Trade World Saga

by Ken Pence

  “Respond in Ullumff. Tell them we are traders looking for the lunar base because our navigation controls are out. Tell them we have too much damage to safely allow boarders. Tell them we thought they were pirates,” UmUff ordered.

  ***

  Captain Xu listened to explanation from Commander Shuler. Shuler was the only one on board that had taken the Ullumff language training. “Does he think we fell off a load of pumpkins? Commander?” Captain Xu said.

  “Sir, we have another vessel headed this way – fast. It is hailing the alien ship. Sir – it is Captain UmBllatt’s ship,” said the tactical officer.

  “What now?” Xu said. “What’s it saying?” he asked.

  Commander Shuler touched his eartab and said, “You won’t believe this sir, but UmBllatt is telling the other ship and calling it’s commander by name – sir, he is saying it is his brother...a Captain UmUff. He’s hailing us now. Let me put him on speaker,” Shuler said.

  “Earth ship. Please back off. I will handle my brother. Please. Famlee,” UmBllatt said in Trade with the last two words in English.

  Shuler raised his eyebrows...up to Captain Xu now.

  “Helm. Back us off a couple of klicks. Shields on max,” Xu ordered.

  ***

  The smell of fear was fading on Captain UmUff’s bridge. His brother had always rescued him. He had warned him that his trip might interfere with trade with Earth – a supreme threat to a Master Trader. His brother had been a Master Trader too long. We will get out of this now. Brother – we will still make trades. “Drop shields. My brother is coming,” UmUff said and sighed just like a human would in a similar situation.

  Captain UmBllatt stopped his ship a few klicks off the flank of his brother’s ship. A sweet, syrupy smell began to fill the bridge. The other officers on the bridge knew what this meant and the smell permeated the room. He raised his arm and let out a small grunt.

  ***

  “Captain,” Commander Shuler said in shock. “UmBllatt’s ship has just fired...fired everything...” but before Captain Xu could order a response, he said, “ Sir. Not at us. He fired on his brother’s ship and is continuing fire...sir. It’s gone. There isn’t even much wreckage,” Shuler paused. “UmBllatt is leaving sir.” Shuler looked shaken. “He’s contacting us again.”

  “Why?” Captain Xu asked and that one word had many questions wrapped up in it.

  “Sir, let me put it back on speaker,” Shuler said.

  “Famlee take care famlee. There will be more incidents like this until you open other trading ports. One trade station is not enough. Your fault,” UmBllatt said and signed off.

  “Our fault...” Captain Xu said and shook his head. “We better remember that motivations are not human ones...” Xu said and there were nods in agreement around his bridge. “Helm. Back to the lunar base.”

  “Aye, sir. Back to lunar base,” said the helmsman.

  ***

  The sweet smell of profound sorrow was being rapidly replaced with the acrid smell of excitement. The first officer turned to Captain UmBllatt waiting to be enlightened.

  The Captain decided to share his thoughts with the crew. They had done a good job. “My brother would never learn and he was endangering our trade,” UmBllatt said. “This will help us. We will spread this tale and fewer others will try to get around the lunar trading base. It will make us stronger in oculars of Earthers. The Earthers will have good tale to tell politicians. More trading posts will be more likely on our next trip. We will be in a strong position on all trade in this sector. Earthers will avoid our routes except on a couple of planets in this sector where I directed them. I did not tell them the danger on some they are going to visit. They will learn or they will not survive. Good way for them to learn. This has been a fortunate event for us.” Captain UmBllatt finished and the acrid smell of excitement was growing as the ship rapidly moved away from Earth. A good event, the Captain thought.

