by E. M. Foner
Inside the command vessel, Paul was leading his squadron to their seventh straight victory, this time over a combined fleet of Frunge and Horten privateers. Some of the players in the Frunge fleet were operating out of another barn on the station, but the Horten gamers were an elite group of wealthy young men who were actually maneuvering their vessels and firing their weapons in a designated game zone in Horten space. The actions of the different forces were all virtualized and communicated through the ship controllers in real-time over the Stryxnet, which employed some eerie quantum-coupling technology that only the Stryx had mastered.
Dring stood behind Paul and his co-pilot, who was a gangly young man who worked for the Fight On guild and answered to the name “Patches,” though nobody could remember why. Paul handled both the piloting and the coordination of squadron maneuvers, while Patches was responsible for fire control and active countermeasures. The two young men were clearly running on adrenaline, with Paul exerting every ounce of concentration he had acquired on the path to becoming Nova grandmaster.
“Alpha-Beta-Gamma,” Paul announced the end of the action to his squadron over the encrypted comm channel. There were some groans of protest in return, but signing onto a squadron for a share of the glory also meant accepting the authority of the squadron leader. The two fleets separated in virtual space, and the Frunge backed off rapidly in acceptance of the disengagement. Isolated Horten vessels continued making feints and launching their remaining ordnance, as if returning to their barn with a torpedo unfired could open them up to an accusation of stinginess.
“You run a well-disciplined group,” Dring complimented the young commander. “I didn’t give you much of a chance against the superior forces you faced, but your opponent’s actions were poorly coordinated. I’m not an expert on military maneuvers, but it appeared to me that many of their pilots were pursuing individual glory at the expense of their comrades.”
“Yeah, they suck,” Patches summed up the action succinctly. “Some of the Frunges aren’t bad, but those Hortens are a bunch of rich kids who pilot real hot ships and buy all of their gameverse enhancements with Trader gold purchased on the exchange. It’s the training time we put in without ever leaving the barn that counts. The Horten concept of training is flying around an asteroid belt vaporizing rocks with real weapons and sending a live video feed to their girlfriends.”
“It’s their lack of clock management that really hurts them,” Paul added, to soften his co-pilot’s assessment of their adversaries. “It’s not like we’re out in space fighting to the last man, nobody has unlimited time to spend playing. They challenged us to a thousand-tick round, a little under six hours in our time, and it’s up in another ten minutes. The encapsulation strategy they were employing might have beaten us in the end if we were out here for three days, but you have to play to the circumstances. They just don’t get that we’re fighting for points, and there’s not a lot you can do when time starts running down.”
Dring stroked his chin and thought for a moment. “I’m still a little unclear as to the purpose that fighting serves in the greater game. If I understand you correctly, a raid on a colony or commercial shipping allows you to take the spoils of war, but what do you achieve by meeting other ships in space for large-scale conflicts that would only seem to drain your respective resources?”
Patches blinked at Dring in surprise, as if the victory spoke for itself, but Paul supplied the technical answer. “The game requires an hour of combat for every ten hours in the gameverse to maintain your player profile, whether you want to fight or not. Raids made for spoils don’t count. It has to be combat against a numerically competitive foe, no more than a fifty-percent difference in the number of ships or a twenty-percent difference in the average enhancement level of the equipment.”
Dring slapped his tail on the deck with glee and favored Paul with a wide, toothy, smile. “This game becomes a better example of a complex system with every new rule I learn. Is there a compelling reason for you to fight in fleets rather than going off on your own?”
“At first a lot of players preferred to seek out one-on-one duels. But it became apparent pretty quickly that the rich kids who were buying all the in-game enhancements would usually win the single combats, simply because they always had twenty percent more firepower. And if you lose a single combat and get vaporized, you have to start building your gameverse ship over again from scratch. But when you participate in a fleet action with a time limit, the right strategy and execution can even the odds against a superior force. And your buddies can usually shield you from being completely destroyed, so you only lose what you’re spending on energy.”
“Time,” Patches announced, and unlocked the hatch of the ship. All around them hatches were popping open on shells and mock-ups, and excited young men were descending ramps or ladders. The contrast between the virtual battlefield and the catered picnic was jarring, but the victorious players had worked up a serious appetite. They quickly mobbed the cook line Laurel had set up between the Raider/Trader barn and the folding tables.
Mixed in with the boisterous crowd of young males was a solo female crew, consisting of Chastity and Tinka. They had been mutually impressed with each other’s character in the aftermath of what the Drazen community referred to as “The Dorothy Incident.” When Chastity learned that Tinka was also a Raider/Trader player, she had easily talked her into joining Paul’s squadron for their first fleet battle. Tinka had tried to join a barn in the Drazen section, but the males, who were subject to rule by the traditional matriarchy at home, were having no part of it.
“Laurel’s a great cook, but this is just quick stuff to feed a bunch of young guys who don’t even know what they’re eating,” Chastity told her new friend. “I assume you like human food because we used to see Drazen couples eating out in the Little Apple all the time. But we never figured out why they didn’t buy any flowers from us.”
