by Ken Pence
Oakley picked up his package by the handle covertly as he turned and stepped into the inside corridor of the alien ship. The corridors were pretty broad – much wider than the Osprey.
The bosun notified the ES Captain that he had the Earther contained just inside the port side airlock amidships. The captain ordered the bosun to keep him there and not let him see any more of the ship – it would give the Earth personnel too much of an advantage.
Tech Seaman Alan Oakley was getting angry at just being made to stand around. He had his suit field turned down to about half strength – any higher and he wouldn’t have the traction to walk. He thought, screw it. “You want these gifts?” he said in Tros.
“What gifts? I told you not to grunt. Do not speak unless I tell you to speak,“ said the bosun.
Oakley bent over slightly and fumbled ‘til he found the switch that turned off the field on his package.
The large Ullumff in the group opened fire with his molecular disruptor as soon as the large silver box became visible, and didn’t stop until the boson hit him across his arms, hard, with the butt of his own weapon.
“You ##@%%$ **#*&% ***&@*^* &^&#(*&##&. How could you be so stupid you ##@%^^ )&@&@?” The bosun was furious and Oakley could catch the sweet cinnamon smell of anger??... as he yelled at his crewman.
The bosun was not disturbed by the fact that his crew had fired. He was disturbed because the wild firing had dissolved a good piece of the inner airlock door – in an outline of the Earth alien. The bosun was also disturbed that the disruptor had no effect on this alien and it was the only type of weapons they had with them. The Earther acted like nothing had happened and made like it wanted to speak. “Speak,” said the bosun.
Boy. These guys were jumpy. “Here. I brought some welcome gifts. I have several bottles of wine, a video scenic player, calculators, and some brochures and catalogs for the Eugene Hotel. I also have Earth products we sell as well as some apples and jalapeno peppers. The catalogs and brochures are all on NuRiz. We make that too. We have a couple of Earth language training cylinders for you. Welcome to this section of space. It will be nice to have extra help here keeping the trade routes open. No pirates will work this area with all your ships around. Tell us how many will be coming to the Eugene Hotel and we will set up the free rooms.” Oakley finished his little practiced spiel as the ES crew stood looking at the damaged airlock door behind him and the useless weapons in their arms.
The bosun went down the hall a bit and keyed the intercom. He had a rather lengthy talk with the ES Captain and then came back to the group.
“The Captain thanks you for your hospitality and wants to meet your personnel very much. He will bring a complement of eight plus himself to the U-gene. He wants me to escort you to another airlock further to the rear since this one is damaged. The Captain wants to know if you need assistance getting back to your ship and could he escort your ship back to the planet.”
“I need no help getting back to my ship thank you. My commander regrets that he has business elsewhere currently. We will return to the planet shortly and will meet your group tomorrow after midday at the Eugene Hotel. The map and coordinates are in the literature we left for you,” Oakley was relieved they didn’t try to restrain him. He was glad his suit had been on light defensive mode. It had not been set to react violently. Oakley was glad Commander Castellano had suggested the passive setting for his suit. He didn’t want to hurt these guys since they were essentially trying to do the same thing he was doing. They didn’t have much backup either. Bit disturbing they would try to kill me if I tried something though… guess I would too if some alien was visiting my ship for the first time.
Oakley bade them farewell and climbed into the rear airlock. He turned on the invisibility for his transport box and his suit as the airlock was finishing its cycle. He chuckled to himself knowing they had been watching him leave the airlock. He rushed back to the Osprey as fast as he could fly because the commander had wanted to shock them by leaving so fast.
Oakley had no sooner entered the Osprey before Castellano ordered the ship to depart at half speed – faster than the top speed of the three ships confronting them.
***
The captain of the ES ships was shocked as he was told that the Earth ship had left the area at faster than the top speed of any of the fleet. It was no longer in sensor range. He had the bosun and the others relate their stories about this Earther turning invisible and then an impossibly short time later – their ship had left – so rapidly. He sat looking at the brochures in Trade – in full color. He watched the exotic, beautiful scenes on the little player and multiplied numbers on the small calculators. It was incredible. Evidently, it was not impossible since here it was.
He would have a long report for his supervisors but he needed to do more in depth investigation first. He grabbed a bottle, studied it for a moment, then twisted off the top and poured himself some deep red liquid into a clear glass. He smelled it and it smelled interesting. He dipped a finger in it and then touched it to his tongue. He then took a little sip – then another. It wasn’t long before he took a bite of apple – delicious. Now what were these little green things? They had descriptions of the items and how they were used and current trade prices. He read the description and then bit into the jalapeno pepper.
The first mate heard the Captain bellow and rushed in to find him with his head under the spigot in his washroom drinking copious amounts of water. “I am fine – just investigating the Earth products,” the Captain said with slurred speech and twisted the top off a second bottle. “…just investigating…” he said, and the mate backed out of his cabin…
The New Tourist Destination
Captain Andrew Williams had jumped from being a leader of a synthesist team to commanding the Earth’s first star ship. What a transition, he thought. He had led an interstellar flight to Tau Ceti, engaged in battle over Earth and then negotiated a treaty. It had been years – more years than he wanted to count even though he didn’t look his age. Rejuvenation techniques from the first group expedition to Bellatrix made him look 25 – reversing the years he had spent doing research in the time expediting Enclosures. Now, our planet has an Earth Regulatory Force, a lunar quarantine station and ten trade centers on Earth.
