"Yes," said Wolff.
"Good, your timeline runs too fast to have a reasonable long-distance conversation," came the same voice, but from behind them.
They turned, and beheld a dapper, middle-aged gentleman with dark hair and a thin mustache. He was wearing hunting clothes, and carried an unlit tobacco pipe in his mouth.
Wolff and von Barronov snorted. Ariela looked at them, puzzled.
"What's funny?" she asked.
"I get it," chuckled von Barronov. "H. Beam Piper."
"Well done, gentlemen. I presume my character lived before the young lady's time."
Ariela giggled. "Yes, but I've read all of his stories, I just don't think I ever really knew what he looked like," she said.
"Understandable." Beam looked at Wolff. "Simmy says you are having a problem with the merging of your trunk line with that of the Xzl5!vt." He pronounced it flawlessly.
Wolff frowned. "Yes, if by 'Simmy', you mean the Great Simulation," he replied.
"Ah. You've been talking to Bob. Yes, I mean the Great Simulation. But the difference between Bob and me," he continued, "is I spend quality time with Simmy. Poor thing really doesn't understand flesh-and-blood sentients very well. So, since I seem to be the only one who has time and patience to explain things to it, it talks to me for hours on end. Bob, on the other hand, is lucky if he can get Simmy to talk to him for two or three abrupt sentences. Which is what happened again, this time."
"Which doesn't answer my question."
"Of course." Beam smiled. "The answer to which is, Simmy wants to merge your trunks so your two species will meet. It won't explain why. But we are at a point where it's probably time to start looking for the most likely species to replace us at the helm of the Great Simulation, and Simmy may simply be anticipating that."
"Is this the normal method of finding the replacement species?" inquired Wolff.
Beam sighed. "No."
"Why not? What's different?"
"The fact is," explained Beam, "both of your races are far too violent. It's not that we don't have violent races in the Simulation, it's just that they aren't the ones that get chosen to become realized and brought out into realspace to run the Simulation.
"However, there are interesting circumstances surrounding this trunk merger and your races' candidacy for Guardianship – not the least of which is the Great Simulation's own insistence on your consideration. Despite the violence issue, both of your races have produced at least one Engineer who already understands a significant portion of the runtime maintenance. That would be you – and to some extent, your friend von Barronov, as well as your daughter Ariela – and Yuz8!rfk of the Xzl5!vt and a couple of his associates. Again despite the violence issue, both races have developed the singularity hyperdrive and understand its associated rotation qualities. Finally, and yet again despite the violence issue, neither of your races have managed to kill themselves off, once becoming capable of it. Indeed, the Xzl5!vt have completed a huge 'go-to-hell' programme and have colonized fifty star systems in their area of the cosmos – this system being one of the latest they have begun to look at. As we understand it, your race is doing the same, you're just very early in the process."
Wolff looked askance. "Well, they should be that far along. Or farther. They're supposedly a million years ahead of us in development."
"No," Beam shook his head, "they are not. One of the reasons this project got started was someone managed to talk the Xzl5!vt into digging further into the singularity drive, and they found out Yuz8!rfk had been withholding the time and dimension rotation features from them. He did not think his people were ready for that disclosure, or for the disclosure that they were simply characters in the Simulation. He'd sworn his few associates who knew about both to bloody oaths of secrecy – and he'd managed to get the Xzl5!vt started on the right track – the 'go-to-hell' colonization programme. When his government braced him about the rotation feature, he – what do you say? – 'geeked' to that, but kept the other closely held. His insistence regarding keeping the rotation feature secret, though, wasn't good enough for his government, and they crowded Yuz8!rfk into a corner, trying to get him to disclose what he knew – and in a meeting one day, he finally decided he'd had enough, accessed the Xzl5!vt's trunk line controls, and switched it off."
"He did what?" exclaimed Wolff.
"Can you do that?" whispered von Barronov.
"Can you do that?" gasped Ariela.
"And wait, you said someone talked them into digging further into the drive. Who would have done that? You make it sound like it was someone outside the time trunk – like, maybe one of your own people," Wolff added, accusingly.
