Retread Shop 1: First Contact

by T. Jackson King

  “Their way of war, their approach to armed conflict is different from ours. It is done, it appears, with true regret. The Horem seem to think we humans will forgive and forget what happened in the skies over Australia in a few months and things will proceed as they were before.

  “Having lived among the Horem for two years now, and after walking among the starkly alien ones like the Thix-Thet and the Thoranians, I think that war as social policy is strange to them. They are far more interested in the life of the mind, Trade, the life of friendship, and exploring the stars than they are in grubby military encounters.

  “But will we forgive and understand, since we rarely forget wars? Will we realize you don’t play games of “chicken” and “keep off of my block” with alien societies whose evolutionary history is quite different from ours? Whatever we do, we must bear in mind the aliens used weapons today that are 300 years obsolete for them. They could have stayed in orbit and hit the twenty or more Earth cities with antimatter beams, thereby killing millions in order to destroy thousands of evil-doers. They did not do that. For which we can only be thankful. Let’s hope we think this time rather than just react!”

  Jack saved the blog, then tapped the Send order on the LinkPad. In two seconds the blog, accompanied by still images of him and Colleen sitting in the food hall with two Horem women, would flash around the Earth and into every satphone, iPhone, LinkPad and old-style flatscreen TV that could receive direct broadcast signals.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Two days later he and Colleen were aboard Brilliant-Green-Sky, heading for a showdown meeting in New York between the Compact aliens and the UN, the Big Eight and everyone else with a direct interest in Earth’s First Contact with aliens. Jack had been asked by Colleen what would happen—would the cooperation continue?

  He’d told her he thought things would work out. All they needed were a few quiet years of positive cooperation without crazies blowing up things. A few years in which to show the people of Earth that contact with aliens could be beneficial, could help feed the hungry and expand the range of industry out into the solar system. As had happened on Ceres and in the Asteroid Belt. He hoped the world would pull back and give Contact a second chance.

  To Jack, aliens who refrained from orbital bombardment with neutron antimatter beams were far more preferable than a descent into World War III and thermonuclear contamination of Earth. He hoped greed was more powerful than ideology.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Eight ship years after Contact with the Humans, Maker-of-Eggs Looseen snuggled in the warm sand of her Decisions Chamber and looked at an infrared Imager screen on a nearby wall. She saw what she had yearned to see ever since her young adulthood on Tidehome—a Zik colony ship. Ready to depart the Human system for the nearby M4 red dwarf the Humans called Barnard’s Star. While a strong flare had been detected by the Humans in 1998, the habitable zone of the star was host to three rocky planets. The inner two lay close to the zone’s inner limit of 0.056 AU, and thus were tidally locked to show only one face to the star. The outer water planet lay at 0.109 AU from the star. Which gave the Earth-sized world a year of 23 Earth days. No matter. The probe Hekar had launched on the way to the Human star had documented a large moon, oceans and many archipelagoes. A home at last for the millions of her children who slept in Suspense, as yet unformed, unsentient, ignorant of the gentle tidal currents that were the birthright of all Zik.

  The time of departure had arrived for her brood-daughter Herakeen, who would be the new colony’s Maker-of-Eggs, and for the crew of Technicians, Thinkers, Defenders, Workers and Feeder Drones. The hollow silent chambers of Zikhope filled with hers and Zikeen’s egg cohorts must wait some years before they could be born. But it would happen. She found herself tempted to slip into the dream-state of memory recall. To relish the memory-dream of Tidehome.

  But Looseen knew her duties well and she would not further delay the Transfer Ceremony. It was all that remained to do before Zikhope began the climb out of the local star’s gravity well toward that point in deep space where the M4 star would be in about eight ship years. It would take that long since Zikhope could not rely on the small red dwarf to notably slow its velocity. Instead, the colony ship would spend four years rushing to the star at ninety percent of lightspeed, then spend another four years decelerating to system entry velocity. But time mattered not to those in Suspense.

