Damn, he’d seen such layouts before. Who knew? Who didn’t ask? Dumb ass!
“Why of course, Tina’, would you escort the Commanders to the Hanger Deck, and do whatever necessary to comply with their recommendations.”
“Certainly. Ma'am, Sir, this way please.”
Derek commented, “If I may be so bold, all recombined individuals would be advised to spend 24 hours under observation to see that their internal organs are functioning within parameters. I’ll retire to my station and document the necessary tests.”
They saluted and Tina led them off. Derek went his own way.
“Marilyn.” I said. “Why don’t you search the combined Medical Data base for some type of Chem/Bio weapon which will affect the ANNU KI. Take whatever you get, or don’t get, to Rafe so he will have the whole picture.”
“Will do.”
I said to Doctor Wallace, Larry, who looked lost without Tina, “Perhaps you’ll keep me company for a while.”
“Just until Tina comes back. We have some activities planned.”
“Later, she and I are to test the fighting suits.”
“Quite right. To that; the XO, Rafe, asked me to dissuade you from participating.”
I had to literally bite my tongue, my ship, my suits, my expedition, who the hell---
“To continue, Rafe said there wasn’t a likely chance the baby would be affected, but if there were the slightest chance, of anything, I should declare you medically unfit. Well I’m declaring you medically unfit, no testing by you. No testing by Tina either. She’s too valuable. Don’t you have professional fighters?”
He said that last question in so disparaging a manner that I turned away to hide the anger which washed over me. But then anger turned to amusement when I thought back to my recent conversation with Tina and the question of what she had turned Larry into. I looked down the long rows of Birth Chambers and thought, 'in charge of all I observe, and beyond and not in charge of my body anymore. But there was a 1% of 1% chance he was right. Surrender with grace, when surrender is called for.'
I turned back to Larry, and observed his apprehension, and intertwined with determination. There wasn’t a lot of the latter, but it was there.
I said, “You’re exactly right. I hate so much to delegate. Yes, we have professional fighters, hordes of them. Would you like to meet them?”
“Not if I can avoid them, but I can’t, can I?”
“No.”
/// Send to: Buster and Jane/// I’ will be in their area in 1 hour///they’re to test the anti ANNU KI battle suits/// deliver the suits immediately, to them///out\
I continued, “Do you know what the term, Poster Child, means Larry?”
“I can surmise that the child is an example of something positive, held up to motivate specific thought patterns.”
“We are going to meet two poster children. I’ll pass along your considerations to them, and I’ll tell you how they came to be aboard while underway.”
I led him to an unmarked door, palmed it, it opened, and both of us stepped through to a platform and further into car which sat 10 people spaciously, or ten soldiers and their gear. I pulled the car door shut and sat. One could hear the door sealing its self. “Orientation is in two weeks Larry. Complete look around takes 5 days. There are many systems in the Ark to learn. This car will take us to children whom I recruited from old soldier's homes. This particular planet I came across had nothing to export, so it exported its soldiers. Had done so for thousands of years. Not many came back, but the heroes were brought back to be feted and honored, then put in retirement homes, actually warehoused until they died. When I got Ark I, about twenty years ago, I knew I needed soldiers. For the mission, and just generally for protection. Can you see where this is leading to?”
“I think so. You went to the planet, picked out some prime examples, probably one of both sexes, gave them new bodies, and sent them to recruit others, gave them new bodies, said, soldier with me, see the galaxies, live forever. Right?”
“Larry, you’re a quick study.”
“Helps around here. I was always bright. Lost it for a while. Will never loose it again, short of dissolution.”
“Dissolution is hard to accomplish in my Army, Larry, so you’ll be around for a long time.”
“We need to discuss spreading medical knowledge on Earth and what effect speed up of same has on the time continuum.”
“We’ll do that, but not in the five minutes we have left, almost there.”
The car stopped and we exited, across the platform, through another door, and into a Birth Chamber. One almost thought that you hadn’t gone anywhere until you noticed the occasional smocked figure going about. Then, also, the scale of the tanks was larger by one third.
Buster Brailt and Jane Walting were standing by one of the tanks talking to a Tech but left him and came to greet us as the door closed. They saluted and then hugged me at one time. If one can imagine getting hugged by two full grown brown bears at once you know how I felt. I wondered once, again why the short hair on their bodies but none on their faces and hands.
Jane observed, “It’s not showing.”
“Who talked? I’ll string them from a yardarm.”
“No one talked. You just shine.”
“I’m going to put you in for telepathic training, Jane.”
“Oh, no you aren’t. I have enough trouble keeping my own mind straight.”
Buster interjected, “I don’t want to train another wife, no way.”
“Train me, you doffish beast of burden, it’s the outside sleep roll for you.”
“Folks, folks, I’d like you to meet Doctor Larry Wallace. He’s taken over as the ship's Doctor.”
Larry looked at me but I kept a straight face, so he reached up to shake hands with two people who were 7feet 6 inches and weighed conservatively 450pounds each.
“I guess I should have mentioned we were going to meet some people from a planet heavier, and larger by half from Earth, sorry.”
