by Doug Farren
Mito explained that most of the city’s transportation system was underground. A very efficient underground system moved people and cargo into and out of the city. To demonstrate, Mito announced that he would take Jay out to lunch. They entered a small building with a sign on it indicating that it was an entrance to the transportation network. They took an escalator down to a level below ground. “This level is for people,” Mito explained. “There are other levels below us which handle cargo and other supplies.”
The escalator opened into a large circular room with several archways leading off it. Above each arch was a number. Most of them indicated zero but two showed a small number. “The numbers above the doors indicate the number of people occupying an alcove,” Mito said as he headed for an arch with a zero above it. “It allows a person to select an alcove with the least amount of wait time.”
There was a computer terminal built into the wall inside the alcove. Mito approached it and said, “Request wait time for a table for two at Rock Falls restaurant.”
“No waiting at this time,” the machine replied. “Would you like a reservation?”
“Yes. For two. Transport please.”
There was a 30 second wait and the door at the other end of the room opened revealing a small enclosed space with four seats. Jay and Mito sat down, the door closed, and the car started to move with a barely perceptible sense of acceleration. “There are several sized cars in the system,” Mito continued with his explanation. “The computer will select the most appropriate one based on availability and bring it to the terminal. Each car is individually guided through the transportation system.”
“I’m surprised the starport’s terminal did not look like the one we were just in,” Jay remarked. “In fact, if I remember right, we just walked up and stepped into the car.”
“Very perceptive! The starport terminal operates slightly differently. The terminal we used was on the inbound side of the starport. The computer maintains a queue of cars so that one is always available. There are several of the terminals located near each debarkation point at the starport. Maintaining several empty cars at each and every terminal throughout the entire city would be very inefficient. This car was summoned to our alcove when we requested it.”
Jay's Human-conditioned mind was furiously trying to figure out how such a transportation system could function. Eventually, he gave up and said, “I can't imagine how complex your underground rail system must be.”
“Rail system?”
For a moment Jay thought that he had misused a word in the still unfamiliar language. “This car is traveling on a set of rails right?”
Mito appeared confused. “Each car rides on a set of individually steerable wheels with each wheel being driven by its own motor. What purpose would rails serve?”
Jay felt like an idiot. Because of its similarity with Earth's subway systems he had automatically assumed that the underground transportation system used by the Shandarians was based on the same underlying technology. Kauffman took a few moments to explain how Earth's subways worked and for the rest of the short trip the two talked about the differences between the two transportation systems.
Less than ten minutes later, a voice announced that they were arriving at their destination and a few seconds after that the door opened. Mito led Jay up a short flight of stairs explaining along the way that they could have taken the elevator if needed. At the top of the stairs they found themselves inside the restaurant. The hostess looked up from her computer screen and said, “Welcome to Rock Falls! Right this way please.”
Jay noticed that Mito had not given his name and was about to ask how the hostess had known who they were when he remembered what Mito had told him about the identicard. Apparently, the hostess knew who they were and that they had reservations because of the identicard. It was efficient but unsettling to Jay.
The main dining area of the restaurant was built around a huge replica of a waterfall. Unlike those found in nature, this one had falling water on all sides. It was beautiful. The entire display was enclosed in a transparent material which prevented the spray from reaching the guests and muted the roar of the falling water.
The meal was excellent. When the server presented the check Jay craned his neck trying to see how the transaction was conducted. The server had handed a small device to Mito and walked away. Seeing Jay's interest, Mito set the device on the table so Jay could watch.
The device’s screen clearly showed the two meals and the price of each item. Mito glanced at it then entered an additional amount for a tip on the small keypad. He pulled his identicard out of a shirt pocket that Jay had not previously noticed and briefly inserted it into the top of the device. A small list appeared on the screen.
“I can pay the bill using any account that is linked to my identicard,” Mito explained. “The Science Directorate will be paying for this meal.” He then proceeded to select one of the accounts and pressed a button to complete the transaction. After receiving a confirmation message Mito removed his card and returned it to his shirt pocket which Jay now saw was designed to store the card for easy access.
“Does your culture use currency?” Jay asked.
“Currency?” Mito replied not seeming to understand the English word Jay had used.
“Um—a non-electronic method of payment. Money in the form of coins or paper,” Kauffman explained then reached for his wallet and pulled out an American $20.00 bill.
“Oh! No. All transactions are electronic,” Mito replied closely looking at the wallet and the money. “May I?”
Kauffman handed the bill to Mito who gave it a quick once-over. Mito then gestured towards the wallet. Kauffman hesitated then handed it over. Mito looked at it very carefully, pulling out a couple of credit cards and Jay's drivers license, then handed it back along with the twenty.
“What do you call that?” he asked.
“A wallet. We use it to store our paper currency as well as identification cards, credit cards, and all sorts of other miscellaneous junk.”
