The First One's Free

by TS Hottle

  “House,” said Kai, “end recording. Congratulations, General Laral. You just purchased a mudhole.” He grabbed a piece of meat and chewed off an end. “Subject to Confab, of course.”

  Episode 3: The Caliphate

  9

  Best spent the last half of the trip throwing up into his flight bag. Traveling to and from the hypergates did not bother him. Most of the time, he had no clue the spacecraft was even moving. That brief interval when the ship would enter a wormhole, however…

  The human mind was not designed to deal with more than four directions. In fact, time was, for all the physicists’ talk of it being intertwined with three-dimensional space, simply why everything didn’t happen at once. Inside wormholes, however, a ship moved in directions the human brain lacked the wiring to perceive. For a small number of people, this meant sudden, often violent nausea. If a world’s hypergates were not calibrated properly, the number of affected people grew.

  Jefivah’s hypergates dated back two centuries. Often times, the planet had to wait months to find a contractor to recalibrate their network, the knowledge required for technology that old becoming rarer and rarer.

  “Are you all right?” asked the Dimaj when Best’s vomiting had turned to dry heaves.

  Best looked up at the Dimaj and nodded, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Now that the ship was in transit to The Caliphate, his nausea was starting to subside. “Glad we didn’t take a projection drive ship,” he said, referring to the class of vessels that could create their own wormholes. He had taken half a dozen of those ships in his lifetime. After his first trip on one, he made it a point to be sedated the entire flight.

  “Are you sure it’s safe for you to be in your… priestly garb here?” he asked.

  The Dimaj sat impassively in his seat, his eyes fixed on the human flight attendant, a Nordic female who looked very much like his goddess. “We will stay in the Secular Quarter of Rashidun. I may not be one of the People of the Book, but in that part of the city, it doesn’t matter.”

  Best leaned back in his seat to wait for the ill effects of the wormhole transit to subside. “That’s good. Last thing I need is to get thrown in jail for ordering a ham sandwich.”

  “Almost all ham is vat grown these days,” said the Dimaj. “Therefore, Jews and Muslims can eat it.”

  Best sat up and looked over at his benefactor. “It was a joke.”

  “I never joke about faith. Or even someone’s lack of it.”

  Everyone jokes about yours, thought Best. Before he could say anything else, the captain came over the ship’s speakers and announced that reentry would begin in five minutes.

  *****

  “Governor,” said a voice over the speakers, “we are about to make the jump.”

  “Acknowledged,” said Kai. He swallowed a couple of small white pills and turned out the lights in his quarters. He would ride out the jump lying down in the dark.

  A pair of arms slipped around him. “My poor Kai. Still can’t handle interstellar travel.” Tishla blew in his ear.

  “A small price to pay,” said Kai. “We only have to do this one more time.”

  “Two. Don’t forget you have to confirm this deal at Confab.”

  That, Kai mused, was worse than riding a wormhole. “I hope we’re not making a mistake.”

  Tishla nuzzled his neck. “You aren’t. Hanar will make us wealthy. Make you wealthy.”

  “It will be your wealth, too. I’ll see to it.” He lay back and closed his eyes, bracing himself for the projection drive’s inevitable warping of space and time around him. “That’s assuming Laral’s plan for conscripts to take out the Tianese works.”

  “We have the element of surprise, my love. And they are renegades. Unless some big commercial or planetary interest is arming them, they’re probably hiding from their precious Compact.”

  “It’s their precious Compact that worries me. What if they see this as a threat?”

  “Engaging projection drive,” said the voice from the ship’s command center, “in three… two… one…”

  Tishla rolled on top of Kai to face him and covered his mouth with hers. She pulled his tongue into her mouth. Kai forgot about the wormhole. And the Compact.

  *****

  JunoCorp had its headquarters on the 110th floor of the Burj Rashidun, a gaudy, monstrous replica of the Burj Khalifa that once towered over Dubai on old Earth. Actually, the building stood roughly five hundred meters taller than the original. Best expected a spectacular view of Rashidun, capital of The Caliphate, and the surrounding plains.