The alien tourists were starting to visit. The Queen, a converted slave ship, had just arrived from Bellatrix. Those alien tourists had just visited the California redwoods and were now routed to see whales breaching off-shore. I hope the visitors don’t get seasick. Several aliens in the group were from desert planets and could never have seen so much water. It was sure to be an experience. Many of the group had wanted to see snow slopes like the snowboarding in the video scenics we had given out as samples on several planets. It wasn’t like they would be able to decipher decades of molecular circuitry. The whirlwind tour was the first of many mini-jaunts. Each Earth tourist destination was trying to outdo the last. That would pale rapidly but it was the newest thing. It sure had diverted the world’s attention.
Earth had become the premier location for interstellar tourism. Our hotels and restaurants were quickly getting the reputation as perfection for many species of interstellar traveller. It wasn’t the reputation we had sought – it just happened we were good at it compared to every planet we had seen in this far-flung arm of the galaxy. Gravity, humidity adjusted environments where the native, Earthers, spoke Trade and a plethora of other non-terrestrial languages. No import duties and Earth was SAFE. We had proven we were kick ass strong. It was rumored that all our interstellar travellers were warriors who even practiced war skills even with their games. We had started that rumor ourselves. Earthers were also rumored to be fantastically wealthy in the way they spent lamlee and had trade goods that were exceptional. The Earthers spoke in the high culture dialects of most major interstellar languages and offered fantastic services at fair prices. The Uoott Guide couldn’t keep up with the rave reviews since it had come out a couple of Earth years ago.
The food on Earth was becoming renowned also. Black market Earth devices and foodstuffs brought exorbitant prices anywhere off planet. It would be a long while before supply caught up with demand. Attempts had been made to copy Earth products but the alien copies were shabby attempts at best.
***
Lee Post came up to Williams. Lee was a construct composed from ancient lamlee, a molecular construct from the Ylee forerunner race that had disappeared from this area of the spiral arm millennia ago. He had taken a human form and was their only link to the long disappeared Ylee – a race that appeared more like cephalopods than human.
Andrew turned to the human analog, Lee Post (post Ylee) and inquired as to his status.
“I am still absorbing the differences between a land based and water based culture. The differences are both greater and lesser than I remember. Your anthropological differences are interesting and they still vary across your land masses. That is, in itself an intriguing phenomenon. Your land based culture is as different as the sea cultures that vary due to depth, salinity, current, volcanic activity, mineral deposits and the like…it seems more similar than I would imagine and you could advance technologically faster than aquatic life because of your easy access to fire – aquatic life had to rely first on thermal vents. Land based life had a much easier time ascertaining astronomical data than aquatic life but less than you would imagine.”
“That was quite a diatribe,” Andrew responded with a grin. “What have you concluded?”
“I have concluded that your race has not traveled enough to run into the more belligerent races that must still inhabit this spiral arm,” Lee said.
“What makes you say that?” Andrew said.
“You have not suffered defeat yet. It is inevitable?”
“Why do you say that?” Andrew asked.
“There have always been races that challenged the Ylee. I cannot imagine they have all disappeared.”
“We have fought every race we have come into contact with so far,” Andrew said remembering the conflicts on Tau Ceti, Sirius, Eradani and Bellatrix – not to mention the tiff with the Exploration Service.
“There are more species out there and my information is out of date. We need to look for descendants of the Ylee. We need to be heavily armed,” Lee Post said. “I have extrapolated where possible Ylee outposts may still be active – they are not close to this planet using your current drive designs. I think we can improve on those designs so I may reach them.”
“Tell me more what you think WE ought to do,” Andrew said intrigued and concerned by the construct’s statements. He knew that Earth could never be sustained with its current state of knowledge of the universe – we were too parochial. We would have to push for larger fleets and deeper penetration of the spiral arm. He nodded to Lee and they sat down to look at options in earnest. Andrew didn’t look forward to approaching Brad about another expedition so soon after the last one. Earth was experiencing growing pains already. More ships for defense and another expedition had better have a profitable goal. Everyone would have to understand before anyone would move a step off planet.
As Lee presented his case – Andrew realized that the construct had just articulated, in a highly cogent way, what he had been losing sleep about – already. There were always bigger, badder guys out there – they just hadn’t run into them yet.
Deeper Into the Spiral Arm
“You want to do what? We’ve gotten through our exploration and trade jaunts without too much loss of life. We go traipsing deeper in toward the core and we are going to get handed our head. We’ve been lucky so far and you know it,” General Brad Kyger huffed at Andrew.
“We’ve gotten so much in trade. We have new technology and resources. Rare earth elements are plentiful now. Humans are going out into the stars. Doesn’t that excite you? We’ve gained so much,” Andrew stressed.
