The Quarry

[Rage Menelas]

[font=Lucida Sans Unicode]Ryan didn't know what to expect at the ceremony, but it had been fairly short and to the point. And so he was now an official member of Charlie's order. He took it in stride, supposed it was an honor to be inducted as an Exeonas but sort of shrugged it off if any of this had been of his own choosing he might have felt differently about it. Be that as it may, he truly did feel honored to be included in the meeting with the order-master after the event. (He fully expected to have to wait in the car!) But Charlie insisted that he be included. And now the master led off by detailing the events that had precipitated the meeting, his concerns about the potential illegal activity of the Baeliwiks.

The order-master listened impassively. After Charlie had finished he drew in a deep breath and spoke. Yes... yes... this is a plausible response to the official outlawing of their experiments... The Baeliwiks... he shook his head sadly. The government is supposed to be watching them for this type of activity... He paused for a moment and then went on. Let me check with a few of my contacts I have therein and I will let you know what I find out, Master Erzo'acteru... I take it you assume these archaeologists to be of that religious sect?

I don't think there is enough evidence of it, sir. I do think it warrants an investigation.

Yes... I concur... and as the officer-of-discovery that would place you in charge. To this Charlie nodded solemnly.

After the meeting he revealed the nature of the order to which Ryan had become attached. Starflyers were duly licensed professionals with the right to legally operate amongst the star systems that made up federation space. Their functions were multitudinous, varying from simple traders to bounty hunters to transports and beyond; basically any business that anyone had amongst the stars had to involve a starflyer. And each was required, before gaining master starflyer status, to join one of the existing orders. His allegiance was primarily to that order and while all were expected to abide by federation law they did diverge from each other in real and very meaningful ways.

The Exeonasii for instance were true jacks-of-all-trades, leaving their individual masters to choose their own paths without much hindrance provided that path was legal. They were accepting of all humanoid races, allowing Charlie for instance to choose Terrans as his apprentices. Other orders operated in different ways, focusing on different aspects of the occupation, and their particular racial make-up also tended to vary. But they were all bound by the law of the Federation stringently. And each was empowered to investigate any breach of those laws that they discovered outside the jurisdiction of civil planetary or naval authorities, regardless of who the perpetrator was. This is why Charlie had reported his suspicions to his order-master rather than the civil authorities on Dalca'odge. Space is immense, much too large for the civil authorities of a planet to handle. And the naval forces of the Federation, massive as they were, did not have enough ships to cover all of federation space. Their warships were involved in areas they could not afford to abandon simply to hunt down clues in an investigation. No, it would fall to the starflyer order that had discovered the initial thread of evidence to track it down. It was their responsibility. And that meant that Charlie and Ryan had just become interstellar sleuths!