Travels of the Orphan (The Space Orphan Book 3)

by Laer Carroll

  One month outside time. One week inside time.

  GO THERE. The location was a space-time coordinate. It was only about 50,000 miles away and to the south of the planet, "below" the rings. The time was three hours away.

  Thank you.

  YOUR TRIP WILL TAKE THREE DAYS AND EIGHT HOURS INSIDE TIME, SEVEN TIMES THAT OUTSIDE TIME.

  There was silence in HER head. The Gate's guardian was gone.

  As JANE accelerated to a speed and direction which would get HER to the location in space and time SHE pondered the fact that the invisible computer had called HER Guardian-with-a-G.

  From the Encyclopedia SHE knew this meant guardian in the sense of an official interstellar police officer in the Confederation. Each started as a police official on a planet, maybe for a city or county. Then after a decade or two of service there they could rise to national and global offices. From that level they might graduate to policing an entire stellar system.

  Each Guardian was highly capable and educated and trained. They had dozens or hundreds of robotic assistants of many kinds. The highest office was Zone Guardian, responsible for protecting dozens of stellar systems. The most prestigious Zone was more an area than a volume: a section of the Confederation at the periphery of its flattened potato shape.

  Within the periphery were planets where horses and oxen and windmills and water wheels supplemented human muscles for power. These Protected planets did not know they were part of the Confederation. Other planets were like Earth, Candidate planets knowing of the Confederation and being considered to become full partners.

  Slowing, JANE arrived at the specified location several minutes early.

  Waiting SHE decided the Gate's guardian had been essentially right. SHE was a Guardian. SHE'd seen the need for Earth to be protected years ago and done what needed doing to fulfill that need. SHE was even an official in a protective organization: the Space Force. SHE was not THE Guardian of Earth. But SHE was certainly one of them.

  A bright red spot appeared in front of JANE and expanded into a bright red ring. It expanded until it was lost at the edges of her vision. Then another spot and ring appeared, orange. It also expanded till it was lost.

  Ring after ring appeared and expanded to fill all of space: yellow, lime, green, aqua, blue, and violet. Then something pulled at HER. JANE was sucked into a tunnel of light and disappeared from the universe.

  There was no sensation of movement but it somehow felt as if JANE was rushing very fast through the subspace tunnel. It felt as if SHE was flying through a hole in a hurricane, grey clouds hurtling at HER from above and below and left and right.

  SHE watched for a time, not quite mesmerized by the sight. Finally SHE blanked the display from the spaceship's cameras and dropped fully back into HER biological self. She'd brought plenty to entertain her and now was the time to sample it.

  <>

  Three days later Jane returned to the pilot's seat to await exiting from the tunnel. At three days and eight hours, as the Gate Guardian had said, the rushing tunnel disappeared.

  This triggered her return to the cyborg state. Before HER in the vision screens was another ringed giant planet. This one had a green tinge.

  JANE's gravitic senses reached outward in all directions. SHE detected a ringed planet and a collection of moons of all sizes. The planet was about half as small as Saturn however, the moons less numerous.

  Sure of a response but not how SHE knew SHE said to the Guardian of the Gate, Is there a planet containing humans in this stellar system?

  THERE it said, specifying a space-time coordinate closer to the sun.

  JANE turned and dove away.

  <>

  Two days later a blue marble appeared before the cyborg. She'd been slower and more careful in HER trip than if SHE had been in Earth's better-known stellar system.

  SHE examined the planet as SHE approached it. Among other facts SHE noticed that it radiated only very weak and very primitive radio waves. Apparently humans here had not progressed as far as Earth's humans.

  Nearly a million miles out SHE paused before one last FTL jump. At that moment another spacecraft jumped into place between HER and the planet.

  It was a featureless ball a thousand feet in diameter and gleamed gold in the sunlight, light a bit more yellow than that of Earth's sun.