“Interesting. I’ve never seen one before. We do everything with our identicard, including payment of meals and other services.”
“A cashless society,” Kauffman remarked. “We seem to be slowly getting there but my guess is that it will be a long time before we’ve reached your level of integration. Too many differences in formats and fears of invasion of privacy.”
“Seems to me that your society could benefit from adopting the identicard. The one I carry contains all of my medical records and other important information necessary to enable me to function efficiently.
“What would happen if you lose your card or it is stolen? How would you recover the data that was stored on the card?”
“The data on the card is encrypted. The central network maintains a copy of the data on each individual's identicard. The database is updated every time the card comes within range of a data-station. If someone were foolish enough to steal someone's identicard they would be unable to use it. Attempting to use a stolen identicard is considered a very serious crime.”
“But what's to prevent someone from using your card?”
“Each identicard is programmed with the unique DNA signature of the individual to whom it is assigned. When the card detects that it is in direct contact with a person's skin it activates a small scanner built into the card that compares this signature with that of the person holding the card. A match allows access to the card's data and functionality as long as skin contact is not broken.”
“Wow! A fool-proof method of identification. I love it.”
“You mentioned something earlier that I would like some more information about if that's okay,” Mito said.
“Ask anything you want,” Jay enthusiastically replied.
“I don’t understand what you mean by the phrase 'invasion of privacy'.”
That launched the two into a long philosophical discussion which lasted until the end of the day. Jay learned a great deal about Shandaria
n society and Mito in turned learned a lot about his Human friend. Kauffman was surprised to find that Humans and Shandarians had a lot in common.
The next day, Mito and Jay started their six month cooperative adventure together. Jay spent the first week learning the Shandarian equivalent of continuum calculus. Because the underlying principles of mathematics are identical no matter where one goes in the universe, a person needs only to understand how each species depicts the symbols used to indicate the various mathematical operations. Once this is mastered any equation can be understood. It wasn’t long before Jay and Mito understood each other perfectly.
Jay had been concerned that the Shandarian scientists would treat their Human counterparts as if they were inferior. Although this did happen in a couple of instances, the vast majority of the scientists treated the Humans with respect. Mito made Jay feel as if he was a fellow scientist and soon the two had developed a solid rapport. It did not take long at all before Mito and Jay had become good friends.
Jay learned how the Shandarian stardrive operated and how they utilized the principles of the stardrive fields to manipulate gravity. Jay’s own research had hinted at the possibility of creating artificial gravity but his mathematics had not developed sufficiently for him to discern how it was accomplished. Mito showed him the equations and suddenly a whole new world opened up before him. “How could I have been so stupid!” Jay derided himself. “It’s as plain as day.”
Mito was not so critical. “Your race has only recently discovered the principles of the stardrive. The equations are complex and you cannot be expected to understand all the subtleties of the math overnight. You have made remarkable progress so far.”
A few weeks into the exchange, Kauffman asked Mito one of the most important questions which had been on his mind. “I’ve been wondering about something,” he began as they were relaxing at the end of the day.
“What about?” Mito absently replied.
“We have observed that Consortium ships are capable of phenomenal accelerations. We’ve also noticed that this is accomplished through the use of some sort of reactionless drive. Since coming here I’ve learned how to generate artificial gravity fields that, in theory, could be used to cancel out the force of acceleration but I’ve seen no indications of how to construct a reactionless drive.”
Mito picked up a computer pad from the table and entered a few commands. “Actually,” he replied as he handed the pad to Jay, “you’ve seen the equations for such a drive.”
Jay took the pad and looked at the symbols that had appeared. After allowing him time to scan the display Mito said, “Do you recognize this set of equations?”
The equations seemed familiar to Jay but something about them was wrong. After a few more seconds, recognition dawned and he said, “These are stardrive field equations. But they’re missing the linkages to the higher order quint harmonics.”
Mito nodded his head. “Meaning?”
“They won’t work,” Kauffman replied.
“Why not?”
“Without the fields represented by the higher order quints space-time will not be sufficiently distorted to allow the creation of a stable drive field. The field would permeate space but wouldn't allow…” Jay’s voice trailed off as his mind raced ahead. Using the pad’s controls, he quickly highlighted a section of the complex equation and instructed the computer to show him the first and then the second expansion of the compressed terms. Mito watched Jay’s progress and a smile formed on his face. Jay talked quietly to himself as his mind absorbed and understood the impact of the equations.
After about five minutes of concentration Kauffman pulled his gaze from the pad and said, “It was right in front of me the whole time. It’s like a stardrive field in that it interacts strongly with spacetime but it does not try to create its own spacetime bubble. It reaches out and grabs hold of space itself to propel a ship.”
