Kren of the Mitchegai

by Leo Frankowski

  And she did this while she kept the sales of children well above their ambitious early projections. She soon had six stores scattered around the City of Dren.

  * * *

  The early experiments with growing grass under artificial, monochromatic light had turned out extremely well. The lights used were actually twice as bright as normal sunlight at the wavelength useful to plants, but the total amount of energy radiated was only one-sixth that of sunlight. The result was that it was more than twice as productive as it would have been in a well-watered field at noon in the tropics, and without heat stress.

  Grass had no difficulty adopting to a two-dozen-hour day, since it sometimes did that already in high latitudes, near the poles. There were always just the right amounts of water and nutrients available to it. The light was directly overhead, from a diffused area all the time, so the leaves did not have to waste energy turning to the sun. There were no cloudy days, no evenings, no nights. There were no juvenals walking on it, hurting the roots. There were no winters, when nothing grew.

  The net result was that the annual production was a dozen and a half times higher per square yard than it was in the average field. It had to be mowed twice daily, or it would turn rank. Also, some research studies indicated that if the carbon dioxide content of the air could be quadrupled, production might be doubled once again.

  Kren was pleased. Especially so since the underground grass-growing project was already well under way. Had growing grass in tunnels proved to be inefficient, a huge fortune would have been lost.

  The MagFloat railroad system cut Kren's lands into vaguely hexagonal areas an average of six dozen miles across. This was so that they could meet their ancient political mandate of having a station within a brisk day's walk of every point on the planet.

  Since it was convenient to have the production tunnels at the same level as the railroad tracks, and since, in theory, the MagFloat Corporation owned the subsurface soil under their tracks, Kren and Dol had picked a hexagon in the center of their property. They started to bore a tunnel from a station at the east of it to one at the west, a distance of six dozen and eleven miles.

  The tunneling machines were not capable of starting a new tunnel at right angles to the one they were in, but the cutters were capable of pivoting enough to start a tunnel at half of that angle. As additional tunnelers were brought on line, this resulted in an array of tunnels that a human would have called a herringbone pattern, or perhaps something that looked like the shaft and veins of a feather.

  Since the Mitchegai had never heard of a herringbone or a bird's feather, they just called it Dol's Design.

  They bought roll-forming machinery to take a coil of the almost immortal metal alloy the Mitchegai used and shape it into a flooring panel. This was followed by a punch press to cut the floors to length and shape the ends to be welded to the tunnel walls. Lighting panels were then welded on the bottoms of all but the lowest ones, and wired up.

  Once a tunnel was dug, a large assembly machine went in and welded in floors, attached side rails for the mowers, covered the floors with dirt, and spread grass seed. Water pipes, air ducts, and power conduits were installed.

  The rail to the right that supported the mower was also a high-pressure water line that doubled as the electrical power common wire. The rail to the left doubled as the high-tension electrical conduit, and the rest of the structure was also a ground line. Kren thought that Dol had come up with an efficient design.

  In a few months, there were two dozen of these assembly machines working, manned by Duke Dennon's soldiers, and supervised by his engineers.

  The twelve-yard-high tunnels had ten floors in them, with only a half a yard between them for the mower to work in. If maintenance was ever required, the workers would have to be dragged in on a sled, lying on their backs, behind the mower working at that level.

  The first few gross yards of each tunnel had fewer floors, and would be used to house the juvenals who ate the grass.

  Using all seven big tunnelers, they figured to have one layer of tunnels, over ten thousand miles of them, completed in four years, and the whole thing in full production a year after that. Completed, it should produce over three and a half million large juvenals per year for market. It would produce more than that if indeed juvenals were more efficient at growing when they didn't have to spend most of their time and energy hunting for food and water. And much more than that if their selective breeding program bore fruit.

  Dol said, "You know, sir, three and a half million a year at two dozen Ke each is really not a very good return on our investment. The bank would pay us better interest."

  "Right now, yes," Kren agreed. "But I'm thinking long-term. Right now, the price of children is very low, because so many of them are available, free for the taking, in the countryside. But as we start producing more, the population of this planet will grow, and those available free won't be enough to feed it. At that point, we will be able to raise our prices, considerably."

  "I see. But is our population actually limited by the food supply? Will the addition of more food really cause the population to grow?"

  "If the population doesn't grow, we will have to take steps to make it grow. I can think of many ways to do this. We might become righteous warriors who will eliminate the criminal elements in the cities. They seem to be currently doing a lot to keep the population down. However, from this point on, it will be company policy to do whatever we can to increase the planetary population."

  "Very well, sir. Then again, this one hexagon would feed an army of almost a quarter of a million warriors," Dol said.

  "True. If we can't take this planet economically, we can always do it militarily."

  "Still, there is a lot more money to be made gambling, sir. The citizens of this planet spend more than seven times as much on gambling as they do on food."

