The Voyage of the Joyous Venture

Part 10

Hey, your DNA is weird too; bothered by Bernard; Sam asks 'so who is Komiko Jones'

Robert studies Komiko's DNA discovering she has some ancient inserts which have been doubled or tripled by mutation (which is unusual). He considers trying to correlate or associate some sort of behavioural phenotype with the inserts. He compares with Antonio's DNA - this also has triple inserts.

They discuss the information they should give Houston in return for his help. They wonder about giving information on Bheekhu. Komiko would like Trilon to honour at least some of the promises to Arg'kre Ing'shrr and so some of the information will enter the public domain anyway. Houston works for Foresight Industrial Research Engineering, a blue skies company; Komiko wants to exploit Ancients technology and doesn't want to give them the edge. She adds that she didn't like the way Foresight was involved with Galactic Carbide before they went under.

It is agreed to tell Houston about the Kurita ship if nothing else.

December 16^th

The ships arrive at Tau Ceti with only a minor incident involving a near collision when they come out of hyperspace. This is blamed on the astrogator of Houston's ship.

The Orbital Station has a beauty parlour, cybercafe, folk-singing bar and a virtual sports bar thus keeping everyone entertained for the duration.

Komiko arranges for the Joyous Venture to be refurbished. Antonio, Robert, Miho and Andi spend the leisure time in digs on the space station. Robert buys a bit of dinosaur. Antonio sends his Mum a picture of himself feeding a dinosaur. He finds his bank account is fatter than he had thought. He also sees no Kurita personnel around.

Miho is followed by an intense looking man who accosts her when he is spotted. He says "the devil, the devil! Beware he who fell; he walks among us!" He is immediately removed by security personnel who must have been following him. It turns out his name is Bernard Singh and he has done this sort of thing before, being repeatedly returned to the planet. Miho is required to stay around for the trial - it seems likely that the repercussions for Mr. Singh will be severe, there being no local facilities for coping with anyone disturbed.

Sangiv and Robert go drinking while Antonio, Miho and Andi go to see Houston in a restaurant.

They offer various bits of info in which he is not really interested. His interest is in Komiko. He says they met when they both worked for Galactic Carbide (he was attached via Foresight). They indicate that Komiko will be very unwilling to co-operate with him. He asks them to tell her that neither he nor Ichiro del Fuego honestly believe she was implicated in the collapse of Galactic Carbide. He indicates that he may wish to collaborate with Komiko on a project but only if the crew feel they have noticed she has an unusual facility in the area of communication. He says the project would be to Trilon's advantage. He asks them not to tell Komiko of his request.

The crew discuss his offer and eventually explain the substance of what he said to Komiko who says Trilon would be interested to know what the offer would be.

They return to Houston but he is not satisfied with their description of Komiko and asks them to contact him again when they return to Earth's solar system. He shows them all the information he has on Komiko (so he says) in which she seems to pop into existence from nowhere on her appointment to the Galactic Carbide board. He tells them that the Astra-Rivera Cortez was exploring the Ruticulus arm.