Jim Baen's Universe Volume 1 Number 3 October 2006

by Baen Publishing

  "I bet he has!" Siti said, laughing. "Randy old goat's probably told you more than you want to know!" Siti was a short blonde woman with a cheerful face and skin that had been darkened by the sun.

  "Anoj," Grobney said, "I don't think you've met Dirdja Muharrem? And his lovely wife, Siti."

  "No," Anoj said, bowing. "Please to meet you."

  Dirdja was as tall as his wife was short, dark complected with black hair going gray. He bowed to Anoj and then took the drink that Jala handed him.

  "A fine company of rascals," Grobney said, raising his drink. "And rascalettes, I'm sure."

  "Dinner should be ready shortly," Jala said, sitting down. "A roast. It said it was beef, but in Nari . . ."

  "Shit," Siti snapped, pronouncing it "sheeee-it." "Probably dhan. If it is, we'll be chewing the rest of the night. No offense, Jala, I know you're new here. They passed off dhan to me as a 'beef roast' right after I got here. Beef my ass, you couldn't cut it with a laser torch."

  "There's a thing you can do with dhan," Grobney said, taking a sip of his drink. "You slice it really thin, then you get a dozer bot to run over it several times. Then you burn it. Then you find something edible." He whistled through his spicules as the group chuckled.

  "I have to admit I don't even know what dhan is," Jala said unhappily.

  "Those flying beasts you see towing aircars around," Dirdja said, nodding. "The Nari used them for transport before the Tooleck started bringing in advanced technology."

  "Been outrun by that Ortulians there, old chap." Grobney sighed. "And the Haron. Both of them are shipping more aircars and trucks here than Tooleck ever has. Cheap things, don't run very long, but they sell them and that's the point."

  "It's not the only thing they sell," Dirdja said darkly. "They're selling hyper technology as well."

  "Well, yes," Jala said, frowning. "I mean, the plant that Steve is working on is to build hyper engines."

  "Wouldn't care to ride on top of one myself," Grobney said, rolling his eyes. "Most of the Nari can't find their tails with both hands."

  "I heard a rumor that they were selling more than engine tech," Dirdja said, frowning. "Hypermissiles," he whispered.

  "Dirdj, old boy," Grobney replied, waving a hand, "the Ortulians don't have hypermissiles. After the pasting they got from you chaps at the end of the war, they renounced them, didn't they?"

  "The Haron have them, though," Dirdja insisted. "And who's doing most of the hyper work on that plant? Haron."

  "Dirdj, my friend." Grobney sighed. "You're seeing ghosts. It's a common problem of the Terrans. No, don't stop me," he said, holding up a hand to forestall the response. "Terrans have only been out on the starlanes for a couple of hundred years. We Tooleck were banging around the galaxy when you were still putting that gasoline stuff in your cars and driving them on the ground. Seen it, been there. Owned most of it once upon a time and not that long ago. We've had generations living among these people and we know them in a way you Terrans simply don't. The Haron are a very insular species and they don't just pass around goodies like they're at a noraz party. Certainly not a secret like hypermissiles. Put it out of your mind."

  "And on that note," Jala said. "Let's see if the roast is edible."

  It was dhan.

  ****

  Josh lay awake after the guests had gone, looking at the ceiling and wondering about what had been said at the party.

  Hypermissiles were an important secret that very few species had managed to pierce. Towards the end of the Orion War, the Terrans and Tooleck had faced a very unpalatable choice. The Jootan had surrendered but the Ortulians, who were fanatically determined to die to the last squid, still held out. The planet had been cut off and heavily bombed, but penetrating the system defenses would have been immensely costly. So the Terrans brought out a secret weapon they had been working on for most of the war: the hypermissile.

  Unlike most hyperdrives, the hypermissile could penetrate right into the depths of a planet's gravity well. And since it was in hyper, it couldn't be intercepted. Furthermore, it retained relativistic speed right down to impact. The Terrans had only had to fire a half a dozen, gutting a half a dozen Ortulian megalopoli, before the Ortulian emperor forced his military advisors to sign a peace treaty.

