by S. H. Jucha
Claude Dupuis was tapped by Alex to manage the SADEs’ initial production needs. Claude responded that he wasn’t an engineer, and Alex laughed, telling Claude that the SADEs didn’t need an engineer. What they needed, Alex said, was a program manager, a skilled technician, and, most important, a pair of hands.
The first step in Z’s plan was to create a prototype human avatar. It would be nothing fancy. The focus was placed on body mechanics, the crystal memory, and the kernel transfer process. Specialists requested from House Brixton, which developed all Confederation SADEs, deferred from facilitating the first kernel transfer. Shannon Brixton, the House Leader, was a close compatriot of Council Leader Mahima Ganesh, who was no fan of Alex or the Harakens.
Once the SADEs designed their own kernel transfer process, Z volunteered to be the first subject, and the prototype avatar was transported for the test to the city-ship, Unsere Menschen, where Z resided. Julien initiated the transfer and, moments later, reported that Z’s kernel was no longer connected to the city-ship. The humans waited anxiously until a rudimentary speaker mounted on the avatar sounded, “So this is what it’s like to be senseless.” Pandemonium broke out as humans and SADEs celebrated. Julien reversed the transfer process sending Z back to the ship’s bridge box and announced the transfer experiment a complete success, much to everyone’s relief.
Unfortunately, the SADEs’ independence would only come after they designed and created their substitutes, ultra-sophisticated controllers, to manage a starship’s systems, including FTL navigation and comms. While Claude managed the construction of sophisticated human avatars complete with synth-skin, human sense organs, crystal memory, comms, power systems, and robotic infrastructure, the SADEs developed their replacements.
In time, and as directors of the Central Exchange of Haraken, the SADEs would prosper mightily as Harakens developed and sold iterations of the Nua’ll’s grav-drive technology, and they would reward Claude Dupuis handsomely for his efforts, but it was Z, who would keep Claude employed for much of the human’s life.
* * *
Julien slowly adopted the clothing algorithms that Cordelia built into his avatar but couldn’t bring himself to change his attire in mid-day to suit his moods. He wore the same clothes from morning to evening, door to door. The first time he decided to alter his appearance in the presence of others he was alone with Alex and Renée at their house. When the pair weren’t looking, Julien selected an alternate outfit, another common Haraken style. Renée was the first to notice, and a small cry of exclamation escaped her lips. Alex looked Julien up and down and sent him a number, <5.2> — nothing more.
At evening’s close, Julien flew home and researched New Terran grading systems, finding several concepts, including one that graded the performances of athletes from 1.0 to 10.0. This was the one Julien surmised Alex was applying to his wardrobe. Much later, Julien sought to impress Alex with changes of attire into some of Haraken’s newest fashions only to receive scores ranging from 4.1 to 7.3. Eventually, Julien gave up trying to impress his friend.
A half-year after the SADEs became mobile, the Harakens were again celebrating Founding Day. To Julien, it seemed the perfect day to celebrate their rite of passage from isolated starship controllers to free Haraken citizens. The evening before, Julien researched ancient Terran art, novels, and vids for clothing suitable for the celebration, and in the haste of his extensive search he nearly missed it. In all fairness, it wasn’t exactly what he would have thought in the realm of possibilities. Julien halted his searches and backed up to the pertinent passage in the novel. The more he considered the concept, the more emboldened he became. Julien captured the 2-D image and enlisted Cordelia’s help. She converted the image to 3-D, augmenting the clothing’s final image from the novel’s descriptions.
When Julien retrieved the algorithms of his costume from Cordelia, he activated them and posed for her, surprised when her reaction was the SADE’s frozen fugue. Then he felt Cordelia’s mind entwine with his as she expressed her pleasure and applauded his concept. Breaking from her fugue, she ran to hug him. Despite the incredible span of time Julien had spent in his box, it all seemed worthwhile to have arrived at moments such as this when he was able to hold his companion.
Julien’s creative spurt motivated Cordelia to find her own costume for Founding Day, and she retrieved an ancient art image of a Venetian woman adorned in an elaborate full-length dress layered in white lace, with her face covered by a delicate white and gold mask. Short, puffy sleeves were paired with long white gloves reaching to the woman’s upper arms. Cordelia went to work on her costume, determined to display Julien and herself as a most striking pair.
The following morning, Julien located Alex and Renée at the president’s office, which was located in the rear of the Assembly building. Alex would be preparing to address the Assembly and the fortunate citizens who would have lined up early to gain some of the few available seats to hear Alex’s annual address. As president, he laid out the challenges of the coming year, and it was a message that the Harakens took to heart, especially the ex-Librans, who were fierce defenders of their new society.
