“Okay” said John. “We all knew something like this would happen. Let’s just be glad the effects of time dilation aren’t worse. We may yet see our families again, even if it is more than a decade later. Seth, you were telling us about where to get Talvanium.”
“Talvanium hasn’t been mined on Umber for years, and returning there is obviously out of the question anyway. Our only choice is Residere Beta.”
“I thought you said the stuff was on Alpha,” said Richter.
“It is mined on Alpha, but sold on Beta. Residere Beta is the main cultural and business center of the quadrant. That honor used to be Umber’s, but there were... complications... about forty years ago.”
“So we head to Residere Beta and procure some Talvanium,” said John. “Sounds like a plan.”
“How far is the Residere system from Umber?” asked Christie.
“Three point six light years.”
“What’s our travel time?
“I can’t give you our top speed right now,” replied Seth. “Thirty-five hours, twenty-four minutes is the best I can do.”
John nodded. “Fine. Let’s use the time well. To begin with, everyone get acquainted with Seth’s upgrades at your stations.”
“It’s been a long day,” said Ray, “and we haven’t slept in almost twenty-four hours. We could all use a solid twelve hours of rest.”
“Damn, you’re right. Get some rest, then. I’ll stay here and take first watch. Who wants to relieve me in four hours?”
“I’ll do it,” said Richter.
“Good, thanks.”
The crew exchanged salutations to each other and filed out of the room. John sighed and leaned back in his chair.
“Nice work on the ship design,” said Seth.
“Thanks. It’s not very sexy, but it does the job.”
“If I hadn’t been damaged I would have been able to supply an Umberian design.”
“Really? I suppose that would have saved me a lot of trouble.”
“True. I like this one, though. It’s... quaint.”
“For an AI, you sure do have a lot of opinions.”
“Would you like me to act like I don’t?”
“Well, abstract or irrelevant interjections should be reserved for times like this. When we’re busy with something, keep it all business.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.”
“Okay, I’m only making sure.”
“It’s simply nice to be whole again. Relatively speaking, of course.”
John yawned. He began to think about following his own advice, despite his desire to continue his conversation with Seth.
“Tell me about the Zendreen.”
“The Zendreen are an insectoid race from near a star Christie would call Sanduleak in the Tarantula Nebula. That star went nova about 160,000 years ago. It has long been believed that the nova destabilized the Zendreen’s own star, accelerating it’s lifespan and dooming their home planet to eventual destruction. Some believe that the Zendreen devoted their entire society to getting off of their home planet for ten thousand years, and that their social structure came about because of that goal. Umberian astronomers have long wished to be able to travel into Zendreen space to get a closer look at the remains of Sanduleak, which collapsed into a neutron star and has been generating fascinating x-ray and gamma radiation...”
“Stick to the Zendreen themselves.”
“The Zendreen have a very structured society and prefer to live underground, just near the surface. They have been known to live above ground if the situation requires. Using the best example I can extract from your memories, they resemble carpenter ants. They walk erect on their hind legs and stand an average of five feet tall. The soldiers of the race have their abdominal sections surgically altered to reduce the size. This makes it easier for them to move around, as normally they’re forced to drag it behind them. They also show a remarkable ability to evolve over relatively short periods. In the five hundred years since they invented space flight, for example, an entire genus has evolved specifically for communicating with humanoid species. This particular genus has a green shell instead of black, and a mouth more appropriate toward forming humanoid verbal communications. There are other varieties, but we’ll be unlikely to encounter them. Incidentally, chances are pretty good they don’t know about Earth yet, and you sure don’t want them to find it. If they try to colonize Earth the resulting warfare would likely kill most of the population. From what I’ve seen of your military might, however, you could probably repel such an invasion. Certainly if your technology continues to improve at the rate it has been for the last two hundred years, anyway.”
“But Umber couldn’t produce enough defensive armament in time?”
“That’s right. Umber had a non-aggression pact with all of the humanoid and feline races, signed to ease intersolar politics rather than actually prevent war. The dominant political party insisted that military production not exceed two percent of the gross planetary product, as a show of good faith for the pact. The Zendreen hadn’t ventured into the nebula before, so we had no reason to suspect an invasion.”
“Feline races?”
“The Kau’Rii and Rakhar. The former are smaller in stature, and nimble. They concentrate their livelihoods on commerce, trade, exploration and adventure. The Rakhar are larger and more militaristic. They act primarily as mercenaries or police for hire around here, but they have a strict code of ethics that limits what jobs they can accept. Both are generally trustworthy. You’ll see plenty of both on Residere Beta.”
“Interesting. What else is out there?”
“The Residerians are humanoid. They rarely venture off of their native moon of Beta. They are skilled agrarians and produce the highest quality foodstuffs in the quadrant. They’ve evolved in such a way that they’re naturally big and slow, you might call them “obese” if you compared them to humans. They also tend to communicate slowly, but don’t let that fool you. They’re very intelligent.”
“Roger.”