  JunoCorp’s offices were tucked into a corner of the building that allowed an impressive, but not breathtaking, view of the city’s so-called Recycling Quarter and a dull conglomeration of suburbs to the southeast of town. Best could get that standing on a mountainside outside of Tyson on Jefivah.

  He and the Dimaj barely had time to take in the view as they were escorted to the center of the floor. Instead of an executive suite, the concierge drone led them to a large room dominated by a swimming pool. Best wondered how so much water could be contained on the one hundred and tenth floor of a building. Even with smart structures, nano-polymer framing, and wind compensators, a pool would have been something to keep below the fiftieth floor.

  Or were skyscrapers yet another technology where Jefivah was a century or two behind the rest of the Compact?

  “I suppose it seems odd,” said an older gentleman named Pope as he watched his guests survey the room. Unlike the Dimaj and Best, Pope seemed to be perpetually frozen at thirty, the lines in his skin evidence more of repeated rejuvenation than actual age itself. For all Best knew, Pope was in his nineties. If so, it was a good thing Pope took rejuvenation. The man swam the pool completely nude. “An Etruscan company headquartered on The Caliphate.”

  “The thought occurred to us,” said the Dimaj, “but it’s not relevant to our visit.” He sat at the edge of the water with his robe up around his knees, feet kicking idly in the water.

  Pope stopped to tread water and studied his two guests over. “They don’t rejuve on… Gee… Gee… Gee…”

  “Jefivah,” finished Best. “Not often. It’s expensive.”

  “It’s only a week’s pay for the working poor,” said Pope. “And our taxes pay for the destitute to have it done. Cheaper than paying for elder medical care. Besides, who wants to spend the final fifty or sixty years of their life wearing diapers or rolling around on a hover scooter? It’s one of the reasons we domiciled here. The taxes and Medicomp tribute are the lowest in the Compact.”

  “Mr. Pope. Could we please talk about Luxhomme?” asked Best. “I’d like to track him down.”

  Pope lay back and started doing the back stroke, providing a view that was much more than Best wanted to see. “Ah, yes. Luxhomme. Ambitious man, that one. Claims to be Etruscan, but we know better. Uses one of two legal aliases to pass himself off as Etruscan – one Neo-Latin, the other Byzantinian. The fact is, the man’s from Metis. Seems to be ashamed of it.”

  “May I?” asked the Dimaj, eyeing the water now.

  “Please,” said Pope, pushing off the end of the pool and back toward Best.

  The Dimaj stood, threw off his robe, and, to Best’s horror, revealed himself to be completely nude underneath. Best remained where he was, standing back from the water’s edge, arms folded. The Dimaj plunged in and began treading water.

  “Mr. Luxhomme is somewhat responsible for our people getting a new homeland,” said the Dimaj.

  “His people,” said Best. “The rest of us are glad to be rid of them.”

  “Maybe your people can come up with a name for your homeworld that isn’t leftover from an old stellar catalog,” said Pope, now idly floating around the pool on his back, much to Best’s chagrin.

  “It’s worked for us for three centuries,” said Best. “Anyway, you said this Luxhomme is from Metis. Does he live there? Or here on The Caliphate?”

  Pope gave what sounded like a pract
iced chuckle. “Oh, he seldom comes to The Caliphate. Only long enough to meet with management and have his review. Seems a former Vizir’s daughter took a shine to our Mr. Luxhomme and found herself… How shall I put this…?”

  “Luxhomme knocked her up?” said the Dimaj, now also on his back, which made Best squirm even more.

  “So the former Vizir believes. As modern as the culture here is, there are certain things devout Muslims still won’t do.” Pope sank to an upright position and began treading water, much to Best’s relief. “Which makes booze here expensive as hell.”

  “Mister Pope,” said Best. “I am trying to locate seven weapons of mass destruction that Luxhomme arranged to have removed from one of our new colonies.”

