A Larger Universe

by James L Gillaspy

  Ull confirmed that his interpretation was correct. Docking with other ships or stations had to be accomplished with great care, by moving in slowly from a distance. He got additional information from his conversation with Ull; a rapidly accelerating ship created a very dangerous volume of space ten to twenty kilometers directly in front, and not just from the possibility of collision. The leading ship would be pulled off course or damaged.

  Using the acceleration settings of ten micro-gravities or less, he analyzed the arrays' vector component. With this and the gravity control arrays, he formed a working hypothesis about the normal-space actions of the drive. For movement, the drive projected a point source gravity field of variable intensity in the direction of acceleration. The ship fell into the field, and the field moved ahead of the ship, with no apparent acceleration to the passengers. For gravity, the drive projected a more diffuse field throughout the ship.

  None of this explained the drive's transit function. The transit arrays were structured identically but contained different sets of parameters. He did establish that one set encoded the velocity of the ship on exit from transit. The old Nesu consoles didn’t support this functionality, and it was related, somehow, to the same parameters that controlled ship’s attitude. The only explanation that fit his findings, however farfetched, was that the drive controlled the ship's frame of reference in normal space. To turn the ship, the drive changed the ship's angular momentum, violating what the Earth physics books called "conservation of angular momentum." When the ship exited from transit, the drive set the ship's velocity and vector without regard for what they had been on entry. Any explanation of this was beyond his abilities.

  His discoveries suggested how the Kadiil ripped apart planets. The creation of a point gravity source of black hole strength should be possible. Focusing a black hole inside a planet or ship, then repeatedly turning it off and focusing it somewhere else should give the shearing effect Ull reported.

  That was his theory. To be more than a theory, it had to be tested.

  The ship emerged from transit on the fifteenth day, within an hour of the time predicted by his programs. He hadn’t found any information to improve on the time-of-exit formula in the old program. However, the exit location was much less accurate, and almost five days of insystem travel remained. With his new understanding of the drive, the exit would be more precise on the next transit.

  First, he wanted to test the new insystem drive controls from the new bridge console he had built. The old console had built-in governors restricting maximum acceleration. The array cells corresponding to the strength of the gravity field could contain much larger numbers than those produced with the old console set on maximum "pull." Tommy's program didn't have that limitation. If he were correct, those parameters could be set large enough to create miniature black holes.

  Creating black holes might be a little premature, he decided, but we should be able to go a lot faster. With Ull's permission, he used his new controls to slowly increase the acceleration to twice the old maximum, then reduce it to back to zero.

  That brought one of the bridge crew scurrying to Ull on the command podium, and Ull, in turn, to Tommy's side.

  "What did you just do?"

  "I proved the drive is capable of more acceleration than anyone realized, and it could do a lot more." Tommy smiled at Ull. "But you told me to be careful."

  "Yes, I did, and I hope you will," she said, "but if that can be sustained, we would reduce our approach by over 34 hours."

  "Actually, I have a better method," he said, "though we can do it that way. Why don't we just take a short transit jump to where we want to go?"

  "Because sometimes that gives the result you want, and other times it does not," she said.

  "How was The Extended Claws able to use transit to close with us the first time we met?"

  "They had no choice except to try if they wanted to capture us. They were just as likely to have emerged a light second away, traveling in the wrong direction. That time they succeeded in getting close enough to fire at us. Other times their prey would have escaped unharmed. Transit exit is too inaccurate as to place and velocity for reliable insystem movement. With the insystem drive, we trade time for distance, but at least we get to where we are going and arrive at the desired velocity."

  "The transit drive is not inaccurate, at least not to the extent you think," he replied. "At interstellar distances, some of the error could be caused by the drive, but most is in the reference points you use and the calculations. And I have discovered how to set the exit vector to whatever you want.

  "I used astronomical data from the last twenty jumps you made to triangulate closer reference stars than those you have been using" --And now I know Earth's location-- "and Earth's computers are capable of much more accurate arithmetic."

  He paused for effect. "Do you mind if I try to get us there with a transit? After all, if I'm wrong, the insystem drive will correct my mistake a lot faster than before."

  "Is there no end to your surprises?" Ull asked. "You are certain we will not exit in the star?"

  "Yes," he said. He wasn't, but he was sure he shouldn't say so.

  "Show me," she said.

  Finding the new reference stars took longer than the transit. Thirty minutes later, the ship emerged sixty thousand kilometers from a blue planet, traveling in a parallel orbit at twenty-nine kilometers per second.

  "I could have gotten closer," Tommy said, "but you told me to be careful."

  # # #

  Ull gave Tommy a pond chamber on the same deck as her own. The day after they arrived at the blue planet, Tommy brought Potter up to explore. He also wanted a swim in the pond. Baths in the human part of the ship consisted of a dribble of water and a block of soap. The pond would be heaven. Not to Potter, of course.

