by T. R. Harris
“That is such an inadequate description of the device. The communications function is only a small part of its utility.”
“Only the Formilians make the implants.”
“I understand that. I also know you have a unique relationship with the leader of the Formilians. All I need is three more.”
“Okay, let’s say I can manage to wrangle three more ATDs out of Arieel, what else do you need?”
“For the device itself, I will need a naturally occurring material with the sensitivity to detect changes in universal harmonics.”
“Naturally occurring? What does that mean?”
“It means it’s not artificial, but rather a substance found within the physical environment.”
“That sounds easy. Go on.”
“I need a mass of this material approximately one thousand pounds in weight and with near-perfect uniformity.”
“What kind of substance?”
“That which is formed within a C-star. Its item is number two on the list.”
“So just a little C-star material. You know, it’s been a while since I’ve been to Home Depot, but I’m pretty sure they don’t carry that stuff in-store. Maybe it’s a special order item.”
“Your colloquial humor is wasted on me, Adam Cain.”
“So where do we get this stuff?”
“As I said, it is C-star core material, and I need about a thousand pound crystal, intact and in one complete mass.”
“So it’s a crystal?”
“Yes, that is what the ‘C’ refers to.”
“For crystal?”
“No. It refers to the chemical composition of the crystal. Do you not know your chart of elements?”
“Chemistry wasn’t my strongest subject, so how about a clue?”
“The ‘C’ refers to the element carbon.”
“Like in pencil lead?”
“That is correct, yet in this case it refers to the crystalline version of the element.”
“Crystalized carbon?” Adam frowned. There was something familiar about the phrase, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He opened his mouth to continue the sarcastic banter, but he gasped instead.
“Diamond! You need a thousand pound diamond?”
“That is correct.”
“Does something that big even exist? And if it did…it would be worth a friggin’ fortune!”
“It does exist.”
“Where?”
“As I said, in the core of a C-star.”
“That doesn’t help very much.”
Exasperation was evident on Panur’s pale face. “This is becoming tedious. If I have to go through this routine for every item on the list, it will take nineteen hours, eight minutes, and forty-two seconds.”
“Just tell me, what’s a C-star core?”
“It is the core of cold white dwarf star.”
“A white dwarf star? You want us to pull a huge chunk of diamond out from the center of a star?”
“Yes.”
Adam fell back in his chair. “And here I thought you were serious about building a portal detector. I didn’t know it was some kind of mutant fantasy. How the hell are we supposed to do that?”
“It will involve maneuvering a localized singularity into direct contact with an appropriate subject star, and then sifting through the debris for the proper remnant.”
“Singularity…as in a black hole? That doesn’t sound so hard. Just smash a black hole into a star…and presto, we have our thousand-pound diamond.”
“You are being sarcastic, yet the theory is sound and quite capable of implementation.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I don’t kid.”
Adam stared at the alien for several seconds, waiting for the punchline to his sick cosmic joke. When Panur remained stoic and serious, Adam shook his head. “So where do I begin?” he asked. “First of all, you want us to find some rogue black hole and then crash it into a star. I didn’t even know we were capable of steering black holes. But assuming we can, then you want to create a massive explosion, after which a shitload of massive diamond chunks will be cast into space. Then we just pick up a thousand pound piece and bolt out of the area like nothing happened.”
“Again, you are being sarcastic. However, you have outlined the proper sequence of events.”
“Help me out, Panur, but how…exactly…can we pull this off?”
“I have already located the proper subject star. It is near the Sylox stellar system, and there is already a singularity in close proximity siphoning off exterior gases from the star. All we need to do is nudge the black hole a little and let the combined gravitational attraction of the two bodies do the rest. A fleet of ten starships, using their combined gravity wells, will provide the impetus. However, the angle of the strike will have to be closely controlled to keep the resulting explosion modest and allow the singularity to absorb most of it. There will be no supernova as you’ve intimated. Most of the star material will be absorbed by the black hole, yet a fair amount of ejecta will escape, including core material.”
“As in huge-ass diamonds.”
“Yes, huge-ass diamonds.”
“A lot of them?”
“Approximately equivalent to eight hundred billion carats, as you measure diamond weight. Yet that is just a fraction of the actual weight of the core. Most of the ejecta will be consumed by the black hole, while another large chunk approximately four-fifths the size of your Earth will remain intact.”
Adam’s jaw fell open, and it remained so for a full thirty seconds before he could speak again.
“And these billions of carats of diamonds will be floating in space, just waiting to be picked up?”
“Correct.”
“And then you can build the detector?”
“Again, correct.”
“And I’ll be filthy rich.”
“If that is your desire. You do realize that as more of this material is recovered, the lower will be the value of the commodity. The intrinsic worth of an item is based on its scarcity. With such an abundance of crystalline carbon, the value will drop to essentially zero.”
“Then I’ll only take a little.”
“Others will come looking for the bounty.”
