Jim Baen’s Universe

by Edited by Eric Flint

  “It’s too much,” she sa­id.

  “We can af­ford it,” Ste­ve rep­li­ed. “We’ll be ab­le to, an­y­way. You li­ke it, right?”

  “Yes,” she sa­id, sig­hing aga­in. “Okay.”

  “Josh, yo­ur mot­her and I ha­ve to go to the bank,” his dad sa­id as they exi­ted the sto­re. “You might as well stay in the ho­tel.”

  “I might as well go with you,” Josh sa­id un­hap­pily. “You loc­ked out all the go­od chan­nels on the tri­dee. I’ll just… re­ad or so­met­hing.”

  “Fine, but don’t in­ter­fe­re or pes­ter pe­op­le,” his dad sa­id.

  They to­ok a cab to the bank, which was a low, sto­ne bu­il­ding, and Josh wa­ited on a hu­ma­no­form cha­ir whi­le his mom and dad tal­ked to an Adoo. Abo­ut half the pe­op­le wor­king in the bank we­re To­oleck and the rest se­emed to be Adoo and Ter­rans.

  Josh wat­c­hed them tal­king for a whi­le and then clo­sed his eyes to re­ad. Fi­nal­ly, they we­re do­ne. It se­emed to ta­ke ho­urs. But when he chec­ked his clock it was less than 45 mi­nu­tes.

  “Let’s go, Josh,” his dad sa­id. “I’ve ren­ted an air car and we’re go­ing sig­h­t­se­e­ing.”

  “In this?” Josh sa­id as they step­ped out of the bank. The ra­in had tur­ned to sle­et mi­xed with snow. The wind had pic­ked up as well and icic­les we­re for­ming on the traf­fic mar­kers.

  “Yes,” his dad rep­li­ed, dryly. “I chec­ked the we­at­her­comp and the­re’s so­me pro­ces­si­on to­day, so­met­hing to do with the Qu­e­en. They wan­ted just the right we­at­her for it so it will stay this way un­til at le­ast to­mor­row. Ap­pa­rently they we­re for­ced to ha­ve so­me cle­aring, then, but it’s go­ing to get col­der. To­day we’re go­ing to go to so­me ru­ins, Roc­k­deng they call it, be­ca­use we su­re as heck don’t want to go to­mor­row.”

  “Rocks and sle­et,” Josh sa­id. “What a per­fect com­bi­na­ti­on.”

  ****

  Rockdeng, when they ma­de it, tur­ned out to be re­al­ly co­ol. It was set in the mid­dle of a big open pla­in of pur­p­le grass and whi­le the­re was a po­wer-fen­ce aro­und it, to­urists we­re free to wan­der thro­ugh the area. The­re was just so­met­hing abo­ut the ar­ran­ge­ment of big, we­at­he­red, gre­en-sto­ne rocks that ma­de him won­der.

  Josh wan­de­red aro­und the as­sembly, clim­bing on rocks, ca­re­ful­ly, it was still sle­eting, lo­oking up at rocks and ge­ne­ral­ly ha­ving a fi­ne ti­me un­til his mom me­med his plant and dow­n­lo­aded the stan­dard his­to­ric spi­el. Just for gig­gles he de­ci­ded to ac­cess it.

  Rockdeng, it tur­ned out, was cre­ated by pre­his­to­ric To­oleck, pos­sibly as a form of early so­lar ca­len­dar. The sto­nes had co­me from mo­re than sixty ki­lo­me­ters away and we­re pul­led the­re by hand or pos­sibly using early do­mes­ti­ca­ted ani­mals. The ani­mals they sho­wed lo­oked li­ke gi­ant ants and the­re was a to­olie of them drag­ging so­me sto­nes ac­ross the pla­in.

  It se­emed li­ke an aw­ful lot of tro­ub­le to go to just to fi­gu­re out what day you sho­uld ce­leb­ra­te yo­ur bir­t­h­day.

  “Greenstone is a me­ta­mor­p­hic ig­ne­o­us rock,” his dad sa­id as he ope­ned his eyes to go find mo­re rocks to climb. “Ori­gi­nal­ly an ig­ne­o­us rock si­mi­lar to do­lo­mi­te and then su­bj­ec­ted to hig­her he­ats and pres­su­re,” Ste­ve con­ti­nu­ed, po­in­ting at the si­de of one of the rocks. “See? Very fi­ne gra­in. Slow co­oling.”

