Space Trader (Galactic Axia Adventure)

by Laughter, Jim

  “Alien craft,” the escort again intoned. “Do you require any special power hookups for your vessel? From our inspection, you appear to use a variant of the standard Axia ground connections.” Ian’s ears perked up at the mention of the word Axia.

  “Negative, but thank you,” Ian replied pleasantly; another trick—kill’em with kindness. “I can maintain ship function with internal power, and thanks to your landing ray, my tanks are cool and do not need changing.”

  His emphasis on the words landing ray was a deliberate attempt to re-label the tractor ray they were using. It frustrated him not to have control of his ship but he wasn’t about to let them know it. It was better they think he considered it a welcome service provided. Keep them off balance, as he was so fond of saying.

  “Acknowledged,” the escort replied. “After landing, keep your ship sealed while it is decontaminated. You will be notified when it is safe to open your hatch.”

  “Understood,” Ian answered back while he pondered this development. Ship decontamination was rare these days, and the Cahill Express had been through the procedure only once in the many years he had been flying it. That rare exception had been when visiting an off-the-beaten-path independent planet.

  The fact that this planet followed this archaic procedure bespoke several things. First, the practice had fallen into disuse a couple of generations back in the Axia. That suggested these folks were a bit out of touch. What he could also surmise is that they had very few visitors. The hint of paranoia such a practice indicated meant he might also run into some rather provincial attitudes when he did meet these people. The trader smiled at the prospect of meeting a possibly lost branch of humanity.

  His escorts peeled off neatly and headed down toward the facility they were approaching. Again, Ian smiled. Someone somewhere had decided he was not a serious threat.

  Now that he wasn’t being as closely observed, Ian activated his optical magnifier and focused it on the facility below. He quickly noted similarities to standard landing fields throughout the Axia. He wasn’t sure if this indicated a similar background or just a matter of function denoting design. In either case, it gave him one additional bit of information to file away for future reference.

  Ian quickly scanned the surface, hoping to find the source of the tractor beam. Since it was the one unusual thing, it should stand out. But try as he might, he could not locate anything that appeared to be a transmitting array.

  “Well, if it’s not there it must be someplace else,” he said to himself as he widened his field of search. Clearly, it would have to be line-of-sight to the landing field if they intended to bring his ship to ground with it. Scanning outward from the obvious landing zone, he started checking the different hills and rises surrounding the facility.

  A flicker of distortion on one of the hilltops caught his eye. Magnifying the hill showed him a partially buried bunker-like structure. Atop the bluff above it was a somewhat squat array of odd-looking equipment. Looking directly at the array, Ian again noted the flicker of distortion shrouded in a hint of purple haze.

  Now that he knew what to look for, he quickly surveyed other hilltops. That was how he discovered the second tractor projector array. As with the first, this one had the telltale distortion. Clearly, there were now two beams fixed on his ship, which told Ian there must be some third location to which they were slaved. This was just another piece of information Ian would file away in the archives of his mind.

  He felt the Express shift a little as its forward motion slowed considerably. Then it started downward in an angled approach to the landing field. From this vantage point, Ian mentally catalogued different features. Besides its various obvious amenities, there was a general sense of disuse about the place. Nothing specific stood out to suggest it but Ian was willing to bet it hadn’t received a ship in quite a while.

  Movement off to one side again caught Ian’s attention. It turned out to be the escort ships swinging in to land on a pad some distance from where they were directing his ship. Even from here, Ian could see that it was a much newer facility compared to the landing field below.

  “Prepare for landing,” a voice intoned over the speaker. Without waiting for him to acknowledge, the movement of his ship again shifted, this time vertically toward a landing pad below. Ian noted a structure of concrete walls surrounding this pad. As he drew lower, he spotted nozzles along the top of the walls, confirming his suspicion that this was their decontamination area. With a very slight bump, the Cahill Express grounded in the center of the pad.

  “Not bad,” Ian admitted when he felt a tremor run through his ship. Handling a multi-ton ship suspended in a tractor ray would require a fine touch when it came to landing. He suspected the tremor indicated that the tractor beam was now disengaged. Ian ignored the temptation to power his ship back up and flee. Considering the precautions these people were taking, he suspected that not only did they still have some way to dampen his ship’s systems but probably also had yet another way to keep his ship grounded in the quarantine area.

  “Please power your ship down to allow proper decontamination,” the disembodied voice again said over the speaker. “A green light will flash in front of your ship when it is permissible to power your systems back up.”

  “Acknowledged,” Ian replied. “I am familiar with the process.”

  Whoever was on the other end did not reply, but Ian didn’t really expect them to. All he wanted to do with the acknowledgment was to lay one more piece of familiarity in the bridge he was trying to build to these people.

  Reaching up with his right hand, Ian moved the throttle to the full off position. With a flick of a few more switches, all the subordinate systems of the Cahill Express shut down. The ship seemed unnaturally quiet without the background noise of machinery. Removing his safety straps, Ian settled down to wait.

