Books by George!

Winston Cooper leaned back in his chair.  Gramps had been happy to collect his penny as a Captain in the State Militia, but now the time had come to pay the piper.  He’d been called to duty, training new volunteers.  He couldn’t be ordered to leave the county, but his assigned station was in Ashfork, about as far north as you could go without crossing the county line.

The sound of hooves, a horse being ridden at a gallop, came through the front windows.  Winston stood.  People weren’t supposed to do that, not this close to city center.  The sound of  hooves stopped,  to be replaced by a horse’s heavy breathing.  Pauses suggested the horse was helping itself to the water trough.

“They’re dead!  They’re all dead!” a man shouted as he dashed up the two stairs leading to he office.  “Oh, God!  It’s terrible.  It’s unbelievable!”

Deputy Schroeder joined Winston in standing.  The shouting man dashed through the doors, coming to a stop as he tried to figure out where to go next.

“Easy there,” Winston said. “Have a seat, have some water — you look like you need it — and tell us what the problem is.” He hoped that line would work. Gramps had done a certain amount of training, how to be a good Associate Sheriff when Gramps was absent, but this looked to be a bit out of line.

The man swallowed a mug of water and finally slowed down.

“I’m Winston Cooper, Associate Sheriff. And you would be?”

“Chester Roberts. I’m a field hand for the Matthews ranch. We had a cow stray, section of fence went down, so I was sent out looking for it.  I was going to stop at the Chadwick house; Chadwick has enough water to raise feed for cows, and we buy from him.  He must be dead. Him and his family. Their house was all smashed to pieces. No idea what happened, but there was blood all over the place.  So I rode here, fast as I could in this weather without killing the horse, to get help. You’re the Sheriff, you need to arrest the killers.”

“That’s me, all right,” Winston said. “Back a half step. The bodies. Could you tell how they were killed?”

“No bodies,” Chester said. “There was just blood everywhere. Never seen so much in my life. And the house was smashed to bits.”

“Did I hear my name mentioned?” Pelham asked, his voice echoing from the ready room, to which he had retreated to attack the paperwork storm.

“Yes, Senior Chief,” Roger answered. “We have a freighter that just left. I ran full tracking on it. Jingfei’s analysis shows that it had warship level real-space drives with a better power curve than the Imperial Fleet gets. So I am dutifully writing up a report which will doubtless go into someone’s inbox and perhaps be read one decade or another.”

“Wait!” Senior Chief Pelham said. “Front-end, show me what happened.”  He waited while Roger and Jingfei led him through the display and analysis. “Now you get a lesson in how to do things and get ahead, and how the Imperial Fleet actually works. If you file a report saying that someone flew a warship through here, even a disguised warship, someone up the paygrade line will read it, have conniptions, possibly even apoplexy, throw three kinds of fit, and send an Imperial Audit team that will insist on inspecting everything, down to the usage of toilet paper in the Flag Officers Residence Hall. To justify their trip, they have to find things that are wrong, so they will, whether they were wrong or not. That’s ignoring that someone might complain that we failed to notice that this freighter was actually a warship, assuming it was, which seems extremely unlikely, since assuredly Customs and Immigration it a full and thorough inspection of the freighter, confirming that it really was a freighter.”

“I see, sir,” Roger said.

“No, what we do,” Pelham explained, “since for sure it is what actually happened, is to file a report that our tracking instrumentation malfunctioned and claimed that this primitive faster-than-light freighter was in fact a highly-advanced warship of the Invincible Empire of the Orglons. Having filed that report, which says that our instrumentation is old — that’s for sure true — and showing occasional signs of failure, for which we can doubtless find evidence someplace in the files, we then ask for replacement units and backup spare parts.”

“But what if it was a warship?” Roger asked.

“It wasn’t,” Pelham said firmly. “If you keep saying you think this freighter was a warship, someone will eventually conclude that you should have a Outstanding rating on your next quarterly review, instead of the Superlative or Incomparable rankings that in a few years will give you a promotion in rank and pay. I mean, we have thirty-seven levels of Quarterly Evaluation, and I would rather not have to explain why someone on my watch was anywhere but in the top two, an event that has not happened in over a century.”

“Oh,” Jingfei said, “I understand perfectly now. Thank you very much for educating me, Senior Chief.”

“Understood,” Roger said.

“Honorable Senior Chief,” Jingfei asked, “on this station, do people actually receive Quarterly Evaluations other than Incomparable? It is certainly correct to do so, if someone deserves this, but does it actually get done?”

