Sargon nodded. “Quite interesting. A balancing of competing forces seems to be the human pattern. What you call ‘checks-and-balances’,” he said, looking past Colleen to Jack. “Why is this so necessary?”
Jack plopped his cowboy boots on the table, and puffed on a ten-inch Havana cigar that was intoxicating Life, Sparkle and several nearby Strelka. Holding another mint julep in one hand, Jack smiled at Sargon and Bethrin. She smothered a giggle—he was about to be crudely accurate. Something the diplomats hated.
“What they’re really saying Sargon is that we humans have a tendency to knife each other in the back, to forget our promises and to kill off those who disagree with us.” Jack smiled a predatory grin. “As an example, Mr. Arioshi there is far too polite—and cunning—to mention to Vice Premier Seramov the news that Japan’s SDF just sank a Russian attack sub off Etorofu, while the Russians have continued their on-shore troop buildup at Kuybyshevo.” Michelson and Helga looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Of course, neither side is careless enough to be too blatant, but we humans are very, very territorial. Similarly, that Chilean sociologist over there—” he pointed to a bystander with his cigar “—would fight to the death with his Argentine drinking buddy about who owns the Beagle Islands any day of the week.” Taking a sip of his drink, Jack warmed to his subject. “Basically, we humans like violence, we like conflict and we create social systems not to end violence but to moderate it to usually non-lethal levels.” Sargon’s headcrest flared madly as Jack shut up long enough to take a swig of his drink, take a smoke, and pinch her under the table in a very private place. She choked on her beer. “Unfortunately, Sargon, we don’t have the sophistication of your cousins, the wolves, who engage in alpha-male dominance games—but are careful not to injure each other. So we rely upon complex cultural and political arrangements like those just described.” Jack, his soliloquy finished, eyed with interest the signs of embarrassment visible on some.
Colleen sipped her beer, noting how suddenly quiet everyone became as the issue of their perennial military conflicts surfaced before outsiders. Fortunately, Amanda came to the group’s rescue by returning all to the objective of the gathering—to have one “hell of a party.”
“Sargon, can I show you and Bethrin our new Finnish hot tub over here in a quiet area of the piazza?” Amanda said as she stood up. “We have some very good Tuborg cooling nearby, and a warm soak with several chilled mugs of Tuborg is not to be missed.”
Sargon must have had too much coffee—he looked a bit whoozy. And Bethrin held his arm as he stood up, swaying slightly.
“Surrre, Amanda, let’s partyyy!” Sargon said in an off-key growl that showed he’d finally loosened up. Bethrin waved bye at Colleen as they took temporary leave of Jack’s table.
Colleen watched Amanda lead Sargon and Bethrin over to the nearby hot tube, drop her clothes, and step in. She wondered whether it would all end in a Horem threesome at Sargon’s home. She smiled. Only if Bethrin wanted it to. And right now, she preferred to focus on her own man. Her husband. Who was handsome and wonderful even when burping, smoking cigars and dominating the conversation with the diplomats.
She wondered if love could stop her sneezing every time Jack’s cigar smoke drifted her way.
EPILOGUE
Sargon sat looking out at the stars, alone in an outside observation blister on the dorsal side of Hekar. He’d come here to be alone, to think, to consider. A year after their December 2059 departure from Sol system, they were already well past Pluto and moving at nine-tenths lightspeed. Ahead, there was a small, starless tunnel surrounded by circular halos of stars—the effect of traveling at near-relativistic speeds. Behind, there was Earth, a planet, security and Friends. And all around them shone the handiwork of entropy.
He folded hands and looked outside, no longer bored. Not with Humans around. Nor with being the father of a new-born son. A son he had named Salis to honor both his father Salex and his mentor Alis. Their words and wisdom stayed with him. As did the departure words of Jack’s lifemate Colleen. Colleen had made a sat-vid broadcast to an Earth audience during the start of Departure propulsion. Her words came back to him.
“Some very sincere humans,” she’d said on the SystemNet broadcast. “Truly wonder whether it’s in our own best interests to wander off among the stars when so very much remains to be done on Earth in feeding our people, in reducing disease and in maintaining peace among the Big Eight.” She had paused, her expression remarkably determined, her kilt-clad form backlighted by a holo of the galaxy. “What they perhaps forget is that we humans are always exceeding our grasp, always reaching out to the New World just after the Black Plague, always sending fleets of the Ming Dynasty off to the Indian Ocean and East Africa long before the Portugese dared the Cape of Good Hope. We’re also moving into space when some of us have never traveled further than six kilometers from their home village in Uttar Pradesh.” She had smiled a wonderfully radiant human-smile. “It is the Human way to hunger after the unknown, and, in a way, this is our version of Trade, of the Great Trek, of the Hunt—May it ever be so!”