“The only other race we’ll encounter are the Z'Sorth. They’re large reptilians that you would say resemble lizards. They’re considered odd by the other races but they get along all right. They tend towards merchandizing and inventing. If they were at all interested in spaceflight and weapons technology they would be a real rival to Umber, but they seem more interested in inventing better construction materials and techniques, land-based vehicles, and power generation techniques.”
“What about the Umberians themselves?”
“Could you be more specific?”
“What sort of race are you?”
“Humanoid, didn’t I mention that already?”
“Maybe, I don’t know. I’m exhausted. Is Professor Talvan safe?”
“Yes, the underground movement is well concealed within the occupation society. It’s unlikely that Talvan will be discovered as the source of the radio transmissions. He will have no doubt already moved the transmitter to another location, just to be safe.”
“I don’t envy his situation. He’s been waiting for ten years and finally gets news of our return, only to have the briefest of conversations with us and then get plunged back into the dark.”
“He knows we’re doing our best. If he feels like it’s appropriate, he may encourage more active resistance. He mentioned a genetically-engineered virus; if he succeeds at that he may just need for us to destroy the Zendreen fleet...”
Seth stopped himself. John was asleep.
__________
It was an old stone bakery, high on a hill, surrounded by squat, round trees that flowered for two months out of the year. The master baker lived in second floor room on the east side, the first place the sun hit every morning. It was the tradition on Umber not to begin work until sunrise each day, and most businesses held to the practice if possible. The master baker’s schedule wasn’t governed by the sun anymore, however. Not since the Zendreen came.
In order to facilitate the occup
ation-ordered closing of the three other bakeries in the region, this one was forced to run a round-the-clock operation. This barely produced enough bread for demand, and that was the point. So effective was the continuous obsession with providing enough food for the community that the Zendreen needed little active enforcement of their laws. The laws were few, and they all boiled down to two things. One, don’t fight back, and two, don’t get in our way.
Because resources were so scant, the personal freedoms of the occupied Umberians were actually quite numerous. What good was the freedom to move about unimpeded if you spent your entire waking day baking, building, trading, farming, or anything else required to keep your community working? What good was the freedom of assembly if all you could talk about was how much things sucked? Without another freedom, that of arms, even the most seditious talk was not seen as a threat.
Even though the Zendreen occupation outnumbered the natives a hundred to one, their preference to live underground made the practical ratio one to three. While three Umberians could soundly whip one unarmed Zendra in an otherwise fair fight, the naturally secreted poison present in a thin sheen on their carapaces would ensure a slow and painful death for all but the healthiest Umberian. Dying was a bad idea for the Umberians. Females could only give birth once every ten years, and for half of them the task would leave them barren for the next time around. The population of Umber had never exceeded sixty million; losing anyone in combat would require a long wait to replace them.
The underground movement, therefore, was not about forming a plan to overthrow the Zendreen invaders by force. Instead, scientists had been working in secret to genetically engineer a virus that would be deadly to the Zendreen and harmless to the native population. Not having been particularly interested in bioengineering before, progress had been slow. They were making progress, however, and appropriately enough the lead scientist in the area of artificial intelligence was the one closest to success. What Talvan wasn’t telling the others was that he would never finish without access to better equipment.
In the basement of the bakery, behind a false wall concealed by sacks of flour, Professor Talvan had just enough room to keep up a basic laboratory. His assistant, a much younger man by the name of Stackpole, often reminded Talvan that they’d have more room to work if he’d get rid of that damn old radio transceiver. Talvan had insisted they keep it, although his reasons for doing so were not often discussed. Everyone else had long since given up on Seth.
It was Stackpole who entered the room that afternoon six hours after they’d spoken with Seth and the crew of the Reckless Faith.
“Hey, doc, I don’t think they’re coming back today,” he said.
“I don’t suppose they will,” Talvan replied.
“There’s a good chance we lost contact with them because...”
“I know that. I prefer not to consider that possibility.”
“Where do you think they went? What are they going to do now?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what parts of Seth’s memory were compromised, so I don’t know how capable that ship actually was. If the repair program worked, Seth will insist on building more ships. If I know Seth he’ll simply propose returning to UAS 371 to find the resources. Since that will mean another ten year wait on our end, I sincerely hope the crew comes up with a better solution.”
“I think they called their planet Earth.”
“Ha! I guess people don’t have much of an imagination no matter where in the universe they’re from. Still, it sounds better than UAS 371.”
“Uh huh. I wonder if they had a name for Umber.”
“Good thing I have the genetic research to occupy me, because if that is the last we hear from them for ten years I would have surely gone insane.”
“Most people think you already have.”
“Most people aren’t that far from the truth.”
8.
