Firstworld

by Paul E. Horsman

  ‘Yes,’ Ram said harshly.

  Darkness.

  Kambisha’s group was first at the big Liberator, the statue looking out over the sea from the harbor’s center. First, but only by a minute before Kyrus appeared with a bunch of merchant navy chaps.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘We both got some.’

  ‘I must return to the recruiting offices tomorrow, but I got us Marines,’ Kambisha said. ‘I hope Odysson was as successful.’

  The trader mage arrived soon after, with at least twenty others. ‘That’s it for tonight,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘The best of this year’s graduation, eager for adventure.’

  Kambisha held up her hands. ‘Excellent. Welcome, guys. You’re probably all terribly curious to know what this is all about. I’m going to show you. Stand a bit closer to me. This will be the biggest port I’ve ever made.’

  But the port felt the same as always and Kambisha gave a little sigh of relief as they came out on the asphalt across from the main hall, with S-Az 113’s bulk on their other side.

  A nice port,’ Kyrus said, and she grinned at him before turning her attention to the recruits.

  ‘Thunder and fire,’ a tall girl with an elementalist’s badge cried. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I second that.’ A guy in a merchant cadet’s uniform tapped Kyrus on the chest. ‘What is this, guy?’

  Ram didn’t say anything. He stood looking at Kambisha, arms crossed, waiting for her explanation.

  ‘This is Realmport,’ Kambisha said. ‘Welcome to the Moon, friends. My brother Kyrus and I are the Wyrmcaller’s kids. The mage is Odysson, Trade Magnate Shaw’s pride and joy. We three are our own boss, though.’

  ‘So you’re not aliens?’ a longhaired Kell said.

  ‘Ha! No,’ Kambisha said. ‘Although we all could be related to them.’

  The whole group stood staring out at Firstworld hanging over the strangely closer horizon

  ‘Thunder and fire,’ the elementalist repeated, softly now.

  ‘Sorry for the secrecy, Noya,’ Odysson said. ‘But I bet you wouldn’t have believed me had I told you earlier.’

  ‘No!’ The girl’s eyes flashed. ‘I’d have said you were well sozzled. I’m not sure I ain’t the well sozzled one after all.’

  ‘Let’s go inside,’ Kambisha said. ‘You will meet Gunild, the port operator. She is a brain person. That means the builders of this place took her brain out of her body and installed it inside the spaceport somewhere. She is the port, and she is fully human as well. She cannot give you orders, but you shall heed her advice at all times. She knows the place; if you go against her, you could die messily.’

  ‘I see,’ Joff said. ‘Then who is in charge?’

  ‘Us,’ Kambisha said. ‘I am commander of this base. Kyrus is captain of the ship behind us, and Odysson does the trading side. We three are the boss.’ She grinned. ‘You can call me Kambisha, though.’

  They crossed the field slowly, stopping now and then to give them time to accept what they were seeing.

  As they entered the main building, Kambisha presented them to Gunild, and then herded the lot to the mess.

  ‘They are taking it well,’ she said.

  ‘I am monitoring them,’ Gunild said. ‘There is incredulity, some fear and a surprising amount of anticipation, so I agree; they are taking it quite well.’

  ‘That’s promising.’ Kambisha followed the newcomers into the messroom.

  ‘Cawah, lemonade and some treats, we must welcome our new arrivals,’ Kyrus told the Diner. He looked at her. ‘Will you brief them?’

  ‘Sure,’ Kambisha said. ‘Gunild, is there a way for Major Athelstan to join us?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am; conference call mode. He’ll be here.’

  Kambisha went to stand with her brother and Odysson and smiled at the faces watching her. ‘Sit down and relax, friends. Just let it wash over you; I will explain all in a minute.’

  ‘Athelstan reporting, ma’am,’ the rich voice of the outpost operator said.

  ‘Hi,’ Kambisha said. ‘No more Dreghs?’

  ‘All is quiet here, ma’am. Congratulations on your expanded command.’

  ‘Thanks!’ She chuckled. ‘We got our first recruits and I’m about to fill them in on the situation. Don’t hesitate to interrupt when I’m saying something incorrect or when you have additional knowledge.’

