesn't smell good to me either."

"Then why do it?" he asked.

"It's not something that we mean to do. It's just how our intestinal system works," I tried to explain, wondering how we'd gotten so far off track.

"Why don't you not worry about it, Dec? Let's just let us work out what we want on our own time. I promise you I only want the best for her, and I'll come to you if there's any problem," he sent.

I spoke to Liz about the conversation when I had a chance. She'd had a brief moment alone with Hattie and had engaged in a similar line of discussion. Liz and I thought so much alike, and I should have known that she'd satisfy her curiosity.

She said, "Hattie didn't have much to say about them. She told me she was staying in Kasm's cabin and that he made her feel more secure than she'd felt for a long time. I think he's such a capable fighter that she more or less automatically gravitated to him. You're already taken, you know, so she grabbed hold of the next candidate.

I grinned, "I see, but don't you think she should be more interested in another human, one of the Marines, for instance?"

She replied, "Maybe not. I think she's so fearful of losing another human that she won't emotionally bond with a man. She doesn't have the same fear about Kasm, so I sort of understand it in that manner."

I wasn't willing to let it go yet. "She's still a child. She's maybe only seventeen. Will she change her mind?"

"If she does, she does. That 'still a child' stuff doesn't cut it any longer, either, and you know that. Humans have been getting married or mating at much younger ages for our whole existence. We've only recently set some artificial limits on what society defines as appropriate ages for various activities. I think she's capable of finding her way."

I agreed, "That's sort of what Kasm told me. He said that they'd see how things went, and he'd come to me with any problems."

Liz paused and then said, "One thing that you might do..."

I waited, but she didn't finish. I finally prompted her, "Yes?"

"Well, I think it might be a good idea if you tried to transfer some psychic ability to her," she finished.

I considered. It would be possible. I'd opened Liz's mind to the latent human ability. She was pretty good at it. The other people I'd tried to train had various degrees of success. Some were fair, none were good, but over half had simply resisted, and I hadn't been able to help them make the breakthrough.

"I'll try," I said, "It would be the best thing I could do to help her interact with Kasm."

His native mode of communication was mental, although his telepathic voice wasn't powerful from my perspective. He could talk to me, and after much effort, he'd finally been able to send to Liz a little. The chances of him and Hattie communicating were slim, but if there was any chance at all, I now realized that I owed it to both of them to try.

"I'll do it as soon as I can arrange the time," I said.

We kissed, and she returned to check on the kids while I went on to the bridge.

The rest of the squadron had arrived, and the Sunnys were busy working on the habitat. They'd drafted all of the Marines and some of the Sim-tigers to help carry things inside the domes. The place was taking shape, starting to show signs of becoming the headquarters that I'd envisioned.

There was a group of Sunnys working outside the dome, creating some kind of structure that I presumed was destined to be a docking gantry. The Marines and Sim-tigers were all working inside in the pressurized part of the habitat.

When I arrived at the bridge, Frazzle was there.

"Hi, Frazzle," I sent, "What's happening?"

He was gradually becoming inured to human mannerisms and replied, "Not muchs happening, just building de system."

I nodded.

He continued, "We going to need more help. Can we get more humans from Earth to come and work? Dere not enough Sunnys and Marines to finish this place quickly."

"What kind of help do you need?" I asked aloud.

"We needs men dat can do building. Maybe some scientists or technical people who can be trained to operate the environment systems and engineers who can help build the docks for the FTL ships. We also need to work on hangers for shuttles and maybe farming in some of the domes for food and whole bunch of other stuffs, too," he said.

I realized then that putting together a settlement was not as simple as checking into a motel and then going down to the attached restaurant when hungry. There was a lot to the system.

This was precisely what I didn't enjoy doing. I'd always prided myself on my ability to take direct and immediate action to solve problems, but I'd never really liked setting up systems and administering them. I'd have to get someone appointed to run things pretty quickly. I didn't want to be that involved, as long as stuff worked and we could survive.

Besides, I still had to work on the overall structure of the Earth Space Protection Force with Rudy and Holmes, and then the Inter-species Space Confederacy posed an equally important problem. I was determined to get both organizations set up and functioning smoothly. The problem I had was finding suitable people to work in the organizations. I thought that maybe I could convince Judith to help out if she could be pried out of the Denver administration job. Still, it was a problem that I had to deal with personally, and the thing was, I didn't enjoy it at all. I had my doubts about exactly how effective I'd be as a result.

After some thought, I put my concerns aside in favor of another idea.

"Frazzle, can we scoop up some dust and store it in one of our holds? I want to experiment with using it as a defense against anti-matter shots," I said. I'd been thinking about my previous idea of using it, and now seemed to be a reasonable time to try out the concept.

He answered, "I can do dat. The gravity point source can reach far enough to get some of the dusts off the surface. There is a place near the domes where there is lot of dusts in a depression. We fly by. I grab bunch of dusts and pull it into the small hold. It empty now, anyways. All the dome machines on the surface."

It took fifteen minutes of maneuvering to cruise by closely enough for the point source to reach. It pulled back nearly a ton of mostly rock dust with some ice particles mixed in.

I didn't want to dilute our atmosphere if the ice melted and released any methane or some other noxious gas, but Frazzle assured me that he'd keep the small hold sealed and unheated so that the dust would remain in its frozen state. We discussed the operation and concluded that we could pressurize the hold and simply blow the dust back out in a cloud. Once outside the ship, it could be gathered up by the point source and moved into position as a shield. We'd try it out once we reached a suitable distance from Ceres.

At that point, Frazzle again brought up the need for more help, and we agreed to take our ship to Earth on a recruiting mission. We'd head for Denver and see how many people wanted a chance to work on Ceres or crew our ships. I had some doubts that we would get many volunteers, but Frazzle was right when he said we needed a lot of help.