Pelham did not quite laugh. “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said. “Of course no one ever gets anything other than an Incomparable rating. Why if I had to give someone a lower rating, say a Superlative, it would reflect badly on me, the Station Commander, the Imperial Fleet Squadron Commander, and eventually the Planetary Prime Minister. All those senior people would want to make emphatically sure that the guilty party took the blame for this horrible failure, the guilty party in this case of course being me. Therefore I don’t do such a thing. After all, that’s the Solarian Imperial Fleet way.”

We are now rather farther into the tale

Radnor Cooper leaned back in his desk chair.  The padding was a luxury, but when a  man reached a certain age, certain comforts were worth the price.  His joints agreed; he could move as swiftly as a much younger man.  Once upon a time, he’d walked the streets, same as his men, but now the City Council wanted him to stay where he could be found.  Once upon a time, he’d read up on business records, enough to understand the ledgers at the general store he’d never gotten around to opening, meaning he could read the Sheriff’s Office accounts, enough to see if the book-keeper had been skimming.  Before the Great War, he’d caught one of them doing that.  The fool would be getting out of the Florence Prison, soon enough, and might have the wits not to show his face here.  Prescott had never recovered the money.

“Sheriff Cooper, Sir,” Deputy Juan Della Vega called from the main office, “someone you need to speak to.”

“Bring him in,” Radnor said.  He stood and extended his hand.

“Ebenezer Sickles,” the other man introduced himself as they shook hands.  “Pleased to meet you, sir.  I’m a rider for the Norcross Ranch, west of here.”

“Tycho Norcross,” Radnor responded.  “Fine horses, fine cattle, always the best steaks at Trinity House.  Hopefully your ranch has been quiet?”

“Ranch?  Yes, sir. It’s about one of our men.” Ebenezer nodded firmly.  “Denver Joe Marquardt, Assistant Foreman, rode to Prescott, hand-carrying letters for our bank and your two general stores. We usually mail or telegraph, but lines are down again and mail these days is confused.  That heath thing.  But Joe’s vanished.”

“He rode in by himself?” Radnor asked.

“No, sir,” Ebenezer answered.  “Fat Bob Smith was with him, and an extra horse. Bob was taking his four days in town.  We each get that a couple times a year.”

“Smith I know,” Radnor said.  “At least twice I can think of, he broke up a bar fight before my men got there.  Polite about it.  Picked two guys up by the seats of their pants, one on each arm, and dropped them well apart from each other.”

“Joe and Bob didn’t return, so I got sent to see what happened.   Joe didn’t reach the bank, didn’t reach either store.  They hadn’t stayed at Beth’s Rooms For Cheap.  Bob hadn’t been seen at Sarah’s Ostrich Ranch, and they know him good.   Northcote West Stables, we’ve an account with them, checked their books.  They hadn’t stabled their horses there.  Their night watch, young lady, a real looker, proper Boston accent just like my grand-dad, was sure they hadn’t come in while she was on duty.  She promised to keep an eye open for them.”

“Northcote has a girl doing nights?” Radnor asked.

“Their regular, that would be Mister O’Hara, saw the heath and left town.  Rapidly.  With his family.  For Ireland. Said heath’s haunted by demons.  He invited me along.” Ebenezer nodded again.  “But I watched her shoot – Northcote makes their people practice every day. Then she pulled two pocket derringers, like out of nowhere, shot one of them with her off hand. Never missed.  She’s darn good.” 

“Weather’s been fine,” Radnor said.  “They didn’t try to ride across the heath, did they?  There’s poison or something there.”

“No, sir!” Ebenezer answered.  “From our water tower, we can see the heath at night, see it glow weird colors.  We don’t go near it, and there’s a good trail from us east to the highway.  If you call it a highway.”

Radnor snorted.  “Highway?  It got clipped by the heath.  No one’s taking it north or south now.  Did you follow the path they’d’ve taken?”

“Not really,” Ebenezer answered.  “I was delivering a string of mules to the Callahan ranch, well north, and the boss phoned there.  That’s a long distance call; he paid good money for that.  He must’ve been real worried.  But he’s a good man to work for, cares about his men.”

“Have to send a posse out, back trace where they might be,” Radnor said.  “Horses went lame, they stopped for a day, might explain it.  I’ve already got one forming.  Phone company thinks someone stole one of their trucks…it was supposed to be back this morning from splicing lines.  They keep losing phone lines for some reason.”