  Since then a few other species had managed to figure out how they worked or had stolen the information from the Terrans. The Naro, the Haron, the Vesiot and the Tooleck all had them. There were rumors that the Adoo had them, as well. But that was it. The club was closed. Anyone with hypermissiles had the capability to wipe out an enemy's planet. By the same token, their enemy could wipe them out in return. So . . . nobody used them.

  But if the club was opened up, if everyone started having hypermissiles, especially species that . . . weren't all that . . . controlled . . .

  The galaxy could dissolve in war.

  That was a big thought for a little kid, but he kept going.

  If the Nari got hypermissiles, they'd probably give them to the Alyt who would use them on the Adoo. The Adoo would either respond with their own, if they survived the first attack, or the Terrans would, since the Adoo were their allies. That might bring the Vesiot empire into the war, since they supported the Alyt, and the Vesiot had a big fleet that could wipe Terra clean. Of course, the Terrans would wipe the floor with the Vesiot, too, but the damage would be done.

  But it got worse. The Alyt had lots of terror groups. They could use them as terrorist weapons. Nobody knew where a hypermissile came from. They could drop them from outside a system and then disappear without a trace. One hypermissile could take out most of Bowan and really make it hard for the weather computers to keep up.

  Everything from large-scale terrorism to planets wiped clean of life was possible if the Nari had hypermissiles.

  And Mr. Muharrem thought that his dad was working on a hypermissile plant.

  Josh couldn't figure out what to do about that by the time he drifted off to sleep, but the last vision he had was of Charli being . . . really happy that he'd saved the galaxy by stopping the Nari hypermissile project. Really happy. And her hands were warm . . .

  10: Never Wrestle A Trekkie

  Josh was sitting with Charli on a relatively warm sunny day. He'd figured out how to eat with his left hand so that he could keep his right free to make sure hers didn't get cold.

  He'd also discovered how fun it was to feed a girlfriend, but they had to try to keep out of sight because kids could be unmerciful.

  So they were sitting on the lip of one the mounds, facing the force-screen with most of the young beings scattered around behind them, when Doosam rolled around the edge of the mound.

  "This is where you've been hiding," the Tr'k'k'ikil said. "You never sit with me anymore!"

  "I'm sorry, Doos," Josh said, letting go of Charli's hand quickly.

  "Josh has got a girlfriend!" Doosam caroled loudly. "Josh has got a girlfriend!"

  "Doos!" Josh said fiercely. "Cut it out!"

  "Josh and Charli sitting in a nem," Doosam sang. "B-R-E-L-K-G-N . . ."

  "Cut it out Doos!" Josh shouted, standing up.

  "What? You don't want the whole world to know?" Doos said, rolling closer. "Are you breeding yet? I hear Terrys can start breeding early—"

  Josh let out a roar and leapt on the rock.

  That was when he learned an important fact: you just don't try to wrestle a Trekkie.

  Doosam was not a rock; he was a complex structure involving silicon and carbon-nanotube modules in a flexible matrix. He could change shape to anything from a plant to a table and even make a fairly good impression of a human. A small one. But gray.

  When Josh landed on him the surface flexed and Doosam let out a howl that sounded like pain. But Josh's right arm disappeared into the matrix almost immediately and he could feel something grinding on it.

  He kept pounding on Doosam with his left fist, getting nothing more than bruises, then pulled back to knee the rock as hard as he could. He got more
bruises but Doosam let out a grunt so he did it again. The whole time his right arm felt as if it was being chewed.

  Doosam suddenly rolled over, trapping Josh's legs and starting to chew on his left thigh. Josh let out a yell and, with strength he didn't know he had, pushed the rock off his legs and ripped his arm free. Then he jumped in the air and landed on Doosam with both feet.

  This produced another grunt from the rock but Doosam quickly rolled out from under him, dumping Josh on the ground. Then he just as quickly rolled onto the Terran's face.

  Josh couldn't see or hear anything and he couldn't get enough purchase to roll the rock off. His nose was squashed flat and he couldn't breath.

  "Say icky-icky-wop-ping-too-don-allll," Doosam growled. "Come on, say it . . ."

  "Ugga-ugga . . ." Josh grunted. "Ugga . . . mugafugmug!"

  "What?" Doos said, rolling aside.