  “Okay, Dad.” Josh sig­hed. To his dad it se­emed that ever­y­t­hing was down to the rocks. Or, so­me­ti­mes, the his­tory of a pla­ce. Josh ra­rely saw his fat­her and when he did his one ima­ge of him was of a guy sit­ting in a flo­at rec­li­ner with his eyes mo­ving, scan­ning so­me text. Most of them se­emed to be his­tory or ad­ven­tu­re fic­ti­on.

  “It’s get­ting la­te,” his dad sa­id, pin­ging his mom, who had be­en sit­ting on a rock pa­ti­ently wa­iting for fat­her and son to get do­ne. “Let’s he­ad back to Don­lon.”

  It had be­en a two ho­ur air-car hop to Don­lon but the ri­de back se­emed shor­ter.

  “Steve,” Jala sa­id, when they got back to the ho­tel and had re­le­ased the car to go park it­self, “we’ve hardly se­en an­y­t­hing of Don­lon. Let’s go lo­ok aro­und.”

  “Okay,” Ste­ve sa­id, shrug­ging. The tem­pe­ra­tu­re was ho­ve­ring right at fi­ve deg­re­es Cel­si­us, but they we­re well dres­sed for the we­at­her. “Let’s find so­met­hing to eat, tho­ugh. I’m star­ved.”

  “I’m su­re we’ll find a res­ta­urant or so­met­hing,” Jala sa­id, put­ting her arm thro­ugh his. “But Don­lon’s such a fas­ci­na­ting city. So much his­tory. It se­ems a sha­me to not lo­ok aro­und.”

  A city was pretty much a city to Josh but he had to ad­mit that the­re was so­met­hing dif­fe­rent abo­ut Don­lon. Part of it was that the To­oleck se­emed to walk mo­re than Ter­rans; the stre­ets we­re pac­ked with them as the thre­eso­me ma­de the­ir way thro­ugh the crowds. Most of them we­ren’t we­aring en­vi­ron­ment co­ats but they all se­emed to carry rel­las li­ke Ter­rans car­ri­ed pads. And for much the sa­me re­ason, ap­pa­rently, be­ca­use they had to use them just abo­ut as fre­qu­ently.

  It was af­ter dark, or may­be it was the in­ces­sant clo­ud-co­ver, but all the shops we­re open and it se­emed his mot­her had to stop in every sin­g­le one. She didn’t buy much but she had a gre­at ti­me lo­oking.

  “Honey,” Jala sa­id, co­ming out of a shop that sold in­t­ri­ca­te jewel­r­y­li­ke ti­me­pi­eces de­sig­ned to be plan­ted on the To­oleck ca­ra­pa­ce. “I want to go to Of­fac­ro Ro­ad.”

  “They’ll pro­bably be clo­sing up by the ti­me we get the­re,” Ste­ve war­ned.

  “I still want to see it,” Jala sa­id.

  “Okay, okay, we’ll ta­ke the tu­be.”

  They ca­ught a grav­tu­be to anot­her part of town, to­ok a bo­un­ce-tu­be down to gro­und le­vel and then step­ped out on Of­fac­ro Ro­ad.

  The ro­ad was li­ned by bu­il­dings, most of them less than ten sto­ri­es tall and all con­nec­ted by wal­k­ways and cat­walks. And it se­emed to be one gi­ant mall. But what a mall. No la­ser fit­ters for clot­hing he­re. No, the clot­hes we­re la­id out on flo­aters with To­olecks and Adoo and bots sho­uting in com­pe­ti­ti­on to be he­ard. Clot­hes and jewelry and just… stuff.

  “Oh, wow!” Josh sa­id, dar­ting to one of the open shops and po­in­ting in the win­dow. “A re­al, ho­nest-to-gosh for­ty-watt plas­ma rif­le!”

  “It’s a non­fun­c­ti­onal rep­li­ca,” Ste­ve sa­id, glan­cing at it. “They drill the bar­rel and the char­ging co­ils so it can’t be used. Tho­usands of them got dum­ped af­ter the Ori­on War.”

