Koban 4: Shattered Worlds

by Stephen W Bennett

  Marlyn revealed a dirty little Raspani secret, with a conspiratorial laugh. “Blue Flower Eater explained that much of that rump slapping we’ve seen is male-on-female contact, and a sort of sexual foreplay. They have been denied physical contact for a very long time. I’m grateful they believe copulation is a private matter.

  The many supports for the structure’s roof were like giant tent poles, and they were each bearing their share of the weight as the broad roof, already hoisted twenty feet above ground, inched its way skyward. The small but powerful motors in the support shafts were reeling in multiple strong carbon fiber lines, attached to the closest nodes of the roof structure. Krall dome making material was being used to make a transparent covered area for the mindless version of Raspani. Enclosed buildings with walls and doors frightened them, because of an apparent association with the forced feeding structures used by the Krall, when those selected for slaughter were locked up and force fed spices, to make them taste better.

  With this simple design, they could get out of bad weather through the open sides, and they could leave when they wanted. The rate of transfer of minds into the herd members was slowly increasing, now that some of the Raspani minds, those with technical and science skills, had been given primary control in mind enhancers implanted in several of the newly sentient herd representatives. They had largely taken over the task of making their own mind enhancers from the Torki, and performing the insertion into the skulls of selected healthy herd members.

  The Torki had provided them a laboratory full of instruments, tools, and machinery, and the Kobani had furnished some computers to automate repetitious mechanical processes, purchased in Human Space. With Mind Tap instructions, the Raspani were quickly able to learn how to use the alien equipment effectively. This, despite their complaint that the quantum computing qubits that human computers used were primitive, and a slower method of information manipulation. They said there were several higher dimensions of quantum superposition possible than for a simple three state qubit, and computers could be designed to utilize quantum entanglement for faster internal information transfer. They promised to build some prototypes, once they had time.

  However, their first goal was to produce mind enhancers for greater distribution of the preserved millions of Raspani minds, most of which were presently crammed into a handful of Torki built devices, embedded in a like number of formerly “empty” Raspani brains.

  A transfer of a single mind into a new device required less than an hour. However, there was not going to be any single mind Raspani walking around for years, not until there were enough mindless ones rescued from the Krall, or new babies born. The mindless males and females were willing and fertile enough, so reproduction was a current racial imperative, to create new bodies for the crowded minds to inhabit.

  Out of an obligation to aid the humans, who had risked their lives to rescue them, one of their scientists, inhabiting a group home in a new body, had asked for one of the warheads of a Krall Worm missile, which he heard described. Not having one of those as a warhead, but believing that they were the same as the Raspani tools people had started calling Q-rupters, Mirikami handed over one of those. The individual also asked if he could examine one of the Katushas, which were once made by the Olt’kitapi, and was another device that appeared to use a similar behaving quantum based application.

  All that Mirikami was told was that Blue had asked one of their scientists if he would study the two tools, which this Raspani scientist knew about but had never handled personally. He would try to reconstruct the theoretical principles of how they each worked, and then try to teach the quantum principles of their operation to human scientists or technicians, via their Mind Tap ability.

  Initially the awakening Raspani, aware of how young humanity was as a species, had considerable doubts of holding meaningful scientific communications with a presumably primitive and clearly combative people. They initially relegated the story they were told of the five hundred light year sphere of Human Space to a minor fluke of youthful exploratory exuberance. They presumed humans had bypassed the majority of habitable worlds in that radius, as did most species they had met in the past. That would result in a low-density interstellar population, within a given volume of space, as was true for every other known civilization.

  When they had the conversion factor of human distance measurements explained to them by the Torki and Prada, and the number of human settled planets and their population totals provided, they radically altered their opinion. Blue took pains to describe to them how difficult it was for them to grasp how far humans had spread in such a ridiculously short amount of time, and shocked at how many of the marginally habitable planets humankind chose to heavily colonize. Marginal, that is, by the standards of nearly every other species the three alien races had encountered.

  “The moderate gravity worlds are the most acceptable to nearly every race we know of except the Krall, and now humans. On Haven, we hear your people describe it as a paradise, because of its lush gentle life forms, and its comfortable gravity.

  “On the contrary, we find its gravity roughly twenty percent too high, the predatory life forms are too aggressive, and even herbivores are larger and stronger, and too assertive for our comfort. Haven would be bypassed for colonization by the majority of my own people I’ve questioned. As it would be by most of the Prada, and perhaps half of the Torki, who spend much time suspended in water, feeling the gravity less.”

  Maggi was listening to this, and said, “Our people that moved here came from Koban, so this would seem a wonderful relief to them, particularly for those that never opted to receive the gene modifications we now have available.”

  Blue twitched his elbows in a sign of negation. “Your species was able to stay alive on Koban even before your most radical gene changes. None of us could have lasted a single orbit without proper outside support. The Prada died by the thousands there, even with Krall protection. Only by returning here for extensive resting after an orbit, could they endure the conditions there on return trips. Without the Krall forcing them to go, and providing protection as they worked, the native life and gravity would have eradicated them quickly. Humans accept greater challenges than we do, and you appear to thrive on them.

