by Chad Spencer
“Can you all fly?”
“Not all. Some of us … have abilities that other humans don’t. That’s why we were sent to fight.”
The boy didn’t seem to know what to make of that. Hugh used the opportunity to break in. “Jeff,” he began, “I think we need to leave them a fighter seed. It might be their only hope for getting out of here.”
Surprised, Jeff queried, “Why?”
“I think these people are descendants of people who were in the wormhole collapse. The universe we’re in formed naturally. But the wormhole that connects this universe to the main one isn’t natural. If I’m right, the original castaways came here more than twenty of our years ago. But it’s been at least 100,000 years for them. Look how little they’ve progressed. Their technology is like what Earth had back in the 1950’s or 1960’s. Jeff, they’re not like us. They can’t fabricate heavy elements like we can. So they’re limited to what they can mine from the layers in this atmosphere.”
Hugh pointed at the settlement. “Look at their colony, Jeff. All of their buildings are made out of wood. That’s because they can grow trees, probably in soil that they make from composting their own wastes. If they have any access to metals at all, it’s probably by catching small participles of it blowing on the wind with those big things we thought were sails.” Hugh pointed to the large, circular, wispy pieces of cloth suspended in rings that stuck out from here and there on the colony.
Continuing, Hugh gestured toward the planet below. “I’ve been scanning this planet while you were talking. Once in a while, there are eruptions from the atmosphere below. That spits heavier elements into the upper parts of the atmosphere as dust particles. Those cloth circles probably catch them. That’s probably the only access they have to metals.”
Puzzled, Jeff wondered why Hugh was saying all this. “So?” he asked.
“So even if we give them information on advanced technology, they probably can’t build anything significant. They won’t have enough of the right materials. The only way they’ll advance is if we give them a fighter seed. Then they can make anything they need. The fighter’s AR programs can teach them all of our technology. And its synthesizers can make anything they need from the gasses in this planet’s lower atmosphere. That’s the only way they’re going to move forward. Without it, they’re stuck here. Like they have been for 100,000 years.”
Jeff realized that Arvix had continued to translate while they were talking. He glanced at the people around them. In particular, the boy standing with them on the fighter’s wing had perked up.
“What does ‘fighter seed’ mean?” he asked.
Not sure he was doing the right thing, Jeff explained, “This ship can reproduce itself like a living thing. It can also heal itself from damage like life forms do. He wants me to give you a seed that will grow into another ship. But I don’t think that will work.”
“Why?” Hugh inquired.
“Why?” asked the boy when he heard Arvix’s translation.
“Because the seed can’t grow without raw materials. It’s meant to be implanted in rocks floating in space. Our ship is broken right now, so it can’t get back into space. We can’t take the seed and plant it in a rock in space like we’re supposed to.”
The boy asked, “If we took your seed to a place where there was a lot of raw materials, would it grow?”
“Yes,” Hugh answered. “It would take a long time because there are some elements you can’t get here. But it can make them on its own. I’m guessing it would take about twice as long as normal, but it would grow.”
Pulling himself to his full height, the boy instructed, “Then you must come with me.”
“Come with you? Why?”
“You must meet our village Guardian. His name is Getetholvid Jori. He can arrange for your seed to be taken to a place with a lot of raw materials.” Then the boy added, “By the way, my name is Joonen, Larn Joonen of the Himmeral Larns. But they won’t admit that. My grandfather is Larn Alegad, one of the Great Proctors in the Guild of Scientists. He exiled my father and our family when we embraced Revisionism. But we don’t call it Revisionism. We call it Tuluvet, the Way of Truth.”
“I’m Jeff Bowman. Your family name comes first? Ours comes last. So you would probably call me Bowman Jeff. But we say it the opposite way. This is Hugh Benson.” Jeff gestured toward Hugh. “And I call this machine here Arvix.”
“Arvix?” Joonen asked, reddening with obvious consternation. “Is it a girl?”
Surprised, Jeff replied, “It’s not a male or a female. It’s just a machine. In our language, the name Arvix is genderless. But we usually think of it as a him.”