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%    

“Peaceful Harmony, this is Observation Station Peacable A.  Welcome to the Gilgamesh system,” Pelham said.

“We are advised we are to advance to your quarantine station for a full scan, discussion with your customs and trade officials, search of our vessel for military contraband,…the actual list is your Imperial regulation…” The alien held a sheet of paper up on the screen, the sub-sub paragraph of the regulation being displayed..  “…with which we are prepared to comply fully.  Apologies, but our translator software is backwards and imperfect, and I cannot pronounce some of the words represented by those characters.  However, in Grognir I was given an approach trajectory to which I will adhere until directed otherwise.”

“That’s the correct regulation,” on-duty Fortress Political Officer Bernard Tissyere said.  “Except the sub-sub-paragraph,” he looked at his own screen, “is for species that have not had prior contact with the Imperium.”

“Your understanding is correct, Ship Leader One,” Pelham answered.  “Do I understand your species has not contacted the Imperium previously?”

“Exactly correct,” Ship Leader One responded.  “Indeed, we are the first starship constructed by our world.”  When he said the last words, his face briefly changed its shape.  On a human face, some strong emotion would have been meant. “We were led to understand that this system, Vorith, is the closest point of Imperial terrain to Teruwhon.”

“Welcome to the company of all civilized species,” Pelham said.  “On behalf of the Imperium, I greet you and wish you well.” 

Ship Leader One twisted his head left and right.  “And I greet you also. Your Quarantine Station asks my attention.”

“Do as they say.  Peacable A, Out.”  Pelham cut the signal.

“We don’t hear that every day,” Tissyere said.  “I’d better notify my superiors.  Welcoming new species to Imperial territory requires great care and much protocol.”