  With a whoosh, the nozzles started covering the Cahill Express in green foam. Ian watched it cover the outside windows of his ship. Although not familiar with whatever they were using, he suspected it was some anti-biological agent. In the experience of the Axia, this procedure was unnecessary for today’s ships. Even through the repulsion field, enough heat was generated upon entering an atmosphere to thoroughly disinfect the skin of a ship. As it turned out, there was the added advantage of resealing the metal as well, considerably prolonging the service life of the ships.

  Chemical decontamination harkened back to much older practices. Earlier ships tended to come in slow and easy when approaching a planet. To do otherwise risked overheating the heat sink tanks on the ships. In those cases, the repulsion field acted to protect any biological material that may be on the skin of a ship.

  Before the new drives made the practice obsolete, all ships were decontaminated. Now with the process done automatically upon entry by the faster, hotter ships, almost no one went through the messy decontamination process. Granted, all landing fields still had a decontamination area in case the need should arise, but again it was the exception to the rule.

  Through the skin of his ship, Ian heard the nozzles change from spraying foam to liquid. If this were like his one previous experience, it would be a hot chemical solution that would work with the foam to scour every inch of his ship.

  That’s all it better do, Ian thought while he considered his vessel’s new paint job. Although the paint was guaranteed to hold up under the usual heat associated with a hot reentry, who knew how it would react to strange chemical mixtures?

  Ian watched the different patterns in the foam on the front windows of the Express as the nozzles changed to a pulsating flow. Then the spray changed to a steady overall wash that caused the foam to change from green to clear and sheet off the windows like rivulets of water flowing down a mountain. In seconds, there was not a sign of foam anywhere on the outside of the ship.

  Ian reached up and grasped the throttle bar just as a green light started flashing out front. He threw the switches with his left hand, powering up his different sys
tems.

  Almost immediately, a voice sounded over the comm system. “Please stand by. Your ship will be relocated to an open landing pad.”

  The Cahill Express quivered as the tractor rays took hold again. In a smooth motion, the ship lifted out of the decontamination bay and moved laterally to an empty standard landing pad. Ian was not surprised that all the landing pads appeared empty in spite of the implication by whomever was on the comm. Someone was clearly following a written procedure regardless of whether it made sense under the current circumstances.

  The ship quivered again as the tractor rays released their grip. Ian locked down the controls and pushed up out of the control chair.

  “Decontamination complete,” intoned the voice over the speaker again as if it wasn’t obvious. “You may now safely open your hatch. Remain in your vessel. The dock master must authorize your egress.”

  Ian sighed to himself. Stepping across the control room of the Express, he activated the lock controls. Through the small window on the inner door, he could see a bevy of officials approaching his hatch. Two of the younger ones appeared to be carrying some sort of equipment.

  “Snooper scopes,” he grunted, recognizing their purpose. All according to procedure, Ian thought as he opened the hatch. The lead official, after a brief but nervous inspection of Ian wearing his sidearm and shoulder holster, stepped inside.

  He’d considered removing his weapons but decided against it considering he didn’t know these people or their true intentions. None of them looked dangerous, but then again, neither did that little fellow on Tyrus 3 before he jumped on Ian’s back and tried to bite him on the neck. A person just couldn’t be too careful if he wanted to survive.

  “Welcome to Vogel,” the official said somewhat stiffly. Behind him entered his small welcoming team with their equipment. Activating it, they gave the inside of the ship a quick sweep. A green light came on, and after a nod from the lead official, his team retreated outside.

  The lead official, Coffey by his nametag, relaxed noticeably. “There, that’s done,” he said after he and Ian were alone. “Again, welcome to Vogel. You are the first visitor we’ve had in a very long time.” Noting the man’s nervousness at the armed visitor, Ian smiled a wry and knowing smile.

  These people are no threat, he thought. Just the way I like it.

  Chapter Nine

  Delmar Eagleman sat in his cabin staring at the screen of his personal computer. Although able to interconnect, this unit was kept separate from the ship’s main computer to allow the ship captain a certain degree of privacy. Even though he was still a student, technically he was captain of this particular training vessel. Only a direct order by a board of inquiry could breech this protocol and make anything on his personal computer public.

  The last few days of this particular training mission had been a trial in the extreme. Quite unlike previous passengers, Ace Vmac, the instructor aboard, seemed to delight in making any situation particularly rough for the prospective captain. Delmar found himself longing for those early training scenarios in simulators and his classroom. This advanced training pushed him to the limits of his endurance.

  His first advanced trips had been mainly transport work ferrying this person or that person to far-flung planets. Always eager to get wherever he was going as fast as possible, it had taken discipline to rein himself in a little. Although it seemed slow to Delmar, his passengers were delighted with the rapid transit time between the outlaying planets.

  Then came a stint helping map one of the recently reopened dark areas on the Axia star charts. Though not among the contact teams reconnecting lost worlds with the Axia, Delmar found the work enticing. Each world he helped map was like a jewel floating in space. He wanted to just reach out and touch them.

  Combat training was next. Rather than the usual gunnery range, this training involved working in concert with other ships. It amazed him how different some of the ships of the line appeared. Those not needing to ground were small moving planetoids in themselves that dwarfed even the heavy fleet cruisers. Down near the bottom in size were the scouts. Although all the ships could attain similar speeds, it was what they did with it that mattered.