Beam nodded. "We agree," he said. "We are fairly certain that an Operator, or possibly a Programmer, caused this problem. The trick was to get Yuz8!rfk to turn off the line himself, as had one of our people done that, it would have required proper credentials and access permissions, and the action would have been logged. We have since turned the line back on, and have been in contact with Yuz8!rfk so he is aware of the issues. Yet he still has a problem with his government, although we have a team of Operators working with a Programmer to try to mitigate that."
"And conveniently," interjected von Barronov, "the Shizzle trunk was turned off just long enough for our trunk to advance to a condition of parity, or nearly so."
"Indeed," confirmed Beam. "And to complete my story, I should add that we have another team investigating how this could have happened in the first place, without any logging of the interference."
"Easy," said Wolff, disgustedly. "One of your Operators managed to get root, and erased the log. Basic hack, back on Earth. Surprised the Simulation didn't notice the little empty spot in its memory."
"It says it doesn't have any such empty spot," replied Beam, "but then, if the hack were done elegantly, it wouldn't, would it?"
"Correct. The hacker would have overlaid something innocuous to fill in the gap."
An alarm on the main console chose that moment to go off. Both Wolff and von Barronov spun around to see what it was. Both men blanched at what they saw.
"Shit! Jump, jump! Set me up coordinates!"
Von Barronov flipped switches and spun dials. "Go, go, go!"
Wolff reached up, flipped the safeties out of the way, and popped the big red switches.
The Bandersnatch shuddered, then the viewport went black.
Interlude:
Between the Devil and the Deep Dark Black
Personal Diary of Ariela Rivers Wolff, Volume 60
5 June 2047
Aboard the RV Frumious Bandersnatch in the HD 167818 system
What the fuck! I mean, what the fucking fuck! You pop into a system all innocent-like, no guns run out, not blazing through on a thunder run, and some fucking picket cruiser takes a fucking shot at you with a plasma cannon???
I'm supposed to negotiate with THAT?
Dad says they pulled their punch, it was a low power, near-miss "love tap" like the one he said Constellation fired at the Lotus Flower, that pirate back at Sanddoom, when I was still busy trying to get Prisha and Naira stabilized. But still! We're not pirates! I don't even have my parrot with me! Or an eye patch! Arrrr.
Okay, I guess I feel better about that now. But it sure was scary at first blush. No wonder the Chinese surrendered so quickly . . . luckily, all we had to do was rotate away.
Chapter 10
Shizzle Me This
"What the hell?" yelled Ariela. She'd nearly fallen when whatever it was hit the ship, but Beam had his hands on her shoulders, steadying her.
"Somebody shot at us with a plasma cannon," exclaimed von Barronov, still somewhat in shock.
"That was one big goddamn ship," added Wolff. "But that wasn't a full-power shot, or I'll eat my utility cover. I think it was a love-tap, to get our attention. And it missed us – barely – which is something LaForrest would have the turret crew on report for, unless he was trying to make a point . . . "
"L
ike we did to that Chinese pirate," said von Barronov.
"Exactly," said Wolff.
Ariela laughed. "Hoist on your own petard?"
"Heh. Maybe." Wolff looked at his controls, then over at von Barronov's. "Where did you set up for?"
"Way the fuck backed away from that cruiser," replied von Barronov. "We're outside the system, about three and a half light days, or 600-ish AU, on a vector back to Pi Sagittarii."
"Can they track us?" asked Ariela, sliding into her seat and firing up her holotab again. Beam, remaining silent, but looking highly interested in the proceedings, sat in the seat behind Wolff. "I mean, we were able to track the ships from Sanddoom from four or five light years away. Why couldn't these people do the same?"
"If they can, I imagine they'll either be here in a moment, or they're trying to decide what the hell we are," said Wolff. "The question is, are they able to rotate? As I understand it, that's what my counterpart among them got in trouble for suppressing." He looked in the rear-view mirror at Beam, who nodded.
"They do not have their ships retrofitted yet," he confirmed. "The technology is still being tested – without the assistance of the man who knows it best. They are undoubtedly surprised you disappeared the way you did."