  “Is that the one your people named ‘Marilyn’?”

  “The same,” said the Dimaj, his reaction to the mention of the name making Best turn away from the pool.

  “Luxhomme contracted with a company called Dasarius Interstellar to move the weapons,” said Best. “The ship never arrived at any naval facility.”

  “And how do you know that, Mr. Best?” asked Pope.

  Best made a conscious effort to study the patterns in the painted cinder block walls he now faced. “Because the Navy and Compact Security told me.”

  “And how do they know?” said Pope. “Look, we don’t live in the Blue Water Age anymore. All communication is through hypergates. All transportation is via hypergate. When the Secretary General of the Compact was assassinated ten years ago, some worlds didn’t even know about it for six months. How do you know the Dasarius ship didn’t dock at some secluded place that seldom communicates with the rest of the Compact?”

  “Because even Dasarius doesn’t know where their ship is.” Best turned around to face Pope now, tired of the CEO’s nude gymnastics in the pool and desperate for the interview to end. “Look, I am a minister of a full-fledged constituent authority within the Compact. I and my bizarre little friend here…”

  “Well,” said the Dimaj, still on his back and kicking his way across the pool, “not ‘little.’”

  “…need to find Luxhomme, or the Navy will shut down the colony on Marilyn, and his people will have to come back to Jefivah where they’ll face the same cultural isolation they’ve experienced since the founding of their religion.”

  “And this is my concern because…?”

  “Marilyn has a series of moisture farms,” said Best, “built by the Jefivan government to water desert farms there, farms currently growing several varieties of potatoes supplied by JunoCorp. Jefivah has also contracted to buy customized grain for Marilyn, Gallifrey, and Barataria from Juno.”

  “I see.” The CEO tread water silently, his focus somewhere other than on Best.

  “And,” the Dimaj added, “may I remind you that Jefivah has the option of contracting with another crop customizer, maybe one based on Earth or Tian that’s signed the GMO Ethics Pact of 2048?”

  “Those contracts are worth trillions,” said Best. “And as agricultural minister, I’ll see to it that those three colonies don’t have to wait six months to be kept in the loop. We’ll borrow the money and resources to upgrade their hypergate networks.”

  Pope began backstroking away from Best. “I suppose you’ll also expect us to answer for Barsoom going silent.”

  “Barsoom?” asked Best.

  “A Martian colony,” said the Dimaj. “Mars invested an enormous amount of resources into terraforming it. It went silent a couple of weeks ago. Did you not hear about this, Douglas?”

  “I was busy,” said Best. “Trying to keep your colony from getting shut down.”

  The Dimaj grunted and went back to splashing away in his corner of the pool.

  “The fact is no one knows why it went silent,” said Pope, treading water once more. “In fact, Compact Security asked us what we knew.”

  “And what do you know?” asked Best.

  “We know that every probe sent to that star system has also gone silent. No hyperdrones, no return flights. Someone clearly does not want us to find out what happened.”

  “Have you asked Luxhomme?”

  “I was hoping the two of you could. He’s been out of contact since leaving for Laputan space.”

  Best shoved his hands in his pocket. “So he’s your problem, too.”

  “Very much so.” He swam up to the edge of the pool and shouted, “Sarai.”

  A modestly dressed woman in traditional Muslim garb emerged from an opening Best had not seen when he entered the pool room. Despite the chador and full body dress that exposed only her face and hands, she seemed oblivious to Pope’s nudity. “Sir?”

  “Please get Mr. Best and his friend everything in Luxhomme’s personnel file.”

  “Thank you,” said Best.

  “And arrange for better lodging in the Secular Quarter. It won’t do for a minister or a religious leader to stay in a roach motel.”

  10

  “They had a hypergate,” said the captain of the vessel, an older woman named Berraa. “But the lead ships destroyed it. We’re working on the orbital station now.”

  Tishla caught Kai’s eye and shook her head. She would not discuss what it was that bothered her in front of Berraa or her crew, but Kai knew it would be bad. “And on the surface?”