  “You change marginal worlds to meet your needs, when other species would simply pass them by, selecting only the most suitable. Your original physical capability from your home world, one that we would call a high gravity world, combined with your natural aggression, ability to adapt, and a will to shape whole worlds to your needs is unique. When an enormously dangerous and hard world is forced on you, like Koban, your people decided to change themselves to meet the challenge. Our three races would not, or could not do that, nor would it even have occurred to us to try.”

  Maggi, personally not overly impressed with humanity’s progress thus far, pointed out some near catastrophic failings. “As recently as five hundred and fifty of our years ago, before even leaving our home planet, we stood on the brink of self-destruction from possible nuclear war for decades. Then, just over three hundred years ago, we nearly destroyed ourselves with the genetic skills we used on Koban to survive. In the near collapse of our civilization, we halted exploration and expansion entirely for almost two hundred and fifty years, barely holding onto what we had. In my own lifetime, we have just rebounded enough to resume settling the worlds we already had in our control. Then the Krall found us. We have hardly been making the galaxy our own.”

  Blue made what for all the world resembled a frown, but was a Raspani smile-equivalent. “Yet, you still hold a densely populated volume of five hundred light years radius, with many more planets than my own race ever claimed in our far larger volume. We spent two hundred times as many years to do less than you have. If the Olt’kitapi had not helped us advance faster, we would have accomplished even less. You by comparison, have accomplished a significant portion of what that great and ancient race did, in a fraction of their time. To use your vern
acular, as I learned it from your Artificial Intelligence machines, you are galactic child prodigies, with extreme athletic abilities.”

  Mirikami, not surprised at the alien’s assessment, diplomatically avoided saying that most aliens, besides the Krall, were overly timid, slow at making major decisions, and lacked the will to explore and meet challenges. For just a moment after having that thought, he wondered if Blue had a version of the Mind Tap gene when he continued speaking.

  “Your race must see all of the older races you have met as cowards, and terribly weak.” He held up a hand, in a rather human-like gesture, to forestall any objections or denials.

  He conceded, “That is partly the truth from your perspective. Your Mind Tap images are not intended to be cruel or insulting to us, but they are honest.” He quickly detected the distressed expression of Mirikami and Fisher, and hurried to explain.

  “Not all of the new Kobani have the mental discipline that those of you with considerably more practice use when you share thoughts with us. Unintended thoughts leak through for the newly modified humans. Particularly those that are of your military professions. No Raspani ever considered this as even a possible life choice before the Krall came.

  “However, other than the aberrant Krall example, all of the races that the Torki, Prada, and my people have met, or have information about, evolved slowly from gentle pastoral species that were inherently peaceful, and not aggressively competitive. We believe it was those cautious qualities that allowed them to survive adolescent mistakes, and then to spread into the galaxy. The Botolians were physically strong, warlike vegetarians, and like most aggressive species, they had built super weapons of collapsed matter that they would probably have used to destroy their own civilization in internal wars, had the Krall not done that for them.

  “If the Olt’kitapi had never moved the Krall from their home world, they would surely have eliminated themselves there. Our joint experience has been that aggressive species seldom expand very far from their home worlds, before their technology and war-like ways provide the means to end their own existence. Humans seem to have walked a narrow path between self-destruction and of progress.”

  Maggi asked a question once posed to the Torki representative, Coldar. “If humans manage to defeat the Krall, are you worried about our expansion into the rest of the galaxy?”

  Blue spread his elbows and blew air, in what proved to be an expression of obvious acceptance. “Of course. However, you did not force the Prada or Torki to become your new forced labor, as you clearly had the power to do, and thus far you do not seem inclined to eat me.” This time the vertical smile wrinkle between his eyes was matched by a short blubbering sound from his lips, which the two humans took to be a sign of mirth from the plump Raspani.

  ****

  Stewart MacDougal heaved on the line connected to the cargo net hook, to release the cluster of cables from the attachment ring, so that the shuttle could safely hover away. He was dressed in a vacuum proof soft suit, but it was only for protection from the heat and acrid exhaust fumes of the shuttle thrusters. The new Smart Plastic extrusion machine just delivered might be large, but their mobile version was somewhat fragile, and he had to make sure the shuttle didn’t tip the machine over, as a strong breeze threatened to push the hovering craft sideways.

  “It’s free. Move away.” He radioed to the shuttle pilot.

  As soon as the shuttle was clear, unsuited men and women from the Hub City resettlement team rushed over to clear the cargo net draped over the big piece of equipment. With this device, they could start building actual structures, which would modify themselves using the built-it preprogramed shapes of basic housing elements. They would be able to move out of the tents they had lived in for a month, as they cleared and leveled an area on which to construct their first Haven settlement.

