Solbidyum Wars Saga 4: Too Late for Earth

by Dale C. Musser

  I noted that Jnanara was staring at my eye patch as she reached with one hand and gently touched it. “You have lost an eye, man-who-speaks-for Thumumba forward. This is a sad thing.”

  “Yes, but I will have a new eye soon,” I replied.

  Jnanara stepped back with a shocked look on her face. “You can grow a new eye?” At my side I heard Regata chuckle.

  “If you don’t mind Tibby, perhaps it will be easier if I explain,” he said in perfect Federation language.

  “Tibby has a great magic which is called science, and with this magic, it is possible for him to grow a new eye, but it takes time for the magic to work.” As he spoke to Jnanara her eyes grew even wider.

  “Tibby is a god, like Thumumba?” She questioned.

  “No, no,” I said. “I am not a god, and I am not like Thumumba. We just have a different magic, but I am not a god.”

  Jnanara eyed me carefully and then replied, “Maybe you are not a god, but you are a child of Thumumba, and I think you have more of his blood and magic than we do.” Beside her, I saw Regata smile and wink at me. Obviously Thumumba had trained him well in Federation, and possibly even my own Earth customs, as it was apparent he knew and understood us.

  Jnanara noticed Jenira and an odd expression crossed her face. “Who is this one?”

  “This is Jenira.” I said.

  Jnanara stepped forward looking at Jenira closely; her eyes lingered on the two short swords on her back as she circled her. “This one is blessed child. She must come with us, must stay here tonight, must become child of Thumumba.” I looked at Kala, who shrugged and stared back at me.

  “Tibby,” Regata interjected, “She will be safe and no harm will come to her.”

  “I know no harm will come to her with Thumumba’s children.” Then I turned to Jenira. “Jenira, they would like you to go with them and stay the night. I suspect that they want to make you a child of Thumumba like they did with Kalana and me. I do not know why they have chosen you, but it is a great honor that they offer you. The choice is yours. We will not leave orbit without you if you decide to go with them.

  Jenira’s eyes glistened as she signed back. “You and Kala have gone through this?”

  “Yes, we both did,” Kala answered before I could. “They will not harm you, and it will be a very pleasant experience for you.”

  “Yes, then I will go.” Jenira said.

  “I was not sure if Kana and I were meant to accompany Jenira or not, but I started to step forward to follow, when Regata extended his arm blocking me and said. “This is for Jenira alone; you have had your time; now it is hers.” Inside I was hoping that somehow Thumumba would work his magic’ and when we returned for Jenira the next day she would once more be talking.

  As Jenira approached, Jnanara extended her hand and took hold of hers, then turned and led her through the throng of natives. Regata said, “You are welcome to spend the night here, or we can go back to your ship and return in the morning for her; the choice is yours.” I looked at Kala as she watched Jenira being led away, smiling. “I think we can go back to the ship Tibby, there is no real reason for us to wait, and I think it would show distrust if we stayed.”

  Once Jenira was out of sight, Regata, Kala and I boarded the shuttle and Marranalis flew us back to the NEW ORLEANS. I had expected Regata to be amazed and awe struck by the shuttle and its flight, but he gave no indications of any emotions and appeared to be completely at ease. We had barely left the surface of the planet before he began speaking. “I hope I will not be any inconvenience to you and your ship. I will try to blend in with the rest of your crew as best I can, and if there are any ways I can be of service, please be assured I am most eager to help in any manner. I am hoping that you can provide me clothing of a similar fashion to what is normal aboard your ship. As you are already aware, clothing is uncommon on Alle Bamma, but I am prepared to dress for the experience.”

  “Clothing will not be a problem,” Kala interjected, and I felt it best to let her deal with such issues, as she had been a diplomatic attaché for the Federation for many years and still held a rank in the service as one. Of all the persons on my ship, she was the most experienced and qualified to deal with foreign dignitaries or visitors to our vessel. “The closet in your suite will be equipped with a clothing replicator that will produce the needed attire for you. I’ll get Piesew to acquaint with you with the features and workings of your suite.”

