A Larger Universe

by James L Gillaspy

  The faces of the new masters turned chalk white.

  "Over the next several days, I'll be telling you how this happened and what you must know. Let's begin."

  Chapter Fourteen: Value Perceived

  In the middle of a conversation with Vent and Sanos about data transfer over the ship's hidden wireless network, Tommy realized he had never considered that the ship’s drive might be doing more than just accepting commands. Even a printer connection sent acknowledgments back to the computer. The original programs had ignored or disregarded data traffic from the drive, so he had, too. The start of transit gave him an opportunity to monitor what, if anything, the drive sent in response to his commands.

  He placed a new screen in front of his chair on the sub-deck to display each command sent from the bridge, as well as the response from the drive. He also wrote a program to record this activity in a file for later examination.

  Commands came from the bridge for the ship to leave orbit. The screen showed turn followed by acceleration.

  Success!

  After each command, a message came from the drive. They flashed by too fast for him to follow. More data came from the drive without commands from the bridge. Over the next several minutes, the drive continued to send data intermittently. He had a lot to look at.

  From the open trapdoor above him, he heard Las, the ship commander for the week, give the destination and the order for entry into transit. "When ready."

  On his screen, the coordinates of the Gathering flashed by, followed in a few seconds by an acknowledgment from his computer to the console operator above. After a brief countdown, the calculated arrays went to the drive, and, through the trapdoor above him, he saw the dome change to black. A steady stream of data from the drive, lasting over a minute, displayed on the screen.

  This transit would take ten days. By the evening of the sixth day, he had gotten nowhere with the data sent by the drive. Beyond the form of the transfer, the usual arrays, he couldn't interpret anything.

  He sighed, and decided he might as well take a break for dinner when an alarm sounded.

  I've heard that before, he thought as he hurried up the stairs. He found a frightened young female calling for a real bridge officer. For a second time, an alarm signaled the early exit of the ship from transit.

  What’s wrong with my program!

  Stars appeared through the dome. Tommy waited as the bridge filled with regular crew. No point in chasing after the problems until I know where we are. That might narrow the search.

  After a few minutes, the astronomy section established their position. The ship had emerged where it should be, with less positional and velocity vector error than usual for that length of transit, but more than four days ahead of schedule!

  How had this happened? He knew he hadn't changed his programs. He also knew this was something programmers always say, just before remembering that one little modification that could be the cause of the problem. Except the only programs he had worked on since the last transit were those that monitored data from the drive. He didn't understand how that could affect the ship's time in transit.

  The People's Hand's early arrival gave him time to experiment. With Ull's permission, he began testing the drive controls again as he had done before, starting with insystem drive. This time, the bridge crew insisted on helping.

  These tests showed no change in the ship's response, but did provide a lot more data from the drive to analyze. And there shouldn't be a change. The ship moves by falling into a gravity field. The ship will always fall at the same rate of acceleration into a given gravity field.

  The attitude controls also responded as before. In his original tests, he had recorded the time to turn the ship from one position to another, and the new times were within hundredths of a second of the old.

  The decisive tests might be some short transits, which he scheduled for the following day. He thanked his helpers and left for his private pond.

  Since that first bath that Ull had interrupted, Tommy had been going to his Nesu quarters each day before dinner to bathe. He made the pond his own by adjusting the temperature to warmer than The People liked, and by not adding fish. Immersing himself in water was his only luxury from being a lord.

  The private chambers included an elevated pool fed by a simulated spring. The People surrounded their upper pools with foliage, creating a cozy nook for privacy, but that wasn't one of his needs. He had, however, asked the farmers to plant a few shrubs from the Commons around the main pond, just to make it more “Earth-like.” He also raised the temperature of the elevated pool above that of main pond to create something his parents had always wanted: a hot tub.

  He dropped his clothes by the small pool, and submerged to his neck. The steaming water drew a long "Ahhh" from his lungs. This had become a necessary part of his day. After a good lather from the soap he kept beside the pool, he was ready for a rinse and swim. He grabbed his clothes, pulled himself into the waterslide that drained into the main pond, and slid on his back, naked and soapy, with his clothes held over his head. Just before splashing into the pond, he threw the clothes on the bank so they would be dry and ready for him when he finished.

  A turn and flip of his legs took him to the bottom and another turn to the top again. When his head broke the surface, he circled the pond. After ten fast laps, he rolled over on his back and began a leisurely stroke. He would never be able to swim as well as the Nesu, but this was a great addition to the weight exercises.

  He felt good about the restoration of these ponds, although that had been one of his simplest tasks. The Nesu needed to spend much of their time in the water. If they had been forced to continue crowding together, all this luxury for one person would have been too much, no matter what else he had done. They were lucky to have been near a water planet, though. The ship needed a large volume of water to fill all of the new Nesu living spaces.