Buster said, “We have the gravity turned down to your norm right now. Pardon me if I bounce while we walk. Let’s go along this way. We all read the briefing paper you sent over on the ANNU KI allies. Nasty folks, and from the collapse of your portal, somewhat possessive.”
“Too true. “I said as we went through a door out into their habitat. It was a place of swirling winds and craggy horizons, narrow valleys and small farming patches. We went down rough stone steps to a bare earth courtyard about three hundred yards square encircled by mesh wire fence about forty feet tall. There were bleachers consisting blocks of unfinished stone rising up on three sides. We went along a broad walkway to an audience box with a cloth roof over it. There were crude wooden chairs on both of the levels.
Buster said, “Wouldn’t want our guests getting rained on.”
“You wanted it like this. I said sandy beaches and dancing girls.” I reminded him.
Jane said, “I would have made a good dancing girl.” In a half serious tone.
Buster just looked at her and shook his head. “Pay attention, they’re bringing out your machines now. It took some searching but we finally found someone small enough to fit in them. A couple of youngsters, from the Kilsorm Regiment.”
We watched as the operators entered the occupant cavity and were closed in. They walked about, sprinted, jumped, and generally got accustomed to the slight delay in command over movement. Eventually both raised their right arms and began to circle. The suits had no armament on them, and no booster rockets. This was just an effort to see if they could function, and how much damage the design would endure. Red started contact with a leg swoop and Blue had no trouble countering that. After that it was a swirl of color. Blue lost his right arm. Red’s left leg was frozen at the knee joint.
I glanced around. The stands had filled up with other Assault Troops cheering on one, or the other. Bets were being made. Somebody was serving drinks out of a cart. Nice to have caused a celebration. I turned back;
Red had lost his left arm. Suddenly Red threw Blue with a neck grip and twisted in such a manner that Blue’s head came off. That was that, but no, Blue rose up with a grip between Red’s legs and Red went up, was spun 180 and drove into the ground head first, that broke his head off too.
Buster blew a whistle and looked at me, “Going to have to do some work on those head joints, no?”
“Damn, yes. It’s a start though. Do you have armor people who have time?”
“Sure. We’ll go over the stress readouts and see what broke.”
“Tina is the contact person. How about sending people over to my shop?”
“Will do. Do you have time to linger?”
“I’m sorry, we don’t.”
Jane said, “You come back, Doctor Wallace. I’ll introduce you to some of our unattached ladies.”
For a millisecond he wanted to hide behind me, but no one noticed. He said, “I will.” A half gleam came into his eye, which Jane appreciated no end.
Back in our car and whizzing to our world Larry said, “I sure have a lot to experience, don’t I.”
“No idea, you have no idea.”
Chapter 13
RAFE
Back at the Library, which had been decided, by me, was to be the operational area, I said to Nerre’, Hilde, Helga, “We need uniforms. Could you three see to that?”
Nerre’ agreed, “It will make identification easier when we’re overflowing with people. Good point. We’ll go decide on something. Any preferences?”
“No.”
Louise said, “I should have something too, since I’m going to be in charge of the Intelligence Service.” Nobody blinked. “Stan and Eve; why don’t you go along, whatever you decide on for me, you two make the same for you.”
When they were gone I said, “That should keep them occupied long enough to resolve something. That’s whether the four of us can contribute anything, or whether we’re just honored guests.”
Louise agreed, “Marilyn and I couldn’t ask for better treatment, but we discussed that very thing. Do we, with our lack of technical knowledge, have anything to add to the overall mission? So let's see if we do. Come on in my quarters.”
When Jason, Ike, and I were settled with Louise, at her dining area table, I studied the three of them and said, “Hell of a pickle we have to slice. Probably the best way to proceed is that we each search our Long Time memories for something relevant. Sure enough Civil War tactics won’t be the answer.”
Jason and Ike nodded their heads. Louise just looked attentive while she poured coffee. It was her house and we appreciated her hospitality.
“But scouting, is scouting, no matter which century we’re in. And you can help with this one, Louise. I want to send out an observer to the past. A totally inert observer, so no one knows it’s there. I want the platform to observe NEBU whenever it passes through the inner system, a hundred year period of observance will get some pictures of the surface, and its trajectory. Then it’s to jump back through time to its visit before the one just observed, and do the same. That may take multiple observers. You have read a lot of library entries so you know how to best phrase the request. Say we want the results in an hour of our time. Can you get on that right away?”
“Sure, I’ll set up a recorder so I can review what you do in the mean time.”
She fiddled with some switches on the wall and took her coffee and left.
“I’ll start.” Ike said, “I probably have the least to add. Before Earth I was on a very crowded world. It was very controlled. I stole some food and got caught at it. They weren’t dumb, the leaders, they knew if I were killed, I’d just get reborn and be less controllable the next time around. So the solution was to freeze me, after putting on a temporary life support system, into a block of ice. A lot of us were dumped on Earth that way. The ice melted and I got to land. I didn’t last long. Something ate me two days later. The lives since then have been farmer/soldier/thief. The technology level of the planet I came from, before here, was based on the Hydrogen Fusion reactor. They used Negative Space for long distance off world transport. There wasn’t any secrecy about the technology. It had been in use for centuries and centuries.”