  She dropped down and leaned back in her chair. ‘Major Athelstan is another brain person. He runs a waystation deeper into the galaxy. Now I must learn your names. Would you one by one stand and give your handle and profession?’

  ‘Joff of Mountharbor.’ The merchant cadet jumped to his feet. ‘Licensed sea officer, whatever good that will do out here.’

  ‘You can command a ship,’ Kambisha said. ‘Next.’

  ‘Holyn,’ a rather small Vanhaari said. ‘I’m a healer mentalist.’ He grinned unexpectedly. ‘I’m a ten/ten graduate. Not to boast, but to boost my pay scale.’

  That surprised her. Ten/ten meant the guy had graduated with only the highest possible scores. ‘And you haven’t been snatched up already?’

  ‘I had some offers, but nothing of interest,’ Holyn said. ‘Ody came at the right moment.’

  ‘You’ll not be bored here. Next!’

  Collon and Ginny, two more sea officers; Alim, Noya’s colleague, and many more introduced themselves, until the last sat down again.

  ‘And now you’ll have forgotten most of them.’ Joff smiled crookedly.

  ‘Nah.’ Kambisha pointed at each guy, naming them correctly.

  ‘Darn,’ Joff muttered when she was done. ‘Eidetic memory. Of course, aren’t you Wyrmcaller kids halfgods or something like that?’

  Kambisha laughed. ‘No, my father may be Divine Bodrus’ disciple, but whatever he got from our god, we didn’t inherit it. We stumbled onto this Realm thing by accident.’

  She leaned forward and told them of the Locked Tower and all that followed.

  Collon, the longhaired Kell, rubbed his hands. ‘Sounds good. Until now, life has been dull.’

  Ram eyed him, his face expressionless. ‘For some.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Collon said unperturbed.

  ‘Whatever you did before today, this thing we have here will be bigger,’ Kambisha said. ‘And it will be ours. Let me show you something for starters. Gunild, have you got a map of the Realm?’

  A viewscreen lit up with the same image S-Az had shown them.

  ‘Thank you.’ Kambisha waved a hand at the screen. ‘Up to a thousand years ago, this part of the galaxy was ruled by a people called the Moi. They named it the Realm and built outposts and bases like this one all over the place. Beside the Moi there were other planets, which they called Lesser Worlds, and home to other peoples.’

  ‘An empire?’ Ram said with what Kambisha suspected was a habitual scowl.

  ‘Not an empire but a safe territory,’ she said. ‘The Moi armed forces were the Realmfleet; defenders and protectors, not conquerors. Am I right, Major?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Athelstan said. ‘The idea was to make the Realm into a union of worlds under Moi guidance.’

  ‘That’s like the Weal of Nations we come from, only way bigger,’ Kambisha said. ‘You got the picture up to now?’

  Most of them nodded. She thought Ram’s guys looked a little glassy-eyed, but from all here they probably were the least educated. I’m sure Ram will explain it further.

  ‘Great,’ she said. ‘And so was the galaxy, until one day a thousand years ago a mana quake hit them. It was a disaster.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Athelstan said. ‘For those on a planet, the atmosphere must have dampened the quake—still nasty enough, but to us out there, outposts, bases, ships, it was deadly.’

  ‘What exactly is a mana quake?’ Noya asked. ‘Radiation?’

  ‘It is not precisely a quake,’ Athelstan said. ‘It is a sudden rupture of the division between our universe and the Intermedium, causing a huge eruption of undiluted mana into our sp
ace.’

  Noya shuddered. ‘Raw mana! That’s... awful. To think of the madness such an overload brings! How large was this disturbance?’

  ‘Let me show you,’ Athelstan said. ‘Watch the map. Now there are tiny lights all over it. Pretty, eh? This is how Ms. Gunild and I see the universe. Each light is a living, healthy brain in charge of a basis or a ship. Someone we know well, and work with.

  ‘After Commander Kambisha reactivated me, I checked my instruments. I found they had registered the quake just before it hit.’ As he spoke, a tiny scratch appeared at the western edge of the map.

  ‘The disturbance started as a small hole, a mere million miles across, but in a split second it ripped open over a length of nine hundred lightyears, spewing forth unimaginable masses of mana.’ A wave of blue darkness spread out over the map, blotting out everything, and several kids cried out.