  “A bo­ok­s­to­re!” Josh sho­uted, das­hing ac­ross the stre­et. The do­or was loc­ked, the prop­ri­etor ha­ving ap­pa­rently go­ne ho­me early, or, it be­ing a bo­ok­s­to­re on Of­fac­ro Ro­ad, may­be not ha­ving co­me in all day. But Josh co­uld see do­zens, hun­d­reds of re­al pa­per bo­oks in the sto­re. Then he lo­oked at so­me of the pri­ces and gul­ped. Let’s see. If he sa­ved his al­lo­wan­ce for fifty ye­ars…

  Mirrors and pot­tery and han­d­c­rafts from a tho­usand worlds. Jewelry for we­ar or im­p­lan­ta­ti­on. Plant shops whe­re an­yo­ne from a Ter­ran to a Va­ca­lu co­uld be im­p­lan­ted in a mat­ter of mi­nu­tes with an­y­t­hing from a Co­vas V to a Ma­mo­rak 3000 with the spe­ci­al to­oling cop­ro­ces­sor.

  “They say you can buy an­y­t­hing on Of­fac­ro Ro­ad,” his dad sa­id as his mot­her was dic­ke­ring for what was pur­por­ted to be an aut­hen­tic Yem­nor bro­och. If it was it had to be at le­ast fi­ve tho­usand ye­ars old. “Anything from a map to the Holy Gra­il to a fle­et of des­t­ro­yers.
”

  “Gosh,” Josh sa­id. “How much wo­uld just one des­t­ro­yer cost?” With just one des­t­ro­yer he co­uld… well, rat­her than lis­ting the things he co­uldn’t do it wo­uld be easi­er to list the things he co­uld. Ta­king over the Ter­ran Fe­de­ra­ti­on was out, but ot­her than that…

  “More than I ma­ke, Josh,” his dad sa­id, le­aning over to whis­per. “And stay clo­se. Be­ca­use one of the things they sell, or so it is sa­id, is… spe­ci­al fo­od. The­re are so­me spe­ci­es that think that… yo­ung Ter­rans are es­pe­ci­al­ly tasty.” His dad wag­gled his eyeb­rows and win­ked. “What do you think abo­ut that?”

  Josh tho­ught abo­ut this for a se­cond and shrug­ged.

  “I bet that shop that had the non­fun­c­ti­onal plas­ma rif­le knows whe­re you can buy a re­al one, Dad,” he rep­li­ed, whis­pe­ring back. “May­be we sho­uld get one.”

  “Not on To­oleck, son,” his dad sa­id, la­ug­hing. “They re­al­ly frown on that sort of thing.”

  “Speaking of fo­od,” Josh sa­id, his sto­mach rum­b­ling.

  “I don’t think I can get that,” his mom sa­id. “It had bet­ter be aut­hen­tic for what that Kaf­fo wan­ted for it. I don’t see many res­ta­urants…”

  “You don’t go to res­ta­urants on Of­fac­ro Ro­ad!” his dad sa­id, grin­ning. “The­re’s a ven­dor just down the­re.”

  The ven­dor was a Lem­nor, a rat­li­ke be­ing with red fur and be­ady black eyes. He was ban­ging on the flo­ater be­si­de him with a pa­ir of tongs.

  “NAMERSH! Get yo­ur na­mersh right he­re! Hot and fresh! FRESH na­mersh!”

  “I’ll ta­ke a na­mersh,” Josh’s dad sa­id. “The­se are re­al­ly go­od,” he ad­ded.

  “What are they?” Josh as­ked, sus­pi­ci­o­usly.

  “They’re li­ke… sort of To­oleck hot dogs,” his dad rep­li­ed. “They’ve even got mus­tard. I’ll ha­ve mi­ne with mus­tard, oni­ons and rask [4] .”

  “Right you are, guv­nor,” the Lem­nor sa­id in a squ­e­aky vo­ice. He pul­led a long brown thing that lo­oked li­ke a very oddly sha­ped po­ta­to out of an oven on the si­de of the flo­ater, then cut the end off with a swift flash of a vib­la­de and stuck the thing on a long spi­ke. The en­ti­re pro­cess se­emed to be one con­ti­nu­o­us mo­ti­on. He held the open end of the thing un­der three of at le­ast a do­zen spi­gots, sho­oting mus­tard, chop­ped oni­ons and what must ha­ve be­en “rask,” a pur­p­le vis­co­us flu­id, in­to the ho­le in the thing. Last he ope­ned up the top of a ste­aming tu­re­en and pul­led out a yel­lo­wish brown tu­be. The tu­be was stuf­fed in the ho­le in the po­ta­to-thing and the Lem­nor held up a fin­ger.

  “That’s a dib, guv­nor,” he sa­id, dif­fi­dently.