“In the meantime, I’ll enjoy being first.”
“I did not realize wealth was so important to you?”
“Every man has his price. And with how messed up my life has become recently, I may need some extra cash to rebuild what I can—if I live long enough.”
“Do we proceed or not?”
“I assume the other items on this list will be a little easier to get?” Panur nodded. “Then talk about an incentive…” Adam was beaming from ear to ear. “You’re on, my little friend. Let’s build this damn thing!”
Chapter 6
The Juireans had been rebuilding their fleet for over ten years, and still it was only about a third the size it had been at the time of the Juirean-Human war. As a consequence, the territory that encompassed the New Expansion was thinly guarded, much of the responsibility for defense now falling on the individual worlds or clusters.
The Dackons were the most industrialized civilization within the Lim-Oppos stellar cluster, so the other five advanced races within the region looked to them for protection against the rumored threat of the Sol-Kor. With communications at a fairly sophisticated level throughout the Expansion, the inhabitants of the cluster had seen all the reports about the invaders from another dimension, yet even then they considered the danger to be far from their doorstep.
So when a small detachment of Juirean battlecruisers bolted into their space, the Dackons were still leery of the implications.
The Juirean Overlord towered over the much smaller Dackon sim-lieutenant, yet it was his bombastic tone that was making the biggest impression on the contingent of local military officers aboard the Juirean flagship.
“The threat is imminent,” the Juirean declared.
“What would they want from u
s?” Sim-Lieutenant Jarvois asked. “We offer no strategic location nor rich resources.”
“Have you not paid attention to the news reports?” the Juirean asked. “All the Sol-Kor want from you is your flesh and blood bodies. And your cluster offers an easy target of six populated worlds with over twelve billion subjects.”
“Can the Juireans not provide for our defense? We are part of the Expansion.”
“I have only forty-five ships. The Sol-Kor are bringing in ten thousand, including what we estimate to be over five hundred beamships. The Dackons must provide for their own defense.”
“But how? I have seen the reports and they speak of a weapon that can subdue defenders at great a distance.”
“Pardon me, Sim-Lieutenant,” said one of the other Dackon officers. “There are also reports of a counter to this beam. Do the Juireans offer us this technology?”
“There is a way to counteract the beam’s influence, yet not against five hundred attackers. We are also unable to provide the means to equip your ships with this defensive system since it has only been within the past few days that their destination has been determined.”
“Then how do you propose we mount our own defense?” Jarvois asked, having grown increasingly frightened by the conversation. Could it be that his entire race was doomed to extinction?
“You possess nuclear devices,” stated the Juirean Overlord. “We propose that you place these devices within your space and set them to serve as mines against the invaders.”
“We would not have enough to protect all the planets in the cluster.”
“The Juirean Command is aware of this. That is why we have come to the Dackons first.”
“You propose we sacrifice the rest of the Cluster Affiliates to save ourselves?”
“Of course. If the Sol-Kor’s aims on this region can be disrupted enough, there is a possibility they may choose to move on. The Juireans will provide what assistance we can to this end.”
“How much time do we have?”
“Six days.”
The nine Dackon officers in the room were stunned into silence, overcome by the blunt honesty of the Juirean Overlord and the overwhelming nature of the task ahead. “We will do what we must,” Jarvois finally said, “yet I beg of you, please bring in more defenders!”
“Currently we are tracking four other Sol-Kor raids taking place within Expansion space. Our forces are spread thin as it is. We can offer no more than what I have brought.”
“Then we are doomed,” said someone from within the entourage.
“Why has it come to this?” asked the sim-lieutenant. “I understood that the Sol-Kor had been defeated in previous engagements.”
“They were defeated, yet the threat remains as they have continued to infiltrate our universe. This is a war which involves all worlds within the galaxy, including Dackon. No one is safe or immune from attack, and with each passing day the number of Sol-Kor increase. The Juirean Command is attempting to communicate this fact to the entire Expansion, seeking a unified purpose to counter the enemy. We have no choice. Either we fight together for survival, or we all perish.”
Chapter 7
The next day, the Pegasus II entered the region of the galaxy known as the Fringe. Adam felt a twinge of nostalgia as he peered out at the glowing wall of stellar gas that made up the Barrier, which was the line of demarcation between the Expansion and the Human-led interstellar empire known as the Orion-Cygnus Union. The Barrier had once been just that, a barrier, yet now with improvements in gravity drives the gigantic cloud could be easily skirted, adding only a couple of days to a trip rather than the weeks it took in the past.
Adam was also surprised to find that a channel had been cut through the center of the Barrier, using gravity wells as a means of clearing away the debris. The passage was narrow yet effective, and was now the main conduit for travel between empires.