  On the hypercom on a standard channel came a voice, a light contralto. It spoke a language which JANE had learned from the sentinels of the Earth's system and practiced with Elizabeth and Jorel: the shared language of the Human Interstellar Confederation.

  "Greetings, visitor. Who are you and why are you here?"

  "My name is Jane Kuznetsov. I am a Guardian in a system similar to this one. We are threatened by a predatory alien race. I am seeking a Confederation Guardian to help us defend ourselves."

  "You will find none here but this sounds interesting. If you will pause long enough for a conversation we can help you find one."

  "Certainly. Taking a day or two away from my journey should not be harmful. Especially if it makes the overall trip shorter. Where do I meet you?"

  "Assume an orbit at the following location to minimize communication delays. No need to descend to the planet. We will have a virtual conference."

  A space-time coordinate appeared in the communication channel.

  "Agreed. If I may I will go there now."

  "Go."

  SHE jumped to within a few thousand miles of the planet's surface and maneuvered down to a couple of hundred miles distance from the planet and into the specified orbit.

  The ball-like ship was already in the orbit. That was impressive. Apparently it could maneuver in hyperspace as well as in normal space.

  "Hello again."

  "Hello. It is a custom of my people to share food when meeting like this. Would you be agreeable?"

  "We know of the custom. It is fairly common among humans and compatible species. Please get comfortable and prepare your food. It will take about an hour for everyone to meet in your conference room."

  The voice gave a JANE a radio frequency channel and other details in a communication standard shared by Confederation humans, Lizards and Cats. Jane had no idea which species had come up with the standard.

  Jane dressed in a pants suit of bright blue and a lilac blouse with a modest décolleté and matching blue half-boots with a modest heel. She applied very spare makeup and wore her blond hair in its usual simple shoulder length style.

  The conference room in FarReach deployed a hologram that decorated the room like a dining room in a fashionable modern London restaurant. It was lit by three chandeliers containing faux candles and the ceiling and wainscoting was decorated with elaborately sculpted light brown wood.

  At the specified hour individuals began to appear in the dozen chairs around the table. They were humans of various ages, all seemingly healthy, and of several ethnicities. One was of a discreetly glowing yellow humanoid figure.

  Their dress was skimpy in the case of one whose background briefly showed as the deck of a sailing vessel on a dark blue ocean. A similarly skimpy outfit garbed someone in a jungle glade before the glade morphed into Jane's faux dining room. A third was of some bright red uniform with a high collar. Another was a suit not unlike a modern business suit but of bright purple with blue accents. Several others had similarly various clothing.

  Hair was short to long, curled or straight, dark and light. Some men had facial hair. One of the women sported bright red lipstick.

  When all the dozen seats were filled another figure then two more appeared. The virtual table lengthened to make places for them.

  No more people showed up. The glowing yellow figure seemed to speak but Jane could tell only because the faux sound in her ears was from its direction. It spoke Interstellar.

  "We're all here. Welcome, visitor. Please tell us who you are and why you've come here."

  "My name is Jane Kuznetsov." Her name sounded a bit strange combined with the Interstellar words befo
re it.

  As she had earlier she explained her mission.

  Red Uniform said, "There is no Guardian here and it would take quite a long time to get your message to one. However, there is a system reachable through the subspace transportation network which has a resident Guardian. We can tell you how to get there. I believe that s/he is away for two or three weeks so you'll have to wait for hi/r there."

  A mahogany-skinned figure wearing clothing which looked as if made of green leaves spoke.

  "The Guardian office there could take your appeal and pass it on to the resident Guardian and to other such offices. But it would be best for you to stay and speak directly to the Guardian. You'd be more persuasive and you could answer whatever questions s/he might have."

  "Meanwhile," said Glowy. "Let's dine and talk for a time. Why don't you tell us a little about your stellar system?"

  On the table in front of Greeny appeared a salad with small chunks of several colored vegetables. Along with it came a clear glass of (probably) water and a pair of fork-like utensils seemingly made of wood. The other guests also received plates and saucers and bowls of various designs and materials. They apparently reflected the locales in which Jane's guests lived.