  "I said," Josh replied, "I can't remember what you wanted me to say and I can't say it with rock in my mouth. But 'uncle,' okay?" Josh stood up and brushed the dirt off his clothes as well as he could. Charli had disappeared. With her lunch. His was covered in dirt from the scuffle.

  "If you made me lose my girlfriend I am going to figure out a way to turn you into pebbles," Josh growled, dusting some of the dirt off his chelo and biting it. The grit ground in his teeth.

  "Sorry, Josh," Doosam said, sounding honestly contrite. "I just . . . I don't have a lot of kids to hang out with, you know?"

  "Yeah," Josh admitted. "But all you had to do was say so! Charli wouldn't mind. As long as you didn't, you know, make fun of us."

  "But you're so funny!" Doosam said. "Going around with a long face, looking for Charli all the time . . ."

  "I guess you . . . guys don't have that sort of thing?" Josh asked.

  "Oh, well, we do," Doosam admitted. "But . . . it's different. You see, someday, I mean in a long time, I'll probably have to find a mate. I don't know what happens that way, exactly. But if I'm right about the hints I sort of . . . absorb him and then I make a bunch of copies that are part him and part me . . ."

  "Wait," Josh said, carefully. "You said . . . him."

  "Well . . . yeah," Doosam said.

  "Does that mean . . ." Josh said, gulping, "you're a her?"

  "Uh, yes," Doosam replied. "Is that a problem?"

  Josh looked at the gray lump for a moment and then shrugged.

  "No," he admitted, "I guess not. But . . . do most people know that?"

  "No," Doosam admitted. "We don't . . . we look pretty much the same."

  "Good." Josh sighed. "Don't let on. Getting my butt kicked by a rock is bad enough. Worse, much worse, if everybody knew it was girl . . ."

  11: Of Thoramite and Cruisers

  Teams at dyup slowly shook down and Josh started getting picked earlier and earlier, especially if he could be on the same team as Doosam. Their "flying Terry" combination was hard to beat. He didn't always get the ball, but he got it often enough. Of course, quite often it shifted in midair and he found himself accelerated to the ground rather than lifted, but no bones broken. So far.

  Occasionally, still, he walked Charli home. It was six and a half blocks from Charli's house to his and those were some cold blocks to walk. But he always started out . . . warm and there were shops along the main boulevard that he could stop in. One was a general grocery selling Tooleck and Naro foods. He read a couple of the Galacta labels on Naro foods and decided that his dad was right; he really hadn't wanted to know. But sometimes, rarely, there was Terran food as well. Always massively overpriced but if a kid had to pay a couple of credits worth or rayel for a candy bar that wasn't made from worms, it was worth it.

  There were other shops. A butcher, all the meat carefully unlabeled and most of it probably dhan, a baker where for a couple of rayel he could buy a loaf of flat Nari bread, hot from the oven. There were three types: nadorg, which was thin as a few sheets of plascrip stacked on top of each other; jumash, which was slightly thicker with small air-pockets inside; and tanari, which was still flat but leavened and was something like a pita. Of them all he prefered the tanari. He often arrived home munching on a flat loaf and, as his mother put it, ruining his supper.

  There was even a store that had new, at least new to him, Galacta books for download. He had to be careful there, he could easily spend all his allowance and more on books. He discovered a wonderful comic adventure series about an ancient Nalo warrior that held out against the Yemnor for many years through the use of a magic potion. It was hilariously funny, especially as his history teacher drummed in some of the details of the rise of the Yemnor empire and he started to get more and more of the jokes.

  There was a jewelry store as well, that sold implant jewelry for the Nari. But it also had other pieces for Terrans and Nalo and Sjoglun. Most of it cost far too much for Josh to afford but one time he picked up a thin silver chain with the birdlike beast of the Nari king carved on a small amulet.

  The day agreed upon by Tooleck, Terrans and Nalo as "Year End" for Nari was approaching with all the celebrations that would be anticipated. There would be more dinner parties and gifts exchanged on Year End day. The necklace was for Charli and he hoped she'd like it.

  There was going to be a party at school as well, a dinner, concert and dance for the children that parents permitted to attend. A "formal" they called it. Some of the kids from his class would be going and he sweated wondering if he dared invite Charli. It wasn't just a question of whether she would say yes but whether their combined parents would let them. Ten and eleven were young for what was, essentially, a date.