"Warp entrance shock," reported Ariela. "Back where we were. I think they're coming this way, but I'm not sure their sensors are as good as ours, so they may hunt a bit to find us."
"Speed?"
"Warp One, I think. Yes, definitely coming this way, more or less. So – a couple of days to get here?"
"Yes . . . if they don't kick it to Warp Two. But even then we're talking about four hours." Wolff rubbed his jaw, thinking.
"If they use our system of warp numbers," added von Barronov, helpfully.
Wolff sighed. "Warp Two, 12 times light speed. But yes, our warp numbers are based arbitrarily on how long it takes to get to Alpha Centauri from Earth, and are also based solidly on the Earth clock and calendar, so they probably don't use that system."
"Wonder what they'd do if we jumped back," mused von Barronov, with a twinkle in his eye.
Wolff barked out a short laugh. "That would be humorous, wouldn't it?"
"Are there other ships in the system?"
"Good question. Lieutenant?"
"Checking," replied Ariela, busying herself with the holotab.
Beam smiled.
"You could tell us, couldn't you?" von Barronov grinned back.
"I could," said Beam, "but there's no reason you can't do it for yourselves. I'm actually surprised you didn't do that first thing."
"Well, we were a little surprised by the planetary system we weren't expecting," replied Wolff, "and the next thing we knew, we were getting an English translation of the radio station we'd been picking up on Earth. Which, by the way, Ari already figured out was a trick played on us to get us out here; there's no way that signal would have gotten to Earth in anything under a thousand years."
"But it did get you out here," Beam pointed out.
"Yes," said Wolff, "and we still really don't know why."
Beam shrugged. "You'd have to ask Simmy. I don't think even Bob knows what's going on in that thing's circuits. But I'm just a second-level department head with a fairly circumscribed set of responsibilities; he's the boss."
"There are about twenty ships in orbit around the gas giant," reported Ariela, "or at least, there were several days ago; we're at least three light-days away, so all I can see is what was there in the past. Most of the ships look like bulk freighters, tanking up with hydrogen and other gases, maybe? Also looks like there's a station there, probably a processing hub sitting on top of the gas mine. Otherwise," she concluded, "I don't see anything else of any size in the system other than our not-so-friendly cruiser. Is that what it really is?"
"Don't really know," said Wolff. "All I know is, it looked bigger than the Constellation, smaller than a Santa Maria. But that was a fast glance and poof, we rotated."
"It is approximately twice the length and about the same diameter as your Constellation class frigates," supplied Beam, "and it mounts two broadsides of twelve plasma cannon, three plasma chasers at the stern, and half a dozen each dorsal and ventral plasma turrets set in barbettes much like your Constellations have. Their basic plasma tube is similar to yours, running about 50BeV per tube, and they use tribarrels as do you."
Wolff and von Barronov looked at each other. "About twice the firepower of a Constellation," said the latter. "Maybe a little more; we don't have all those top and bottom turrets. But it sounds like they have to maneuver to bring a broadside to bear, just like an old sailing ship."
"Thirty-six guns," noted Wolff. "What the hell did they think they were up against?"
"I dunno, but I like their style," said von Barronov. "Go big or go home."
"There is that."
"New ETA for the cruiser," reported Ariela. "Looks like they're running about six lights, so they'll be a solid eight hours getting here."
"Shall we save them some time?" asked Wolff, rhetorically. "Chris, set us up to pop up about six light-hours ahead of their current course, with just enough way to maintain position and not drift."
Von Barronov did things with the console, consulted his holotab, and made a few minor adjustments. "Go."
Wolff reached up, flipped the safeties, and flipped the big red switches. Not much changed out the front port, but Ariela frowned, fiddled with her holotab, and then smiled again. "There they are, about an hour ahead of us. Oh, and they're not going to see us before they run over us, so we had probably start sending a hail and flashing lights or something."
"The name of the cruiser is Proven in Battle," supplied Beam. "Of course, it is something completely different in their language, but you'll find the translation schema works both ways."