  He had just taken off his clothes and dived in, when a chiming sound came from the door. No one had told him how the metal plate worked for anyone else, so he climbed out of the water, pulled his tunic over his head, and opened the door.

  "It had to be you," he said to Ull.

  "I asked the deck guard to tell me the first time you came here with your cat. That you appear to be living here is important." She glanced down at his exposed legs and feet and whistled. "You humans have such odd extremities. Maybe I should have come later. Did I interrupt anything?"

  Tommy ignored her question and asked one of his own. "Deck guard?"

  "At least one warrior guards every deck," she replied. "He should not be seen, of course. Since you took these quarters, I understand there has been a competition for the position."

  "Why would they do that?" Tommy asked.

  "It is a mystery to me how you could do all you have done and not understand the response you receive from those you have saved. The warriors want to serve you, but they cannot go below the commons unless they are ordered to do so."

  Tommy shrugged his shoulders, a movement that, even as he made it, he realized may have been lost on Ull. "I have never been much with people and relationships. Why do you suppose I spend so much time with computers?"

  "Because you enjoy working with computers?"

  "Well, that is true, too,” he grimaced, “but computers always do what you tell them to, unlike humans, or The People for that matter."

  "Computers always do what you tell them to? They never make mistakes? Our navigation computer made a large mistake!"

  "That was a special case. Your navigation computer was two thousand years old and had been poorly maintained. In normal circumstances, they do make mistakes, but the programmer almost always causes the mistake. An examination of the error invariably reveals the computer did as it was told. "

  "You said 'almost always.' How could that be true if the rest of your statement is true?"

  "Rumor has it a cosmic ray once changed a program in the middle of execution. That rumor has never been verified."

  "I can never tell when humans are joking," she said. "The People have the
decency to whistle after a joke. Perhaps you should learn to do the same."

  "Who said I was joking?” Tommy suddenly got a whiff of Ull’s drying fur and gestured toward his pool. “May I offer you a swim while we talk?”

  Ull’s whistle carried some of the grinding noise that Tommy had heard during the telling of Stream’s destruction.

  “Finally. I need to have someone teach you proper manners,” she said as she dove past him into the water.

  Ull spent a few moments exploring his pool then stopped by the flat rock on the far side, where he joined her.

  “Your pool is sterile and too warm,” she said. “Your guests should be able to catch fish to eat.”

  Tommy changed the subject. “How are the repairs progressing?"

  "They will not be finished before we must leave in two weeks. If we leave then, we will arrive on the Gathering's first day. Whatever is still to be done must be completed there."

  "Is the Gathering what it sounds like, a gathering of your ships?"

  "Yes. Every five years we gather to trade among ourselves, tell each other news and stories, and sometimes court and mate. All animosities are put aside. Even those like The Extended Claws are welcome for the good of the species."

  "What will they think of me?" Tommy asked.

  "We have been discussing that in the council. Accepting you will be as difficult for them as it was for us."

  "And there are a lot more of them," Tommy said.

  "True. A more critical issue might be the work you have done on this ship.

  "All of our ships, except perhaps some of the raiders, are in much the same condition as were we. What you have done, what you could do, is more valuable than any cargo. Some will want you to provide the same for them. And to them, you are still property, a human slave."

  Tommy swished his bare legs in the water. "We still have most of the computers you got from Earth. You could trade for some of them. They don't need me, just the computers and the programs and someone to install them."

  "We would not be able to convince everyone of that. Someone would certainly try to steal you."

  "We could hide what I have done."

  "We discussed that as an alternative, and it would not be a satisfying solution. All of them are of The People. Any ship we do not help may not return for the next Gathering."

  "Are you planning on doing this for free?"

  "Of course not. We are traders. We will offer, and they must provide something in return. But we must offer. How we can without endangering you is the question."

  "If my work cannot be hidden, then I will hide," Tommy said.

  "If you do, how will we sell and install your computers?"

  "I will create teams of my artisans. When you have arranged for the trade, we will send a team on board with the equipment. I will hide in my chambers until the Gathering is finished."

  "They may steal the teams you send."

  Tommy stared into the pond. "There is that. We could offer to train humans as part of the trade." Humans who would continue to be slaves. He was beginning to like the Nesu, at least the ones he knew, but that didn't mean he accepted their treatment of humans. He had talked with Ull once about power. As long as the ship humans had no power, nothing would ever change for them.

  He looked at Ull. "But only if they agree to form a new guild modeled after my own. I will interview and appoint the guildmaster, who must receive additional training. How long will we be at the Gathering?"

  "Two months," Ull responded.

  "That is not much time, but it will have to do."

  "I will take your proposal to the council, but continue to consider other alternatives."

  I will, Tommy thought, but this is the one that will work for me.

  "I have been seeing a number of landers going back and forth to the world below," Tommy said. "Why do you come here?"

