Turn 56

At the lecture:
    Ibn Fadil sits near Yestin, and pays close attention to Garrick's conversation, but the man has nothing more of interest to say. Halfway through the talk, ibn Fadil has abandoned any hope that Alais might have achieved some sort of clarity for this presentation, and is absently scanning the crowd, but nothing catches his eye.
    Afterward,
    "While your theory is quite diverting, Master Alais, don't you believe there could perhaps be a... simpler explanation?" Melkin, as usual, looks like the word is particularly annoying to him. Probably anxious to get on to the refreshments, Alais knows.
    "I suppose there could be. It depends on how simple is the person proposing it."
    "It is indeed, as Master Melkin says, diverting," Aelfyr says, smoothing over any reply the increasingly annoyed mage might make, which contains some words about insolent children and rag-tag charlatans. "Are you certain, however, that there is nothing that can be done to prevent this occurrence? Some sort of defense or escape?" It's hard to tell if he's merely humoring the young wizard.
    While Alais explains the impracticality and indeed impossibility of such, ibn Fadil glances up at Yestin. "Did you follow any of that?" he asks in an undertone.
    "About as much as I expected to," the giff chuckles. "Clearly I need to expand my reading." Given the unexpected windfall of their first voyage, his cabin on the damselfly is already all but bursting.

* * *

    Pham walks the streets of the Rock. He starts at the place he got that... scent is a good a word as any. Investigating, he tries to find some of the locals who will talk to him, but doesn't have much luck.
    He returns to the rest of the crew as Alais's lecture breaks up, and seeks out ibn Fadil.
    "Friend ibn Fadil, may I have a moment? You know more of the people of Bral than I do. Could you make some suggestions on how I might find some to talk to me? I need to warn them about the threat, maybe try to, well, do SOMETHING about the creatures preying on them. If then know what they're up against, they can take some precautions at least.
    "And maybe we can find out who brought those things here in the first place. Or at least an idea."