He sighed.
Such strange, new, wonderful people, these Humans. And what a unique, remarkable concept of Trade, of the Great Trek.
He felt pride in having them as members of the Compact.
He felt wonder at their stability despite their differences.
And he hoped Jack would teach him his Tex-Mex chili recipe. He knew a certain Strelka sub-chief in Hive Central who would pay a fortune of barter chits for the recipe . . . .
THE END
APPENDIX ONE
Characteristics of the eight Compact species
ARRIK—A bipedal reptile with leathery wings, three eyes, two muscular arms, two clawed feet, scaly skin, a long tail, a marsupial pouch, and ultrasonic verbal communication. Home star: G8V yellow, 82 G. Eridani. Evolutionary phenotype: flying raptor. Reproduction: Bisexual and dimorphic. Vision: yellow light, trinocular, three eyes. Food: Omnivore. Organic molecular basis: dextromolecular-levomolecular, carbon-based. Gravity: 0.82 gee. Gases: oxygen breather. Society: nation-state Sept. Family: Clan-based.
GOSAY—A headless, sausage-bodied, four-eyed, heavily armored, radiation-resistant, large-mouthed carnivore whose six legged gait allows it to outrun any land prey. Each Gosay is intensely individualistic on a biochemical exclusion basis, requires a large hunting territory, and is resistant to ionizing radiation with high metabolic rate for rapid cell replacement. Home star: A5IV blue, Ruchbach/Delta Cassiopeiae. Evolutionary phenotype: sextupedal rock-runners. Reproduction: Bisexual. Vision: ultraviolet light, each eye independently moveable, four eyes. Food: Carnivore. Organic molecular basis: dextromolecular-levomolecular, carbon-based. Gravity: 1.8 gee. Gases: oxygen-neon breather. Society: fluctuates between anarchism to syndicalism depending on estrus state of both males and females. Family: None; each Gosay is solitary for at least one-half its lifespan.
HOREM—Tall, lean, brown fur-covered bipeds, humanoid, four fingered hands and feet, retractable finger and toeclaws, incisor-dominant, feathery headcrest, small ears, dolicephalic head, warm-blooded, mammalian, male has four flat nipples on a heavily muscled chest while female has four small breasts in three vertical rows, vocal communication and feathery body language communication modes. Home star: Acherex, F0V white. Evolutionary phenotype: Wolfish, vulpine, originally a quadruped. Reproduction: Bisexual and dimorphic. Vision: green-to-yellow light spectrum, binocular. Food: Omnivore. Organic molecular basis: dextromolecular-levomolecular carbon-based. Gravity: l.l gee. Gases: oxygen-nitrogen breather, low atmospheric pressure of 9.6 psi. Society: Mercantile traders at regional-state level, greedy, avaricious, punctilious, hierarchical, multi-tiered. Family: Pack-clan evolved, extended family, multi-generation, polyandry and polygany a minority practice, enlightened patriarchy, both male and female inherit equally.
SLISS—Ocean-evolved octopoid water-breathers who are monosexual matriarchs existing in pod aggregates on their home waterworld. T
hey communicate by use of encoded RNA squirt-packets emitted by a specially adapted tentacle, they occupy vast continental shelves and seamounts in the photic zone and mine the abyssal plains through use of robots. Home star: K0V orange member of triple-star system Wasat/Delta Geminorum. Evolutionary phenotype: radial symmetry, radiolarion predator. Reproduction: monosexual. Vision: blue-green spectrum, single large eye. Food: omnivore. Organic molecular basis: levomolecular-dextromolecular carbon-based. Gravity: 0.9 gee. Gases: water-soluble oxygen at l5 psi. Society: non-hierarchical matriarch leaders of pod-clans who commit to alliances of convenience. Family: pod of 9 to 12 members, multi-generation.
STRELKA—Visually blind, multi-legged, segmented predator with near-telepathic empathic ability in the individual and an ability to generate a planet-wide Standing Wave empath field that reflects the race consciousness and unity. They have two pairs of flex-arms just below a sucker-like mouth in brain case, sensorium strip that “sees” various light spectra through specialized scale cells. Home star: Clet, K5V orange main sequence star of double star system Sigma Puppis. Evolutionary phenotype: predatory segmented worm inhabiting rocky desert region. Reproduction: bisexual, slightly dimorphic. Vision: blue-violet spectra, non-focusing. Food: homeostatic omnivore. Organic molecular basis: dextromolecular-levomolecular. Gravity: l.2 gee. Gases: oxygen-nitrogen at 10 psi. Society: planetary hive-instinct, individual is subservient to the societal good. Family: nuclear couples in hive setting.