Adam choose to drop in over of the Barrier rather than risk passage through the more closely-monitored Castorian Channel, and soon found himself back in the Void once again. This vast desert in space had once served as an effective deterrent—along with the Barrier—to travel beyond the Fringe Worlds and into the Far Arm of the galaxy where Earth was located. Yet now it was nothing of the sort. It could be crossed in a couple of days, and several huge space stations had been constructed to provide travelers with a respite from even this burden.
Indeed, the Fringe Worlds were becoming civilized, no longer the rough and tumble frontier it had been even twenty short years ago. This was welcome news to many, not so for others…
A few years back, Adam had acquired a confidential localized communication address that didn’t rely on CW technology. To be effective, however, the Pegasus II would have to be within a relatively close range. He began sending out the broadcast as soon as they entered the Void.
It took eight hours to receive a reply.
“Scramble comm, please identify yourself. This is not an open network,” came the response. Adam was asleep at the time. Panur came to rouse him.
The challenge had come only once before going dark again.
Adam fingered the comm switch. “Scramble comm reporting. Please respond. Link requested. Code: Muleship One.”
No response came back. That would take another two hours.
“This is Muleship One. Is this who I think it is?”
Adam smiled. “Indeed, my friend. How are you, Jym?”
“Adam Cain! It is a miracle. News has been scarce, but I remember the last time we spoke you were requesting an audience with the dreaded Klin. I had always assumed you had been killed…until recent events.”
“What recent events?”
“Surely you must know there is a galaxy-wide search underway for you…and for your passenger. It is true what they say, that you harbor a most-dangerous being, one that could bring about the complete destruction of the galaxy?”
“Quite the contrary. He could be our only means of survival.”
“Adam Cain, is that you?” said a second voice.
“It’s me, Kaylor. I’m glad to hear your voice. Are the two of you still active in the underground market?”
“It is the best way to make the most profit for the least effort.”
“Spoken like true capitalists. You are survivors.”
“As you are too. Why is it you have contacted us? You must know you are a dangerous commodity and communicating with you is forbidden.”
“I need a place to lay low for a while.”
“You wish us to join in your efforts to hide from the authorities?” Jym said in his typical frantic manner. “Our activities here keep us constantly skirting the law, yet we do not have an entire galaxy after us.”
“I’m innocent of everything they say I’ve done, and so is Panur—the being with me. It’s important that I keep him safe. Otherwise we could all be consumed by the Sol-Kor. He’s the only one who can provide us with a final solution to the problem. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing. Can you trust me on this? I need your help.”
“Adam Cain, you are a friend and confidant,” said Kaylor. “Of course we will help, although I can’t see what it is we can do.”
“This is going to sound a little strange, but I need ten starships and crew willing to take on a dangerous, and frankly impossible-sounding, mission.”
There was silence on the link, so long in fact that Adam had to ask if the aliens were still there.
“Yes, we are here,” Kaylor responded. “You say you need ten starships? Do they need to be of any particular size?”
“I would say marauder class or bigger.”
“Ten of them?”
“That’s right.”
“You do know we only have the FS-475. The power of the ship would clearly be comparable to a marauder, yet it is but one vessel.”
“I was thinking about asking the Fringe Pirates for help. They’re still around, aren’t they?”
“The pirates! You must not be serious,” Jym s
aid. “They are still in operation, yet in a diminished capacity as a result of the influx of new population to the region.”
“Who’s leading them these days?”
“It is Angar…I believe you know him.”
“Angar? I would have thought after all these years he’d be long gone.”
“No, he is still active, even if his force is only a fraction of what it had once been. The pirate presence in the Fringe reached its apex when your friend Riyad Tarazi was its leader, yet Angar learned much from him. Are you expecting him to provide you with the ships you need?”
“That was my hope. He’ll be richly rewarded.”
“You did not mention that before, Adam Cain,” said Jym with more enthusiasm. “In what form is this reward?”
“If the mission succeeds, there will be the opportunity to acquire a fair amount of diamonds—crystalized carbon. I believe this particular commodity is also valuable in the Fringe and elsewhere in the Expansion.”
“It is. We call it forandite, and because of the rare set of circumstances required to produce it, it is rare even in a galaxy rich in exploitable planets. You say there will be forandite available at the end of the task. How much?”
“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. Suffice to say you won’t have to continue hauling illegal smokesticks around the Fringe after this, and all the pirates will be able to retire in luxury. Can you put me in contact with Angar?”
“Yes we can. However, he will need more detail before committing. Unlike the two of us, he is not your friend, and if you have Riyad Tarazi with you, that could be a problem as well.”
“Why’s that?”
“Your friend was not a very nice creature back then. Angar has spoken often of the abuse he suffered during his time with Tarazi.”
“Riyad’s mellowed since then. Besides, I haven’t spoken with Riyad in over a year. I’m headed for Castor. Can you arrange a meeting there?”
“He is headquartered on Nimor, but I will do my best,” Kaylor said. “We too shall meet you on Castor. Be cautious, Adam Cain, there are many forces looking for you.”
********