  “The pri­ce has go­ne up sin­ce the last ti­me I was in Don­lon, then,” Ste­ve sa­id, frow­ning. “It used to be a qu­at­ro!”

  “Well, it’s the pri­ce of rask, isn’t it? And oni­ons, now oni­ons tho­se are just out of this… well, they’re from Ter­ra aren’t they? Ta­xes are ter­rib­le. Cut­ting my own thro­at at that. But, se­e­ing as how it’s you, I’ll say… half dib and that’s flat.”

  “Quatro, and six,” Josh’s dad sa­id. “Not a pin mo­re.”

  “You’ve got me over a bar­rel, guv,” the Lem­nor whi­ned. “I’ve al­re­ady ma­de it up and all. Ha­ve to eat it myself and ex­p­la­in to my par­t­ner whe­re our sli­ver of pro­fit’s go­ne. Ni­ne less six­ty-th­ree. Can’t do less! And that’s cut­ting me own thro­at!”

  “Tell you what,” Ste­ve sa­id, sha­king his he­ad. “I know you’ve got pups…”

  “Squeakers, guv, ni­ne of them and the­ir mot­her ill…”

  “So, a dib and qu­at­ro for three, and that’s flat. Or you’ll ha­ve to eat yo­ur pro­fit.”

  “Guv, you’re a fri­end in ne­ed,” the Lem­nor sa­id, hol­ding out his paw for the mo­ney.

  “Transfer?” Ste­ve as­ked.

  “With tho­se fe­es?” the Lem­nor squ­e­aked. “It’s ten per­cent over and I’ll ha­ve to go to Mert the But­c­her…”

  “Oh, very well,” Ste­ve sa­id, re­ac­hing in­to his po­uch and pul­ling out a han­d­ful of me­tal co­ins. “Let’s see, that’s a qu­at­ro, three qu­at­ros and a ni­ne ma­ke a dib and a six [5] …”

  Finally the com­p­li­ca­ted mo­ney and fo­od tran­sac­ti­on was com­p­le­te. Jala got mus­tard and ket­c­hup and Josh got just ket­c­hup. He’d just ta­ken a bi­te out of the na­mersh, and be­en fa­vo­rably ple­ased, when the Lem­nor sho­ok his he­ad in sad­ness.

  “Been a go­od night,” he mut­te­red then lo­oked up in hor­ror. “Not that I’m ma­king mo­ney or an­y­t­hing, it se­ems li­ke the mo­re I ma­ke the less I…”

  “I un­der­s­tand,” Ste­ve sa­id, ta­king anot­her bi­te and star­ting to walk away.

  “Got to fill the tu­re­en back up, tho­ugh,” the Lem­nor sa­id, pul­ling out a buc­ket and re­ac­hing in with his tongs.

  What he lif­ted out of the buc­ket lo­oked li­ke not­hing so much as a gi­ant tong full of qu­ar­ter me­ter mag­gots. They we­re long and thin…

  The ro­den­to­id ra­ised the lid on the tu­re­en and drop­ped them in to the so­und of high-pit­c­hed squ­e­aling just as Josh re­ali­zed what he was eating.

  “Try to get it in the scup­pers, guv­nor!” the Lem­nor cal­led out to him. “It helps fe­ed the bre­eders!”

  (TO BE CON­TI­NU­ED)

  Fish Story, Part 1

  Andrew Dennis, Eric Flint and Dave Freer

  Episode 1: The Wan­d­le Pi­ke

  You may call me Is­h­ma­el. Yes, I know it’s be­en do­ne. But sin­ce my na­me will chan­ge con­s­tantly as the story prog­res­ses, it may as well be­gin in the pub­lic do­ma­in.

  If any story can be sa­id to truly be­gin, es­pe­ci­al­ly one that in­vol­ves-at last co­unt-for­ty-th­ree ga­lac­tic ca­bals, ni­ne of which are in­ter­ga­lac­tic in sco­pe; con­s­pi­ra­ci­es span­ning no fe­wer than eig­h­te­en se­pa­ra­te and dis­tinct uni­ver­ses; at le­ast six of which in­vol­ve cle­arly de­fi­nab­le de­iti­es, then this one star­ted at a pub in the part of So­uth Lon­don I in­ha­bi­ted at the ti­me.