THIX-THET—Flexible ball-shaped silicon lifeform capable of extruding sensory, manipulative and digestive pseudopods who have built a society upon the concept that “life is a big joke played on unsuspecting chemicals.” The society’s philosopher-king is the Prime Trickster, they mine Ice IV and V and use it as some use metals and cast ceramics. They live at minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit on a large moon orbiting a gas giant. Home star: K1III giant orange star Wazn, or Beta Columbae. Evolutionary phenotype: ring-shaped scavenger of brown hydrocarbons raining down from planetary atmosphere. Reproduction: multisexual, genes from thirteen partners required to produce a viable zygote that is “budded off” in asexual reproduction, unimorphic. Vision: far infrared to violet, non-focusing. Food: omnivore. Organic molecular basis: dextromolecular- dextromolecular silicon ring-chains. Gravity: 0.5 gee. Gases: methane-nitrogen at 35 psi, methane drinkers. Society: amorphous pod-clans in ever-shifting alliances based on unknown principles. Family: 13 member pod, single generation, young are abandoned to feral existence until it acquires sense of self-sacrifice.
THORANIAN—Barium titanate crystal beings existing both as individual crystal clumpings and as a larger Group MIND aggregate that has a group memory reaching back millions of years, metabolic processes imitative of “life” occur through piezoelectric flexing of its crystal lattice structure, allowing individual clumpings to “talk” through radiowave emissions. Home star: A2V blue-white member of double star system 326 Epsilon Arietis. Evolutionary phenotype: none; Thoranians are a random crystalline mutation unrelated to biological principles. Reproduction: asexual budding of new crystalline accretions. Vision: entire electromagnetic spectrum from gamma rays to radiowaves as sensed by entire crystalline corpus. Food: absorption of alpha, beta and gamma particles emitted by radon gas, stellar winds of home star, with storage of energetic particles in crystalline lattice and energy retrieval through electron shell photonic cascading as nucleotides decay. Organic molecular basis: inorganic crystalline. materials without any analogue to DNA, RNA, genetics or biological evolution. Gravity: 0.6 gee, indifferent to high gravitational accelerations. Gases: evolved in near-vacuum on Mercury-type world, likes radon gas at l.l psi. Society: individual consciousness is a “Component” of Group MIND, which is immortal. Family: none.
ZIK—Amphibious crustacean able to breathe both water and air, ten-legged, manipulative primary and secondary mouth palps, with a hard exoskeleton and four perceptor stalks as “eyes,” who are totally focused upon the imperative to reproduce, expand to occupy all ecozones, and multiply without end or resort to birth control. Home star: Hekeen, M0III red giant with high infrared emissions star. Evolutionary phenotype: littoral crustacean scavenger. Reproduction: bisexual, now under direct societal control through massive planet-wide programs of genetic engineering and eugenics, each Zik belongs to a birth-cohort of explicit genetic characteristics. Vision: infrared to far infrared spectra, multi-focusing. Food: omnivore. Organic molecular basis: levomolecular-dextromolecular carbon-based. Gravity: 0.92 gee. Gases: atmospheric oxygen-nitrogen at 6 psi, water-soluble oxygen at 6 psi. Society: Hierarchical matriarchy in an unbroken dynasty over 20,000 years old, caste system. Family: none, barracks raising with your own cohort, both male and female.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
T. Jackson King (Tom) is a professional archaeologist, journalist and retired Hippie. He learned early on to question authority and find answers for himself, partly due to reading lots of science fiction novels. He also worked at a radiocarbon dating laboratory at UC Riverside and UCLA. Tom attended college in Paris and Tokyo, then helped organize anti-Vietnam War demos in Tokyo and Knoxville, Tennessee. Tom is a graduate of UCLA (M.A. 1976, archaeology) and the University of Tennessee (B.Sc. 1971, journalism). Tom has worked as an archaeologist in the American Southwest and has traveled widely in Europe, Russia, Japan, Canada, Mexico and the USA. Other jobs have included short order cook, hotel clerk, legal assistant, telephone order taker, investigative reporter and newspaper editor. He also survived the warped speech-talk of local politicians and escaped with his