Julien and Cordelia sought to preview their new attire to Alex and Renée before others saw them and directed their flyer to the Assembly’s rear entrance. On the one hand, Julien was curious as to his friends’ reactions, even though Cordelia was adamant that she would not change her costume regardless of the comments received. On the other hand, Julien was anxious, perhaps even determined, to receive a better score from Alex than a 7.3. The SADEs slipped into the Assembly building, projecting typical Haraken attire, and then outside the president’s office they switched to their Founding Day costumes. Cordelia was first through the door and when she swung the mask from her face, Renée laughed and clapped her hands in delight.
“That is exquisite, Cordelia,” Renée said. “Where did it come from?”
“From the depths of necessity,” Cordelia replied. “I was challenged to equal my partner, who found his costume first.” Then Cordelia stepped aside, sweeping her lace dress in one hand, to reveal Julien, who was standing quietly behind her.
“Oh, my,” Renée said, her words coming out in a soft breath as she took in Julien’s display.
Julien heard every exclamation of appreciation Renée made, but his eyes were on his friend, who rose from behind a desk and came around to face him and Cordelia.
“And yours, Julien, where did you get this amazing idea?” Renée asked.
“This is the personage of Cyrano de Bergerac from an ancient Terran novel,” Julien replied. He had faithfully reproduced the sweeping hat, the soft boots with folded top, the loose pantaloons and shirt, the wide belt and large buckle, and even the cape.
Alex sent privately to Julien. <10.0!>
Julien’s smile reflected his deep pleasure, realizing his friend’s previous criticism of his attire had been an encouragement to express his personality.
Two Haraken fashion emerged from that day. Observing Julien and Cordelia walking around, Harakens embraced their concept. At the next Founding Day, half the population turned out in costumes, and great pleasure was enjoyed discovering where individuals found their inspiration. It created resurgence in ancient and present-day art, novels, and vids. Even Z participated on the next
occasion, dressing as a character from an ancient Terran vid featuring musical numbers. His entire body was encased in round tubes of shiny metal connected by seamed joints, and he wore an inverted funnel for a hat, giving him the affectation of an early robot. However, he told no one the name of his character, only promising a special reward for the first child to discover the truth. Using readers, children spent days searching online archives. A studious young girl found Z’s secret and claimed the prize when she whispered to him, “You’re the Tin Man.” The next day, she squealed with delight as she rode on Z’s first nonhuman avatar — an ancient Terran horse.
For Exchange director’s business, Julien wore virtual, Haraken-style attire, saving his real clothes for extended travel. After his first Founding Day celebration, Julien adopted the habit of projecting a hat, developing an extensive repertoire collected from famous personages in images, books, and vids. When his mood shifted so would his hat, and it was a source of fascination for people in general and his friends in particular. But one hat that was never seen in public was Sleuth’s deerstalker. It was reserved for private discussions with Alex and was a signal of deep concentration to resolve the dilemmas that worried them.
-4-
A high-priority FTL comm caused Julien to pause.
The “vault” was a term spoken only between the SADEs and Alex. It was located deep underground beneath the Central Exchange’s main office building and was a repository for the bank’s financial accounts and transactions in addition to the SADEs’ data centers. Since the SADEs could no longer count on access to the starships’ extensive crystal memory cores, it became their habit to store and share data through the vault.
The SADEs’ kernels were another matter. They were unique, analogous to that of the human mind, and this meant the kernel could not be replicated. It could be transferred in whole from one avatar to another under controlled conditions. However, those controlled conditions had only been tested under hardwire connections. There was no attempt to transfer a kernel through local or FTL comms, despite the SADEs’ estimation that there was no reason it shouldn’t work. However, no SADE was willing to test the possibility.
This also meant that SADEs were much more vulnerable to accidents. In the extreme, if a kernel was denied power, there was no more SADE.
Before the founding of Haraken, a SADE would not have thought twice about sharing the vault’s location and its contents with Méridiens, but Alex was of a different opinion, and the SADEs heeded his advice. Haraken was slowly changing as it welcomed new immigrants, and the subtle changes in the new society meant the vault was best left a secret.
* * *
Alex left home to meet with Julien, Cordelia, and Z at the main building of the Central Exchange of Haraken. His transport was an upgraded edition of the aero-lift personal flyer. Harakens were busy creating numerous companies, specializing in a variety of grav-drive technology implementations: shuttles, in-system transports, personal flyers, and aero-scooters, which were nicknamed flits. The flits were limited in speed and ceiling height to protect the youngsters, who loved them, and a small controller was installed to maneuver the scooter safely when the driver failed to do so.
Alex’s personal transport seated four, limited to flight ceiling of 2,000 meters and a max velocity of 625 kilometers by its controller. It was a unit built to Julien’s specifications and designed to secretly report its flight data to him. After Alex’s initial test, Julien was pleased he was careful to build in redundant protective measures — Alex loved to push the limits of his flyer.
