A New Threat

by Aaron DeMott

  A few steps into the room, Tomed paused and turned toward the bar. The man behind the bar wore a greasy apron, and he held an even filthier rag in his left hand. Hopefully, he wasn’t the cook.

  “Got a bottle of whiskey?” Tomed asked.

  The bartender nodded. He turned and grabbed a bottle from the shelf behind him and set it on the counter in front of Tomed.

  Tomed flipped him a plastic credit chip, took the bottle, and returned to the back of the room. He glanced around briefly before he headed to one of the darker alcoves.

  A man slumped over the table. His hair was dark brown, almost black, with only a few gray speckles above the ears. He wore a short-sleeved shirt that might once have been white and a rumpled brown coat covered in unidentifiable stains. Tomed wrinkled his nose. It was Jake all right, and he hadn’t bathed in a while.

  Tomed pulled out a chair and sat down across from him. He waited politely for a moment but got no response.

  He leaned in closer, and shouted, “Jake!”

  “Huh?” Jake jerked his head and looked around. He blinked and rubbed his eyes.

  “Hi, old friend! How long have you been here?”

  Jake grinned. “Crikey! If it isn’t Tomed Nor! And I’d wager a good bottle of scotch that you don’t look a day older than when I last saw you twenty years ago! Also—” He looked around the room. “For your information, I’ve only been here a day…I think.”

  “You haven’t changed a bit, have you?” Tomed chuckled. “Anything new going on around here I should know about?”

  “Well,” Jake’s eyebrows rose. “There’s some interesting rumors flying around about a new sentient species that’s been discovered.”

  Tomed frowned. “I wasn’t aware that was public knowledge already.”

  “Hard to keep something like that quiet.” Jake picked up his empty glass, sighed, and set it back down. “But I reckon you know that already.” He winked. “Other than that, nothing terribly important’s been going on. It’s been suspiciously quiet as of late. Well, unless you count ‘ol Karn McTarkin’s usual antics.”

  Tomed leaned back in his chair and laughed. “The Accidental Hero strikes again! I can only imagine what he did this time.”

  “You’ll never believe it. He was ‘ere a week ago Friday, and he’s telling of one of his adventures—”

  “With the usual elaborations, I’m sure—”

  “—Too right! Anyway, he’s getting excited, and he’s drunk and acting out part of the tale. Now, he doesn’t know it, but a fight’s started right behind him.

  “Just then, one of the blokes in the fight is about to clobber the next person he sees, which happens to be ‘ol Karn. Now, Karn’s just getting to a high point in his story, so he’s swinging his arms around, demonstrating something, and he just happens to punch out the guy who was about to hit him.”

  “That’s classic McTarkin. I swear I’ve never seen anyone so accident prone who’s so good at avoiding trouble.”

  “Wait, it gets even better. So Karn bends down to apologize and help him up. Just as he bends over, one of the thug’s friends takes a swing at Karn and misses—you know, ‘cause Karn had just bent over. So the second thug is teetering around and starting to fall over on top of him. At that moment, some vague notion of what’s going on must have made its way into Karn’s alcohol-soaked brain, ‘cause he stood right up to see what’s happening. That flipped over the guy who swung at him who then gets flung off from Karn’s back and hits his head on a table.

  “So Karn looks around, and there’s still two more of them who are looking mighty angry by now. Karn starts walking towards them to apologize, trips over a chair, gets his legs all tangled up in it, and falls on the floor and rolls head over heels. That sends the chair flying into the other two, knocking ‘em to the floor. At that point, station security shows up, and the bartender points out the thugs and gives Karn free drinks for a week ’cause he stopped a fight.”

  Tomed laughed. “That guy cracks me up. That’s even better than the time he stopped an air-leak because he was too drunk to remember to button up his shirt.” Tomed cleared his throat. “Anyway, I do have some business to attend to.”

  Jake’s whole face lit up with a smile. “I assume you have the usual payment?”

  Tomed sighed. “Yes, but I’m worried that if half the rumors I’ve heard are true, you’ll die of liver poisoning before I’ll get anything out of you.”

  Jake looked hurt. Tomed laughed and handed him the bottle. Jake examined it appreciatively and turned it over in his hands to read the label. He frowned. “Hey! You got this grog at the bar!”

  Tomed shrugged. “I’ve been traveling on a UGAL ship. There wasn’t much to choose from.”

  Jake sighed. “Ah well, I guess it’ll ‘ave to do.”

  As he started to open the bottle, Tomed reached out and stopped his hand. “If you don’t mind, we’ll talk first. Then I’ll leave you to your, ah, lunch.”

  Jake frowned, and then nodded.

  Tomed sat back in his chair and folded his hands in front of him. “We were on our way to SeQish when we found the new planet that’s generating all the rumors. We were attacked by pirates.”

  Jake sat straight up and leaned toward Tomed. He looked around and then lowered his voice. “Now that is unusual. Most of the activity I’ve heard of is over in the Antar sector…ah, relieving travelers of their ‘excess baggage,’ if you catch my meaning.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard as well.”