“Drazens are very sensitive to odors, especially dating couples,” Tinka explained. “Your ripe flowers—no, that’s not the word—your flowers that are in bloom are quite overpowering. They would mask the subtle scents that tell us about compatibility. If you wanted a product to sell dating Drazens, a decongestant would do much better.”
“So have you eaten human grill meat before?” Chastity asked, then she put her hand over her mouth when she realized what Tinka’s translation implant was likely to make of the question. “Oh, you know what I meant, right?”
“I’ve had your chicken, or at least the friend who took me to the restaurant told me it tasted like chicken. It reminded me of Drazen snake, to tell you the truth.”
“Well, in addition to chicken they’re grilling hamburgers and hotdogs. It’s pretty much the traditional picnic, along with potato salad, macaroni salad, and green salad. Plus mounds and mounds of french fries,” Chastity added, running her tongue around her lips in anticipation.
“Please tell me that ‘hot dogs’ is another case of botched translation,” Tinka replied with a wary look. It turned out that Drazens, like practically all humanoid cultures, had been accompanied by dogs since their early development. That and the fact that dogs across the galaxy were capable of interbreeding had led scientists to propose two hypotheses. Either dogs were part of a spacefaring race that had regressed after colonizing compatible worlds, or canines had been seeded as part of some grand plan to which humanoids weren’t privy.
“Yeah, hotdogs are really just over-processed mystery meat. There are human cultures that traditionally eat dog, but the Stryx have banned it on their stations, since they consider most dogs to be sentient and it’s not practical to test them all.”
“All the same, I think I’ll stick with the snake,” Tinka declared a little louder than she intended. A number of the boys around them shifted to a different line, so they arrived at the grill a little quicker than they might have otherwise.
“Everything go well?” Laurel asked happily. Although she was often uncomfortable with crowds in
other social situations, as long as she was cooking she was in her element.
“It was a lot of fun,” Chastity told her. “We basically stayed near Paul’s raider and did whatever he said, just like in practice. I could live without the fighting altogether, but I need to make hours to keep my Trader profile active. This is Tinka, by the way.”
“THE Tinka?” Laurel asked in a sotto voice.
“Hey, I was just protecting my charge,” the Drazen girl replied unapologetically. Her attempt to claim asylum for the EarthCent ambassador’s daughter had brought her a degree of instant fame among those with connections to the diplomatic community.
InstaSitter was receiving so many requests for Tinka’s services that Blythe had created a new supervisory slot for the girl. The job was basically public relations, showing up at the homes of new clients with the actual babysitter for the night, to “supervise” the meeting with the parents. This allowed InstaSitter to spread Tinka’s time as thinly as possible, and the girl had proven a natural at easing the fears of new customers, especially since the Drazens were a known quantity to the older species.
Laurel turned a pair of chicken breasts with her tongs and brushed on a little more barbeque sauce. “These will be done in just a minute. I usually don’t fall behind, but a lot of these guys really load up their plates rather than getting back in line for seconds. So what was it like, being the only girls playing with all these boys around?”
“We were in our mock-up the whole time,” Chastity explained. “We got here early this morning for some extra coaching from Paul, so this is really the first time we’re seeing any of them in the flesh. Most of them are Paul’s age or older.”
“And they smell funny,” the Drazen girl added, causing the young men in line behind them to surreptitiously sniff at their clothing or exhale into a cupped hand and bring it rapidly to their noses.
“They do,” fifteen-year old Chastity confirmed, and the girls crinkled their noses at each other and laughed.
“Just wait a few years and you’ll get used to it,” Laurel said, placing a chicken breast on a plate for each of them. “Make sure you try my three-bean salad, it’s on the table between the corn and the potato salad. And I see Paul waiting by the beer keg with Dring, the cute crocodile guy who’s living on the other side of the scrap pile. You should go sit with them.”
Chastity led Tinka around the back of the serving line to attack the salad table from the opposite side, but also to get away from the crush of young men who towered over the petite girl by more than a head, such that she couldn’t see much other than backs and chests. From there they continued through the staff area until they reached the beer line, where Joe was pumping out his latest homebrew for hordes of willing guinea pigs.
“Hey, Uncle Joe,” Chastity addressed the burgeoning brewmaster. “Paul say anything bad about us?”
“I can’t imagine what he would have to complain about,” Joe replied, pulling a pint of homebrew. The overflow dripped into a pan on the floor, which Beowulf licked clean as soon as there was enough to make the effort worthwhile. Joe handed the plastic cup to the next young man in line, did a quick check to make sure Kelly wasn’t watching, and then pulled a short pint for each of the girls. As the cups filled, he introduced them to Dring, who was apparently enjoying his first human picnic, though like Chastity, he couldn’t see over the men due to his diminutive stature.
“Ah, the younger sister of Paul’s mate,” Dring remarked. His fluency in English was impressive but his grasp of social mores still suffered gaps. “A very interesting girl, your sister. I was impressed with her business acumen and her instinctive grasp of complex systems. So are the two of you here to select mates of your own?”