hide intact. He writes hard science fiction, anthropological scifi, dark fantasy/horror and contemporary fantasy/magic realism. Tom’s novels are ESCAPE FROM ALIENS (Wilder Publications, 2015), ALIENS VS. HUMANS (Wilder Publications, 2015), GODDARD VS. ALIENS (Wilder Publications, 2015), HUMANS VS. ALIENS (Wilder Publications, 2015), GENECODE ILLEGAL (Wilder Publications, 2014), EARTH VS. ALIENS (Wilder Publications, 2014), ALIEN ASSASSIN (Wilder Publications, 2014), THE MEMORY SINGER (Fantastic Books, 2014), ANARCHATE VIGILANTE (Wilder Publications, 2014), GALACTIC VIGILANTE (Wilder Publications, 2013), NEBULA VIGILANTE (Wilder Publications, 2013), SPEAKER TO ALIENS (Wilder Publications, 2013), GALACTIC AVATAR (Wilder Publications, 2013), STELLAR ASSASSIN (Wilder Publications, 2013), STAR VIGILANTE (2012), THE GAEAN ENCHANTMENT (Wilder Publications, 2012), LITTLE BROTHER’S WORLD (Fantastic Books, 2010), ANCESTOR’S WORLD (Ace Books, 1996, with A.C. Crispin), and RETREAD SHOP (Warner Books, 1988, 2012). His short stories appeared in JUDGMENT DAY AND OTHER DREAMS (Fantastic Books, 2009). His poetry appeared in MOTHER EARTH’S STRETCH MARKS (Motherbird Books, 2009). Tom lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA with his wife Sue. More information on Tom’s writings can be found at www.tjacksonking.com/.
PRAISE FOR T. JACKSON KING’S BOOKS
EARTH VS. ALIENS
“This story is the best space opera I’ve read in many years. The author knows his Mammalian Behavior. If we’re lucky it’ll become a movie soon. Many of the ideas are BRAND NEW and I loved the adaptability of people in the story line. AWESOME!!”—Phil W. King, Amazon
“It’s good space opera. I liked the story and wanted to know what happened next. The characters are interesting and culturally diverse. The underlying theme is that humans are part of nature and nature is red of tooth and claw. Therefore, humans are naturally violent, which fortunately makes them a match for the predators from space.”—Frank C. Hemingway, Amazon
STAR VIGILANTE
“For a fast-paced adventure with cool tech, choose Star Vigilante. This is the story of three outsiders. Can three outsiders bond together to save Eliana’s planet from eco-destruction at the hands of a ruthless mining enterprise?” –Bonnie Gordon, Los Alamos Daily Post
STELLAR ASSASSIN
“T. Jackson King’s Stellar Assassin is an ambitious science fiction epic that sings! Filled with totally alien lifeforms, one lonely human, an archaeologist named Al Lancaster must find his way through trade guilds, political maneuvering and indentured servitude, while trying to reconc
ile his new career as an assassin with his deeply-held belief in the teachings of Buddha. . . This is a huge, colorful, complicated world with complex characters, outstanding dialogue, believable motivations, wonderful high-tech battle sequences and, on occasion, a real heart-stringer . . . This is an almost perfectly edited novel as well, which is a bonus. This is a wonderful novel, written by a wonderful author . . .Bravo! Five Stars!” –Linell Jeppsen, Amazon
LITTLE BROTHER’S WORLD
“If you’re sensing a whiff of Andre Norton or Robert A. Heinlein, you’re not mistaken . . . The influence is certainly there, but Little Brother’s World is no mere imitation of Star Man’s Son or Citizen of the Galaxy. Rather, it takes the sensibility of those sorts of books and makes of it something fresh and new. T. Jackson King is doing his part to further the great conversation of science fiction; it’ll be interesting to see where he goes next.”–Don Sakers, Analog
“When I’m turning a friend on to a good writer I’ve just discovered, I’ll often say something like, “Give him ten pages and you’ll never be able to put him down.” Once in a long while, I’ll say, “Give him five pages.” It took T. Jackson King exactly one sentence to set his hook so deep in me that I finished LITTLE BROTHER’S WORLD in a single sitting, and I’ll be thinking about that vivid world for a long time to come. The last writer I can recall with the courage to make a protagonist out of someone as profoundly Different as Little Brother was James Tiptree Jr., with her remarkable debut novel UP THE WALLS OF THE WORLD. I think Mr. King has met that challenge even more successfully. His own writing DNA borrows genes from writers as diverse as Tiptree, Heinlein, Norton, Zelazny, Sturgeon, Pohl, and Doctorow, and splices them together very effectively.” –Spider Robinson, Hugo, Nebula and Campbell Award winner
Retread Shop 1: First Contact Page 39