  This par­ti­cu­lar eve­ning was one of tho­se that had star­ted be­fo­re lun­c­h­ti­me. If he pa­ces him­self, a man might drink a pint of re­gu­lar-st­rength be­er every ho­ur for days on end and ne­ver re­ach a con­di­ti­on of se­ri­o­us ineb­ri­ati­on. We sub­s­c­ri­bed to this the­ory. By “we,” I re­fer to myself and the ot­her rep­ro­ba­tes pre­sent on this par­ti­cu­lar eve­ning, Pat­rick Welch, Bobby Hud­son and She­ila Ro­wen. She­ila’s pre­sen­ce in this nor­mal­ly all-ma­le sort of gat­he­ring can be ex­p­la­ined by her vast ca­pa­city for drink, a sar­cas­tic hu­mor too sharp to be de­ni­ed entry, and-last but not le­ast-the fact that she was lar­ger than any of us ex­cept Welch, pro­bably even stron­ger than he was on ac­co­unt of her fa­na­ti­cal de­vo­ti­on to body-bu­il­ding, and tat­to­o­ed be­yond be­li­ef.

  As I say, we sub­s­c­ri­bed to this the­ory. In­de­ed, we tes­ted it to des­t­ruc­ti­on. Of co­ur­se, you had to start the eve­ning be­fo­re lun­c­h­ti­me in this pub, in or­der to test it pro­perly. Co­me six o'clock or the­re­abo­uts, they put the bo­un­cer on the do­or and un­less you we­re a chil­d­ho­od fri­end of his, you didn't get in. That pla­ce was po­pu­lar, and in­va­ri­ably, at a we­ekend at le­ast, wed­ged so­lid of an eve­ning. The trick was to get in the­re abo­ut lun­c­h­ti­me or a lit­tle af­ter and dig in for the long ha­ul.

  Comes abo­ut mid­night, and the con­ver­sa­ti­on tur­ned to the fis­hing to be had in tho­se parts.

  Now, this is not as bar­ren a to­pic as you might think. The­re are, in fact, qu­ite the num­ber of bo­di­es of wa­ter in Lon­don with cat�
�c­hab­le co­ar­se fish in them, sho­uld you ta­ke the tro­ub­le to lo­ok.

  Then, the to­pic wi­de­ned, so it did. And now it co­mes ti­me to in­t­ro­du­ce the Cap­ta­in Ahab (not to say the Jonah, 'twas ever his fa­te to be thus) of this lit­tle ta­le.

  I re­fer, of co­ur­se, to Bobby Hud­son. The thing abo­ut Hud­son was that he was a bug­ger for tro­ub­le. Highly en­ter­ta­ining tro­ub­le, mostly, but tro­ub­le no­net­he­less.

  If he wasn't as­king nig­ht-club bo­un­cers what they we­re lo­oking at, or-me­mo­rab­ly-go­ing out jog­ging in Glas­gow we­aring a T-shirt that re­ad Bri­tish By Birth, En­g­lish By The Gra­ce of God, he was de­mon­s­t­ra­ting his fa­med dis­da­in for high-spe­ed den­se traf­fic or fo­oling abo­ut in high pla­ces. Nig­ht-clim­bing, the prac­ti­ce of sca­ling pub­lic bu­il­dings to the con­s­ter­na­ti­on of the emer­gency ser­vi­ces and the scan­dal of the pa­rish, was one of his fa­vo­ri­te sports.

  Be all this as it may, Bobby to­ok up the the­me of mat­ters pis­ca­to­ri­al. He'd a no­ti­on abo­ut him that, sho­uld one de­si­re the ul­ti­ma­te in fres­h­wa­ter sport, the pi­ke was the thing, and hardly we­re the­re pi­ke to be fo­und in Lon­don. "De­ep wa­ter," sa­id Hud­son, "de­ep, still wa­ter. Slow-flo­wing at best. That's how pi­ke li­ke to hunt."

  "There's pi­ke to be had in Lon­don," sa­id Welch, "the­re're ca­nals and such lo­usy with them. You want pi­ke-in­fes­ted wa­ters, Bobby my boy, Lon­don can ob­li­ge."

  Now, we've in­t­ro­du­ced the Ahab of this ta­le. We must ne­eds ha­ve a Qu­e­equ­eg. And this is the bit whe­re she pit­c­hes in. And if She­ila’s sex did not match the mo­del pro­perly, her vast as­sor­t­ment of tat­to­os most cer­ta­inly did.

  "Have you he­ard abo­ut the Pi­ke that's sup­po­sed to be in the Wan­d­le?" she as­ked. I swe­ar, she pro­no­un­ced it with a ca­pi­tal let­ter.