“Continuing tracking,” Abernathy reported.  “Peaceful Harmony doesn’t have much in the way of drives.  He’s pulling just under three gravities – yes, he does have acceleration compensators, not very efficient ones – on a really small chaos gate.  Now he’s shifting for the approach to Quarantine One.”

~~~~~

Marcus 22, 853 AIS

“Peaceful Harmony, departing,”  Roger Abernathy said.  A display marked the track the Peaceful Harmony followed  as she headed for the warp zone.  He tapped several glyphs on his display screen.  “Always good to get a careful read on a new drive pattern,” he said to himself.  He let his instruments perform their job, watched as the freighter sank into hyperspace, and transferred the information to the tactical analysis systems.

“Running a test simulation?” Tactical Technician Jingfei Wu asked.  “Polite to mention first.”

“Apologies.  No, Jingfei, that’s a real ship, a freighter that just left,” Roger said.  “The folks from Grignoir and Teruwhon.  Weird warp drive pattern.”

“I was looking at the trace before they hit the warp point,” she said.  “The one that is not a freighter.”  She summoned a display and dropped cursor markings on it.

“Surely,” Roger said, “that’s the actual trace from the freighter that just left.” He looked at her in puzzlement.

“Roger,” Jingfei said, “look at the curvature on the power readings.” She put additional lines onto the display, lines that simply duplicated what she’d seen by looking at the instrumental readings.  “That’s not a freighter. They’re getting well more acceleration relative to how much power they’re putting into their fields.”

“You’re right,” Roger said. “I’m sure the computers would’ve told me that eventually,” he added. “Except we have you, who can read these things off the screen without letting the number-crunching advance.”

“Roger,” Jingfei continued, “the computers would eventually have told you that you’re looking at warship level curves. You aren’t seeing it in their speed because they are running their ship at almost zero throttle, but that’s a warship level curve. In fact,” she paused to bring a different display up, “that power curve is running,” she hesitated, “that power curve is running below the power curve of an Imperial warship. How can they be doing that?”

“Ours is not to reason why,” Roger said, “ours is only to file the required reporting paperwork and let someone else think about it.” He brought up reporting software and began summoning paragraphs of boilerplate. At least for the rest of the watch he was going to be busy. “And then Senior Master Chief Pelham gets to congratulate me for moving up on the promotion curve by proving I have an infinite tolerance for pointless paperwork.”

“So what did you do in the War, Winston?” Robert asked.

“A somewhat long story,” he answered, “but nothing secret.”  He poured himself another cup of coffee, added a generous dollop of milk, and launched into a description of his adventures with German spies in Denmark.

“With all those degrees, and Harvard being a fine school,” Robert said, “I’d’ve thought you could do better than being our Associate Sheriff.  Not that there’s anything wrong with what you’re doing.”

Winston explained his debt to Gramps, and how he had promised to pay it off.

“If you’re trying to impress people with your honesty,” Ronald observed, “you certainly succeeded.  Most of my customers would’ve found some wiggle room in the agreement, some smart Yankee attorney, and by-and-by repaid your Grandfather with cash, not with staying here as a Deputy.”

“Amen to that,” Winston said, “But Gramps, Sheriff Cooper, is a relative, and decent men never cheat relatives.  Which reminds me.  Have either of you gentlemen heard anything that’s not been in the paper, anything about the heath?”

Robert shook his head.  “Not I,” he answered.

“You might ask Karl Eisenhower,” Ronald said.  “He’s Honest Ike’s Gemstones.  He’s paid several people to search the edge of the heath, not going in, looking for some sort of  crystal.  It’s a beautiful violet color, the one I saw, and almost as hard as a diamond. I’ve had people talking about mining the heath for all the funny color stones, and that orange sand.  They were talking about drag buckets, so you they could pull stuff out without going onto the heath yourself.  That all talk, so far; no one has asked me for a loan to pay for machinery.”

Warp Point Prime Defense Fortress

Barham System

Marcus 5, 853 AIS (Anno Imperium Solarianus)

“Emergence. Emergence. I have an emergence.” Senior Technician Ninth Class Roger Abernathy looked up from his displays, which were flashing warning signals across the board. The fractional artificial intelligence backing his display kept chanting that notice into his headphones, repeating the message until he tapped the ‘Warning Acknowledged’ button on his panel.

Abernathy surveyed the displays. Whoever it was had emerged at the out-system edge of the warp point, was lighting off in-system drives at low power, and surely had not had time to signal anyone that they had arrived. The warp drive analysis system tagged the arrival and reported “Identifying”, a process that might take a minute or two. The system display plotted this ship flashing red, and showed no other vessels, known vessels not being shown.

He sipped at his cocoa mug. The AI would take its own sweet time about being positive that it knew what it was looking at. The gravitronic detectors would synthesize the breakout arrangement in a few moments. On paper, at the appearance of an unknown ship the senior officer on watch should’ve brought Warp Point Defense Fortress Alpha to yellow alert, but that standing order had been overridden by a local order two centuries ago. There were no unknown ships, only freighters that were a bit off course.

The breakout monitors came up with the display of the breakout pattern. What on earth was it?  There were at least three bizarre features.   He tagged his communicator. “Senior Chief Pelham! Senior Chief Pelham! Breakout! Unknown ship. Not a conventional drive!” The Senior Chief on duty would undoubtedly be in his office doing paperwork, that being the only useful duty he could perform.  The AIs would now take forever and a day to decide what to do.