  She shut down the chamber’s automatic systems, turning the interior dark, cool and spiritless, then moved her 116 year-old body toward her private exit. Several repulsor disks supported her massive yet fragile weight. Moving down the outside access pylon of the Control building, Looseen treated herself to a few moments of reflection upon the long path leading up to the departure of Zikhope in ship year 424, or the Human year A.D. 2058

  Her plan to rely upon the local dryland sapients for help in construction of Zikhope had finally worked despite the strains in Contact produced by the Compact retaliation against the Penitent Cells, NeoMarxists and Libyan Protectorate zealots. The Australian Humans still refused any communications with the Compact due to the Sydney Encounter. But the other Humans had proven to be less dogmatic and almost as avaricious as the Horem. The work on Zikhope had resumed with the usual Human indentured laborers and technicians as before. Her Russian allies—lacking Penitent Cells and Libyan jihadists—had suffered one attack on their city of Volgograd, where a group of NeoMarxists had been hiding. They remained reliable providers of labor, materials and technicians. They also continued recording everything, spying about with organic and inorganic components, and generally getting pale about the gills with anxiety that they might not learn all her secrets.

  Inside, she laughed, feeling amused. Their inept attempts to emplace sensors of all types on her Zik, within the prime habitat, on Zikhope and elsewhere had been as child’s play compared to the talents of Zik rulers who had maintained total racial control for over eighteen millennia. And they were as yet incapable of even basic genetic alterations of their Workers so as to generate absolutely reliable organic servants. Still they had kept their bargain with her. So she had released to them the schematics for the 293rd Dynasty version of the Zik artificial gravity system. True, it was 1,200 ship years obsolete compared to the systems currently in use on Hekar and on Tidehome, but the Humans would eventually discover the many refinements possible for the system. She had, however, refused the Russian offer of several hundred “volunteers” to serve on Zikhope during the colonizing voyage—she was, after all, no fool and quite expert at detecting self-interest in others.

  Her repulsor disks bumped as she reached the bottom of the pylon, the Mating Chamber in front of her.

  Raising her four perceptor stalks, she looked backward for a last look at the habitat’s salty inland sea, the dark wavecrests of artificial tides slowly susurrating against the brown sand beaches. In the distance, her children played in the shallows, enjoying the pale imitation of Tidehome. At least they had had the opportunity to feel a true tidal surge in the gigantic oceans of the Human’s home planet. That had been worth the wait. That had invigorated even old Clorek, still doddering along, the last of her original Ambient-7 Thinker cohort which had served her so well. Now the moment of completion awaited her in the Mating Chamber.

  It was time for the Transfer Ceremony.

  It was time for her last gift to the Race.

  Looseen entered the high-domed chamber and moved across the clean sand floor to the center of the infrared-lit structure, coming to a halt just above the sand floor in front of her waiting daughter Herakeen. Looking about with all four perceptor stalks, she saw the select grouping of representatives from each caste of the Zik race gathered around the inner wall. She saw with satisfaction that the carapaces of everyone were freshly cleaned and gleaming in the soft infrared of the dome’s apex radiator. The high-lighted shapes and forms of her Race could thus be clearly seen in the blood red light. Directly behind Herakeen was her old colleague, co-worker and friend Zikeen, wh
o would lead the ceremonies in High Speech for all the assembled witnesses. Zikeen’s daughter was not present and presumably she held Command in the Control building. No matter, she would know the Transfer Ceremony in her own good time.

  “Good swimming, Zikeen,” she called out past the young, vital body of Herakeen to her old friend. And fellow classmate.

  Zikeen stirred her own aged form, floating on repulsor disks like herself. “And to you, Looseen. Think you the waters of the new Tidehome will be as sweet as the old?”

  Looseen shivered with memories, weak pincer-feet clattering against the lower edge of her forward carapace. “I . . . had almost forgotten the sense-memory-taste of Tidehome. It is past time that I truly remember it.”