Chastity, who was never flustered, simply ignored the question, but the Drazen girl turned a pale shade of green and mumbled something about interspecies relations that didn’t translate coherently. Paul came to the rescue by herding the group off towards a table with enough open spots for them all to sit together.
Everybody they moved past congratulated Paul and slapped his back. One group of players, who had strategically chosen an early trip through the beer line over food and had already been back for refills, broke into a playful rendition of “For he’s a jolly good fellow.”
“The six hours you logged today will keep your Trader profiles active for a month, unless you’ve started living in a mock-up,” Paul addressed both girls. “Are you going to start flying regular missions with us, or just come in as replacements when you’re running short?”
“We haven’t really talked about it yet,” Chastity answered. “It was fun, but if it’s six hours every week, that’s probably more than either of us can afford. I’d end up spending all of my game time fighting and not get any trading done!”
Tinka, who in addition to working for InstaSitter was attending the Drazen equivalent of finishing school, nodded her agreement.
“Around a quarter of these guys are in the same boat,” Paul told them. “That’s why we use the replacements system, so we can accommodate the players who can only go on missions once in a while. It will be even more flexible when we integrate the squadron with the new Earth fleet.”
“A larger system?” Dring looked up from his careful dissection of the three-bean salad, which along with some raw carrot and celery sticks, was all that he had found of interest in the food line. “Is there a purpose to joining a larger body, or are you just imitating the natural evolution of militarized cultures?”
“It’s just sort of happening,” Paul admitted. “If you had asked six months ago, the squadron flying out of this barn today might have been the biggest Raider fleet in the galaxy. But the game keeps expanding, and as it does, the squadrons end up joining fleets and armadas. I imagine by the end of the year we’ll be fighting fleet actions in the gameverse that are bigger than anything that’s ever happened in the real universe. That is, if the Stryxnet can keep up with the data traffic.”
“I wouldn’t worry about the Stryx end of things,” Dring replied with a dismissive snort. Either that or he was having trouble swallowing the celery stick that he had barely chewed. “It’s more likely your individual ship controllers will go into saturation. What kind of numbers are we talking about?”
“Millions,” Paul said with a bit of awe in his tone. “Maybe tens of millions. It seems like every gamer in the galaxy is playing this game, so even if only a few percent of them have the time and the upgrades to join a squadron, the fleets will still be enormous.”
“Extraordinary,” Dring said thoughtfully. “I really must stay around and see how this system evolves. I’m sure there must be something more to it than simple entertainment.”
“Blythe says it’s modeling,” Chastity mentioned in an off-hand manner. “She said if we were still in the flower business and we wanted to expand it beyond the station, Raider/Trader would have been an excellent planning tool. It doesn’t apply to InstaSitter, though. Babysitting is strictly local.”
“Our guys all say that it’s almost as good as the war gaming in the Drazen fleet academy.” Tinka looked like she was about to say something more, but she took another sip of Mac’s Bones Ale instead. “This really tastes pretty good and I like the fizz. I don’t think my dad would go for it, though. Not toxic enough.”
Eight
The biggest draw at the Earth Exposition was the EarthCent booth. Kelly was wearing out her hand signing repurposed vaccination certificates that authorized the alien bearer to engage in commercial transactions on Earth. The certificates served no legal purpose since EarthCent didn’t restrict aliens from engaging in Earth commerce to start with, but none of the local species were willing to make the long trip without a bureaucratic ace in the pocket. It seemed that the older the species, the more careful they were about preparing paperwork when visiting backwards planets.
“I should have made you a rubber stamp,” Donna told Kelly sympathetically, as she broke open another sheaf of certificates. “All t
he same, did you ever think we would have too many species knocking on our door?”
Kelly groaned and arched her back, trying to loosen up her overused shoulder muscles. It was amazing how just signing your name over and over again could put such a strain on the upper body. She had started shifting back and forth between left-handed and right-handed after the first hour, though not even her mother could have recognized the scrawl that resulted when she used her off hand. Thankfully, Donna was there to take notes about the diplomats who were ready to upgrade their relations with Earth, and Libby was recording the whole event for EarthCent as well.
The evening started well for Kelly, with a long streak of positive identifications of species, thanks to her two weeks of cramming with holo slides. But then a wave of unknowns had hit, some of them wearing elaborate protective suits, because the air was just too different from their native environment to breathe or gill with simple filters. The last half an hour had mainly consisted of ambulatory nightmares that Kelly had never dreamed could exist, and there seemed to be an endless supply. She comforted herself with the thought that none of the extreme examples showed an interest in inviting her to dinner.
Despite her twenty years of service as an EarthCent diplomat, it was the first time she had really experienced the centrality of the Stryx stations to galactic diplomacy. It simply didn’t make sense for any of the species to try to maintain a diplomatic presence on every populated world, much less those with atmospheres or oceans that were poison for them. But every species that had any interest in trade relations with the bulk of galactic civilizations, somewhere above sixty percent by Gryph’s estimate, maintained an embassy on the major Stryx stations near the hubs of the tunnel network. Diplomats from every social species were never more than a tube lift ride away from face-to-face meetings.