  ***

  General Kyger was astounded by the news from the Odin. “They did what? Destroyed his brother’s ship and said it was our fault! How did they come up with that rationale?” Brad paused. “How did the ship perform? We couldn’t get a good read from here. There was weapons fire on you? Good. Good. I’ll tell them. Kyger. Over and out,” he said and turned toward the room. “The interloper fired on our ship with a strong molecular disruptor and a fairly powerful laser. We had no damage. Their fire barely added any charge to the power core on Odin. Their ship was damaged by our first shot and UmBllatt’s ship totally destroyed all trace of the ship when they dropped what was left of their shields. Doctor Schroeder...Doctor Fredrickson. Good work on your shield system. Progress on the individual ones.”

  Joel spoke up...as he was wont to do on most occasions...”We’ve upgraded the powered suits with disruptor shields. Get someone to shoot you if you are running low on power. Their shots will recharge your power core. We are using the electrostatic, powered cloth that is designed to contract like muscles to give us added strength and the quantum entanglement armor that should be proof against all energy weapons. We now have a surface, nanotech camouflage system. It shows what is on the opposite side of the suit. It works okay but there’s a bit of latency when it’s moving. We had a hard time blending potential background when one suit occludes the one behind it. It would not be good to show the outline of the guy behind you so we had to smarten the suit. The MemDexs we have now are plenty capable of that feat. Of course, we still have the hardened field units integrated into the battle suits so they can fly as well as your old suits,” he quickly stopped and turned toward Susan. “...They have lots better control now and are a lot more stable.”

  It was obvious he would have kept explaining so Brad cut him off, “Thank you for the diatribe, Joel. A simple – we’ve got the battle suits almost up to snuff...would have sufficed. Will we have enough – soon enough...that’s what I want to know,” Brad Kyger asked.

  “Yes, General,” a chastised Joel responded.

  “Thanks, Joel,” Brad said with a grin. “Andrew. What do you think about UmBllatt’s little display?”

  “I think he’s not human and he is totally motivated by profit...killing your own brother and a lot of your own species to secure a trade route. That trade manual he left is a gold mine of information and that is what it is all about. I’ve spent a few accelerated hours with it. I recommend everyone read it before we leave. It’ll give a lot of insight. I’ve also had some thought about our route. I think UmBllatt downplayed the threats and some of the potential for trade. We will learn a lot if we survive. May I talk with you? Brad...privately? Tod...you too,” Andrew said.

  Both nodded and they walked away from the rest toward Brad’s stateroom.

  Tod and Brad sat down in the comfortable stateroom and Andrew finally let them know what was on his mind. “I’m worried about Eugene Bradley Philips,” Andrew said and Tod started to speak up but Andrew cut him off. “He’s implicated in this incursion business. He’s launched drones and reviewing the sensor files...that ship we just destroyed knew our patrol schedule and a lot about our security. I think Phillips has a drone swapping our security information for something. He’s planted at least one mole in the Enclosure. I hate going away and leaving him rooting around without accountability.”

  Brad leaned forward and ran a hand through his short hair. “We have some people targeting him. He may have a hand in your new biogerontologists. Doctor Demi Harrison has had some unusual money transfers just before taking the job in the Enclosure.”

  “That’s interesting. I wondered why she was so eager to burn her life in a time accelerated research project. Getting paid from two sources would make the prospect a lot more palatable I guess,” Andrew said.

  “Oh. She’s not burning up anything. She rarely goes in there. She has her assistants come out regularly and report to her. Her assistants are aging thirty times faster than her but she still directs the program every week or so of their time. She has gone in a few times b
ut only stayed a few days and came out as quickly as she could. She is trying to arrest aging,” Brad said.

  “Slow it down you mean?” Tod asked.

  “No,” Brad said. “She’s already made a fortune making products that slow down aging. She manufactures them and charges exorbitant rates so only the wealthy can afford them. She, like Phillips, wants to keep that money for a long time. She wants to stop aging, reverse it somewhat.”

  “That line of research would be as disruptive as our new power sources have been...maybe more so. It will only be the richest or most ruthless that get the treatments,” Tod paused, looking contemplative and then said, “We had better perfect this star travel while we still can. We need to disburse humanity so we’ll have a chance at survival. There’s never been a good way to stuff the genie back in the bottle. I’m afraid UmBllatt was right about us needing multiple trading posts too. The sooner the better...”