  "Just now, there is, and this will continue so long as I am an undergraduate, another five years at most. After that, well, the betting on professional sports is not nearly as good as that on collegiate sports. I'll get involved with them only if I have to. I understand that on some planets, it is different, but not here. We must see to it that we make our fortune at gambling now, and then that we have a sustainable income that allows for considerable expansion later. The current profits on food might be low, but they are dependable. And in time, the food to gambling ratio just might reverse."

  "I suppose that you are right, sir."

  "I am."

  * * *

  The collector path stretched for half the length of Kren's property. This was like a double fish-weir fence that allowed juvenals to enter in between them, but not to go out. Additional sections of fish weir between them forced the children to walk to a central processing station, where some were selected for packaging, and the rest were released to grow bigger. Watering troughs were placed along both sides of both fences to keep the youngsters fresh and the losses down.

  By early spring, about the time when both the outer fence and the collector path had been completed and paid for, the last tunnel from a train station to a wintering center was completed. The plans were to mothball the small tunneler.

  At this point, Duke Dennon called and said that he wanted to borrow it.

  "Of course, Your Grace. I'm sure we can work something out. How long would you be needing it for?"

  "Oh, probably for several years, actually."

  "Hmmm. Then you would probably be better off buying it than renting it. I could sell it to you at two dozen per gross off list price."

  "Kren, that price is atrocious! You just bought it from me for nine dozen per gross off list!"

  "Well, if you needed it, why did you sell it to me in the first place?"

  "Because I didn't need it then, but I do need it now."

  "Oh. What are you planning to do with it anyway?"

  "I don't want to talk about that over the phone, and anyway, I'll be needing your help on this. Can you visit me in the near futur
e?"

  "Certainly. If I took an express train right after physical training tomorrow, I could be there by twelve in the evening. I wouldn't have to leave until five, an hour before noon, the next morning."

  "I'll have a servant waiting at the station when you arrive."

  "That would be excellent, Your Grace."

  * * *

  Kren booked a private cabin because he didn't want to risk having to sit next to one of his fans for two hours. Anyway, he billed it to the corporation, which was currently flush.

  "So, Your Grace, what is this secret thing that you are planning on doing with the small tunneler?" Kren asked as they sat down privately to share a small snack. He was proudly wearing the sword that the duke had given him.

  "War, of course. What else?"

  "You are planning to take a tunneler to a war? Wouldn't that be against the Laws of War?" These laws strictly forbade the use of powered vehicles of any sort in warfare, either for fighting or for transportation.

  "It certainly would, but I don't plan to use it directly, of course. But what if I were to discover that an ancient, forgotten tunnel just happened to go from beneath my palace to beneath Duke Tendi's castle? If I were to then march my men through this tunnel, and break through to his basement, would I bring down the bombs of the Space Mitchegai on me? I think not."

  "So you need me to make this tunnel for you. Well, I presume that you have a map around here? Then let's take a look at what we're talking about."

  In a few hours it was decided that Kren would run a big tunnel across one of the hexagons of his property that was closest to the duke's palace. A small tunnel would be run from this large one, and the dirt from both would be shipped out together by the railroad. This was to cover the fact that they were digging the small tunnel at all, if anybody checked the MagFloat Corporation's records.

  A total of eight gross miles of small tunnel would be required, going entirely across the Dennon's lands, under Duke Tendi's castle, and considerably beyond that. There would be a maze at both ends of the tunnel with a series of deadly traps to discourage further exploration.

  It would then be cleaned, all equipment would be removed, and it would be sealed up at Kren's end, beyond the maze. A mixture of corrosive gasses would be injected into the system to give the tunnel's metal walls the patina of great age.

  Kren estimated that they could have the work completed within thirty weeks, if there were no hitches. If they ran into unusual soil conditions, hard rock, or underground water, it would take longer and cost more. At worst case, the battle might have to be delayed until the following winter.

  Then, in a few months, when the gas had time to dissipate, some of Duke Dennon's workers would just happen to be digging a well, and accidentally find the ancient tunnel system. Naturally, he would have it explored and mapped, regretfully losing a few soldiers in the wicked traps in the mazes.

  And in the coming winter, when most armies were standing down, Dennon would use it to attack his old enemy, Duke Tendi.

  "Kren, I like it! Now, what would you want to dig this tunnel for me?"

  "Well, first, I would expect to be reimbursed, in cash, not check or an electronic transfer, but actual cash money, for all of my expenses, the largest of which will be for paying the MagFloat Corporation for hauling away all of the dirt."

  "That would be acceptable."

  "Then, in the fall, I will owe you a gross million Ke, my annual payment for your military protection," Kren said. "I will want you to take that payment in my company's stock, instead of cash, and I will want you to continue doing so for the next two dozen years."

  "If you'll tell me when you next intend to win at an athletic event, you have a deal."

  "Very good, but there's one more thing that I want."

  "Indeed? And what is that?" Dennon asked.

  "I want to come along when you attack Duke Tendi! I enjoy a good fight."

  "Your aid would be most welcome! Okay, we have a deal, but we'd better not put this one in writing!"