  I was beginning to imagine how Regata would appear in clothing. The natives of Alle Bamma went about nude most of the time, and when they did wear something, it typically was either flowers or headdress- It would seem strange seeing one of the natives in clothing. Their skin had camouflaged spotted skin patterns; Regata had a large brown patch that covered the left part of his face and covered the flesh around his left eye; even with clothing he still would draw attention to himself.

  “Regata, exactly what will be you doing for Thumumba while aboard the NEW ORLEANS?” Kala inquired.

  “I will be observing and learning. Thumumba sees through my eyes and hears through my ears. He will be learning much by this experience.”

  When we disembarked after arrival on the NEW ORLEANS, Piesew was there to meet us, a major domo on the ship; all housing and housekeeping services were under his supervision. I never interfered with what he did, and honestly I had no idea how large a staff he managed. I knew was that he was responsible for my quarters and served Kala and me personally in our suite, but I was surprised that he was there to greet us. Then I realized that he was there specifically to see to Regata to assign him quarters and see to any other needs that he might have. It was not unusual for Piesew, as in the past he’d usually relegated this responsibility to someone else and only appeared personally when the individual was a person of importance in the Federation, like Senator Tonclin, or the Admiral. “Did you request Piesew to be here on our return?” I asked Kala, while Piesew was greeting Regata.

  “No, I thought you must have when I saw him here.”

  “First Citizen,” Piesew addressed me. Will you be wishing to have a dinner this evening with the officers and our new guest?”

  “Ahh, certainly Piesew.” Until that moment I hadn’t thought about it at all, and now I was somewhat embarrassed by my failure recognize our guest formally. I’m sure Piesew realized it also but gave no indication of it, and continued, “I’ll make arrangements for dinner to be served in the observation deck dining room at the usual dinner hour. Do you wish for me to arrange the guest list, or will you or First Citizen Kalana be doing so?” I looked at Kalana, who was suppressing a grin at my discomfort. Before I had a chance to speak, Kalana spoke up, “We’ll leave that to you, Piesew.”

  “Very well,” Piesew replied. “If you will please follow me, Regata, I will show you to your quarters; if there is anything you need or desire be sure to let me know. Do you prefer me to call you Regata, or is there another more formal title that I should use in addressing you?” As they were walking away I heard Regata reply. “Regata is fine; I have no other title or name.”

  Kala and I were barely back in our quarters when I received a call from Cantolla. "I wonder what she wants.” I said to Kala. Last time she contacted me it was to voice her concerns about A’Lappe and his origin. "I sure hope this is not another concern about A’Lappe.”

  I arrived at the laboratory shared by A’Lappe and Cantolla and was immediately greeted by Cantolla. “Tibby, you have got to see this! It’s my greatest discovery yet, and I owe it to you and your Earth Science,” she exclaimed excitedly. I had no idea what she was talking about, but I tried to listen to her as she chatted and led me to another room in the lab. “I got the idea from your discussions with A’Lappe about quantum mechanics. I was able to get the Admiral Team monitoring Earth’s broadcasts to send me copies of translations of their recordings explaining the subject, and well, see for yourself,” she said, pointing to a table set up in the lab.

  I looked, but all I saw in the room wa
s two tables set about eight meters apart, each with two small equilateral triangle frames set up on one side with one of the points in the air. Next to each frame on the floor was a control console and some other equipment panels. A’Lappe was standing by one of the panels, and looked up as we entered the room. “Tibby! You’re going to like this a lot. Cantolla may just have come up with the greatest thing for space travel since the discovery of gravity wave propulsion. At this point I still had no idea what they were talking about.

  “Hold on a minute. What’s better than the gravity wave?”