  The Smart Plastic feedstock was already stacked nearby, in its various forms. Large motorized wheeled bins of colored pellets (for cosmetic internal and trim colorations), heavy ingots of white plastic blocks for forming the walls and overly thick malleable flooring, and various specialty types of living plastic inserts, which the extruder would merge with and embed in the structure as it was formed. The reels of command line conductor mesh would be extruded with the plastic, to send the commands and power for the various shapes to take their useful forms, such as basic furniture items like chairs, tables, bed frames, couches and easy chair shapes, which could rise from the thick floors. Additional cushions and mattresses could be fabricated and added later, if the living plastic inserts were not soft enough for a person’s sensitive derrière.

  The plastic design elements could be formed, reshaped, or made to flatten into the floor by computer commands in minutes, through the web of built in command lines, most of it powered by solar energy. Solar powered provided enough energy, of course, if the homeowner didn’t want to rearrange furniture in the rooms too often in a single day. Batteries would last through the nights and most cloudy days, and a generator could be employed.

  All of the initial homes built here would be uniformly white on the outside, and have well insulated hollow walls and double paned windows. They were designed to reflect summer heat away and to keep the insides cooler. Haven was a bit closer to the local sun than was Koban, with a more circular orbit and less of an axial tilt. The planet had little in the way of severe weather, and very mild winters.

  Nearly ninety percent of the original twenty four thousand Hub City residents had elected to move to Haven when they could. Twelve percent of those citizens had never accepted any gene modifications at all, and this move was a godsend for them, to escape the gravity, and the confines of the former Krall compounds. Even if rippers and wolfbats no longer threatened humans, there were ample threats on Koban for which no truce was possible. Eighteen to twenty-four inch wingspan scorpion skeeters went after any warm-blooded life they found. A rhinolo turned anything bipedal into trampled and gored mush when they caught a Normal human on foot. Even goat sized horned antelope could kill a Normal.

  Those people could be a lot more normal on Haven, as in the sense of an ordinary human, even though there were still animal threats, like the packs of werewolves and marsh dogs, the solitary giant wolverines, and other manageable dangers. However, none of the animals was a superfast, ultra-strong creature that could kill you with a lightening move before you knew you were even threatened. Last month on Koban a Hub City woman, seeing a skinny looking migrating marshland dagger bird for the first time, had walked closer to see the beautiful creature. Without marshlands around Hub City, the gorgeous blue and green iridescent feathered bird was unfamiliar, and seemed fragile and approachable. Had the woman known the animal was called a dagger bird, the name might have instilled greater caution, and thus saved her left eye. It barely missed penetrating her brain with its long bill.

  Of the approximately twenty-four thousand original Hub City captives, roughly two thousand nine hundred had refused any genetic mods at all. However, in a sort of self-delusional attitude, nearly nineteen thousand original Hub City residents had succumbed to the pressures of living on Koban. They had opted to receive the minimal modifications required to bear children and to move around easier. They had opted to receive the old strength and endurance clone mods, based only on human DNA. Their argument, if they were confronted with legal penalties based on Hub laws, would be that they were outside of Human Space, and that it was a matter of basic survival.

  Of the remaining original captives that had moved to Hub City, those citizens became fully modified Kobani, and so did the majority of all of the nearly five thousand children that were born there. The children had not been raised with the stigma against human genetic changes. That taboo was ancient history to them, born of a culture they had never experienced firsthand. Recognizing the obvious benefits of the changes for living on Koban, they nearly all chose the mods. Besides, their parents didn’t want them to do it, so of course they did it anyway. At eighteen, they didn’t need their perm
ission.

  MacDougal had not been mayor of Hub City for almost a year. However, he still held considerable influence, he fostered cooperation with Prime City, and had developed a friendship with leaders there. When he offered to help build the first human built settlement on Haven, to be performed entirely by Hub City residents, he sweetened the proposal by suggesting that it be built next to the new Raspani open compound, and near a new Prada village.

  They would help with building the eventual Raspani housing, when more of them were sentient, and protect the less-than-intelligent herd members until they received their mind enhancers. Working with these two species would help solidify future relations. The Prada, now recognizing that the return of sentient minds to the Raspani made them the elder species, over that of the Krall, were eager to cooperate.

  The Raspani encouraged the Prada to be independent, and to rely less on guidance from an elder race. Nevertheless, they asked that they be more accepting of human participation in their construction projects. Maggi, via a Mind Tap discussion with Blue, learned that the inducement was that a youngling human species would benefit from the wisdom of the elder Prada, and that they were obligated to pass on their wisdom, as the Raspani would also do them. He explained they were hoping to wean the Prada from blind acceptance of any other race’s orders.

  Stewart removed his soft suit, and joined the others in loading plastic ingots and pellets into the various hoppers on the extruder. Within an hour, they had the extruder pouring out floor slabs, with previously programed design features built into them. They laid parallel ten-foot wide strips, each the length of a one family housing unit, until they had the basic floor area laid out, each strip commanded to join the adjacent one, to form an unbroken thick floor slab.