  They all sat saying nothing more for a long time. Brad said, ”Tod, see what you can do about upgrading Andrew’s ship...the Junior,” he smiled at the silly name. They had considered another military ship but this was the only privately financed one...primarily from consulting over the power supplies and stressed space fields. “I’ll talk with Lieutenant General Sykes. He’s heading up the investigation on Earth. I need to fill him in more in any event. See you in three hours normal. Get a good night’s sleep and not in normal time – too much to do.”

  They nodded and left quietly in a contemplative mood.

  Comm Entanglement

  Andrew was still upset about Phillips and what he might do while they were gone. Sykes plan to set up a quantum entanglement code for every Earth ship definitely made sense. You could query Earth in real time about a ship and the other ship could do the same. Unfortunately, you could not get the transponder code from the other ship directly unless you had entangled pairs of photons to begin with...at least, we couldn’t right now. It was also inordinately hard to tap into the communications and you could have communications in real time though with very low bandwidth currently. You could communicate but you couldn’t send audio or video – yet. The communications system and the transponder was one of the first things added to the newly rechristened Odin Junior – Earth’s first interstellar vessel.

  The supplies and trade goods were being harnessed securely in the cargo bays, as were spare parts for both ships. All that could was to be stored in the enormous cargo holds of the Odin. They would have to trade away a huge array of goods just to make room for new goods. There were ingots of iron and copper and some gold and silver. There was brass and many chemicals. Several whole sections were reserved for food stocks. There was also an enormous number of intellectual property files to trade. They could print vast quantities of materials from computer files and bind them into pamphlets or books on Riz. That took up the least space but might turn out to be the most valuable. They also had catalogs that could be printed on demand in any configuration also. All crew were required to study copies of the trader’s manual, star charts, and all officers were to undertake using the sector history cylinders. All crew were required to learn Trade and use it when on duty. This soon evolved into some melding of the Trade and English so more concepts could be incorporated.

  The crew of the Odin had been given the new battle armor and was practicing in a variety of environments from the weightless vacuum of space to a 2.5 gravity simulation. They practiced in simulated rain, hail, lightning, dust and water. They practiced in sub-zero almost up to the melting temperature of lead (327.5 degrees C). They practiced with high power lasers, molecular disruptors, kinetic weapons (M25Ds, M806 .50, and the venerable M4-Ds using cased telescoped ammo), and stunners (ultraviolet lasers that would ionize atmosphere and carry a high voltage charge on two paths to temporarily paralyze muscles). They even had a few small hand weapons. The Earth Regulatory Force ground troops (Airborne troops?) also practiced with knives and swords (the weirder the better), staffs, bolos, throwing stars. They had to learn to make explosives from household chemicals and survive in the wild (or as wild as places on earth get). They would rest by learning different alien languages.

  Andrew’s ship got battle armor lite suits without the camouflage aspects and with lighter armor and articulated strength. They were quite stunning looking and kept the gold tinted faceplates. A massive new cargo section and workout area was added to the junior and additional weaponry and shielding was added.

  Andrew’s old crew was having lunch with the new medical staff assigned to the Odin Junior. The medical bay had been enlarged and refurbished but it was nothing compared to the size and sophistication of the Odin’s two medical facilities. “What can’t we do that they can do on the Odin?” Andrew asked Dr. Patel – the new surgeon and chief medical officer aboard the Junior. She ran her team like a football coach and they snapped when she told them to snap.

  “Captain,” she said. “We can’t do the biological or chemical assessments they can on the Odin. Well – actually we could – just not nearly as fast. They have room for better bioreactors to create new medicines or vaccines. They have more MRIs and other imaging and simulation capabilities. We can do the same surgeries though they have more sophisticated microsurgery facilities. Ours aren’t as extensive. We can do most of what they can do but not as much of it. Of course, we have the better doctors,” she said with a grin.