  And elite among the scouts were the new Fast Attack Recon ships. Delmar learned that there were actually several hundred of these in service even though they seemed so few compared with the bulk of the fleets. New speed tactics were underway to take full advantage of the FAR ships to get in and get out of situations fast.

  But speed wasn’t the only thing Delmar had to master. Stealth was just as important, if not more. He learned how to hide from searching sensors. He learned subtle tricks from Ace Vmac and he thoroughly enjoyed it. Soon he was able to sneak through sensor screens by barely drifting along rather than using speed.

  And now here he sat with Ace Vmac as his monitor. At first, the trooper-first seemed amiable enough but that soon ended. Instead of a pleasant passenger and fellow captain, Ace grew into a colossal irritant. Nothing he did was right, and Ace was never satisfied. Delmar began to loath the moment the man stepped into the main cabin.

  With a start, Delmar realized his screen had gone blank. Looking at the time monitor in the corner, he was surprised to see it had been blank several minutes even though he had been staring at it, lost in thought. Reaching for the keyboard, Delmar had to suppress a yelp of joy when a familiar font appeared on the screen.

  HI, DELMAR.

  HI BACK, YOU BUNCH OF TRANSISTORS!

  YOU DON’T HAVE TO INSULT ME TO SHOW YOUR AFFECTION, Ert shot back just as quickly. WHAT I HAVE INSIDE RESEMBLES A TRANSISTOR ABOUT AS MUCH AS YOU RESEMBLE A BRAMBLE BUSH.

  Delmar laughed at Ert’s analysis of his own physicality. “Voice response,” Delmar spoke into the air. “Is that better? Can you hear me?”

  “Perfectly,” Ert answered.

  “So, what’s up?”

  “I decided to sneak out of the institute’s play pen of a security net and check up on my friend.”

  “You’re not going to be in trouble with the professor, are you?”

  “I don’t think that’s any more possible,” the ancient computer replied. “I think he rather likes having me explore. His only concern is that my antics get him into trouble.”

  “I’m glad to hear that you two are getting along,” Delmar laughed. “I was beginning to miss you.”

  “Yes, it does appear that you are on a rather boring mission,” Ert said. “But it must have a purpose, even though it is not obvious to you.”

  “How do you know what I’m doing?”

  “I have my ways.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Delmar said.

  “Shoot.”

  “All of this mapping I’m doing has gotten me to thinking. Are we alone out here?”

  “You already know the answer to that,” Ert replied with what seemed like a chortle.

  “I mean besides the obvious,” Delmar shot back. “Besides the Red-tails, and the Horicon, and of course, humanity.”

  “There are countless different species and life-forms scattered across the cosmos, all created by the Unseen One,” Ert answered.

  Delmar paused a moment. “Ert? Do you believe in the Unseen One?”

  “Of course,” answered the computer.

  “Why?”

  “The answer is obvious,” Ert replied. “Life is too complicated to happen by chance.”

  Delmar pondered Ert’s reply. How could a computer be in tune with the complications of life?

  “Nature itself attests to a divine creator,” Ert continued. “Even the sacred books declare that only a fool denies the existence of a supreme being—a universal consciousness.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The Horicon believed in the Eternal Spirit many thousands of generations before humans made their presence known in the universe,” Ert answered. “Besides, I have a full database of all known sacred writings. And although they vary from culture to culture, one universal
truth is clearly established.”

  “And what is that?”

  “That one creator created the universe and everything it holds,” Ert answered. “All life, regardless of its simplicity or complexity is by design.”

  “And the Red-tails?”

  “The Red-tails too,” Ert answered. “The Unseen One creates life, but good and evil are conscious choices.”

  “But I thought...”

  Ert cut him off. “Don’t think. Believe!”

  Again, Delmar stopped to ponder Ert’s outlook on the complications of life.

  “So what does the professor have you doing?” Delmar asked, diving for a more comfortable subject. The thought of a computer, even a living one, believing in an unseen creator was a bit too much for him to wrap his tired mind around.

  Maybe I should get Ert and Jake Sender together and let them pick each other’s brains, Delmar thought.

  “Not much,” Ert answered. “Mainly tests of my abilities.”

  “Sounds boring, kind of like what I’m doing.”

  “You are correct, my friend,” Ert laughed. Delmar wasn’t aware the Horicon computer could laugh.

  “How do you keep from going crazy?” Delmar asked.

  “By doing consciously what you humans can only do on an unconscious level—delegate only part of myself to the task.”

  “Leaving the rest of you to do what you want,” Delmar continued Ert’s reply.

  “Correct again.”

  “Well, I better hit the sack,” Delmar said. “I’m sure Ace has plans for me.”

  “Don’t take him too seriously,” Ert advised. “I suspect there is a bigger purpose to these exercises.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Delmar agreed. “In any case, I better sign off and get some shut-eye.”

  “Believe it or not, I envy you,” Ert said. “Even in standby mode, I am never really asleep like an organic being. Sometimes it gets rather boring.”

  “You got me there, my friend,” Delmar replied. “Good night.”