“Oh sure: molecular disruptors, pirates, diseases, parasites, belligerent aliens – even slavers …great,” Brad countered.
“You’re not being fair,” Andrew said. “We have life extension treatments, new energy sources, immigration to other worlds and Lee Post has laid out research for faster ship designs that would give us further strategic advantages. Our invisibility gear and suits give us a head start. It will take all the aliens a while to catch us.”
“Unless they are ahead of us already,” Brad said quietly. “I got approval this morning to do a feasibility study for another expedition. I am just voicing my concerns. The Council gave the approval this morning.”
“Why’d you mess with me over this if you already agreed with me?” Andrew asked.
“Andrew,” Brad said. “Let me level with you. It is all we can do to keep every splinter group on Earth from leaping off into space. We need to find habitable but uninhabited planets so we don’t do another white man-Indian tragedy. We will lose whole colonies if we don’t know what is out there. Radical exoduses are bound to stir up trouble and they’ll want protection that we can’t give them – yet. We’ve got a lot of that protection on the drawing boards but we aren’t there yet by any means. The life extension has screwed up everything too. Think about the insurance companies reaping their windfalls, pensions defaulting and corporations that will fail. Think of the missed inheritances and the power brokering going on and you get some idea of what is happening.”
“We have to find out what is going on out there. Take the new drive technology that Lee Post proposes and get Tod, Susan, and Shiv, plus anyone else you need, and see if it is feasible in the short term. Humans are sitting ducks on Earth because we don’t have enough genetic material spread around if Earth gets destroyed,” Brad said.
“You think that could happen?” Andrew said.
“I dream about it every night. Remember the Exploration Service manual describing histories of signatories discussed mass extinctions… whole planets. We have one gene pool here – essentially – right now. We’ll need established colonies away from Earth as soon as we can. We can’t support them so they’ll need to fabricate whatever they need by themselves,” Brad continued.
“Your Bellatrix scientist, Shuma, may be some use if he gets his invention perfected soon. You’ll need to involve him. Get him back from Bellatrix and put him in an Enclosure. Look. Right now, we’re flush with resources. We’re like the Saudi’s before their oil reserves ran low. Factories all over the world are cranking out trade goods. We can’t make enough video games, scenics, calculators and the like. We could export all the fruit and most of the vegetables raised on this entire planet. They love our wine and beer – love it. We could ask the moon for it. We can’t make enough of it but the trade imbalance won’t last forever,” Brad’s voice fell off.
“We’re on it, Brad,” Andrew said.
“I know, buddy. Just hope you get set up in time to do some good.”
***
The enclosure in Arizona was bustling with activity. Lee Post had laid out the theory that Tod and two other scientists were struggling through on the screen. “We have to clarify this parameter of the equation. It doesn’t make sense. Where did you get this idea? It is impossible,” the scientist said.
“It worked for the Ylee,” said Lee Post.
“It is impossible,” said the scientist.
“It occurred so it must be possible,” Lee said.
“I just don’t see it,” said the scientist.
“That is quite possible,” Lee said.
Tod chuckled and said, “Okay I see it as a possibility since we have been altering the nature of space to travel as fast as we do currently. We alter the nature of the space around us in this Enclosure so that apparent time flows so much faster here compared to external to the field. We may be able to alter space but it seems like it is difficult this near a planetary body,” Tod surmised.
“You see it,” Lee Post said. “You are quick. I would have not suspected land based life could see it so readily.”
“I see the math,” Tod sai
d. “I really have no idea how we can do it. Seeing the possibility is not doing it in real life. Do you know how?”
“I do not know but I have an idea how we might approach the problem. I think it is more about how we lay out the fields and how fast we approach,” Lee said.
“Approach?” said the two scientists.
“…the boundary layer. It will be dependent on threshold velocity across the boundary. Your current technology makes this next technology possible. The boundary, from all I remember is…turbulent…more so at low velocity,” Lee said.
“What do you consider low velocity?” Tod said.
“I am unsure,” Lee said, “but I assume anything under 700 lights would be fairly…rough.”
“Define rough,” Tod said.
“Some shearing effects I expect,” Lee said.
“Definitely rough. Can’t wait to test this out,” Tod said sarcastically.
Test Tech
Tod Schroeder had been puzzling over the formulas that Lee Post, the Ylee construct, had laid out. They were far from complete and posed many more questions than they answered. Tod had a difficult time thinking of Lee as an animated pile of lamlee – Lee stood patiently by as Tod stared in concentration at the wall display. Lee appeared only to have partial knowledge of the drive technology of the Ylee. They had had a method of traveling stellar distances in the blink of an eye. Currently we travel at 1,400 times the velocity of light and negate inertia while doing so, Tod thought. We alter space or time while we travel but we’re just scratching the surface of what is possible.
“What else do you know about their drive technology?” Tod asked trying to tease out a bit more information from Lee Post.
“Your question is a bit all encompassing,” Lee retorted in what could have been a humorous retort to Tod’s question. Tod was obviously frustrated and Lee was perceptive enough to recognize the fact.