  It hit him. The ship had taken on water--a huge amount of mass. Someone would be able to tell him how much. The insystem drive had no relationship to mass, but the attitude controls should. Turning required the manipulation of an object's angular momentum, and, if he remembered correctly, mass was a component of that. Given a more massive ship and the application of the same turning force, the ship should have turned more slowly, but it hadn't. The drive ignores the laws of angular momentum, but maybe mass has something to do with transit time. He turned over and swam for his clothes. If he hurried, he could do one transit test before the shift changed.

  A definitely human, female voice interrupted his roll onto the bank next to his clothes. "I have a clean change of clothes for you Lord Tommy, if you prefer," she said in English.

  "What?" he yelped, as he shoved himself back into the pond. He surfaced spewing and shaking water out of his eyes.

  The female that stood on the bank near the door was no artisan or farmer girl. He felt his face get hot, even with his naked body beneath the cool water of the lake. She was tall--he couldn't tell for sure from the lake's surface, but at least an inch taller than he was. Unlike the humans below the commons, her face had high cheekbones and fit his idea of proper proportion to her body. She wore a dark orange tunic, calf-length and cinched at the waist like those of the warriors he had seen, except her weaponless belt emphasized curves instead of muscular shoulders. And she had the first noticeable breasts he had seen since being kidnapped.

  A sudden chill prickled his skin. A close-fitting metal band circled her neck.

  "Who are you? How did you get in? What're you doing here?" he sputtered as he swam toward her.

  "I'm here to serve you, Lord Tommy." Her gaze was on the floor in front of her feet. "I was sent by Lord Ull."

  That made no sense to him. "We'll see about that," he said. "Turn around and hold those clothes out behind you."

  Her swirling turn drove him away from the bank with the stink of rancid cooking grease and stale sweat. The warrior men he had been close to were a lot cleaner.

 
She held a towel behind her with her other hand as he climbed out of the water. He used it to hurriedly dry, then pulled on the clothes.

  Clean clothes were better than the ones he had sweated in all day. But where had she gotten these? He had never brought a change of clothes here.

  "Wait here. I'll be right back," he said.

  He walked to the other side of the pond to get his dirty clothes and transfer the items in the pockets.

  The small metal cylinder designating his status as one of The People felt icy. He looked down at it, then across the pond where she stood, unmoving, exactly as he had left her. Her neck band glinted in the light. The cylinder's power had just become a lot less abstract.

  His eyes seemed locked on her as he walked back. He had never paid much attention to girls or women before, except maybe for his mom. He had to pay attention to her. The girls below the commons didn't seem like girls at all, not the ones he knew about anyway. Actually, he couldn't remember ever having thought much about girls. He was thinking about this one now, and his reaction made his knees tremble.

  He stood behind her and tried to get himself under control. He kept noticing things, and that wasn't helping. Her hair was a dusky brown and cropped short below her ears, leaving a long neck exposed. Her arms and calves were slender but visibly muscled, as were her shoulders, which were wider than those of anyone below the Commons. He couldn't see the hands she held clasped in front of her, but her feet were long and slender in sandals. He felt sweat roll down his back. "Did Lord Ull happen to say why I needed your services?" he finally asked.

  "Only that a lord should have servants, and you have none."

  Why does Ull think I need servants? "Your people are warriors, aren't they?"

  "The men are, Lord Tommy. The women must learn to fight in case we're needed, but our main tasks are to cook and clean, rear children, and perform service for the lords and the men in other ways."

  His head throbbed. "Other ways?"

  "The lords trust us to watch over their kits." Her hand came up to touch the ring circling her neck, her long fingers lingering there for a moment. "And the lords give us to the men, as I've been given to you."

  For a moment, Tommy could think of nothing to say. "You were given to me? Is that what you meant by being sent here to serve me?"

  "Yes, Lord Tommy."

  "Did Lord Ull give you that tunic, too?"

  "Yes, she said your artisans wear this color, and you would be pleased. She also gave me your change of clothes."

  "Well, I'm not pleased, and I need to talk to Ull about you. In the meantime, make yourself at home here. I have work to do." Her odor was rank. "And you might use the pool on the hill to clean up. You'll find soap there."

  Her face became stiff. Something he had said. Well, of course. The rancid odor is deliberate, a means of defense. Still, she’s fouling my quarters, even if I’m not here much.

  "Let me say that again," he said. "Use the pool and soap, and get rid of the smell."

  He couldn't mistake her body language. She didn't want to be here. Well, he hadn't asked her to be here, either.

  "What's your name?"

  "Sisle"

  And, because he thought she was, he said, "Sisle, you're safe with me. Just clean up. We'll talk about this when I get back, which may be tomorrow. Oh, and I don't sleep here, so you can if you want." He looked at the chamber as if seeing it for the first time. These weren't ideal quarters for a human. Where would someone sleep? "Make yourself at home," he finally said again.