* * *

    Before the party broke up the previous night, Val called for a crew meeting the following afternoon to discuss a variety of subjects, and also asked Mr. Volant for a moment of his time the following morning.
    The next day, he waits patiently for the crew to assemble aboard the _Distraction_ the afternoon after the big party. His meeting with Three Trees earlier in the day proved useful to a point. It was now up to him to decide what to do and where to go. Though he does have a few ideas, he wants the crew's input on the matter.
    He goes through the roster and rechecks assignments and watch schedules. Not much will be changed from when Delmar was captaining the ship. As each crew member arrives, he will greet them and ask them to be patient until all are assembled. He pulls Yestin aside to give him his first order; he is to go over the roster with the crew and give everyone their assignments after the meeting.
    "Thanks for coming," he finally addresses the crew when all have arrived. "I'm sure we're all pretty excited about this opportunity before us, and there are a few things that we need to discuss before we set out. Most important of those things will be 'where are we going?'" Val can barely conceal his own excitement at the prospect.
    "We have been given an...*open* choice of where to go," he continues after a brief pause. "Ultimately, the decision is ours on what we'd like to do. I have a few ideas," he gives Emmett a glance that touches on what was mentioned earlier, "but I want your input. I'm new to this type of situation, as I'm sure we all are, and I want to get an idea of what we all would like to do."
    He briefly explains what was passed along to him regarding their choices and their mission guidelines. Explore, map, and bring back business is the gist of it, but the option of where to head remains open. He'll elaborate as much as possible, being as confident as he can while presenting everything to his friends.
    "So, do we head straight for the unknown?" Val continues, "or do we take a safer approach and skirt the little-known territories exploring possibilities there? Any ideas or preferences?" He offers his most sincere expression to let the crew know he *wants* them to speak up.
    Emmett decides to get the machine in motion, having discussed this earlier with Val in private. "I think we have a perfectly good first destination that kind of fits both - Ginevra's home world. From the gist of what Victor said, he's got some sort of exclusive trade route on it, which sounds like it has something valuable that we could horn in on. He also implied it was out of the way, so we'd have a chance to find other things en route.
    "It's not quite wandering into the unknown, but it isn't skirting the safety zones either. Plus, we know there's a market there."
    To himself, Ibn Fadil wonders why these people cannot seem to stop looking for trouble. Aloud, he says, "Whatever they are getting from there must be quite valuable, since it seems Victor & Sons went to the trouble of an alliance-marriage to get access to it. But do we know how to get there?"
    "I know the name of the system," Val adds casually, a blank facade firmly in place. "We can find it if we look." He is trying to appear indifferent in this discussion, though he is very much in favor of Emmett's idea. Not so much for revenge upon the Victor, but perhaps as something they could do to help Ginevra's family.
    "This reminds me," the half-elf says, "just before Master Zeremin's talk, I overheard the Victor's new pilot saying that his employer was in such a good mood today, he gave all his employees the day off. We might want to watch our backs even more until we get off the Rock again."
    After a brief pause to let that sink in, he goes on, "As to the proposal, I suppose it is as good a choice as any. And we might want to visit Janik again on the way, to perhaps learn more about the place from the lady."
    "Thank you for the warning," Val offers, genuinely grateful. He pauses for a moment to study the others' reactions to the odd news before getting back to the matter at hand, "I do not think a return to Janik is necessary or warranted at this point. Besides, it would be a bit...odd that an exploration team would head straight in to the Three Trees corporate home-world, no?"
    "Who would care?" He looks puzzled, but he is wondering if their lock-picking captain is perhaps too used to worrying about being watched ...
    "I do not believe a six month detour would be beneficial to the interests of our mission for the company," Val explains patiently, calm facade still in place. "If you wish, we could discuss that part later when we've agreed upon an ultimate destination and confirmed its location." 
    "Any other ideas?" he asks of the others, as if to say that part of the conversation was over. For now.
    Miffed, ibn Fadil sits back and keeps several possible retorts safely behind his teeth. Sometimes I think I understand *Five* better than this man ...
    Pham sits up and clears his throat. "Perhaps, a bit of a break would be in order? This discussion is getting a little heated.
    "I am inclined to agree with Val... I mean, Captain." Pham nods his head apologetically. "A six month detour to Janik would be a bad idea, just in cost of supplies if nothing else. And if I am piloting this ship, I'd much rather be headed somewhere new than somewhere old."
    "I have held my counsel for now because, quite honestly, I have no real opinion. When exploring the unknown, one direction is as good as another. But, may I remind everyone - the goal of this expedition is to open up *new* markets? I suspect Three Trees would much rather find completely new spheres than to have us open up a market which already has an entrenched competitor."
    "A very good point," Val agrees with Brother Pham's observation, "but the decision is ultimately ours. We just have to make sure our efforts prove to be worth our costs to the company." He pauses to make sure his words sink in. "If that means us opening a market in a little known sphere to bring in business, or if it means discovering something new all together, we'll do it. Which is exactly why I wanted us to have this discussion. We're in this together." He puts a slight emphasis on that last word. 
    Emmett turns to Pham, "I see your point, but look at it this way: from the discussions we overheard on Janik, we know that right now the Victor's have some sort of exclusive deal with Genevra's world. We also know that her world is fairly distant, or at least out of the way.
    "With monopolies like this, the world is going to be eager for another source of trade, so they aren't getting dominated by one trading house. They'll be happy to see us. We know there is something there to trade, otherwise someone else wouldn't have opened the route and felt it important enough to secure with an arranged marriage. There's profit there. Given those, we'll be able to set up a Three trees house there, and use that as a jumping off point for a whole other section of wildspace."
    Emmett turns to the group at large, "I, for one, don't want to have to haul our butts back to Janik at the end of every trip."
    Hiro indicates that he is not averse to the notion of locating Ginevra's world. Nyala's expression is diffident as usual; she doesn't particularly care one way or the other. Yestin is clearly thinking very hard.
    "There is no certainty that anything we do will bring results. At least we know there is something there," he says hesitantly.
    

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