by Marc Neuffer
As they grew older, they continued to take trips out-system with their mother. She taught them every shipboard system as well as how to plot and pilot. They had earned their civilian licenses on Satchel.
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We are still in the Satchel system, cruising at the max permitted speed limit, on our way to a jump point beyond the heliosphere. Human ships had to be well clear of a system before they could jump away. Too much matter, gaseous or otherwise, or a more than weak gravity well, caused their interstellar drives problems in plotting a jump endpoint. Our Surron based ships, don’t have those restrictions, but I didn’t want to flaunt Ranger’s capabilities.
We could make a transit jump from anyplace, even planet-side, though the sound of air filling the void-hole where a ship had instantaneously disappeared, created a large sonic boom, damaging anything nearby. I limited that maneuver to airless moons and planets. Any premature jump, from in system, would alert civilian and military authorities that I, or at least my ship, had returned from the dead. Sandy and Mica held to this unwritten rule of ours with their ships also.
Another reason for a more leisurely system exit was I wanted some alone time with my adult children. Do a little father-bonding, though, beyond being together, I hadn’t a clue how to accomplish that.
We had our meals together and kept the same shipboard sleep-cycle hours. I had long since relaxed my need to be on the bridge for every slight maneuver. It had been a holdover from my days of prospecting in the bucket of bolts my old ship had been. Sandy had done an excellent job raising and educating the twins. If I’d been more present in their lives, I doubt they would have turned out better. Probably worse.
As a result of the Bears research in the Surron libraries, Ranger had upgrades and features Mica’s and Sandy’s ships lacked. We spent a good part of our second full day in the void going over those systems. Sarah especially was looking forward to investigating the larger ships I had.
In the ship’s lounge, I cued up a series of vids showing Shangri La, the library campus, and outlying small city, as well as some showing the Bears at work and their children at play; I never called them cubs.
Noah was quite intrigued by the video records I had of other species I had interacted with. Most were a recognizable, bilaterally-symmetrical mammal type, a few egg-layers, and a handful that were a bit strange to the human experience. Both the twins asked question after question about the Bear’s proposed interstellar congress.
They both knew my story, at least the parts Sandy knew, and from the library archive record the bears had published. We haven’t established a satellite library in the human galaxy as yet. It’s on my to-do list. I wanted to hear about their lives, how it had been for them growing up, their memories, experiences and feelings about their past.
Before they let me immerse myself in their personal histories, they insisted hearing about mine, eager to hear about my childhood and early adult years. It’s been a long time since I’ve thought back that far. I told them about a few of my childhood friends and mundane things we’d done, about my deceased parents and my sister, who never left our home planet.
Noah asked a lot of questions about my four years in the military as a pilot. I glossed over my years as a prospector, hitting just the highlights of the more impressive finds. I didn’t tell them about the times I could barely make payroll for my crews. Sarah made me promise to introduce her to my sister, her aunt, and to her cousins.
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Four days later, after reaching an authorized out-system jump point, we were met by Avalon, one of my large ships. We docked with her to continue our trip, making a slower than instantaneous transit to Shangri La. I wanted to give Sarah and Noah time to investigate and become acclimated to this huge ship class.
Avalon was of the latest, new construction vessels. While still built along the lines of a smooth cylinder, she was larger by half than the original Surron ship Traveler. She could even instantaneously divide into two ships, and then mate back together. New discoveries in the libraries had led the Bears to improved technologies even the Surrons hadn’t imagined. The Bears were very good at that.
Many of those improvements were well beyond minor enhancements and they guaranteed our continued supremacy in the four-dimensional space we call the universe.
One of the mods I requested was installation of transparent metal windows in the crew areas. Traveler had them now, but in the back-when, it was easy to get cabin fever, even on such a large ship. Humans need to be able to gaze into a distance, views unbroken by bulkheads and manmade artifices. Flat and even holo-screens just weren’t the same. To make the ships more hospitable, the Bears had added leafy vines and bush sized plants in many crew areas, even on the bridge, breaking the sterile looking environment.
A new, large and high-domed section had what looked like a forest ecosystem with grass, plants, trees. The space had an artificial ‘sun’ that maintained an optimal night-day cycle for the plants. I liked to take refuge there, watching the night time moon transit across the realistic sky.
Since we were engaging with other species, and occasionally taking their representatives with us, the ships had convertible sections to house those who had need of different gravity, atmospheric and food requirements.
I think the twins will be enthralled by the hard-light, immersive holographic venue. Traveler had copied Martin’s system, converting one of her large cargo bays into an ever changing and interactive oasis for Mica and Abby’s honeymoon. Everything she projected could be felt and touched. It was quite realistic, even to the proper ambient noise and smells. The only thing that didn’t work as it would in the real world were the lakes and oceans. You couldn’t actually swim in them. The Bears said they were working on that. We had expanded the size of the hard-light facility on all follow-on ships. But, still, I preferred the real forest.