  Herakeen took that as her consent to the ceremony. Her daughter floated closer, much closer, on her own repulsor disks, pincer-feet leaving small rills in the sand.

  Looking across at her brood-daughter, she felt pride in the years of her co-rule and of the opportunity to turn over the colony ship and colonization work to her own daughter. Herakeen was young, only 20 biological years of age and she had been birthed on the way into the Human system. She was as yet only a few meters in length, having only recently birthed her own first cohort of Technicians specifically adapted to dealing with Human modes of thought, Trade and relationships. After all the Humans would be the colony’s closest neighbors. But the orange dots of her daughter’s distended post-cranial flesh, the clarity of her remaining carapace areas, the agility of her limbs, the Taste sensitivity of her palps and the patient subtleness of her mentation all indicated Looseen’s sub-molecular genetic engram had bred true and had resulted in a superb brood-ruler. She felt the satisfaction of a job well-done.

  “Daughter, are you ready?”

  “Mother, I am,” Herakeen said, the tilt of her perceptor stalks showing both eagerness and sadness.

  “Then accept me.”

  Suddenly, the ceremony began with the negation of local gravity.

  She floated opposite her daughter in a shared mist of salty air, gently brushed by subaudible harmonics intended to evoke memories of planetary tidal surges. She thought of Tidehome, of her last days at the Zorlerup Archipelago, of her memories of sea-swimming in the Sliss planetary ocean, the Arrik home seas and briefly off the Maldives on Earth, of her distant encounter with Technician Torik, and of her excitement when the probe reported back the finding of a suitable colony planet. She remembered many, many things.

  Raising her perceptor stalks to full erection before the quiet but ready form of her daughter, grateful for her daughter’s courtesy of not using her paralysis mist, she sang the few words of the Transfer Ceremony.

  “Daughter and Sister, Sister and Daughter,

  “Use now for the good of all Zik my Essence,

  “Essence of Love, Essence of Time, Essence of Experience,

  “Essence of Life itself, Daughter and Sister, Sister and Daughter

  “Eat of my flesh, know of my Mind, know of your Duties

  “Daughter and Sister, accept me for Thy nourishment,

  “Accept, Accept, Accept . . . . ”

  The last thing Looseen, Maker-of-Eggs, Brood-Ruler, member of the 305th Dynasty, saw were the hard palps of her daughter closing about her perceptor stalks as her daughter’s limbs grappled her flaccid body. She felt a moment of sharp, intense pain before thoughtful Herakeen managed to insert a foreleg into her crania-carapace juncture to sever her notochord.

  Then all was quiet, peaceful and soothing as a brief evanescent memory of Tidehome expanded outward from her lifeless hulk like an early morning sea-mist before the gentle red rays of Hekeen.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Two humans and two werewolves stood on a crystal veranda that gave a view of the ethane clouds, ice hills and methane seas of Titan. They watched a family pod of Thix-Thet silicon amoeboids frolicking a hundred meters away in the slushy ethane snows of the twenty-second moon of Saturn. A liquid methane waterfall fell nearby from the upper heights of their ice-island, which bordered the Ligeia Mare sea. Overhead, the swirling multi-colored cloud decks of Saturn illuminated the scene with reflected colors that swept across the ethane snows, hinting at the pale brilliance of far distant Sol.

  They were all on vacation. Even the Thix-Thet.

  “Oh Jack—it looks like such fun!” exclaimed Colleen, holding hands with him, not thinking it a bit funny to be wearing a MacLaren plaid kilt, white blouse, cap and black Highlander boots. “I wish I could go out there and play too.”

  Jack smiled. At minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit, it was a bit too cold for humans on Titan. But it was just right for the Thix-Thet. In fact, that was the only Trade the amoeboids had ever wanted. They actually paid the UN for their own R & R on this nitrogen-methane atmosphered moon stuck so far out in the solar system that the Sun was a very small, very unwarm disk.