  A few minutes after she began speaking Glowy interrupted.

  "The latest Galactic Encyclopedia has an entry for your system. Take a look at it and see if you think it accurate."

  It gave a link. Jane followed it to wherever the Confederation stored the Encyclopedia.

  It began with an overview of the Solar System, starting with a physical description: the Sun, the planets, the Kuiper Belt disc, and the Oort Cloud sphere. It was very general and had links to more complete descriptions of the various items in the system such as the planet Mercury.

  Following that was an overview of the several sentient species: humans, the two Cat and one Lizard habitats, the two sets of balloon-like creatures in the upper atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, and the life forms in the Earth's core and upper atmosphere.

  Next came brief descriptions of the various nations and cultures of Earth.

  As she skimmed and skipped the section on scientific and technological advances she was jolted by one entry. It was about her.

  "Oh, my!"

  At her gasp her guests looked at her. They'd been silent or murmuring to each other about the Encyclopedia entries.

  One of the guests smiled. She was the one with mahogany skin wearing red lipstick and a bright green sarong covered in images of red flowers. It was she who apparently was on the deck of a seagoing vessel.

  "Found the entry on you, did you?"

  "I did. It's quite intimidating to know that the entire Confederation and all the Cats and Lizards can know about me."

  Glowy said, "You made the Earth system a space-going enterprise in just fifteen years--complete with faster-than-light travel. You expected anonymity?"

  The words in her head had a wryly amused overtone.

  Many of her guests smiled. One laughed out loud.

  "Enough about Earth and me. I want to know more about you all and what you're doing here."

  Red Lipstick said, "We belong to the Confederation's Uplift Service. We're here to speed up the advancement of this planet to the point where it can defend itself against predators and join the Confederation."

  A second figure spoke, Greeny. He was the one who lived in a jungle.

  "We have to do it very gradually. If we try to introduce advances too radical they'll be ignored."

  Red Lipstick said, "And we can never allow anyone to know that we're aliens. The locals have to know that they advanced through their own efforts, in a way natural to them. When and if they find out they were helped, they have to know that we merely sped up the advances which they achieved through their own efforts."

  Did that mean that Earth had also been "helped" in its advances? Maybe. If so, she thought it likely that the helpers had been doing it only in the last century or so, after Earth was discovered by the Confederation's robotic explorers.

  She felt another jolt, one strong enough to make her become a cyborg. She herself had advanced Earth's technology. Had she been sent to the planet by some outside force?

  Several hundred milliseconds passed while the superbeing examined all that SHE knew about HER history. Finally SHE concluded that SHE had indeed arrived at Earth purely by accident.

  "I can see that you have a delicate job," she said, back wholly in HER biological part. "How did you decide to become Uplift agents?"

  As the meal progressed several of her guests gave short biographies. They were all at least a century old and had had two or three or more careers before their latest one. These had mostly been planet bound careers. Then they'd become interested in work on an interstellar stage.

  The oldest of them, Glowy, was two thousand years old. He had transformed himself into a mostly electrical being. This was so that he could treat with the electrical beings in the ionosphere who appeared as so-called Northern lights back on Earth.

  The meal finished, it morphed into its dessert or dessert-drink stage. Then it lapsed into an after-dinner get-together. The dining room reassembled into a living room, with couches and easy chairs and a carpet with pillows which made it comfortable to sit and half-lie on the floor.

  Several Uplift agents said their goodbyes as their time zones became late night-time periods.

  Finally only three individuals were left: Glowy, Red Lipstick woman, and Greeny. They too rose and said their goodbyes and wished Jane well on her quest to find a Guardian.

  Jane found herself exhausted, a rarity with her. Nevertheless she made the first of several hyperjumps back toward the subspace gates.

  <>

  It took her eight days inside a subspace tunnel to arrive at her next destination. Outside it had taken six weeks and a few days.