In only a few minutes Abernathy heard slippered footsteps behind him as the Senior Chief ambled into the control room.  “So what do we have, Mister Abernathy?” Sebastian Pelham asked.

“Unknown ship.  Not a conventional warp drive.  Here we go.  They’re signalling to enter quarantine lane,” Abernathy answered.  “AI hasn’t IDed them.  Quarantine lane has responded.”

“But who are they?” Pelham asked.

“Unknown.  We’re about to enter their light cone,” Abernathy said.

“Senior Chief, shall I raise screens?” Tactical Technician Jingfei Wu asked.

“No reason to,” Pelham answered. “Not yet.”

“Signal from unknown,” Senior Comms Technician Richard Vanderwelt reported. “On Screen Three.”

Screen Three showed the standard color test pattern followed by a vaguely humanoid face.  Pelham did not recognize the species. “This is freighter Peaceful Harmony out of Grognir, originally from the Kingdom of Pandor on Teruwhon.”  With the voice came a series of digital datapacks, showing where the freighter had begun its journal and what its intermediate steps were.  “I am Ship Leader One. We are here to explore possibilities for peaceful trade between Pandor and the Solarian Imperium.”

The next morning Winston had gone no farther than the Trinity House Cafe and ordering his breakfast special when two well-dressed men at the next table waved him over.

“Yes, sirs?” he said.

“You’re Winston Cooper, aren’t you?” the older of them asked. “Your badge is a giveaway.”

“Yes, sir,” Winston answered.  “Though I don’t believe we’ve met – something I could say about almost everyone in Prescott, for all that I’ve been here a few months.”

“I’m Robert Blake. My friend here is Ronald Carter.  We’re Prescott’s leading bankers.” 

Winston took careful note of their appearances. The three men shook hands and gestured at Winston to join them. 

“We were curious,” Robert said, “if it’s not a secret, on how your department is doing at investigating the heath murders.” 

“All those people, the railroad trains,they just vanished,” Ronald added.

“I wish I had something to say,” Winston said.  “Everything we’ve found has been in the newspapers.  Yes, we’ve been in touch with the Army Air Corps and the Navy about the mystery airship.  They say there’s no way – no known way — to fly that high.  No antiaircraft gun could reach the airship, ignoring that there’s no direct evidence that whoever is flying it created the devastation. Shooting at an innocent man will largely create business for our fair city’s attorneys.  We for sure have some questions we’d like answered, but that’s not the same thing.”

“I read,” Robert said, “people tried shining searchlights on it, a few nights ago, and blinking them in Morse code.  No answer.”

“I heard,” Winston said.  “I gather they’ll try again, this time putting the searchlights well out in the desert where city lights won’t hide what they are doing.”

“I hope that law and order is faring well,” Ronald said.  “We’ve been comparing notes, and recently our loan business has been a bit sparse. Deposits are doing well, especially the boarding houses and our two hotels, but people are selling their homes when they can, but not buying new ones.”

“Hotels are sightseers,” Winston said. “We try to tell them not to enter the Heath, because you die there, but it’s a free country.  I haven’t heard of anyone disappearing, but some people get awful close to those sandy spots.  Not a secret…we’ve had inquiries from back east, universities and mining companies, people looking to send expeditions to find out what happened.”

“I was in Phoenix last week,” Robert said.  “Parked under canvas at the Sky Harbor the Air Corps has a half-dozen pursuit planes, a platoon of soldiers setting up barracks and a permanent hangar, all pre-fabs left over from the Great War.”

“Those buildings show President Taft’s thrift,” Ronald said. “The pre-fabs had been finished, not shipped over there, so the crates were moved out into the California desert and stored until needed.  Whenever we have another war.”

Bartarello is an extraordinarily attractive young woman, very observant, so she was tasked with seducing the Union Grand Supreme Admiral – that appears to be a reasonable approximation of his title into the ranks of a civilized fleet – to gain an understanding of what the Anglic Union is actually doing, trying to fob us off with these scrap heaps of warships. She did ask him questions, under the guise of learning more about Union politics, but only during dinner. She made no effort to seduce him. In other words, she totally botched what should have been an extremely simple mission.

Under Intelligence Regulations I cannot put any black marks in her record. However, since she appears to be totally clueless, when her objective should have been obvious, your office can handle matters. We have a dead-end post, military attache to the Anglic Union, which she could be given. There is no promotion route out of that post. Historically, people with that assignment have usually resigned their commission and gone away; a modest number lapsed into alcoholism after only a few years.

&&&&&

Squadron Commander Smith stared at his viewscreen. The smiling face of Grand Supreme Admiral of the Fleet Thatcher looked back at him. Smith’s squadron was still in high orbit around planet D. The maneuvers had been completed, detailed reports had been written, a series of celebratory banquets, to which the Anglic Union officers had definitely not been invited, had been held, and Smith had waited patiently for the final set of reports on the maneuvers and his squadron’s performance in them before he returned to Earth. He had already received written reports. Someone had a bee in his bonnet that his squadron had found a significant number of asteroids that the Stellar Republic Mapping Service had never noticed. His squadron’s entirely bland report was apparently ill-received. Now he was receiving the verbal summary from Grand Admiral Thatcher.