  “Here-- watch this,” Cantolla said as she picked up a small block on one of the tables, then nodded to A’Lappe, who adjusted a few controls on one console and nodded back. Cantolla took the block and tossed it through the open space in the triangle, only it didn’t come out the other side. At the far end of the room, I heard it thump on the other table and bounce off onto the floor.

  “What the…? You invented a transporter?”

  “No, something much better,” Cantolla said with glee.

  “Something better?”

  “Yes! A transporter needs to dissemble an object and reassemble it at the other end in the same molecular order as it was taken apart. The amount of energy and computer power to accomplish that is beyond anything we have, even with solbidyum for power. We’ve got something better!”

  “You’re losing me here.” I said. “I just saw the block disappear here and appear over there, and it didn’t pass through the space between, so it must have been transported.”

  “Not so,” The object was never broken down, and did in fact travel in a solid state from here to there, only not in the same space as you see between the two frames. We’re folding the space with the two frames so the edge of one frame is the same as the edge of the other frame; none of the molecular structures of the object are changed in any way.” Cantolla said excitedly. You could have these frames light years apart and anything passing through them would arrive instantly at the other location.”

  “So it’s a Star Gate?” I asked.

  “Star Gate? Oh right, I did see something mentioned of those in some of your Earth shows. In a way yes, and no. Your Star Gates, as I recall, work by using or creating worm holes through which an object travels between the two gates, or it takes you through another dimension. This is different; we literally are folding the space between the two frames so you have an imaginary surface in both frames. It’s the same surface/space; as soon as you enter one frame you are immediately coming out of the other one.”

  “But how?” I stammered.

  “Using your sympathetic particle physics, but it wasn’t easy. In order to ensure that the window created works, they must be precisely the same size and the internal window area must be completely flat. We tried using a circular configuration, but found the internal area could be twisted. The same holds true for a rectangle or square, only a triangle with three points will always have a flat surface area between the three points. If you make straight lines from a point to point with any other configuration, the shape can be twisted if one point is out of the plane with the others. Once we realized this, it was merely a matter of getting the three-point field generators precisely positioned equal distance from each other.”

  “What happens if the points are not precisely aligned?”

  “Let’s just say you would not want to try to pass through it, as you might find yourself coming out of the other side in a slightly distorted manner.”

  “What happens if a living object passes through it?” I wanted to know.

  “So far we have only passed simple life forms through it, a few plants and some very small mammals; they appear to be unaffected.”

  “So if we build two of these units large enough for a space ship to pass through, we could go from one end of the galaxy to the other in a second.”

  “The key word in there is IF,” Cantolla answered. “At the moment only a solbidyum reactor has enough power to operate a frame of that magnitude. Oh, it’s not necessary for there to be a connected physical frame for one of these. It just requires three generators for a frame at one end, and three generators precisely spaced the same at the receiving end. The transfer area is generated between the three points.”

  “If I understand you correctly, you would actually need three solbidyum reactors for one frame? One for each generator point?”

  “Oh no, you would only need it for one generator, the master unit. The other two generators need far less power; a 10X fusion reactor would suffice.

  “Could a ship, like the NEW ORLEANS, serve as the base for one of those generator points?” I asked.

  “Not if it also wanted to pass through to the other side.” A’Lappe interjected from across the room. However, if you had two ships with solbidyum reactors in separate sections of space, each of those two ships could serve as the power source for a frame, and you could use 10X fusion reactors on other ships to power the other points, and ships could pass through them.”

  “Can one frame be used to go to more than one other destination?” I asked.

  “No!” he answered. You need sympathetic particles to fold the fabric of space; you can only have two gates that are sympathetic to each other. You would need to create another set of gates for another destination.”

  “But,” A’Lappe interjected excitedly, “because we are making the sympathetic particles using a replicator we could, theoretically, be able to transmit the replicator parameters to ship elsewhere, and they could replicate the sympathetic particle on their end, generating a new field in just a few minutes.”

  “So then, if I understand this correctly, you could have a space station set up in a system to serve as a frame hub, and it could create frames on demand for ships coming from anyplace in the galaxy.”