  “I can dig around and see what I can find. It’s probably pretty low profile though. I haven’t even heard a furphy about it.” He looked around, “Could’ve just been someone extraordinarily stupid, but if that were the case, they’d be the laughingstock of the bar by now.”

  “Thanks. Let me know what you find. I’d love to stay and chat, but I want to show our guests the rest of the station before our shuttle leaves.”

  Tomed stood, shook Jake’s hand, and turned to leave. He stopped and turned back. “Oh... and Jake?”

  Jake looked up from the bottle he was pouring. “Yeah?”

  “Stop drinking that stuff. It’ll ruin your liver.”

  Jake chuckled as he finished pouring and took a swallow. Tomed sighed as he headed for the exit.

  The scene outside the windows in the viewing lounge enthralled Bast. Some of the ships docked at the various arms of the station were the same light blue as the Goddard; others were shades of gray or white. A few of the ships were rather aerodynamic in appearance, most were box-shaped, and several looked like they’d been assembled from whatever junk the builders had on hand.

  “There are so many of them.” Bast swiveled her head from side to side looking at the different ships. “What kind of different ships come here?”

  “The Alpha Centauri Station is the main hub for human space travel.” Bast turned around at the sound of Tomed’s voice.

  Tomed stood in the doorway. He walked over to stand behind Rrrark. “In the old days it was a halfway point to our nearest mining colony, and it’s grown since then. Now it functions as a refueling stop and transfer hub. With the station right here, we can set up regularly scheduled cargo or passenger transports between various planets without any one ship needing a direct trip to a specific destination.”

  He leaned against the window and eyed the docked ships. “To directly answer your question, that one—” Tomed pointed to short, boxy shaped ship. “—is a mining ship. The one over to the right—” He pointed to a sleek white vessel surrounded by a ring. “—is a transport ship, possibly even the one we’ll take to Earth.”

  Bast peered at it. The ring connected to the ship at several points, and a line of what looked like windows ran down the side of the ship.

  She stared at it for a while, and then turned to Tomed. “Um, I have a question.”

  “Yes?”

  “Uh, I’m not sure if this is a taboo subject or anything, so I’m not sure how to ask. But, ah, where is the sandbox?”<
br />
  Tomed grinned. “It’s usually considered somewhat rude to discuss the details, but it’s fine to ask where it is. The normal polite phrase is ‘Where is the restroom?’”

  “That’s good to know, but where is it please?”

  “Sorry, it’s over this way.”

  He led them both down the hall to the left, to a set of three doors. One of them had a human outline, the second was similar, but had a triangle over its mid-section. The third door had an outline of a pointed cylindrical shape with multiple wavy legs coming out from the bottom.

  Bast stared at them for a moment. “Hmm. Humans, humans with triangles, and fresh seafood?”

  Rrrark laughed.

  Tomed tried, and failed, to suppress a chuckle. “Close. Human males, human females, and SeQish.”

  Bast turned back to the doors and cocked her head to the side. “Do you think I should try females or SeQish?”

  “I’d try the female restroom. The SeQish have, um, different needs.”

  Bast came out a few minutes later and they proceeded back to the observation lounge. After another hour’s wait, an announcement came on the view screen that their transport was ready to begin boarding.

  Tomed led them through a series of corridors and tunnels to an airlock. Bast expected someone to be there, but only a screen on the wall listed the destination and flight number. When she walked through the opening, a green light flashed, and she jumped.

  “It’s just a scanner to make sure you belong on this flight,” Tomed said.

  “Oh. I just wasn’t expecting it.” Bast sniffed the light. “How does it know it’s me?”

  “It uses a few different identification protocols. First, there’s a camera.” Tomed pointed to the top of the doorway. “There are additional sensors embedded in the doorway as well that scan for weight, size, metallic compounds, contraband substances, and a few other things. In my case, they scan the identification card in my pocket, and compare that to the data gathered by the camera and the other sensors. In your case, it’s comparing the footage from the camera, your scent profile, weight, and bio-electric readings to the measurements that the Goddard’s sensors recorded.”

  The airlock opened into a space which doubled as a food preparation area during the trip, and rows of seats lined the rear section of the ship.

  Bast followed Rrrark as Tomed led them to the front of the transport. Small windows and colorful posters of some of the transport company’s other destinations lined the white walls. Double rows of chairs sat to either side of the hallway.

  Other passengers began boarding behind them. Bast looked over her shoulder. “Hi!” she said. One large human woman screamed and jumped backward, but another smiled at her.

  Bast cocked an ear and turned toward Tomed. “Why’d she scream?”

  Tomed shrugged. “You’re new and unusual for them, and different people react in their own way.”

  Tomed stopped at a door closest to the front of the ship and pressed his hand on a black square set into the wall. The door slid sideways and opened to a well-furnished apartment with a window set into the far wall. Bast walked over and gave the couch a cursory sniff before she moved on to the window.

  She sighed with contentment as she gazed out at the stars, “I don’t think I’ll ever tire of this view.”