“In conclusion,” Grand Admiral Thatcher said, “based on your performance during the maneuvers, we find that your ships are unfit for purpose and should not be considered for purchase by the Imperial Navy. I hope you will not take this personally. Several of my junior officers emphasized to me that you appeared to have done well with the technology you have, but your technology is so backward that it’s not of any interest. I shall repeat the recommendation that our diplomatic service has given to the Anglic Union many times before: You should abandon your peculiar ideas, and join the Stellar Republic in an appropriate status, probably a Junior Apprentice Grade in which you would receive a substantial number of advisors to assist you in reforming your governmental practices, to bring them into line with the superior practices of the Stellar Republic. Having said that, I wish you a safe trip home, and remind you that since you did participate in our maneuvers, you are entitled to stop at fleet bases if you are in dire need of emergency repairs. Thatcher out.” Thatcher cut the connection.

Smith wandered why, if his ship’s technology was so backward, they had managed to find so many asteroids that the Mapping Service had never noticed. The reverse of that question was whether or not Thatcher was aware of the asteroid count, or whether he’d simply been informed that the Terran squadron had only found a few of the asteroids, even though they’d been told exactly where to look to find them. No matter, he thought, it had been an interesting introduction to the Imperial Navy and its actual current standards. A reasonable man would wonder what would happen if the Stellar Republic tried to fight a war against a serious opponent, but that was not his problem.

“Squadron,” he said to his fellow officers, each of whom had heard Thatcher give his summary, “it is time to leave. We should all be ready to initiate departure in fifteen minutes. Proceed. Smith out.” He cut his viewscreen.

&&&&&

Winston Cooper stared at the wall clock.  He’d typed up the reports, not that there’d been much to type, marked in the central log each time one of the patrolmen checked in, and soon after ten he could advance to his room and go to sleep.

“Mister Cooper, Sir,” Sergeant de la Vega said, “Goodheart called in.  He says there’s something strange in the sky south of town.  Bright blue flames.”

“That’s different,” Winston answered.  “South is the heath. I’d better check. Sergeant, Mister Morton, Gramps always wants two men here, so no matter what don’t leave until I get back.  I’ll take the car, should be back in ten minutes or less.  Sergeant, you have the desk until I get back.”  He shook his head.  “Blue flames in the sky?  What next?”

A short drive through quiet streets later, Winston reached the end of Coatney Lane.  There were streets closer to the Sheriff’s Office, but here he had a good view to the south.  There were the flames, as promised, bright blue, shifting like an aurora but the wrong color.  And they appeared to be striking the ground, off toward the heath’s center.  He listened carefully, There was  a distant growl, like a mountain lion but higher in pitch.  As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could spot people standing at the edge of town and pointing.

Where was it coming from?  He glanced skyward.  The flames formed a cone, a cone whose skyward vertex very much appeared to be the mysterious airship.  Okay, he thought, this appeared to be another piece in the puzzle, but what does it mean? Going out there to look at the flames close up, where they hit the ground, sounded unsafe.  Besides, that area was surely outside his jurisdiction, so it was someone else’s problem.  He returned to the Sheriff’s Office  and began composing a report. 

He’d have to ask Miss Hayes if she had made some sketches.  Even if she hadn’t, that would be a good excuse to say hello and tip his hat to her.  Of course, thanks to his deal with Gramps, he was approximately flat broke, but he could still stay in practice for the future.

&&&&&&

“He made a big point of what a beautiful violet shade they had,” Chalmers remarked. “How hard they were. And how rare they were. And how they would match a pretty girl’s eyes on her ring finger after you proposed. Gail — you’ve met her — has eyes the wrong color, so that wouldn’t work for me, assuming that someday I have a solid job so I can propose to her.”

“Yes, they appear to be proper gemstones,” Watership agreed, “so perhaps we will see more of them. Perhaps there are more in one of those boxes.”

“Haven’t found more yet,” Chalmers answered. “But Eisenhower told me: He paid someone to go to the edge of the Heath and look, finding a dozen, all in the same place.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Watership said, “the Governor’s Office contacted the Chemistry Dean. They saw the newspaper report on your elements, were concerned it was a hoax, were happy that we’d all confirmed what you did, and said there’d be financial support for your research. Soon. Lots of money. They did hope that if you find another element, it will be named Californium.”

“Happy to do that. Ummh, a reporter did come around,” Chalmers said, “while you were in Los Angeles. I told him ‘professional ethics’. I can’t talk about results until they are published. But he had all my results right. Someone took very good notes.”

“That is several of your fellow students,” Watership said. “If it happens again, you can say ‘completely off the record, I’d warn you if you were so wrong you’d hurt your career’. Or suggest to him that he skip something. Wait? Did he have any idea where we got our samples?”

Chalmers shook his head. “No. And he only had two element names, Arizonium and Berkelium. Now I have all these. With the first stone, I was very lucky on fractional crystallization. I could have needed a year to separate them.”

“Which you would have had, thanks to spectroscopy.” Watership observed. “If I were not covering for colleagues, teaching three courses, I’d be in here analyzing. Well, keep up the good work. You’re going to go far.”

&&&&&