  He arrived home to find, unsurprisingly, that "Uncle" Grobney and "Aunt" Anoj were visiting. They hadn't moved in by any stretch of the imagination but they seemed to spend as many evenings at the Parker residence as at their own.

  He took off his coat and hung it up and then wandered in the sitting room where Uncle Grobney was poring over data on a pad with the tridee playing in the background. The show that was on was one of the few that Josh liked, a historical adventure about an ancient Tooleck king. The character was half legendary but the show, unlike most, placed him in the time period from which the legend probably arose. Josh had several books about him and he knew that most of the stories that placed the king in the late medieval period were just . . . wrong. This one was placed in the period shortly after the fall of the Yemnor empire and was as close to "correct" for the period as a show could be. It was called "Torath, King of the Tooleck" and he caught every episode he could. This one, though, was repeat and he more or less ignored it.

  "What are you working on?" Josh asked, looking at the pad upside down. It was scrolling text with some Nari figures shown digging in a video box.

  "Thought there'd be some pockets of thoramite in the delta," Grobney said in a satisfied tone. "Found this one not far from your dad's project.

  "I don't get what's the big deal about thoramite." Josh sighed. "If it wasn't for thoramite, Nari wouldn't have anything to export." And he'd be back on Terra. Of course, he'd probably be back in Miss Smith's primary school with no Charli, but, on the other hand, he wouldn't be taking his life in his hands every day on the bus. "Isn't there anything besides thoramite to use to create hyperdrive?"

  "No, unfortunately," Grobney said, leaning back and focusing all five eyes on him. "Have you studied atomic physics in school yet, Josh?"

  "No," Josh replied. "Why?"

  "Because it's the only way to explain thoramite," Grobney replied, waving his eyestalks in what Josh had learned was something like a smile or a chuckle. "You know that atoms are not whole, yes?"

  "No," Josh said. "They're not?"

  "No. An atom is composed of, at minimum, one electron and one proton," Grobney said, pulling out a sheet of plascrip and a stylus, putting a circle in the middle and surrounding it with another. "There are also neutrons, but I'll skip them for now. When you split an atom, you get nuclear fission." He pronounced it new-clear. "And that releases a good bit of energy. Ol
e E equals MC, ey? Both the Tooleck and the Terrans used that at one time or another in their development. However, it leaves radioactive material behind, and that has its own problems and dangers. If you strip the atom off you have plasma. You've heard of plasma?"

  "Like plasma guns?" Josh asked.

  "There are other uses," Grobney said, whistling a laugh. "But, yes, plasma guns use a substance called deuterium to create a self-sustaining toroid, a circle, that travels out until it strikes a solid substance, such as a Jootan in my personal experience, and detonates. Transfers a good bit of energy to said Jootan, or a door or a wall or one of your mates, and blows just about anything to gratack. But the point is, with plasma, that you have only protons and neutrons, the electron has been stripped off. With me?"

  "Yes," Josh said, partially understanding.

  "In most cases, this doesn't matter. But with thoramite plasma, when there's enough thoramite plasma in a particular area, what is called its 'critical mass,' it degrades, that means breaks down, into a field of zero point particles. But it's those zip particles that cause gravity and inertia and I'm not even going to try to explain them. But with that field, which can be manipulated, you can accelerate much faster than with any other substance in the galaxy. Thoramite is pumped through tubes of a special material that permit the thoramite to react when the tubes get at a precisely aligned distance. This generates the zip field; the zip field is manipulated for acceleration and when the ship reaches the speed of light the zip field opens a stable wormhole to another location. In the process, however, the thoramite is consumed by the reaction. So you have to have thoramite to drive the ships. And that's why thoramite is so important and anyone who has it has an economic edge."

  "When we were flying over we had a problem with the warp core," Josh said. "They pulled it out and I was watching when they took the top off. It glowed blue."

  "That's thoramite," Grobney said, nodding human fashion. "When the degradation occurs it transfers a bit of charge to the thoramite around it and excites the electron shells which then collapse and release that blue glow. Similar effect to, oh, a chemical light or any sort of light source you'd care to name."