It was late in the afternoon, less than five minutes before the Faith’s arrival at Residere. The ship had long since entered the solar system and had already passed several outer planets. Ari was on the bridge alone, seated in John’s chair with her feet propped up on the console. Over the past three days the crew had been chatting it up with Seth, who seemed willing enough to participate. Despite his recent restoration, he still suffered from being away from home for a decade, a problem that John had brought up once before. Ari had jokingly suggested that perhaps Residere had been taken over by the Zendreen as well, but this had mortified the others. Seth had reassured them that with the Rakhar’s protection, the Zendreen would never dare.
Something about Seth’s new attitude didn’t sit well with Ari. She may have simply found him a little to annoying for her tastes. As it was, she wasn’t the sort to engage in idle conversation with him like the others did. At least he didn’t speak unless spoken to, important operational updates notwithstanding. After the others had decided to take a quick meal down in the galley, Ari had the bridge to herself. She was glad for things to be quiet on the bridge again. While the fight with the satellites had thrilled her, it had also exhausted her in a way the sims never did. In fact, Richter had been the only one who neither waxed enthusiastic about the encounter nor seemed depleted by it. Ari felt a twinge of pleasure at the thought of Richter and she as partners on the fifties. There was slightly more than a sense of camaraderie in the emotion, but Ari quickly dismissed the rest. It was a departure from her normal response to such a desire. The confines of the ship and her devotion to the same were the only things stopping her.
The vista of the Tarantula Nebula hadn’t changed much during their voyage. Ari had to remind herself how slow they were moving in comparison to interstellar distances. While staring at the seemingly motionless panorama, Ari had a flash of insight.
“Hey Seth, you around?”
“Of course.”
“You know how you can project the exterior of the spacecraft onto the walls of the zero-g room?”
“Yeah...”
“How do you do that?”
“It’s simple, really. Whatever light is hitting the exterior of the ship is allowed to pass through the hull to the other side. Your eyes pick it up as they normally would, except without the freezing suffocating deadly results.”
Ari smiled. “Okay, then. Can you be more specific about how you let the light pass through the solid walls?”
“The molecules of the metal are temporarily moved aside for each photon, which are moved inside in waves. It’s a one-way motion, so the pressurized room remains that way. It’s like, what’s the word... osmosis.”
“Hmm. Interesting, but not exactly what I’m looking for.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“I’m thinking it would be nice if we could have some sort of heads-up display on the main windscreen, whatever you call it, like we do on the gunnery monitors.”
“But the window is just transparent polyaluminum, not a computer monitor.”
“How would you do it, if it were up to you?”
“It would have been up to me if my memory had been intact. The entire bridge window would have been a monitor.”
“I see.”
“If we were planetside near sufficient resources, I could upgrade the window to such a thing. Doing so in space would depressurize the bridge.”
“Yeah, no shit. Put it on our to-do list, then.”
“Right. We’re thirty seconds from arrival, by the way.”
“Oh, already? Ari to the crew, we’re seconds away from arrival. Please report to the bridge.”
Ari stood up and moved to her normal station. Moments later, John, Ray, Richter and Christie showed up and took their places.
“I’m surprised you weren’t up here already,” said Ari.
“We were playing poker,” said John. “We lost track of time.”
“Gaming this early?”
“Our schedule has been messed up the past couple of days.”
“Where’s Dana?” Ray asked.
“John to Dana, what’s your status?”
“I’m up,” Dana replied over the comm, “I’ll be right there.”
“And Byron?” asked Ray, shrugging.
John gestured dismissively, and said, “Down in the hold. If he doesn’t want to be here for this that’s his choice.”
“Approaching Residere,” said Seth.
“Now that everyone’s awake, I wanted to show you the data Seth has on the solar system,” said Christie. “I’m sending a graphic to each of your stations.”
On each monitor, an three-dimensional image depicting the solar system appeared. One planet was visible; it had a dark, rocky surface with a few bright spots here and there.
“I’m going to do a fly-by of each planet and describe what we know about it,” said Christie. “This is Vastus, the furthest planet out. It is 41 astronomical units from the Residere sun. There are a few self-contained colonies. There is no atmosphere. It’s about 0.38 percent the size of Earth.”
The image zoomed ahead. A bright star in the center of the screen became slightly more distinct. The next planet appeared. It was a reddish-brown gas giant.
“This is Distare. It’s 19.6 AU from the sun. It has one moon with one mining colony. The moon is about 0.25 percent the size of Earth.”
The next planet flew into view. It was a larger gas giant, milky-white with streaks of green.
“Next up is Macer. It’s 9.1 AU from the sun. There are two colonized moons in orbit. Macer Alpha has undergone extensive atmospheric processing, but is still barely habitable outside of contained structures. Macer Beta consists entirely of pressurized structures.”
The display moved on to the next planet. It was a large, spectacular gas giant. The upper and lower hemispheres were bright brown and orange, and there was a large band of jade green around the equatorial region. A small ring of asteroids encircled the planet.
“This is Residere. It is five AU from the sun. There are three moons. The first is Alpha, which orbits inside the ring. It is habitable due to atmospheric processing. The next is Beta, the only planet in the system where life originated naturally.”
The Tarantula Nebula Page 8