  Tomed walked up behind her and leaned a hand on the upper frame of the window as he looked out. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  After a small delay, there was a beep, then the docking arm slid away, and the stars rotated as the ship turned and headed away from the station. Tomed sat on one of the chairs while Rrrark prowled around the cabin. Bast sniffed at the chair and batted at it with her paw. It felt like animal hide, but smelled like processed chemicals. She glanced at Tomed out of the corner of her eye. He sat with his feet on the floor and his spine against the back of the char. Bast flicked an ear. She wanted to try the human-style chair, but if she tried to sit like that she’d either slide off or hurt herself. She humphed and hopped up onto the chair. It was too small to lay down on. She curled her tail around herself, scooted her rear paws as far back as she could, and rested her forepaws on the front of the chair. Her right paw slipped off the edge. Bast frowned and attempted to scoot farther back into the chair. If it were a little bigger…

  A soft hum filled the ship, growing in volume and pitch. There was a lurch, and a multi-colored light show filled the window.

  Bast stared at it for a moment and asked, “What are all these colors?”

  Tomed stood and walked over to the window. “When our people first started to explore space with telescopes, even before we had spacecraft, we made extensive observations, calculations, measurements, and extrapolations. We found out a lot of things about the universe we live in, but all good science raises questions as well as answers. One thing that really puzzled our scientists for the longest time was the lack of matter in the universe.

  “We found all the extra matter after multiple dimensions were proved to exist and the first hyperdrive was built and tested. Turns out almost all of it’s in other dimensions, and we can only see it when we use hyperdrive to travel through those dimensions.”

  “So the short answer to my question is matter?”

  “Yes. Specifically, gas and plasma. The high-density magnetic field that the hyperdrive generates makes it glow. Some of the effect comes from our minds trying to interpret the other dimension that we’re in when we travel through hyperspace.”

  “Fascinating. And pretty.” She turned back to the window.

  Rrrark blinked with amusement and took a step closer to Tomed. “I was wondering if you had any historical information or other information about your culture that I could study during the trip?”

  Tomed smiled, “Actually, now that we’re within range of Earth’s SatNet, I’ve got something better.” He turned and addressed the empty air, “Gail, avatar.”

  A holographic figure of a young woman shimmered into existence. “Yes, Psygen?”

  Rrrark sat up and blinked with surprise. Bast let out a surprised meow. She had seen the human’s holographic displays and interfaces on the Goddard and the Alpha Centari station, but this was much more sophisticated. The translucent hologram didn’t have a smell, yet it seemed more solid than the others Bast had seen.

  “Gail?” Bast turned away from the figure and cocked an ear at Tomed.

  “Gail stands for General Artificial Intelligence Link. The Psygens test a lot of new technology for UGAL. Gail is a prototype for a combination of new holographic technology, long range communications, several breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, and a host of other minor things all integrated into one system.”

  Gail smiled and turned to Bast. “You must be Bast, one of the Meskka from Alkask?”

  Bast blinked. “Yes. How did you know?”

  “The Goddard uploaded its mission logs to SatNet before undergoing maintenance. I’ve been processing them since. Did you have a query?”

  “A what?”

  “She wants to know if you have a question,” Tomed explained.

  “Ah.”

  “Yes, I did.” Rrrark blinked a few times and sat up straighter. “I would like to know more about Earth’s history and culture.”

  “To fulfill the objective of your trip and learn more about humanity, of course. I have a file with a basic timeline and an overview of various Earth cultures compiled shortly after humanity’s encounter with the SeQish. In which format would you like the data?”

  “Text. Close avatar,” Tomed said.

  “Oh. Very well,” Gail sounded somewhat disappointed, but waved her hand and a holo-terminal appeared.

  “If you need anything else, just call,” she said before she faded out.

  “Needs work,” Tomed said.

  Rrrark growled in agreement as he pulled a wooden block out of his pack and started to scratch notes into it. Tomed watched idly as Rrrark read through the information. He stopped often to scratch notes into th
e block. When the block was filled, he pressed his paw over a small square on the lower right hand corner. The markings scrolled up, and the block was clean again.

  Tomed leaned over to get a better look. “Interesting device.”

  Rrrark looked puzzled for a second. “Oh, the note-block! It replaced wood pulp sheets for record keeping a long time ago. Not only does it hold more, but it doesn’t need a drawing tool...” He looked at Tomed’s hands, then back at the note-block. “Well, Meskka don’t need a tool...”

  Eight hours later, the transport dropped out of hyperspace.

  Tomed stood and stretched. “Let’s go up to the bridge. Earth should be coming into view. You’ve got to see it.”

  Bast and Rrrark followed him down the corridor. He spoke briefly to the woman who stood outside the door to the bridge, and then they stepped in behind the pilots. A blue and white speckled sphere shone with reflected sunlight onscreen.

  “It’s beautiful. Is all that blue water?” she whispered.

  Yes. Tomed used thought-speak to respond. We’ve got to be quiet now—the pilots have to concentrate as they navigate through various satellites and other space junk. And docking with the space elevator can be tricky.

  Sorry. What’s a space elevator?

  It’d be easier to show you.

  As the transport drew closer to the planet, Bast could see a small station they were headed toward with something that looked like a string hanging from its bottom. After a few more minutes the string grew thicker and longer, and looked like it went all the way down to the planet.

  Does that really go all the way down to the surface? Rrrark asked.