by P H Campbell
"I don't need the details," Cinder cut her off. "Just the general idea."
"I can model it and show you," Katy offered, and put action to words. Then she shook her head and said, "No, it still perturbs too much, and the gravitational attraction would make them collide into the poles of The World."
"You'd have to split the planet in two to do that," Cinder pointed out.
"I figure Treah and Miralenda can do that if they need to," Katy shrugged. "But it's no good. The gravity is the issue, not the rest."
"What you need is the energy without the gravity in two places, right?" Cinder clarified.
"Basically, yes," Katy agreed.
"What causes gravity?" Cinder prodded Katy.
"Mass, you know that," Katy smirked.
"So, you don't need mass for energy," Cinder reasoned. "You just need the energy to be there without the mass. Energy has no mass.
"Seren said the entity was energy. The planet is the entity. Did you ask if the planet can come as mass, or energy?"
It had never occurred to Katy to think that way. In her life experience, a planet was always mass. She hadn't even thought of it as anything else, let alone asked how it would move itself from one place to another.
Katy facepalmed as she realized how she had been chasing her own tail and missing the fundamentals involved. She had a whole planet to move, but that was mass. As energy, it could move on its own, and not have any mass at all. It solved both problems of mass and position at the same time.
Only there was one last thing that needed to be worked out: How to target the location of the energy. For that, Katy needed to talk to the entity again.
"That's brilliant, Cinder," Katy complimented her.
"I had to think outside of the box a lot to get by," Cinder winked.
Katy went to Treah again, interrupting her studies. As it happened, Miralenda was there as well.
"Treah, can the entity project its energy into The World's system from here," she asked.
"Yes," Treah replied, a slight grin that Katy still referred to her as Treah, instead of the entity itself. "However, you now believe that doing such will require the equivalent of an antenna to receive and disperse the energies to emulate what the energies are now."
"Could it project itself to two points at once?" Katy asked.
"The energy in total would be no higher, but yes," Treah replied. "You would require a receiving 'antenna' at each point to spread the energies in a way similar to how it is now."
"You knew this?" Katy asked, confused.
"No, you do," Miralenda replied.
Katy decided not to pursue that. Treah had said that it was all about "knowing". Apparently that worked on an entirely different level than the human type of knowing she was used to having to relay to others.
"Okay, so far so good," Katy nodded, making sure that her understanding was firmly in mind. "So, what kind of antenna are we talking about?"
"A point of energy identical to the one being received at each point," Treah told her with absolute certainty.
That's what Katy had decided, too. Energy point singularities would be attracted to its own energy, regardless of location. The entity knew how to get there, and where to put it, from Katy's mind. The only remaining thing was clarifying where that energy acting as an antenna would come from. Katy had her own ideas about that.
"Okay, can we chip out some crystal?" Katy wondered.
"No," Miralenda and Treah said with one voice. "We will be the antenna we need to arrive."
Katy instantly realized exactly what the entity had done, and why.
"Is there anything else we can use?" she asked, though in thinking about it, without a crystal that was unique to the entity on the planet, there were only three things that might suffice as an antenna, and one of them had been destroyed seven years earlier.
The other two were there in the room with her.
"Not with any level of success," Miralenda answered. "It's a unique energy, found nowhere else in this dimension."
"Is this what you want?" Katy asked.
"Of course," Treah replied. "We understand what happened, the harm we caused. If we can help significantly ease that harm to offset the harm we caused, then we are eager to do so. It is why the entity created us as separate beings. While time has no meaning to me as I was, I better understand how it is for you, thanks to Miralenda. And time is running short."
"Very," Miralenda added. "We don't have enough time to go to The World to drop us there and stick to the schedule. The others still need to finish the tour while the Fusions travel to The World, and while the colony ship evacuates this world."
"This world will become energy," Treah told her.
Miralenda explained, "When we receive the energies, this planet will have converted itself to energy to send its energy to us. Our energies will then be sustained by the energies in The World's system. We can use its sun for what we require to sustain us. And we can help shield The World from the solar radiation by absorbing it ourselves."
"So, you'll be energy point singularities," Katy already understood what they'd become. "Will you still be aware?"
"Consciousness is a vague concept," Miralenda asserted. "This form is energy, as mass. When we are in The World's system, we will be energy. The awareness will be no different, even if the experience of awareness will be significantly different."
"We as physical beings will cease to exist, but we, as individuals, will continue on for as long as The World needs us," Treah promised. "We only ask that the people of that system understand this about us and talk to us."
"Will you be talking to them?" Katy wondered.
Miralenda grinned, "If people know how to listen, sure."
Treah stood and said, "Katy, this must be kept between us three."
"I won't lie to the others," Katy warned them. "They deserve to know."
"When it's all over, they will," Miralenda promised. "We'll be sure of that."
"So I stay here with you two and help coordinate the evacuation of the planet," Katy understood. "That way I can have Talon bring us to The World when we need to do that. Anything else that happens, I can deal with by QUESTOR."
"A sound plan, Katy," Treah allowed.