  “You might get frostbite, my dear. Even the Horem can’t go swimming in that, right Sargon?”

  Sargon and Bethrin, both dressed in solid yellow togas and sandals, looked aside at him with closed mouths, yellow eyes glittering, headcrests softly flaring. Then they smiled. Real, honest-to-god, fanged smiles of true friendliness.

  “No, we cannot, Jack Friend,” Sargon said. “But it is pleasing to see others joying in life. The Thix-Thet may be what you humans call ‘practical jokers,’ but they are special in their own way. We Horem have always liked them.”

  “Sargon,” piped up Colleen. “I never realized you folks would spend so much effort on a—a resort.” She turned around, waving at the double apartment with connecting doors behind them, but taking in the whole crystalline and steel complex that had been built two years ago in 2058 on one of the larger ice-islands of Titan.

  “Why not?” Sargon growled low, his arm around Bethrin’s slim waist. “We are people—all of us—and we need a break now and then. Right Bethrin?”

  Bethrin, her feathery headcrest stiffly upright, looked at Sargon, and beyond him to Jack and Colleen.

  “Most certainly true, my love,” she said. “Duties are duties, but life is for living. And loving. Persa now has her mate. Corin and Smelan have another child. Jack’s children are grown with their own children. Life is for living. We must never forget that. Don’t you agree Colleen?”

  “Yes!” Colleen let go his hand and turned around to gesture at the central bathing pool of the suite. “And speaking of living, I’m aching for that redwood hot tub soak we promised you when you first welcomed us to Clan Arax. Want to be civilized?” She started unbuttoning her blouse.

  He saw Bethrin and Sargon quickly exchange silent, unreadable looks, then both looked back. The grins reappeared.

  “We thought you would never suggest it,” Bethrin said. “It’s been three hours since we arrived on Brilliant-Green-Sky and a bath is long overdue. Shall I bring the champagne?”

  “Please,” Jack said as he walked into the palatial central space, already unbuttoning the snaps of his formal evening suit. Without hesitation he stripped off the rest of his clothes, stepped into the swirling jacuzzi waters, sat down on the underwater seat and accepted four glasses from a delightfully nude Colleen as she snuggled down beside him. Across from them Sargon and Bethrin also settled in, blue water swirling up to midbody. Being nearly seven feet tall, even seated his Horem friends were still one-third out of the water. Jack liked the way it revealed the four satin-furred, brown-nippled breasts of Bethrin. Colleen, being shorter, was usually submerged up to her shoulders. But he noticed his lover and future wife—he’d proposed and she had accepted on the way out to Titan—now sat higher up on folded-under legs, putting her very human breasts on display for Sargon’s appreciation. Bethrin stared forthrightly at Jack.

  He wondered if Sargon was reacting like he was under the water. Time to change the unspoken tension very, very quickly, or he would soon find out what an orgy Horem style might be like.

  “Uh—Sargon, do you think the Thoranians will apply for a colony permit on Mercur
y? I’ve heard they’ve chartered several inspection flights out to the planet.” He felt Colleen’s soft hand touch his groin. She began testing his powers of concentration. Her freckled face held a challenging look—almost as if she were playing a special game.

  “Yes, I do,” his werewolf friend mercifully replied. “Do you think the UN Secretariat will approve it?”

  “I hope so, but I can’t really predict it. Although they have gotten over your destruction of their battlestations.” Across from them Bethrin put a hand under the water. Her red-streaked headcrest flared in what he knew to be a sign of passion. “If they do okay the permit, how would the Thoranians colonize the planet?” Colleen hadn’t given up her distracting activities, and now she leaned into his left side, the sharp point of one nipple insistently poking him in the chest. Jack quietly squeezed Colleen’s shoulder with the arm that he had wrapped around her. He meant it as a signal for her to slow down. Instead, she nuzzled his neck.

  Bethrin, he saw, had one arm around Sargon and her crest was flaring madly. His nose detected a distinctive lemon smell that just might be Horem mating pheromones.