Ariela considered. "If I say 'Shizzle,' will that translate back out to . . . their actual name?" she asked, after deciding not to try to pronounce "Xzl5!vt".
Beam nodded. "I put in a change ticket for that before I left, and it should have been taken care of by now."
"Okay," said Ariela, "let's try something like, 'Shizzle cruiser Proven in Battle, we are the Earth Research Vessel Frumious Bandersnatch, sitting roughly six light-hours in front of you. Please reduce speed so that we may rendezvous. Our mission is one of peace and diplomacy. Message repeats,' and then repeat that until they get it."
"Send it," ordered Wolff, and she started the message up on repeat.
"I'm running it on 1900 KHz, just like the other signal, but beefed up to legal limit, so maybe they'll hear it."
"They're going to run across the wavefront when they're only about a light-hour out. Ten minutes, at their speed. Will be interesting to see if they can stop that fast," said von Barronov.
"Will be more interesting to see what the translator makes out of 'Frumious Bandersnatch,'" snorted Wolff. "But yeah, if their Alcubierre equipment is anything like ours, they'll drop out running the same sublight speed they were going when they entered warp."
Something on the order of fifty minutes later, Ariela reported, "Emergence shock, point eight five light seconds, or about 160,000 miles, dead ahead. They were going a little faster than we thought."
"You're up," Wolff told her. "We're just your chauffeurs."
"Oh goodie," muttered Ariela, as she fiddled with the holotab and put her headset back on. She stopped the recording, flipped the incoming audio to the ship's speakers, and spoke into the live microphone. "Shizzle cruiser Proven in Battle, this is Earth Research Vessel Frumious Bandersnatch, do you copy, over."
"Frumious Bandersnatch, this is Proven in Battle. We copy your transmission but have many questions. To whom am I speaking?"
"Proven in Battle, this is 2nd Lieutenant Ariela Rivers Wolff of the United States Space Force Marine Reserve. I have been authorized by my Supreme Command Authority to conduct first contact protocols with the Shizzle."
She was using her "Lion of God" voice. Wolff and von Barronov g
lanced at each other. Von Barronov shrugged; Wolff grinned.
There were murmurs over the link, as if someone had placed a hand over the microphone. Then another Shizzle responded. "Lieutenant Wolff, I am Captain Dz4!bz of the Xzl5!vt Interstellar Command. I am the commander of the Proven in Battle, and at least theoretically the commodore in charge of this star system on behalf of my government. I do not have specific authorization from my superiors to conduct first contact protocols, but of course I am prepared and am expected to do so, should the opportunity arise. We are not familiar with a star system called 'Earth'. What can you tell me about it?"
"Pardon a correction, Captain," replied Ariela, still in that quiet, strong voice. "Earth is the name of our origin planet. Sol is the name of our star. It lies approximately seven hundred light years behind us. We made nine rotations to arrive here, otherwise it would have taken seven hundred of our hours to make the trip via Alcubierre warp."
"Should she be telling him this?" whispered von Barronov.
"It probably doesn't matter," Wolff whispered back. "They could probably backtrack us, but we'd be home long before they got there. At Warp 5, that's still nearly a month."
"Nine rotations?" the Captain was asking.
"Yes, we rotate through space-time and arrive instantaneously at our destination."
"Interesting. There is an engineer on Xzl5!vt who is quite stubbornly refusing to provide details of such an innovation."
"We are aware of this," noted Ariela. "His name is Yuz8!rfk, is it not?" She stumbled a bit over the pronunciation, but gamely made it through to the other end. Beam, watching her from the next seat over, smiled encouragement.
There was a pause.
"It is," confirmed Captain Dz4!bz, cautiously, "but I am very curious to know how you know it."
Ariela laughed, gently. "Captain, we have a great deal of general knowledge about Shizzle," she replied. "But we have spoken to others who know of Yuz8!rfk's engineering accomplishments. I would hazard an educated guess that Yuz8!rfk is being briefed by these same 'others' about this encounter, and about our planet and people, even as we speak."
The Lion and the Lizard Page 13