The return to UGC 1182-C, the "average" planet of the Shade Alliance, was uneventful. After dropping off Cinder there to coordinate the evacuation of UGC 0751-C, the Delegation left for UGC 1182-D, considered the "best of the best" in the Shade Alliance. The time taken to go to UGC 0751-C and back again ate up much of the time they would have had on UGC 1182-C. The travel time to the next planet out from the primary was short, but they'd not check out what the average planet in the Shade Alliance was at all. Instead, to avoid any potential for scandal, they went straight to the fourth planet – D – and would remain there an extra few days than scheduled before they would travel to D. With no formal representative of either the UGW or the Shade Alliance on board, no one would report on their progress until they had finished their business in the Shade Alliance territory.
Once they left D, they'd be back on schedule for their final destination in the UGW to see their "best of the best" planet. Seren understood that planet would be UGC 0001-C, also known as Earth.
With the upheavals reported in the local news about the arrival, and disappearance, of a Scoutship, it was possible the UGW would wonder what it was all about, especially when the Delegation was to have arrived in the UGC 1182 system at the same time. The Delegation had been careful to stay in contact with the UGW and assured them they would arrive on schedule at UGC 0001-C.
Except, of course, they'd not have G'tham, Cinder, Torian, Katy, Treah and Miralenda with them.
"You guys had better be ready for this," Cinder warned the latter three via QUESTOR as she prepared to meet with the Fusions. "Colony ships show up like a nova in the dark on tracking panels. Once that thing starts moving, they'll know where it's going soon enough, and start asking hard to answer questions."
"This
will have a high pucker factor," Katy agreed, using slang from her old days as a UGW Fleet Wing Commander. "The timing will be critical if they catch on."
"I'll contact you when I get an answer from the Fusions," Cinder promised. "I'll assume you'll played your parts correctly and will expect the call for the colony ship from the UGW. And you can bet I'll drive a hard bargain for pulling their chestnuts out of the fire."
"Not too hard," Treah urged. "Good will they usually pay gestures back better than a bargain."
Cinder smirked, but nodded, "I'll keep that in mind. See you around the galaxy."
An hour later, Cinder sent for the head of the Fusions. She had official business to take care of before the meeting. No one questioned her new authority as the Leader of the Shade Alliance. The Methman female was a study in scars. She was a space-worker and earned every one of them.
"You're not Bleath," she stated.
"You're Emily, right?" Cinder asked.
"Yeah, who are you?" Emily wondered.
"I'm Cinder," she introduced herself, holding out her hand. For a moment, Emily looked like she was considering biting it, but shook it out of an abundance of prudence.
"Please have a seat," Cinder encouraged her. "I think you'll like what I'm about to offer, but it's up to the Fusions to decide if they want that offer."
"What do we have to pay for it?" Emily demanded.
"What are you willing to pay for autonomy on your own world?" Cinder replied.
Emily's eyes narrowed.
"I'm listening," she growled.
"The Shade Alliance just finished a new treaty with the United Galactic Worlds," Cinder told her. "They're going to stop poaching on our territories, so we can finally get new planets before they do. But that will take time. And I know the Fusions are beyond pissed about how the Shade Alliance is fucking them over. More than that, they'd love to go to war with the Shade or the UGW or both. How accurate am I?"
"When you're wrong, I'll let you know," Emily said in reply.
"I know of a habitable planet on the edge of UGW/Shade space," Cinder told her. "It's in terrible shape, but it's inhabited. That same system has another habitable planet – very cold, but with an atmosphere and terraforming potential. It's uninhabited. The system is not part of the UGW, or of the Shade Alliance."
"You have my attention," Emily said, still wary, but a glimmer of hope in her eye.
"The real twist to the story is that this system is unbelievably rich in critical metals and elements," Cinder told her.
"It's inhabited, so it belongs to the inhabitants," Emily pointed out. Then the light-bulb lit up.
"You want it," she realized. "And you want us to do your dirty work."
"You're half right," Cinder replied. "We want some of it. We're a small system, even if our needs are great, and we can't use all of it in a thousand lifetimes. The UGW will probably go through it in a century, but it'll take the full hundred standard to do it and they'd have to triple in size to get the job done."
"That's a big strike," Emily noted. "So what do you want from the Fusions?"
"To be honest, we want you out of here and in a place you're happy with, Cinder told her. "We want to relocate all the Fusions who want to go to that system."
"To settle?" Emily asked. "On the inhabited planet or the cold one?"
"You two can work that out, but I think the cold one would work better," Cinder said. "The other planet has an ecology that's collapsing and they'll be busy as hell trying to stay alive. They know they can buy the help they need from either the Shade, or the UGW, but they're not technologically advanced enough to mine the system. What they need and want are partners in sharing their wealth.
"They'll give you the cold planet to do with what you want, and you have the Botany Bay that can act as a processing station for the ores while you prepare your planet for your own people. I'm sure they'll even be more than happy to share the wealth they'll need. You'll both need it, and as long as you work for what you get, they're more than happy to pay that debt."
"What kind of people are they?" Emily wondered.