“The derivation of this form of the spacetime equations is not easy. In fact, it’s very counter-intuitive. My race, like yours, learned of it after we came in contact with the Tholtarans. We were as shocked as you.”
Jay had continued to glance at the equations as Mito had talked. “This is incredible! If I understand this correctly it’s as if this drive field directly affects the kinetic energy of an object. There is no energy lost outside the system. Holy cow! This is a nearly one hundred percent efficient form of propulsion! The implications are staggering.”
“Jay, I must say that I am incredibly impressed. I have never met another person who was as capable as you of understanding the equations of spacetime so quickly.”
“It’s just a knack I have,” Jay replied. “I would like to see how these equations are derived.”
“That would take us a considerable amount of time,” Mito replied as he retrieved the computer pad. “But I promise we will go through the steps before you leave. It is getting late and I believe we will call it a day.”
Kauffman reluctantly dropped the subject and the two friends departed the science building. It took Jay a long time to go to sleep that night.
18
An Unexpected Visitor
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===== August, 2052 (Terran calendar) =====
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Three months of intense study had shown Kauffman that he had managed to grasp only a tiny fraction of the intricacies and subtle nuances of continuum calculus. The more he learned, the more he felt as if there was something just beyond his current level of understanding. At the end of every day, he would condense what he had learned into an electronic diary. This entry, along with a message to his wife would then be sent to Earth. Anita would read the message from her husband and forward the rest to CAIN.
CAIN eagerly awaited each and every message from Jay. Not only did it bring him new information upon which to think about but it also provided the machine with a link to the only true friend he possessed. Although the entity that was CAIN lacked the ability to jump to conclusions and to create new ideas out of seeming nothingness (as Jay seemed to be able to do), he did enjoy the challenge of integrating the latest information from Nasu K'tral into his already vast understanding of continuum calculus.
Anita wrote her husband back every night immediately after reading his message. Shortly after Earth had joined the Consortium a series of FTL relay stations had been put in place allowing Earth to establish a link into the vast Consortium communications network. This network shuffled messages around at speeds of 27,353 times the speed of light. Even at this unbelievable speed messages between the Nasu K'tral and Earth required almost a day and a half to traverse the distance between them.
Along with keeping his wife up-to-date, Jay (in his role as Earth's Science Director) had mandated that the Humans on Nasu K'tral not only keep a daily diary as he did but that they also exchange information via video conference once a week. From these weekly conference calls it became clear that the Humans were benefiting greatly from their stay on the Shandarian world.
Following one of the weekly video conferences, Jay decided to go for a walk through the city. By now most of the populace had learned of the Humans and of their presence on their world. He had been interviewed several times by the Shandarian equivalent of television and his face was now well known. Unlike Earth, Jay was able to wander the city without being approached by everyone who recognized him. The Shandarian's respect for a person's privacy was something he had come to greatly appreciate.
It was dark outside but the walkway was illuminated by a dim glow emanating from the material of the walkway itself. The air was clean and crisp. The sky was clear and the unfamiliar stars were visible through the trees. Jay had been walking for about half a hour when a low whine interrupted his wandering thoughts. He looked around and caught site of one of the small flitters that served as taxis. It descended through a gap in the trees and came to rest several meters from him.
Not wanting to be
considered rude, Jay turned and continued on his walk. From behind he heard a voice call his name. He stopped dead in his tracks and spun around. A figure was outlined in the door of the flitter. It couldn't be? The voice called again, “Jay? Is that you?”
Unbelievably it was the voice of his wife. Not knowing what to think, Jay yelled, “Anita? Anita, is that you?”
The figure let out a small squeal, jumped down from the doorway, and started running in Jay's direction. Jay ran toward her. The two lovers practically collided at full steam and threw their arms around each other. There was a few moments of wordless kissing and hugging then Jay managed to say, “I'm so glad to see you. How the hell did you get here?”
Wiping away a few tears Anita replied, “Corporate business. Booked a flight on a Shandarian starliner.”
“Wait a minute. How did you find me?”
“Your identicard. According to the nice man at your hotel as long as you are within the city limits your exact location can be found if you know who to ask.”
Jay noticed that the door of the flitter still stood open—beckoning them. “Mrs. Kauffman,” Jay said in a formal sounding voice full of hidden meaning. “Would you care to accompany me back to the hotel where I can properly welcome you to Nasu K'tral?'
“I thought you would never ask,” Anita replied grabbing her husband's hand and leading him back to the waiting flitter. On the way back to the hotel, Jay took a few moments to put in a call to Mito to let him know that he would not be coming to the university for the next couple of days.
* * * * *
The breakfast provided by the Serbando hotel's room service had enough food to feed the happy couple several times over. Jay sat back in his chair, patted his full stomach and reached for the cup of liquid that passed for coffee on this planet. “Now that hit the spot.”