  “By taking out the hypergate, we’ve cut off their communication with the other Tianese worlds,” said Berraa. “Once the orbital station is destroyed, the surface will be ours for the taking.”

  Kai watched as the blue-green sphere grew on the wall-sized screen. It looked much like the world where Kai and Tishla had been raised. He turned to her. “How’s it feel knowing you’ll be queen here?”

  “More like princess consort, Sire.”

  The word “Sire” drew dirty looks from various crewmembers. Kai only smiled. Turning back to Berraa, he said, “Have you and your crew staked their claims yet?”

  “We prefer to wait until…” Berraa stopped when the wall screen flared white. On the surface, a tiny sun erupted along the coast of the continent where Marq’s rogue colony lay. “Sire, that’s the main settlement.”

  “Captain,” a crewmember shouted, “laser fusion device has detonated in the colony’s main settlement.”

  “I did not authorize the use of fusion weapons,” said Kai. “I did not know we had any. Captain, contact the lead cruiser. Ask them if General Laral author-“

  “This is General Laral,” said a familiar voice over the command center speakers. “Governor Kai, did you procure a fusion device I did not know about?”

  “I was about to ask you the same thing,” said Kai. “I was prepared to give the order to seize that settlement.”

  Tishla walked over to Kai and whispered, “Ask him about Marq.”

  “General,” said Kai, “did our friend mention anything about fusion weapons? I thought these rogue colonies weren’t supposed to have them.”

  “We had no intelligence to indicate any were here,” said Laral, “but whether by accident or design, this colony’s last defensive capabilities were just vaporized.”

  “Begin the invasion,” said Kai. “Let’s seize the land while the survivors are confused.” He motioned to have the signal cut. To Berraa, he said, “If that’s laser fusion, that means the blast site won’t be hot when the fireball dissipates. As soon as it clears, I want to visit the site.”

  “Sire,” said Berraa, “there will be nothing but death and ruin there.”

  “If the Governor wishes to see death and ruin,” said Tishla, “then take him to see it.”

  Berraa met Kai’s gaze with a look that said, She’s no concubine, is she?

  Kai gave her a look back that brooked no discussion on the matter.

  *****

  “You were absolutely no help back there,” said Best as they rode the elevator to their suite at the Hilton in Rashidun’s Secular Quarter. “You seemed more fascinated by the pool than concerned with finding Luxhomme.”

  The Dimaj wore that
maddening expression of serenity still. “You had things well in hand. You are a minister, after all.”

  “A minister suspended from his post. I could have done just as well coming here by myself and presenting my credentials to the Vizir’s office. I might not have had to take in Walter Pope in all his rejuvenated glory.”

  “Why don’t we have many rejuvenation clinics on Jefivah, Douglas? It seems to me my people would be the first in line.”

  “Your people usually protest anything modern. And yet the woman you worship as a goddess would probably have loved the idea.”

  “We must preserve our faith, Douglas. You’re a proph-”

  The elevator doors parted to reveal a couple waiting with two small children just as Best shouted “I am not a prophet.” He looked out at the family now staring bewildered at him and the strange robed figure next to him. “Sorry. Trying to settle a bet.”

  “I do not gamble,” said the Dimaj.

  “We’ll take the next one,” said the mother. The doors snapped shut.

  As the lift began moving again, the Dimaj said, “Speaking of presenting my credentials, this world’s Grand Normaj lives near here. I must present my own. Care to join me?”

  “You’re kidding,” said Best. “Right?”

  “Hardly. I’m sure she would enjoy welcoming our newest prophet.”

  “I’m not a prophet.”

  “Too bad. You look like you could use some time with a Normaj, even a high-ranking one such as my friend.” A thought seemed to strike the Dimaj. “You don’t prefer men, do you? I mean, you have a wife back on Jefivah.”

  When the doors opened again, Best said, “I’m going to settle into our suite, pour myself a stiff drink, and get some dinner. Alone. You go have fun with your Lord High Whore or whatever she’s called.”