When Sara saw the advanced fighters, she immediately crawled inside one, spending hours going over the systems and being tutored by Avalon. She had fully inherited Sandy’s love for all things mechanical and electrical. Emerging, a bit disheveled, she announced at dinner her intention to take one out into the void, when we reached the Shangri La system. The new fighter models have S-drives and vastly improved defensive shields, as well as upgraded AI controls.
Like me, Noah spends a lot of time in the shipboard forest, studying the fauna. He questioned Avalon about the planetary lifeforms that had not been included—everything from the micro-organisms to the largest animals intrigued him.
This together was time well spent, but Shangri La and my duties awaited.
7 Baryogenesis
Baryogenesis: hypothetical physical process that took place during the early universe to produce a positive imbalance of matter over antimatter. The observable universe is made of leftovers.
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Onboard Ranger, we disembarked Avalon to make our way to the surface of Shangri La. She returned to her monitoring duties halfway across the universe, if there is a halfway, in a system that was being threatened by a regional neighbor.
A closer look and hook-up with some allied sentients in the local cluster was in order. They were a library-host species we had vetted as the local constable. I usually didn’t personally attend these, there are too many.
My hard-light puppet, controlled by Avalon’s AI, stood in for me. I can’t be everywhere, well, I could be, but clones are not reliable constants. Going forward, their different experiences, could cause an eventual, philosophical chasm between us before too long. I didn’t want to have to bring any of my selves up on charges. The puppets worked just fine and could tolerate any species environmental conditions.
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Martin, and his cat, met us at Ranger’s hangar. He’d named it Penelope. A reference to some very ancient human culture’s story about the wife of a sailor who took the long way home from a war. His wife had waited, faithfully, patiently for his return for twenty years. I suspect Martin knows more about huma
n history than anyone alive. He had several tens of thousands of years to study it, before we found him on the rift planet. You can’t stump him. Mica and Sandy had tried many times.
Martin had been a Surron AI. His job had been to guard the rift and wait for someone who could help close it. He had waited over two billion years in the human galaxy. When we first met him, he projected a hard-light persona of a slightly aged, slightly stoop shouldered, professor, right down to reading glasses and elbow patches on his corduroy jacket. He took a younger, more robust human form when he decided to partially vacate his AI cube.
“Welcome home. And who are these bright-eyed young people?” Turning to Noah and Sarah, “I miss interacting with humans. Hornblower is almost one, but he lacks the natural spontaneity of his race, so there’s never any real, or pleasant surprises.”
“It’s good to be …. back, Martin.” I almost said home. How’s old Pen doing?”
Stroking his companion, “She is quite well, considering her age. I put her in the Auto-doc, occasionally, when she gets lethargic. I’ve considered importing a few mice for her to chase.”
Sarah approached, “May I hold her?”
“Well she’s only been around me for over two decades. Perhaps let her sniff you first.” Sarah held out her hands, then lightly stroked the feline between the eyes. Penelope purred. “Humm … seem she likes you. I guess she’s not as picky about new people as I thought. You’ve been approved. It’s a big deal for cats, you know.
Martin led us to our new, freshly constructed home. We walked a gravel path through a copse of trees to the base of a long, sloping hill. And there it was, a large cantilevered, single level building. Surely it was too big for just the three of us.
The front jutted out over the downslope, the rear disappearing into the hill side. Glass enclosed the entire front—a wide covered balcony wrapped the three exposed sides. Except for the rear, there were no obvious supports for the rest of the flat roofed house.
“I took the liberty of having your personal items moved to your new quarters.”
That must have been a light load. I don’t have much. All the years I’d spent in the space force of my home system, and then as a rock-hopping prospector, I’d gotten used to traveling light, not accumulating anything but memories.
Except for Sarah’s small backpack, their luggage was being transported by servitor-bots. We rode up in a concealed lift. I eyed the open floor plan. Sara remarked that it resembled some of the newer architecture styles floating about the galaxy. She meant the human one.
Martin showed each of us our personal spaces, then the remainder of the house. It would have been a sterile glass, chrome and stone wall affair if the Bears had not included quite a bit of natural plant life. The furniture was human size and very comfortable. The great room was separated from the Auto-Chef and dining areas by low walls.
Martin said the Bears had been quite excited to design my new home. An elevator, at the back, rose to a roof top pool with a large cabana.
“Well, I’ll leave you two to get settled in. I’ve got to check in and see what’s on the threat board.”
“Hey, I don’t know about Noah, but I’m going with you. I want to see what you do and meet some Bears.” Sarah turned towards Martin, “I love this house. Thank you so much. Bring Penelope by anytime, I’d love to get to know you and her much better.” The planet’s population of humans had doubled when Sarah and Noah landed.
As we walked, I told her the Bear culture, required, demanded, that formal introductions be performed on first meetings. I would introduce them to her first, and then her to them. It was a highly regulated ritual. I reminded her that she would have to be fitted with a translator before meeting any of the Bears.
Noah had stayed behind to, as he put it, unlimber from the trip. He was more comfortable in wide open natural surroundings. Visiting another building and my work-center were not something he would care for on his first day. We left him to enjoy the roof-top pool.