  "Excellent! Now, let's finish off this party snack. The poor thing must be feeling very neglected," Kern said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  The Weapons of War

  New Yugoslavia, 2214 a.d.

  Things progressed, but the important thing that happened this year was that my loving wife, Kasia, gave birth to a magnificent baby boy, our fifth. She also said that enough was enough, and that if I couldn't give her at least one girl, she was going to give up on it.

  I said that I would have loved to have had a little girl, but I didn't have much say in the matter. She was just going to have to take it up with God.

  She said that she would do just that, and until He answered, she was going on the pill.

  Well, I loved her, and five really was a houseful.

  * * *

  Another of our lost planets had been found. New Palestine. Our ship got there to find everyone, both on our side and theirs, dead. Somebody had made a deadly virus and let it loose. Our intelligent machines were working on resurrecting the planet, but until the virus was eliminated, people dared not return, nor could we permit the electronic people to return to us. Repopulating the planet was being debated.

  * * *

  The basic weapon of the Human Army was the tank. This was essentially a well-armored box that contained a muon-exchange fusion power supply, a series of computers, one of which was intelligent enough to pass for a human being, and was smarter in some ways. It had a coffin that contained a real human, together with a life-support system capable of keeping him or her alive indefinitely. The human floated in an aqueous liquid that protected him from shocks and accelerations of up to fifty Gs.

  This observer was linked through cranial and spinal inductors to the tank's computers, which could keep him in Dream World, living at thirty times the speed that he could live at in the world outside.

  There was also a combat mode, where he became essentially a single entity with his tank, and lived at typically fifty-five times as fast as normal, depending on the individual.

  On a planet surface, the tank used a track-laying MagLev system that laid magnetic bars before it, floated over them, and then pulled them in to lay them in front again. On a metallic surface, it could magnetize the metal under it, dispense with the bars, and travel much faster. On a real MagLev track, and in a vacuum, it could hit three thousand kilometers an hour.

  A wide variety of weapon and propulsion systems could be magnetically bonded to the tank, depending on the mission. A tank could function as a land weapon, a machine for tunneling beneath the earth, an aircraft, a submarine, or a space ship.

  As I saw it, the next war, or at least the early phases of it, would be fought in space. Some new strap-ons were in order.

  Up until now, traveling in space in a tank involved using a hydrogen-oxygen rocket capable of giving you a thrust of forty Gs. It was fed through a pair of Hassan-Smith transporters from a fuel dump somewhere nearby. The transmitters were expensive, which means that you couldn't have very many of them. Also, the rockets were very bright and very noticable.

  The captured Mitchegai ship had taught us a few things about ion drives, and New Kashubia had a major surplus of cesium available, a metal that was easily ionized, and very massive.

  The new engines required less than three percent of the fuel of the old ones, and a single transmitter could keep thirty-five of them fed.

  The old tanks had only speed-of-light communications available. An expensive microtransceiver that sent tiny memory chips had been invented, and I resolved that every one of my tanks would have one. I had a production line of our own built to insure this, and damn the bureaucrats in New Kashubia. Now, every single fighting unit could communicate with headquarters.

  Our main weapon, the rail gun, had proved to be completely ineffective against the Mitchegai. Our secondary weapon, the X-ray laser, had worked, but only when used in mass firings. We now had the Disappearing Gun, a gift from the Tellefontu, and I p
lanned to have ninety percent of my people equipped with it. Eight percent would have X-ray lasers, and the rest, rail guns. You never can tell.

  And there was a wide variety of rockets, drones, mines, and antipersonnel weapons that we had in stock that might prove useful.

  Everything military now was deep below the ground. Using the Hassan-Smith transporters, we could get to any point in Human Space in a hurry, but they'd have a hell of a time getting to us.

  When the Mitchegai came, I hoped that we would be ready.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  FROM CAPTURED HISTORY TAPES,

  FILE 1846583A ca. 1832 a.d.

  BUT CONCERNING EVENTS OF UP TO

  2000 YEARS EARLIER

  A Cunning Scheme

  The next morning, Duke Dennon mentioned that he had been able to purchase six more armored, but defective, space suits, and bemoaned the fact that there were so few of them on the market.

  "Well then, why don't you make your own?" Kren asked.

  "Make a space suit? Do you realize the level of technology that requires?"

  "A space suit, yes. But all you need is a suit of armor! It doesn't have to be airtight. It doesn't have to provide the wearer with air to breathe. It doesn't have to be heated to bear the cold of dark space, or cooled to take the heat of the naked sun. All it has to do is to keep your soldiers from being cut by your enemy's weapons! Look, you already have a perfect pattern for what you need. You have some old space suits. Take one of them apart, give the three dozen or so pieces to some of your excellent engineers . . ."

  "There are six dozen major pieces in a space suit, not counting the fasteners, Kren."

  "Whatever! That means that they will have to make up six dozen sets of stamping dies, at a few thousand Ke each, unless they decide that they can do it themselves. Then, you buy a few stamping presses, and have your soldiers operate them. You'll have enough armor for your whole army in a dozen weeks or so."