  Fran spoke up. “Doc, I looked at some of your research on waste treatment for your synthesist degree and where you did your residency at the All India Institute in Delhi. Would you and staff look at our waste recycling and plasma arc waste disposal system? We have to generate our own water and deuterium if we have to produce or own atmosphere for years. It’s not like we can just bottle what we need.”

  “Will do...Joey, Khalid, Hui...Let’s do this...Captain. If you’ll excuse us,” she said and the group headed off to brainstorm environmental systems.

  Andrew met with Tod and General Kyger. They felt like they had to call him General whenever he was in uniform and after he had talked with Sykes on Earth...he was in a foul mood.

  “What’s up? Finances again or do you need to bring us more rousing speeches from your boss?” Andrew asked.

  “Nothing so nice,” Brad said as he poured some iced tea in a glass after offering the men some and put the cool glass against his forehead. I have word that there are legal proceedings trying to put a halt on our operations.”

  “Here at the base?” Tod asked.

  “Hell no...” Brad said fuming. “Corporate lawyers intend to shut down the entire Earth Regulatory Force...the World Government Council is being pressured by special interests to shut it all down. They say government transponder regulations are too invasive and a single trading base is interfering with free trade...too many regulations – too many attempts to cut into expanding business. Besides...you are involved in this too. There are accusations that the power source designs you put out over the Net were stolen from a corporate energy research facility near Arizona...a facility run by one Eugene Bradley Phillips. He says he has patents covering these devices. He said he sponsored your research and you were working for him on everything your team developed later. He is also saying – How can we let a thief be the sole representative of Earth?”

  “That’s ridiculous. We can prove we got the information originally from Rett...when he first came to Earth,” Andrew said.

  “So now you’ll bring in the only alien on Earth as your character witness to explain how you stole the technology from him. It would be a long, drawn-out battle,” Kyger explained.

  “What’s he after?” Tod asked.

  “Now that is the right question,” Brad said thoughtfully. “I think he wants to be put in control of all the new technology. It fits with his probable corruption of the anti-aging research. Sykes says that Phillips knows all about the battle armor and the flying belts and since that is a spin-off of research while you were working for him – it’s a work for hire situation and he owns it.”<
br />
  “That’s nuts. I have a non-disclosure we made him sign when we first demoed the first power generator. Weren't you the one pushing everyone to open multiple trading sites? Everyone would have to listen to you wouldn’t they?” Andrew asked.

  “I haven’t told you everything yet. Phillips wants Rett turned over to a responsible research agency and not some hodge podge of research in isolation. Phillips wants control of Rett and the Enclosure,” Brad said still boiling mad.

  “You can straighten this out General,” Andrew said and Brad got visibly quieter and the anger faded out of his eyes. His face turned, emotionally, stone cold. Andrew hadn’t seen him like this and Brad looked downright scary.

  “Phillips has concocted some story that we ambushed a recent trader trying to establish friendly relations. He says we destroyed his ship, under my orders and I had sought no higher authority. He portrays me as a ruthless, ambitious murderer. Phillips is wrangling to get me subpoenaed next Monday to testify prior to a court-martial. Gentlemen. I think I have a solution but it all depends on the next 24 hours. I’m going to contact Lieutenant General Sykes. Tod. You will put the base under the highest time differential field that you can. I know you did a smaller one at 60 times normal. Set it up with your immediate staff first. We have to leave in 24 normal hours,” the General said calmly.

  Andrew and Tod just looked at him and he was radiating confidence. “Leave for where in 24 hours?” they asked.

  “I think Sirius was our first stop wasn’t it,” he said and their jaws dropped open.

  “But they’ll call us back and we can’t get ready in a day,” Andrew said.

  General Kyger knew they’d put it all together shortly. “This will work out fine. Use any resources you need and the base is on communications lockdown with imprisonment for anyone who tries to violate the order. We can get a month of prep time if we can keep this quiet for 24 hours normal. All hell will break loose after that but it won’t matter and it will be all cleared up by the time we get back.”