Blood might be thicker than water, but the combination of money and trust puts both blood and water to shame. Jack agreed to stay on, and Bull sent him weekly reports. The man was almost shameless in his greed, but the result had been a tireless and inspired effort on laying the groundwork for Bull’s return. Jack was good at real estate, but this foray into intellectual property had tapped into a well of creativity Bull hadn’t expected. “I may well come home to a ticker tape parade and as many patents as Thomas Edison, with licensing already in place when they’re confirmed,” Bull hyperbolized to Honey. “The most amazing part is that Walsh and Valence are still clueless.”
“Good thing we’re not clueless about them any longer,” she responded.
The pattern search had revealed fifteen lawyers being fed by Valence. With ten of them he’d already struck—Walsh was one—and it seemed Valence was still laying groundwork with the other five, and maybe some repeats. All the clients were, like Bull, loner billionaires. At first he was surprised that two others were also Belters, Van Cleeve being one, then not so surprised. Successful Belters were, by definition, loner billionaires. And even in a small community, apparently they could keep a few secrets.
Bull had had his Earth associates making discreet contacts with the past victims, and they would soon be in touch with the potential victims. Predictably, those who discovered that their lawyers had turned on them were doubly incensed—they had been both shaken down and betrayed. It was another surprise that Valence and his associates had kept their tracks so well covered—most of the traitor lawyers were still working for the clients they had burned.
The question now was not of settling, but of handling revenge. They had easily enough to make Valence back off Bull. It wasn’t so much legal leverage as ethical leverage. In spite of all the lawyer jokes, lawyers did take their ethical appearances seriously, and Valence was high-profile enough that a heady whiff of scam floating around his dealings would do him damage. Bull was thinking hard about that route.
But he was thinking even harder, and with delight, about his treasures, sifting the videos and data for new findings, and examining the samples.
From the log of the Blue Yonder.
I’ve been transformed from a geologist into an archeologist. I still get excited over mineral deposits, but now even the most mundane glove I have with me is worth ten times the dollar value of a good mineral vein, and millions of times more in growing humanity’s knowledge of our universe. With Honey’s help, and the help of her associates back in the Inner System, I’m running all kinds of nondestructive tests on this stuff, and a few destructive ones on those samples I have large quantities of.
For instance, the netting from my first foray has survived for a million years or more in hard vacuum because it is, in essence, just space rock—a silicate material. However, its crystal structure isn’t the typical roundish grains but long fibrous structures more like those of silk and asbestos.
The gloves I’ve found are all exotic materials. How useful they’ll be other than just being exotic, I haven’t determined yet, because they’re heavily deteriorated.
Potassium-argon dating is giving funny readings, but they indicate a million to ten million years. The heavy elements, those beyond calcium, have apparently been leached out of the white rock; we’ve never found any uranium or thorium. Space rock without heavy elements … that’s why it’s white … no iron or other pigment elements to add color.
And where did it come from?
Its orbit is hyperbolic, not elliptical, which indicates it came from outside the Solar System, but seemingly not from any nearby stellar system. Its trajectory is … leisurely … for an extra-solar object. If it had been moving at a reasonable trans-stellar speed—in the sense of someone wanting to get from Star A to Star B in a reasonable time—I would never have touched it, because it would have been moving so fast. It’s as if someone “parked” it near the Solar System, and then abandoned it. How strange!
The colored rocks, on the other hand, are enriched with specific heavy elements. These are not random mixes of heavy elements, I’m certain they’re there for a reason, but it’s no reason I can discern. Each section of colored rock is a different mix, and I believe the looters found these colored rocks interesting—that’s why they’ve been mined.
So much mystery.
End of entry.