Assembled around the table in a lower level conference room, the three SADEs appeared in human avatars. Cordelia possessed only the one avatar — her preference. Julien used two human avatars — one for public appearances, which included Cordelia’s company, and one for incognito work for Alex. Z had … well, Z was living his dream, developing new avatars at every opportunity, and many were so unique that he was banned from walking, flying, rolling, or squirming his nonhuman avatars into any Exchange office.
“We have reviewed Winston’s translations of the new humans’ broadcasts and find them quite accurate, Ser President,” Cordelia said, using the Méridien term of respect, after reviewing the data downloaded from the Il Piacere. “In addition, their broadcast’s subtext, ship data, and probes agree with whom they say they are — Earthers.”
“What about Esther’s analysis that this explorer ship has armament?” Alex asked.
“We agree with her suspicions regarding the Reunion, but we believe her conclusions did not venture far enough, Mr. President,” Julien said. “Employing the telemetry recordings of the ship’s dimensions, we can quite accurately determine its internal volume. When we consider this volume, in combination with the hatches detected along its substantial wings, we come to the conclusion that this Earther explorer ship is an extremely dangerous vessel.”
“How dangerous?” Alex asked.
“In our estimate, Ser President,” Z added, “the bay doors along the front of the wings exist to launch fighters. The number of doors is too great for just shuttles or exploratory vessels. Only fighters would require this number of bay doors, enabling them to exit the ship simultaneously in times of defense or offense.”
“Any idea of the number of fighters it might carry?” Alex asked.
“Anywhere between forty-eight and seventy-two, Ser President,” Cordelia replied.
When the SADEs were quiet for too long, Alex asked, “What’s the rest of the bad news?”
“Esther correctly concluded that the smaller hatches would hide armament of some sort, Ser,” Z replied. “Comparing their size and position to our records of Earth’s ancient war weapons, we believe they are missile ports, five per wing. It would seem logical to have at least ten to twenty missiles per port.”
“So our Earther ship has forty-eight to seventy-two fighters and 100 to 200 missiles, probably for use against other ships,” Alex mused. “Just what type of exploratory mission is this?”
“One other note for you, Ser President,” Cordelia added. “The mission commander, who issued the broadcasts, signs off as Speaker Antonio García. There is nothing in our records about Earth ships that matches this title, and while this is supposition on our part, we believe it indicates a significant transformation in the geopolitical structure of Earth.”
“So why does this ship make straight for the landing site of a colony ship that left its planet a millennium ago?” Alex asked rhetorically. “The probabilities were that the colony’s founding was never successful. Yet these people not only make the trip, they come loaded with fighters and missiles. Anything else?” Alex asked.
“Not at this time, Mr. President,” Julien said. “We await the arrival of Leader Diamanté.”
* * *
Days later, Alex was entertaining Leader Gino Diamanté, Admiral Tatia Tachenko, and Julien at his home. Teague insisted on welcoming hugs for each “oncle” and “tante” before Christie, his aunt, could get him to his room to play.
After Gino exited the Méridien system, Winston continued to send messages to his SADE counterpart, Gregorio, aboard the Il Piacere. The comms chased the liner through FTL. As Gregorio received each message, he transferred it to Julien.
“Julien
, please update us on the latest messages from our friends,” Alex requested.
“After Winston established comms and translation algorithms for the Earthers, Mr. President,” Julien replied, “the UE speaker began entreating the Méridien Leaders to meet. His messages have been met with limited response, and he has continually requested an extended dialog but to no avail.”
“Limited? Why?” Tatia asked. For the last nine years, Tatia was the Haraken’s serving admiral, and despite the peace, she hadn’t been an idle leader. The original carrier-freighter, Money Maker, was returned to duty as a freighter, delivering travelers and other grav-vessels to New Terra and the Confederation. In its place, Haraken built two super carriers, one capable of carrying 128 travelers and the other 256 travelers, and each fighter carried a fully operational beam weapon. Any Méridien might have been aghast at the building of a single carrier with its massive destructive capability, much less the building of two of the monstrous warships, but nearly every Haraken, from president to teenager, directly or indirectly experienced the Nua’ll’s devastating incursion into the Confederation, and they all knew the massive alien sphere originated out of the deep dark at Hellébore.
“It appears that the only individual allowed to communicate with the mission commander is Council Leader Ganesh, and she has been most terse,” Julien replied.
Tatia didn’t bother to disguise her snort. “In the critical moments of first contact with a dangerous, foreign ship that could be an ally or an enemy, communication is left in the hands of a closed-mouth, Méridien fool … apologies, Leader Diamanté,” Tatia added.
“None needed, Admiral,” Gino replied with a grin. “Frequently, I have thought much worse.”
“Julien, summarize their communications for us,” Alex requested.
“The mission commander, Speaker García, requests Council Leader Ganesh grant him permission to land on Méridien for the purpose of establishing diplomatic relationships. Leader Ganesh replies to every message with the same answer. She doesn’t wish any relationship with Earth, and asks the speaker to leave Méridien space.”