“Fine. What about you Jason?”
“I worked on a trader, interstellar. We haven’t got back to my home planet in the regression sessions. I was on a huge ship, not in one piece like this one but in sections. We had all kinds of life support and did manufacturing and trading. We were on a definite route. I had the impression the ship had been over the route before. We lived and died and were reborn, every sixty years on average, on and on, whole bunch of lives, about all the same. We used H/FU also. Only thing of note is that the ship was designed to come apart and rejoin if we hit storms, or any kind of trouble. If we were attacked and unlinked, hidden fusion torpedoes which were controlled by a planned response always took care of the problem. That response took care of an attacker, not far from Earth where we stopped for water. Only problem, my section got caught in the gravity and was pulled to the surface. We were lucky. The shields held, and since we had our own hydroponics, we didn’t starve. There wasn’t any way to get out to orbit again so the ship went off and left us. I think now we came down in the Southwest USA, but it was a lot greener then. Nobody about, but many lives later some travelers came down from the north and we mixed with them. By that time the ship section was but a memory. Not a bad area, two crops a year. Plenty to eat. More recent it’s been farmer soldier, like Ike.”
Louise said, over the linkup from the library, “My experience has been with churches, schools, and off world at libraries and universities. I was involved in mostly mental level considerations but I don’t have knowledge of anything more advanced than H/FU. I came here on a diplomatic mission to Atlantis; recorder. Our faction lost an argument and was denied exit permission. That was about the time of the first breakup. The engineers drew too much power off of the area’s planetary matrix. We had also power stations which drew from the Magma level and focused and broadcast the energy to the individual homes, energy waves. I ran across the technology in our data base. We were permitted to go to Egypt where an outpost was established. I had a long life there with four sons.
I summed it up, “We’ll take a look at the broadcast energy data, but it is apparent that H/FU was the best your three civilizations got to. Mine too, but when we were in a fixed position we knew how to draw power off of the Sun through N Space. That process took a lot of H/FU power; to create the magnetic field, so we couldn’t maintain it for very long.”
Louise came back in the room, “I sent off the observer instructions to the technical section, we’ll see. I also did a basic search through our date base. We list 2,978 interstellar civilizations. Latest update, about 10,000 years ago. I heard what you were saying and factored in H/FU. None of the ones we have data on, progressed beyond that point.”
I concluded, “Since the ANNU KI prefer deep unexplored space, according to what we have on them, I’m thinking that, probably, unless they were threatened, and had to go through a development cycle to survive, they’re still running on H/FU.”
Jason agreed, “That tracks for me.”
The other two agreed.
“So let’s look at what we have here compared to what they don’t have out there. Let’s assume our beam, projectile, shield, movement capabilities are equal. Just for arguments sake. Then we’ll hope Thelma’s Battle Suit can equal out the physical difference. What’s left?”
“Our fighters don’t have to worry about dying.” Ike said.
Jason responded, “That’s a factor as long as the Ark isn’t compromised.”
I added, “We just don’t know enough about The Ark’s capabilities, but let’s just assume it doesn’t get hurt. What else is there?”
A period of silence ensued as each of us searched what we knew of war, and fighting. They’d told me at Civil War Officers School that a War is just a lot of small fights added up. Whoever wins more of the small
fights, wins the War. I’d seen that adage work itself out, in person, many times over, and nothing I’d studied said different.
About the time we were going to forget coffee, and break out a bottle, pictures started coming in on the big screen that took up most of the room’s wall. There were views from far out which showed the whole planet, and then increasingly closer up. I ignored the time/velocity/comparative trajectory/ and what ever else streamed across the bottom and top of the screen. When the circles on the planets surface became apparent I said, “Freeze screen.”
“Do you all see those circles? They must be ANNU KI ships. Look at the edge of the planet; you can see there are domes. Computer; data on size of ships?”
Another screen appeared beside the first one, it read, 30 miles across, 8 miles high, maximum possible number, in one dome, assuming one layer, and back side full occupancy, 43.
We sat back in our chairs. I was sure we needed something stronger, more details. The data faded and reappeared saying ‘new data, previous pass through’. We looked and there wasn’t any visual difference to us. Then the side screen said, 39 ships. I think we all had the same realization at once.
I said, “They’re eating the planet. The first screen showed, to me, full occupancy. They’re going to have to find another planet.”
Louise said, “There’s only Mars, or Earth, anyone feel lucky?”
I saw the gloom I felt mirrored on everyone else’s face.
The number 35 appeared on the side screen, pass through earlier.
I said, “We have to get the others in on this.”
Louise said, “I’ll tend to that.” She went off to a library communications console.
I said, “That explains why we didn’t think NEBU a threat back when. It wasn’t. But with the decrease in mass of the planet the velocity slows because it can’t bull its’ way through the gravity fields, and then the Sun pulls it a bit closer each rotation.”
Greener Green I: Where Does the Circle Begin Page 9