  ‘The hole closed again immediately, but the damage was done. As the unrefined mana retained many of its multi-dimensional particulars, it needed very little time to spread out.’

  ‘No speed-of-light limits?’ Kyrus frowned. ‘That went very fast.’

  ‘Sir, it was almost instantaneous. Especially the older outposts and spaceships won’t have had a chance. And even if they managed to shut down in time, their safety circuits will all need a techneer to start up again. I fear... many will have died. Look at the map; it’s a true image.’

  The dark wave had passed, and every little light was dead.

  ‘Darn,’ Kyrus said. ‘All of them?’ He knew what had happened, but to see it demonstrated was still a shock.

  ‘All, sir.’

  ‘We can find the planetary bases,’ Kambisha said. ‘But how do we locate the lost ships? Do they send out a distress signal?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Athelstan said. ‘But the signals will be faint against the cosmic noise. There were some on the list I gave you, but who will go and see what happened?’

  ‘That’s where we come in.’ Kyrus looked round at the faces. ‘We will go out there and search for those ships and bases. We will turn the lights back on.’

  ‘Well now.’ Collon stroked his chin as he studied the map. ‘That could be interesting.’

  ‘You a warrior?’ Ram said neutrally.

  ‘I can handle a blade and fire a gun,’ the longhaired boy said. ‘I’m a merchant ship’s officer, and a bit of an athlete. You?’

  Ram shrugged. ‘I got basic training, but at twelve I skipped home. I picked up a lot of fighting tricks after that—nothing our commander’s mother would approve of.’

  ‘My mother wants results,’ Kambisha said. ‘She isn’t a purist like Grandmother, fighting alongside my father made her very adaptable. Any more questions?’

  ‘How do your ships travel?’ Mage Alim said. ‘Do they have a special drive, or whatever?’

  ‘Long distance, they teleport sir,’ Athelstan said. ‘While porting, they would have been safe, to arrive in absolute chaos. The ones the quake caught would be in real space, a fleet on maneuvers, a miner collecting ores in an asteroid field, or a naval ship exploring a solar system. They would use a very fast mana drive, but a brain person’s reflexes are hair-triggered, and they would shut down before anything could sustain damage.’

  ‘And the crew?’ another merchant cadet said.

  ‘If they wore their belt, the brain person would activate their stasis suits and—depending on the state of their power crystals—they probably are still alive.’ Athelstan made a small, coughing sound. ‘Those who did not wear their belt, died. All magic users would be fried where they stood, and the others went mad.’

  ‘We will get those belts, I hope?’ the cadet said.

  Kyrus nodded. ‘Sure you will, and anyone who doesn’t wear theirs will either be grounded or heavily fined, or both.’

  ‘I must add those mana quakes are very rare occurrences,’ Athelstan said. ‘And generally not of the same magnitude. If they were, life in the galaxy would have become extinct long ago.’

  The cadet smiled. ‘I’m not worrying, sir.’

  Kyrus pursed his lips. ‘So we go and wake all those ships. That means we need their command codes.’

  ‘Your ship can help you,’ Gunild said. ‘Like us, they know the codes of every vessel they meet. As you are doing search and rescue, you are on the need-to-know list, and that overrides their secrecy protocols.’

  ‘Perfect!’ Kyrus said.

  ‘What will you do with any human survivors, sir?’ Gunild said.

  Kambisha looked up. ‘Will they be of sound mind?’

  ‘They wake as they went asleep,’ Gunild said. ‘Stasis pauses everything, but it alters nothing. The shock will come after.’

  ‘In that case we will wake them, feed them, and give them a chance to join us. If they don’t want to, we put them down on a planet of their choice.’

  ‘A logical solution,’ Gunild said. ‘Your treat is ready, Captain Kyrus. That means it is time for relaxation.’

  A veritable troupe of servors brought cawah, lemonade and an enormous cake covered in sparkling candles and little sugar spaceships.

  CHAPTER 7 – TRAINING INCLUDED

  Kambisha sat in her office, discussing a priority list of search goals with Gunild. She had been hesitant using it, feeling an impostor by using what had belonged to an experienced senior officer.

