At 18:00, the Anastasia lurches out of jump into the Corona system. Corona used to be the capital of the Corona Foundation, and is now sort-of the capital of the TradeMain Foundation -- only "sort-of" because most of the parts of the TMF that were not in the Corona Foundation are now under military control.
They are picking up a lot of traffic in the system, but it seems mostly civilian -- pretty much what they would expect in a major backwater system.
The Anastasia has come out of jump near P5, which is a large gas giant. It is conveniently close to the mainworld -- about 5au. There are a number of other ships refueling at the gas giant, but no apparent regulating authority. The trip to P5 will take 12 hours.
They discuss their route from here. The Admiral suggests their next jump should be Purr, Csarfar, or Garstez -- or they could go straight to Karakus using the fuel bladders. The engineers insist that would be unwise, and want to jump only to star systems -- Mich suggests waiting until they actually arrive and make a decision based on trade or mail possibilities.
This system is where they are to pick up the rest of Vana's marines. Sir Bridgehead is not at all in favor of this, but is prepared to accept it.
Fostriades points out that they are starting to get into serious counter-currents inside the Imperium -- these marines aren't from the Imperium, and their basic loyalty is to their leader and their ship, i.e. the Anastasia.
Sir Bridgehead makes it quite clear that this is exactly his objection -- they aren't Imperial Marines. He is rather concerned about increasing the number of non-Imperials on the ship. He wants as little contact as possible with the outside world, not for their own protection as such, but rather for the protection of the outside world -- the Anastasia should be essentially a quarantine ship. He also feels that the minimum people should go ashore to pick up the marines -- Vana and Varda, perhaps. He has a lot of confidence in Vana and Varda's fortitude, and doesn't think they will be easily influenced. Having said that, though, he is not even convinced that the Imperial psionic shields will be effective.
Mich has prepared a message to send to Professor Farol at Brod. It includes the data from the Sir Walter Raleigh, the changes they made to the control system, a replay of the Sir Walter Raleigh's last moments from the engineering feed, and the specs of Mich's personal project (not complete yet, but he'll have more work done at the next stop). It will be secured by questions about the Anastasia's jump drive which only he should be able to answer, and will also verify to him the source of the message. He will try to send it from this system -- he was planning to send it from Karakus while waiting for the repairs, but events in the last jump have convinced him that he needs to get it off the ship and on its way as soon as possible. He will also include their ETA at Karakus and expected duration of stay (020-1119 to 050-1119).
The Captain is very concerned that there may be other people involved in whatever Jack and Jill are involved in, and it is important that they not be allowed to make contact. He does, however, think that the current arrangements are reasonably secure. He also intends to call another company meeting shortly, perhaps during the next jump.
This agrees with Sir Bridgehead's ideas, except that there are some members of the company in which he does not have much confidence.
A rehash of the old "loyalties" question ensues.
The Anastasia lands at 02:00, which is 11:00am local time. The local day is 30.8 hours, the gravity is 0.65, and average temperature is 2C. The air is thin and breathable, but a filter mask or small respirator would be required for exposure longer than a few hours.
They would start atmosphere replenishment, but don't want to spend the three days it would take. They take a reluctant decision to pay for life support supplies. Fostriades arranges it; it will take until 22:00 to complete loading.
Alice again suggests picking up some light trade goods, but her offer is again declined.
The marines are ready to go and waiting by the landing bay ... the transfer notice arrived here on 001-1119. They come on board smartly.
Mich checks the jump drive while it's shut down. It looks fine -- the lurch coming out of the last jump was normal for a drive in this condition.
At 22:00, the Anastasia is ready to take off, which they do at full speed. They reach orbit at 22:15, and proceed out to 10d by 23:00. They set a course for a jump point, and head out from the system to 100d. Along the way they encounter a few merchant-type ships, but no-one hails them.
Along the way they plan their next destination. Garstez is their first choice -- what does Alice know about it? It's a system that has no real settlements, and they should be able to pass through with minimum bother.
They are now in jump, and so the company meeting is scheduled for 13:30. It is thought that they should discuss the whole Jack and Jill situation because of the new things that have come up.
Several psionic mosquito nets have been built: a 2-man version for Sir Bridgehead, and regular ones for everyone else who has a helmet. Fostriades discovered that Sir Bridgehead's is really the maximum feasible size, and to try to scale it up much more than that would present problems -- even that one was difficult.
William Avon has noted that they have strong reasons to believe that Jill, at least, knows psionics. They know about Jack from the letter and Jack Jr., but they know nothing about Jill except what she's told them and what little Jack has told them since he met them. It's possible that Jill is a Zhodani agent or something that influenced Jack.
Sir Bridgehead wants to know what evidence they have that this is in fact really Jack.
There is a lot of circumstantial evidence. The remains of the GCarrier they found were from the Aldrin, Jack's ship, for example. It seems unlikely that he would be anybody but Jack. There was a hidden message in the computer that said the craft was from the Aldrin, and said where the Aldrin was going to jump next. That message was almost certainly put in there by an Imperial computer expert.
Sir Bridgehead points out that someone could have set this up.
Fostriades says that all this was 30 years ago.
Sir Bridgehead says that the cockroaches don't act on the same timescales as they do. He agrees that it is a small possibility that Jack is an impostor, but there does remain some doubt. He does not question that the GCarrier was genuine, but someone could have been substituted after Jack's death, for example.
Under truth drug they did say they were "Jack" and "Jill" and they were prodded for further information -- they did not use last names. (Do Zhodani have last names? Yes, says Helen.)
"Let us assume for the moment, then" says Sir Bridgehead, "That Jack is Jack Sr. It appears that he and his daughter may be working at cross-purposes."
William suggests that maybe they weren't working at cross-purposes 30 years ago, then Jack was turned from the IFSS.
Fostriades admits he does find Jill suspicious.
The Captain suggests that they find Jack Jr. again and, without revealing that they have Jack and Jill on the ship, get her to describe her mother and what her mother's name is. This will give them some confirmation as to whether Jill is who she says she is. Jill has talked about her daughter, but of course could have heard about her from Jack.
Sir Bridgehead says that they should confirm that this Jack (Sr.) is the real one, too, just in case.
There is a brief discussion on their route from Karakus to the Imperium. Mich wants to go via Brod, but most of the others favor going via Lirian, which nets them another 25kCr in passenger fees and also cuts a jump out of the journey -- 5 instead of 6.
The Captain also wants to make sure that the engineers and doctors are doing everything they can to tell whether psionics are in use and whether anyone has been influenced.
Sir Bridgehead thinks he has equipment to detect psionic activity. All he needs are some test subjects... He will try examining Rufus to see if he has been influenced, but of course he has no real baseline.
William is more interested in finding out whether Jack has been influenced.
The Captain also wants to know whether psionic influence continues after the death of the influencer, but they can't find any information on that. It would be easy to test, of course...
Sir Bridgehead examines Rufus, himself, Avon, Fostriades, Lia, and Mich. There is a lot of data -- it will take quite some time to analyze it. He enlists Linda's help with that task.
He also gets Fostriades to help him set up instruments to measure brain activity in the ship to detect psionics.