Along the way, Martin told me that there was a small problem with the three Eshalax ships we’d sent on a long voyage home. They had been sent by their planetary mucky-mucks to wait as long as possible to destructively close the dimensional rift. That little explosion would have taken out over half our galaxy and sterilized the rest. But, considering the entire universe was at risk if the rift was not closed, I couldn’t fault them in their plan.
Their trip had taken over two million years. Even with normal jump drives, the universe is a big place. After negotiations, we sent them on their way, before our team and Martin dissipated the rift in a less dramatic fashion. Now those ships were breaking down, not able to continue their journey home, stranding them in the cold dark, between galaxies. Entropic decay is a bitch. We needed to do a rescue of sorts.
They wouldn’t be in a good mood, since we pulled a fast one to get them clear. We promised to send Traveler, and all her Surron technology, to their home planet, as a present for their Grand-Poohbah, in return for vacating the area and allowing us access to the rift without violence. They hadn’t known their kind had been completely erased a million or so years ago, by several neighbor species who had objected to their genocide of a related race. I would attend to this one myself. The crews, on those ships, were the leftovers, the only remaining of their kind.
8 Nucleosynthesis
Nucleosynthesis: a process that creates new atomic nuclei from pre-existing protons and neutrons. The first nuclei were formed about three minutes after the emergence of the universe. Leaving the young universe as 75% hydrogen and 25% helium. After that, came the history of everything.
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I spent this day, wrapping up loose ends, before we would head out to confront the three Eshalax ships. Sarah and Noah were coming along. I started thinking about the day, many years from now, I might hand over the reins to them. A strange, comforting thought I’d never had. I wrestled with that now; in the hours before we left. Did I want to involve them in this? While they are young, and the idea may seem attractive to them, I had fatherly fears if I led them on that path.
When meeting new species, projection of force could either be an extended, warm handshake of inclusion, or a threatened spear thrust to the heart. My preferred option was the handshake. For more aggressive, xenophobic races, the perceived threat was usually sufficient to get them to cool their rhetoric and actions to a more reasonable contemplative and conversational sort.
After the first year of exploration and meet-ups, I found including other species, as equals, during first contact was an effective means to show we weren’t interested in single-species domination. I liked this allied front. It brought a better perspective to both sides.
Projection of force was fine, but use of it was always a last resort; held out, to be considered only when an inter-species genocide was looming or unrestrained slaughter was occurring; or enslavement. I hated slavery. I had used my hammer before. Once. Since then, static displays, such as collapsing a moon or planetoid in the far reaches of a system has always been sufficient to get our point across.
When conducting these encounters, we boarded several representatives and their ships, for the transit only I could make. A show of diversity. Emissaries for peace. It was all voluntary whether a non-Bear species accompanied us. We were never lacking volunteers.
The general make up of these groups was half diplomats and half scientists. The Bears were excellent inter-species psychologist. They were very quick to analyze cultures and help craft a process that was almost always guaranteed to achieve positive results. At least twenty Bears went on each trip. I preferred them to be seen as the front-man.
On this trip, as on most, we were taking three of the behemoths. Three seemed to be an optimum number. One could have done any task, but three showed we were more than a one-off. Any more might look too much like an invasion. Every species uses their own yard stick to measure us.
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I met Sarah and Noah as they emerged from
the Administrative complex. Early this morning, I introduced them to Font and Forest, leaving them to get acquainted.
The threat board had become a total mess in my absence. While Martin was a superb strategic and tactical master, and the Bears organizational geniuses, they left it to me to set priorities and general plans.
Noah spoke as we shortened the distance between us. “We had a very nice interview with Forest and Font. I had the most pleasant feeling in their office. They took us to meet some younger Bears involved in agronomy and life studies,” glancing at Sarah, “I think she got a little bored with that, until we joined with some of their engineers.”
Sarah rolled her eyes in the same way her mother had done to me hundreds of times. I laughed. It felt good to laugh … again. My kids were tall, trim and attractive; poster children for humanity. I was becoming a proud papa—an unfamiliar, unexpected feeling for me.
“I showed the engineers that artifact you brought me. It took them a while, but finally one of them hit on the idea of talking to it. It’s a music library and displays a holographic column light display to match the tone and tempo of the music. Thanks, Dad, I’ll always treasure it.” She called me Dad. More unfamiliar emotions washed over my brain. Sandy should have warned me. I’d had Martin load up the ancient music box with millions of human musical pieces, from ancient history to the most modern.
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We were aboard Astolat, jumping to meet Atlantis and Hawaiki. Martin claimed the naming rights to all our large ships. He used mythical name-places from Earth’s almost prehistoric times. Human history fascinated him. He said he enjoyed the unrestrained chaos of it all … and the old movies, especially the black and whites.
The other two ships had collected representative contingents from two of our allied races for this intervention. One of those had agreed to sponsor the last remaining Eshalax on a compatible world in their galaxy. A place where they could revive their non-organic species, and be watched over.