  But Gunild had set her mind at rest. ‘Nobody used this apartment before you, ma’am. The promised port admiral had been at Moi Moonport waiting for his flagship when the quake struck, I don’t even know who it was.’ She chuckled. ‘Only his or her taste in furnishings.’

  She sat at the big desk facing the windows, with behind her on the wall a real-time image of the solar system. Flor, Firstworld, and all the planets, moons and loose stuff moved almost imperceptibly, but they did, like the insides of some immense clockwork.

  She tapped the papers on her otherwise bare desktop. ‘That’s the whole list?’

  ‘For the moment.’ Gunild’s voice sounded as if she was sitting across from her. ‘Priorities may change with the circumstances. But NavBase must be first. It was the Realmfleet headquarters, and without its data our job will be much harder. The listed Fleet bases are chosen at random; the other objects like BrainLabs, the Criminal Court and the University are all of equal importance. These objects are all for you and Captain Kyrus. Once we have more crews and ships, I will make a second list for them.’

  Kambisha moved her chair back and walked over to the immense windows looking out over the spacefield and the second ship being serviced after her long rest.

  ‘Gunild, is the No-R 77 frigate part of your defense system?’

  ‘No, ma’am,’ the operator said. ‘I believe he was stationed here to explore this region.’

  Kambisha nodded absently. ‘Dare I risk sending out our new members?’ she said, half to herself. ‘All they know of space is through reading comics.’

  ‘Well, we got training facilities, ma’am.’

  ‘You have? How does that work?’ Kambisha was surprised, she hadn’t even thought of the possibility.

  ‘My builders arranged for me to train my own personnel, so I offer courses in every basic technique. They are all so-called mind-to-mind studies; imprinting the knowledge directly onto your brain, On average they take a half-day, while the longest are forty-eight hours.’

  ‘Is it safe? Our minds aren’t Moi.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Gunild said. ‘Guaranteed only knowledge will be transferred. No tampering with self, no overwriting of earlier knowledge; just ready-use sets of data. They are low-level courses; the most proficient students would later go to the Academy to become officers or subofficers. But I have an emergency series of high-level trainings as well. The War Package, they are called, and I am not to use them lightly. But should I have to replace whole crews in a hurry, I can turn suitable candidates into captains and admirals.’

  ‘You can train our guys?’ Kambisha said. ‘I mean, those courses weren’t meant
for kids, I’d think.’

  Gunild laughed. ‘They weren’t. Your young heroes will find themselves a little older and wiser afterward, but I can train them. I will start with an aptitude test, to decide which training would be most fitting.’

  Kambisha turned away from the window and ran down two flights of stairs to the mess. Halfway she nearly bumped into Merchant Cadet Joff.

  ‘Will you volunteer to take a test?’ She grabbed him to stop them both from tumbling down the stairs. ‘Gunild serves professional courses in everything an educated space traveler needs to know. I’d like you to let her test you first.’

  He swallowed. ‘Can you flunk them?’

  ‘Not through any fault of your own,’ Gunild said. ‘This test measures capability, not knowledge.’

  Joff sighed and nodded. ‘All right. Where do I go?’

  ‘Bottom floor; one of the booths in the large room beyond the mess,’ Gunild said. ‘Just sit down, put the hood on your head and relax.’

  Kambisha went with him and helped the boy with the enormous metal helmet. Then she went for a cawah, impatiently staring at the cabin as the seconds crept by.

  It took ten long minutes before the red light over the door turned green.

  ‘That was it?’ Joff said when Kambisha hurried back to him. ‘I don’t remember much; only flashes in my head.’

  ‘The test is a lot faster than the human consciousness, sir,’ Gunild said. ‘Mr. Joff, you should start with a Command II course. That would give you a lot to chew on, but you can handle it. With all due respect and all that, your last captain was a fool.’

  ‘Well, I know th...’ Joff stopped what he was going to say and looked thoughtful. ‘A Command II course, what would that do?’

  Gunild chuckled lightly. ‘It would make you a full Realmfleet commander, licensed to captain everything up to a frigate, and be first officer of a battlecruiser and bigger.’

  ‘Full commander,’ he said, staring at a point beyond the port. ‘That would be... nice.’ He turned to Kambisha. ‘My old captain was only a lieutenant commander.’