  He decided to have the discussion with Ull about Sisle later and hurried to the elevators. No point in thinking about her anyway. He wasn't a boy girls were attracted to. Was she a girl or a woman? She seemed older than he, but he didn't know enough to tell. A transit test was more important. That was something he could get his arms around. Get his arms around. Why had he used that phrase? Sweat trickled down his sides. This wasn't good. He had too much going on right now to be distracted.

  # # #

  Director Neth had taken over as ship commander, and The People’s Hand moved toward the third world from the star, where the People’s ships would gather, using the insystem drive. She didn’t object to the ship making a short transit instead.

  They emerged near the third world. As with the last transit, this one was more accurate and quicker than it should have been but that didn't prove anything. Until the ship sold some of the extra mass being carried in water storage, he was stuck with a theory but not enough data.

  # # #

  The first two times he woke that night, he was in a dream about warrior women. The third time was with an idea that had nothing to do with the transit. The hour was too late to go back to sleep and too early to get breakfast. No matter, he thought, as he pulled on his clothes, I need to verify something first.

  When he told Ull he had plenty of computers available for trade, he hadn't been considering the wireless access points. He hadn't seen a need to install them on other ships. Now, he did see the need, if Ull was right concerning his own safety and the safety of teams sent to other ships.

  The wireless nodes received transmissions directed at them on the correct frequency. That provided all kinds of possibilities. The distance the node could send a reply was limited to a few hundred feet, but that could be solved once the new computers were installed with his slightly modified programs. If all of these ships were similar, he should be able to hijack at least one radio transmitter. First, he needed to talk with the artisans from the Communications Guild who had helped him with the three-dimensional viewer. They should be able to detect the frequency of the wireless access points. Some parts of this idea had nothing to do with computers. Maybe they could help him with that, too, but how much to tell them might be a problem.

  He laughed to himself as he entered his warehouse. The Trojan horse I’ve been building won't compare to the new one I have in mind. Why control one ship when I can control a fleet? He stopped laughing when he realized he could only use this trick once. As soon as I reveal I’m controlling the other ships, the Nesu on this ship will respond. At that moment I must be ready to take control of the Nesu Tol, too, and I’m a long way from being ready. As he turned on the computer in the cubical his artisans had built for him, he had another thought: And I’m not even sure I should.

  # # #

  As The People's ships arrived over the next three days, Tommy worked to get his artisans ready. Ull had assured him all of the ships were built with the same plan. Once they had a functional design, the builders hadn't had enough resources or reason to change. Even the plan of each deck was the same. Installing computers from Earth would be much easier the second and third time, with a few minor changes to the programs, of course.

  One thing he didn't do during those three days was return to his pond chamber. When he finally talked with Ull about Sisle, he got nowhere.

  "Someone with your status on this ship should have at least one servant," she said.

  Tommy's voice had a definite edge. "Where are your servants?"

  "My servants are the two warrior sentries outside my chambers. I need no others until I have kits to care for."

  "So why not a warrior for me, too?"

  "Do you need protection from the other humans on this ship?” She made a discordant whistle. “I thought not, but you might have other needs."

  "Other needs? What other needs would I have?"

  This time, Ull's whistle echoed through her chamber. "You are young. It will come to you." Her voice became serious. "If you reject her, she will be treated badly by her kin. Your rejection would also reflect on me. Treat her as you will, but do me this favor and keep her in your service."

  # # #

  The other ships entered the system more than twenty hours away via insystem drive from the target planet. One entered fifty hours away. A few of them tried short transits to get closer with varying luck. As Ull had explained it, the usual tactic was to make several short transits trying to get closer. The
ship commander would stop and switch to insystem drive when she felt no better margin of error could be achieved. When the short transits ended, the most distant ship was still thirty hours away and driving inward.

  Tommy found Ull taking her turn as ship commander, lounging in her command chair, her tail twitching behind her, and watching one of the 50-inch 3-D radar screens Tommy's artisans had installed near her platform. The goggles caused some undulating whistles the first day she wore them on duty, but now every deck officer had a pair and took every opportunity to look over her shoulders. The astronomy section head had even proposed an improvement that they quickly adopted. The radar transmitter on a lander had been exchanged with a ship-sized unit of longer range, and the lander moved out fifty kilometers from the ship. With the remote transmitter linked to one on the ship, they could see with the resolution of eyes fifty kilometers apart. A joystick at the command chair turned the ship's gaze in any direction. Ull had admitted to Tommy that she enjoyed watching the other ships creep in; it gave her a feeling of superiority.

  "How do you feel about dramatic gestures?" Tommy asked Ull.

  "Dramatic gestures?"

  "You have a word for drama, so you must know what I mean. Doing something for show."

  "I understand. To what purpose?"

  "We have things to trade. On Earth, bragging about your products is a way to generate interest."

  "That is also our way," Ull said. "The council has been discussing how to best display what you have done in order to get the maximum return."

  "May I make a suggestion?" Tommy asked.