Return From the Grand Tour

Hub is Elizabeth Bartley's campaign set in the universe of James Schmidt's Hub stories. Players for the session included:

1. Joshua Kronengold -- Jealousy Jones, psi resistant detective

2. Lisa Padol -- Marius Lecks, empathic doctor

3. Richard Reis -- Jaun, a mutant telepathic shapechanging tribble. It has several preferred forms, one of which is a crest cat, a creature from Schmidt's short story "Novice". By the end of the session he appeared in, we agreed that he wasn't connected enough to the other PCs. He may make up another PC.

4. Stephen Tihor -- Ell Thorndyke, maiden aunt, psychic screamer, and member of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Retired Scouts

Return to Ivic

Marius and Jealousy had completed their mission for the Federation. They now went in disguise to Ivic, Marius' home planet. Under these identities, they set up a meeting with Marius' father. Marius gave his father a video tape of part of his (mis)adventures on Eli Hutt. His father watched it and made the not-really-a-leap to figure out who Marius and Jealousy were. All three went to the Lecks estate.

Jealousy, still in disguise, decided to go mountain climbing. She was joined by Ell Thorndyke, which was not surprising, as her choice of location was on Thorndyke lands.

The two women found a cave full of people who didn't belong there and caged animals. Jealousy and Ell each called for back up, Jealousy's being a disguised Marius. Ell was able to make a pretty good guess as to who Marius was, especially when he used itching powder grenades of a type previously used by his youngest sister, Serena Lecks.

Extra back up came in the form of one of the animals which turned out to be Jaun, a sentient psychic shape shifter. Jaun tended to pick up the emotions of everyone around, so that, when they were happy, Jaun was happy, and when they were angry, Jaun was angry. Jaun took the form of a crest cat during combat, a cougar-sized feline with chameleon abilities. Everyone agreed that Jaun should contact Psychology. Then, they discovered that all of the animals in the caves were a) some kind of psychic and b) illegal to transport off their home world.

Ell did some checking and discovered that one of her nephews had been very foolish. Apparently, he'd been working with criminals who dealt in everything from drugs to smuggling. He was currently on another planet, one which was about to host a regatta.

Revelations at the Regatta

Ell decided she should enter the race and search for her nephew. Preferring to use trained professionals in all areas where their expertise exceeded her own, she hired Jealousy Jones, now out of disguise, to help. Marius, also out of disguise, went along as well, being an amateur racer. Where Ell specialized in stylish flying, Marius specialized in speedy flying. Ell performed much better than Marius, hardly a surprise given her experience and the focus of the regatta.

Ell and Jealousy were approached by local authorities and vigilantes. The planet disapproved of drug dealers on the whole, and there was a planetary web where concerned citizens could put information about such parasites. Of course, as Jealousy realized, the web could spread fake news as easily as real news.

According to the web, Ell's nephew was a drug pusher. He was also not on planet, and it was quite possible that he'd met with foul play from either a vigilante or the group he was allegedly selling drugs for.

Jealousy located and intercepted his ship. It had been either attacked or sabotaged -- I forget which -- by the criminals, not the vigilantes. Ell's nephew was injured, but had done something like place himself in suspended animation. He had also updated the ship's log with a full confession.

He was indeed working for criminals. I believe he had gotten addicted to some drug, and the criminals used this as leverage, but I don't recall whether he was working for the criminals before he'd gotten addicted. Regardless, what he should have done was inform his family at once. He did not, allowing himself to be used by the criminals until his ship had been attacked or sabotaged. At that point, he was at least intelligent enough to tell all in the logs. Ell was not pleased. Not only had her nephew been naughty, he had also been foolish, and Ivic is contemptuous of stupidity.

Ell called a meeting of the Thorndyke elders to discuss what to do about the foolish nephew. They agreed with Ell's suggestion: make him as comfortable as possible and try out whatever experimental techniques existed or were being developed to break the addiction to his drug. If he died in the process, it would be no more than he deserved, and if he were actually cured, and any lingering side effects of the cure dealt with, well, he might have learned his lesson.

Refugees on Ivic

Meanwhile, Marius' grandfather told him that Ivic now had a large population of refugees from Eli Hutt. Many of them were working longer hours than was considered usual, and the refugees tended to stick together. The elders of the ruling families of Ivic wanted to know if they should be unduly concerned. Marius agreed to see what he could learn, although, as he pointed out, it was more the field of his older brother, Curtis, a reporter and receptive telepath. His grandfather agreed, but Curtis had not yet returned to Ivic.

Marius wandered around in areas where the refugees lived and worked, and ate a few meals in a restaurant run by some of the new emigrees and patronized by many more. He picked up a certain amount of general wariness with his empathy, and he was able to spot people who were keeping an eye out for trouble. There were also many people who were tired due to the long hours, but that was hardly surprising.

Eventually Curtis did return, somewhat disgruntled at having chased Marius all over the galaxy for the promise of a story of Marius' adventures, only to discover that he could have just come home and waited. His ire was somewhat mitigated by having had opportunity to strike a blow against at least one of the people who wielded power on Eli Hutt. He investigated as well.

Eli Hutt was not a nice place to live. Many of the refugees on Ivic had left family or friends behind, and they wanted to be able to get them away from Eli Hutt as well. The most obvious way to do that was to raise enough money to pay the appropriate fees and bribes, so many people were working double or triple shifts to do just that. Sure, there might be spies among the refugees, or people hoping to import some of Eli Hutt's unsavory practices to Ivic, but Ivic could deal with that as it came up. In the meantime, the Lecks agreed that the emigrees would probably make fine citizens.