  After her second hyperjump toward the planet on which humans had evolved she was faced with a spaceship like the one which had confronted her at her last destination. But this large golden ball was easily two thousand feet in diameter.

  "Greetings, visitor. Who are you and why are you here?"

  As before Jane explained her mission.

  "You appear to have only personal defense weapons, not weapons of war. That is acceptable. Please continue to our home world. We will accompany you."

  "Thank you."

  It took her two days before a Jovian planet appeared in her viewscreens. She had been directed to a spot sunward of the planet so the entire surface before her was lit. Part of it was occluded by the blue planet which orbited it and which was her destination. The view was quite beautiful.

  She took the parking orbit to which she had been ordered. Minutes after it was finalized she received a video call.

  The image on the screen in front of the pilots' compartment showed a woman sitting in a chair facing Jane. She wore a form-fitting green uniform with gold accents. She had long blue hair with a slight curl and a face with an Oriental look but dark skin. She appeared to be a teenager. Jane felt, for no reason that she could identify, that the woman was centuries old.

  "Hello, Jane Kuznetsov. We are honored by your presence. We understand your mission. I am one of the support staff of the Guardian Service. I will aid you while you are here and give you whatever you need to carry out that mission."

  "Thank you. What I need is to talk to the local Guardian as soon as possible."

  "I will facilitate that. However, it will be a little over three weeks before s/he returns. Meanwhile, perhaps you would like to take up residence planet side and enjoy your wait."

  Jane curbed her impatience. Knowing how slowly many Earth bureaucracies acted she was lucky that Galactic society seemed to operate more efficiently.

  "I would like that. However, the only currency I have is a suitcase full of authentic pre-transmuter books."

  The woman sat forward in her chair. She appeared excited.

  "Really? How wonderful! Old books are one of my nephew's passions
. I'm sure he will drop everything to help you in your mission.

  "Would you like to come down to a hotel now? Oh, and as you are on official business there will be no charge for your hotel and other expenses."

  "Give me thirty minutes and I'll meet you in the air lock."

  "I will attend you by virtual avatar. My body is on the next planet in toward the sun. It will take Gilear, my nephew, two hours to arrive at your hotel."

  "That will be OK. That will give me time to settle in and freshen up."

  "Good. I look forward to meeting you again, Jane Kuznetsov."

  "And I you."

  The image blanked and Jane got up to pack for an extended stay on the alien planet below.

  <>

  Jane was waiting outside the airlock thirty minutes later as she'd said she would but saw the taxi which arrived via her link through Robot with FarReach's senses. It was a small ball-shaped device similar to the taxis the Lizards used at Venus.

  It was also similar from the outside to the two most recent spaceships Jane had encountered. She supposed it was natural. A sphere was the most efficient volume to hold anything.

  A voice spoke to her as if from an invisible being in front of her.

  "Hello, Jane. This is Lola again, the person you spoke to earlier. Are you ready? Did not have to hurry, I hope."

  "Not at all."

  "Just go directly through your airlock. The taxi is open, pressurized, and firmly connected to your vehicle."

  Jane had dressed in a Space Force uniform of light blue which had replaced the dark blue uniform of regular Air Force officers. She had removed her various ribbons and rank insignia, however, feeling that they gave her the appearance of barbaric display. She hoped the result gave the appearance of relaxed efficiency.

  Once inside the alien taxi FarReach automatically closed its outside airlock door. The taxi did the same and moved away from FarReach.

  "You might like to seat yourself in the forward section, Ms Kuznetsov." Jane was impressed that the alien woman Lola had used the correct English honorific despite speaking Interstellar.

  The inside of the taxi was like that of a small bus with two rows of airline-like seats separated by a central aisle. Overhead was a curve of a transparent surface, or so it appeared. The overhead dome curved down in front to floor level. When Jane sat in one of the two front seats she could see out and down at the blue planet. The taxi was oriented so that it appeared below, the planet a sphere almost filling the view screen.