"They're the mutated remains of a lost human colony," Cinder explained. "They've fractured into three separate races, and those races are going extinct over the next several generations. All that will be left are their children, who are fully human, but know almost nothing about the galaxy. They'll need protectors, as well as partners."
"Sounds like we'd be doing all the work," Emily pointed out.
"You can talk to them when we get the chance, but I think you'll find they're not greedy," Cinder told her. "They have a life that doesn't include a lot of trinkets and gadgets. Theirs is a life based on hard work, and earning one's keep. Competence and skill are rewarded. They don't get along with one another, but seem not to mind outsiders. Theirs is a society that strikes me as one where enough is enough, and they don't really lust for more. If they think you're being fair with them, they'll be fair with you."
"With or without contracts?" Emily inquired sarcastically.
"With a word," Cinder replied. "They're mostly human, but they honor their words like few other Humans, or even non-Humans, I've ever met. And I've met a lot of both. You play them straight, they'll be straight with you. You play them false, and you'll lose your fingers."
"Humans, huh?" Emily considered that. The amenity the Fusions felt wasn't against humanity so much as it was against the Methonians, with whom the Human-centric UGW continued to associate. And the Fusions were all part Human.
"Say we agree," Emily proposed. "What's the plan?"
"We begin the process to move the Botany Bay immediately," Cinder told her. "All outstanding debts will be canceled – we'll be doing that anyhow, because it's bullshit debt to begin with. And because you've already paid that passage fee, and then some, we won't charge you for the tow, or any supplies you might need to get started on processing ores. We'll offer fair market value on your first five loads, after that you can open it up for bidding to the UGW against us. The proceeds are to be split seventy thirty to your neighbors, since they're all going to die in about a decade if they don't get their ecology fixed. If you need any more supplies, you pay for them, again at fair market value, from us, or from the UGW if they have a better price."
"Does Bleath know you're telling me this?" Emily wondered.
"I made the monumentally stupid mistake of stating terms to which I agreed to rejoin the Council to Bleath in front of two reliable witnesses, so no, he doesn't know I'm talking to you, mostly because I took his place on on the council as the only condition for my returning to it," Cinder told her.
"You're the leader of the Shade Alliance now?" Emily's eyes almost bugged out of their sockets. If ever there was a face for a startled cat, that was it.
"Yep," Cinder nodded. "And as leader, things are going to change, starting with the Shade's moronic treatment of the Fusions. You have my heartfelt apologies, but once I was kicked off the council, I couldn't do anything to help you people anymore. Now I can."
Emily's head spun as she felt a quantum shift in her reality. It seemed way too good to be true.
"No offense," she prefaced her doubt just in case Cinder was feeling less than charitable at open expressions of doubt, "I only have your word for this."
"Not just mine," Cinder shook her head. She pressed a button on the desk. "C'mon in."
Torian entered the room, looking a lot less ragged than when Cinder had first seen her.
"Torian?" Emily couldn't believe her eyes. "I thought you were in prison for life!"
"I was," Torian nodded with a smirk. "The leader of a delegation got me out."
"What delegation?" Emily wondered.
Torian explained the circumstances by which she'd met Cinder, and Seren, and what they had done over the last several months, including working out a plan to help the Fusions, since Seren promised Torian that she'd do what she could for her and her people.
"And she kept her promise," Torian finished.
Emily sat and considered what her close friend had just told her, then turned to Cinder.
"When can we do this?" she asked.
"You tell me," Cinder replied. "I've sent the orders to cancel the debts already. You tell the rest of the Fusions what the offer is. If they're not insane, they'll take it, I hope. Thirty percent of that system will set everyone of them up pretty much forever. But the planet needs more help faster than you folks do. So they get the lion's share.
"As soon as you can prep the Botany Bay for H-Space, we can get you on your way there."
"What about the UGW?" Emily realized. "Won't they be pissed if we just move in?"
"You're invited guests of the system's only inhabited planet, giving you the other planet in exchange for your services," Cinder told her. "Those services might include fighting off opportunistic vessels from both sides trying to cache in on the system's wealth."
"So, basically, you're asking the Fusions if they want to go to our idea of heaven?" Emily inquired. "I'll personally space anyone who doesn't."
"No, just send them down in a shuttle," Cinder waved casually. "We're hoping to keep bloodshed to a minimum here."
"Do we get weapons?" Emily asked.
"Well make sure you have the plans for them to make yourselves," Cinder promised.
"But what if the UGW shows up before we're armed?" Emily asked, finding the only fly in the heavenly balm presented to her.
"If I know my Scoutship commanders, I think that's going to be covered by the Talon," Cinder stated. "But there may be a lag between when you get there and when they do."
"Has anyone attacked the system yet?" Emily asked, her head spinning at the idea of a Scoutship – not just A Scoutship, but the Talon – being their protector.
"No," Cinder said. "But Talon's going to be delayed a bit on other business until it arrives on station permanently. I'd suggest that you start using those weapon plans as soon as you get them, just in case. News of this has already gotten out. Finding the system may take a bit, but people will do what people do. So best to be prepared for the worst."