  “Yes.” A’Lappe and Cantolla answered at once.

  “The only drawback is the solbidyum,” A’Lappe continued, “and we all know there is a limited supply of it and individual planets are not going to give up their grain of solbidyum just to power transfer frames.”

  “All the more reason for you and Cantolla to find us another collapsed black hole with a solbidyum supply,” I replied.

  “We’re still working on that, Tibby. We are getting data back from the site we sent our probe to which indicates there is something there; we just need to go and check it out. It is possible we may never find another source. Conditions that produced the solbidyum inside the black hole would have to be precisely duplicated in terms of pressure, energy, and raw materials to produce it.

  “It will be our top priority, once I find out what’s happened at Earth One more thing--Thumumba’s representative is now aboard the ship and will be serving as a crew member. His name is Regata and there will be an introduction dinner for him this evening. Have either of you received notice of it?”

  “We received them shortly before you arrived.” Cantolla answered. “What is this Regata like?”

  “He’s not like the other natives on Alle Bamma, he looks the same, but he is far more intelligent and informed than his fellow natives. I think he is sort of a special creation of Thumumba’s, or at least has been enhanced by Thumumba. I spoke with Thumumba; he claims he didn’t actually create this world or its life forms, though he does admit to having manipulated some aspects of the environment and the planet’s evolution.”

  “So Thumumba is admitting he’s not a god?” Cantolla asked.

  “More or less, part of the reason that Regata is joining us is that Thumumba is hoping that we will encounter others like him in other solar systems. He claims that he lives inside the star here at Alle Bamma and derives energy from it. I'm hoping there will be other such entities living in other stars around the galaxy and Regata is able to detect them and establish communication with them.”

  “This puts an entirely new perspective on primitive cultures on various planets developing sun worship as their suns being gods.” Cantolla said.

  “I hadn’t thou
ght about that,” I responded, “but it certainly would make sense. Even on Earth centuries ago sun worship was common.” It may be that Earth's sun houses and feeds a life form like Thumumba, or at least did at one time.”

  When we gathered for the meal that evening in the transparent domed dining room on the NEW ORLEANS’ top deck, the planet Alle Bamma was visible as a giant arched sliver in the background. As we dined, the ship would slowly orbit the planet, bringing it into full view, and by meals end, it would be waning once more into the sliver on an arc we viewed on entering. Ramada paused and looked at the vista, his eyes glistening. “This must be what he sees every day,” he said reverently. Ramada looked quite different, as he was now dressed in a dark outfit of the dignitary cut, similar to the dark black one that I wore. All of my staff dressed in their formal uniforms, and it was obvious that Piesew viewed Regata as a visiting dignitary of the planet Alle Bamma and was affording him all the honors and customs of such a position.

  “Actually, he only would see the daylight lit side,” A’Lappe said from Regata’ side. “If he dwells in the sun, he would only be able to see the planet in full light and never see any of the dark side.”

  “You’re right. I’d not thought of that. I pray then that he might see through my eyes that which he cannot see with his own.” As he said this, Regata slowly turned to look at A’Lappe, “You must be A’Lappe. Thumumba has spoken of you and wishes me to observe and learn from you.”

  “Indeed, I am A’Lappe and it shall be my pleasure to learn more about you and Thumumba as well. I am curious about a life form that survives within a star.”

  The meal that evening was up to Piesew’s usual fine standards, most of us were too engrossed in conversation to give it the proper attention that one of Piesew’s finely planned meals deserved. While A’Lappe and Kala were engrossed in a discussion with Regata about Thumumba and life of the natives of Alle Bamma, Cantolla was explaining the nature of her discovery of the space folding frames that would make travel between vast points of space. Stonbersa was saying the Federation needed to reallocate the solbidyum to power the frames and make instant travel from the remotest regions of the Federation instant while Marranalis disagreed, saying he could see the advantage of such travel, but that the needs of the individual planets represented a better use for solbidyum power.