  "Three-fourths of this world is covered with water. Usually, we harvest and freeze marine life for food. In addition, we are bringing up many cubic meters of fresh water." He decided her gaze directly into his eyes must be a gesture of respect. "You have repaired so many of our lakes and ponds, we have used most of our reserve and have many more lakes to fill. We are also filling every possible enclosed tank, even temporarily converting many dry storage chambers. When we trade the expertise you have brought, many ships will need additional water to repair their living quarters and will not want to wait. We will be able to trade for water, too."

  Without warning, she turned away and swam around the pond.

  "I left something out of my story about the Kadiil,” she said when she joined him again. “Many years after the destruction of Stream, one of our ships tried to colonize a world similar to the one we now orbit.”

  Her snout pointed up at him, her black eyes glittering, and then she looked away. "Nothing happened for a while. The group on site was small, and their ship continued to trade. We often set up temporary stations on uninhabited worlds, and this might have been one of those. Soon, other ships of The People went there for trade, and some from their crews stayed. The station became a community at the convergence of two rivers with many kits being born. The world was so perfect, all that remained of the original crew eventually abandoned their ship in orbit.

  “Soon after, a Kadiil ship arrived. They demanded the colony be dismantled, but The People of the community ignored them. After all, it had been over a thousand years since Stream's destruction, and these people had done nothing to anger the Kadiil. A week after the demand was made, that world was also destroyed." Again her gaze met his. "We are doomed to wander until we all are gone."

  Vent and Sanos

  Vent and Sanos stood outside the guildhall engaging in a most unmanly activity: they were hugging each, other almost like lovers, and dancing in circles. Guildmaster Tommy had called a meeting of the entire guild and promoted both of them to master! They were both too young and inexperienced. No one had ever been promoted from journeyman to master so quickly. At the same meeting, several apprentices had been promoted to journeyman. He had even asked for their recommendation on whom that should be!

  "Thanks for waiting for me," Tommy's voice came from inside the guildhall. "Now that everyone else has left, we have more to discuss."

  They released each other, straightened their clothes, and entered the hall where Tommy led the way past the cleared area in the corner of warehouse that had become their meeting place to an undisturbed group of pallets in the center. He sat down on the floor where he was surrounded by pallets and motioned for them to sit down in front of him.

  "You are aware that every guild has secrets?" he asked.

  "Yes," they replied, almost in unison.

  "I have inquired, and the other guilds begin sharing their secrets with apprentices and journeyman as part of their advancement. I could have done that, too, by sharing my knowledge of computers only with you, except I wasn't able to keep that knowledge secret. Others could learn what you know by reading the books Valin's group continues to translate. Lean closer to me."

  They glanced at each other, and then leaned until their heads were almost touching Tommy's.

  "The Computer Guild has just one secret," Tommy said, "and it's a dangerous one. If you reveal it to anyone other than another master of the Computer Guild, we'll probably all be killed."

  Vent's eyes widened. What had he gotten into?

  Tommy continued, "The secret is so dangerous, I felt I couldn't even tell you of its existence until you were masters of the guild. If that is contradictory to you, it is to me, too, but there is a way this works. If either of you choose, you don't have to learn the secret. To the outside and to the journeymen and apprentices, you will remain a master--I will not take that from you--but to the other masters of the guild you will be a journeyman. The choice is yours."

  Tommy stood up. "I'm going to leave for a while. Talk it over, or not, but I want a decision today."

  When Tommy closed the door behind him, Vent said, "This ha
s to involve the lords, somehow."

  "I think so, too."

  "He's been right about almost everything," Vent said.

  "I don't remember anything he hasn't been right about," Sanos said.

  "You know what the farmers think about him?" Vent asked.

  "Yes."

  "Do you think that's possible?"

  "That he's the one who will lead us back to Earth?” Sanos responded. He considered, then nodded. “Yes, I think that's possible. Not likely, though,"

  Vent stood up. "Regardless, I've made up my mind. I'm going to learn the secret. Everything that Master Tommy has done for me has been good. He needs us for something he thinks is important. I'm not going to disappoint him."

  Sanos stood up after him. "I'm not either."

  Tommy had been watching from the other side of the door. When they stood up, he returned to the center of the warehouse and they again sat on the floor.

  He motioned them closer. "Have you decided?" he asked in a whisper.

  They whispered "Yes" in reply, and then Vent said, "We have both agreed to learn the secret."

  "Do you swear to keep this secret from all except other masters of the guild?" Tommy asked.

  "I do," they said together.

  "Do you swear to use this secret only to protect those in the ship, but especially the humans in the ship?"

  The whispered "I do" was a little ragged. What did he mean?

  "I'll begin imparting the secret by giving you this," he handed each of them a small flat device like the one he always carried with him. "You don't need one of these--access to any computer on the ship will do--but if you have one, you will always have access to a computer. To everyone else, this will be a symbol of your status as a master of the Computer Guild. To you, this will give you control of the ship, should you ever need to take it."