Looking slightly insulted, Joonen informed him, “Arvix was my dearly-departed mother’s name.”
‘Oooo, awkward,’ thought Jeff. He flustered, “Well … well I can find something else to name my machine if it’s insulting to you.”
Clearly trying to be tolerant of the strangers, Joonen replied, “No … no that’s ok. I don’t mind. Your machine can be called Arvix.” Then Joonen added, “Just don’t tell my brother. He reveres our dearly-departed mother and he has a temper.”
29
The meeting with the village Guardian was surprisingly short. Like most others in the floating village, the Guardian was present at the arrival of the fighter. It didn’t take Jeff long to realize that the Guardian was basically the village’s headman or chief. ‘Or maybe he’s more like the mayor, since Joonen said he’s elected. Do I call him Your Honor or just what, I wonder?’
On their way to the gathering, Kasumi took a few moments to give them all the ability to speak the local language. She also gave English to Joonen, who looked genuinely scared by the process, but he didn’t object.
After the introductions had been completed, Jeff, Amanda, Hugh, and Kasumi were told that the village’s name was Xemusiana.
As he stood listening to the village Elders excitedly debate, Jeff’s mind wandered. ‘We really should come up with a name for our fighter. Something really good like Akio has for his ship. Since it’s black, maybe something like the Black Eagle or the Forgotten Shadow. Or maybe the Shadow Eagle. Yeah, the Shadow Eagle. Definitely.’
Pulling his attention back to the discussion, Jeff could see that the villagers were arriving at a decision. The debate hadn’t been that long. The village leaders were mostly trying to decide whether or not to believe them. But Jeff simply told them, “We don’t have a reason to lie. We’ll go with you to someplace where there are more raw materials, plant a seed for you, and we’ll store all of the information we have into the ship it produces. After that, you’re on your own. Do whatever you want. We have our own battles to fight.”
Even the Elders who clearly didn’t trust them couldn’t really argue with that. It was soon agreed. Jeff and Amanda would take a seed to one of the nearby continents and plant it.
“Athar Eabent will be by with his skyboat tomorrow,” Guardian Getetholvid explained. “He can take you and Joonen to Phiusmus. From there you can catch a boat to Nonene where you can plant your seed. None of you are adults, so I’m sending Joonen’s brother Tolool with you. Our people there will listen to him.”
After the meeting, Jeff offered Joonen a tour of his ship. Joonen was slightly disoriented when Kasumi teleported, but he soon recovered. He was both impressed and a little awed by the flawless technology of the spacecraft.
“You could live in this ship forever and go anywhere!” he exclaimed.
Shrugging, Jeff nodded and replied, “It’s a little too crowded to live in forever. But it’s pretty comfortable while we’re traveling.”
After the tour, Jeff talked with Hugh about the trip to plant the seed. “You’ll be in charge when we’re away. And while we’re gone, take the Shadow Eagle and go get the rest of the life pods. Gather them together with the others. Then go ahead and dive to the lower atmosphere to fill the tanks.”
Hugh’s eyebrows arched. “The Shadow Eagle?”
“Yeah
, the Shadow Eagle. You don’t like it? Our ship needs a name.”
Shrugging, Hugh replied, “The Shadow Eagle is fine, I guess. It looks more like a dragon than an eagle, though.”
Tiffany broke in with, “If Julian wants to name the ship the Shadow Eagle, then let him name it the Shadow Eagle! It’ll probably get blown up pretty soon anyway, and we’ll have to make another one. Isn’t that always what happens?”
Hugh apparently didn’t want to argue with her. Neither did anyone else. But Jeff added, “My name’s Jeff, actually.”
“Oh right,” Tiffany replied absently.
Jeff challenged, “Why do you always do that?”
“Do what?”
“Mess up my name like that.”
Tiffany humphed, appearing offended. “We’ll I’m sorry,” she shot back in a tone that clearly indicated she wasn’t. “I generally don’t bother to memorize people’s names unless they become important to me.”
“Thanks loads,” spat Jeff sarcastically. Growing irritated, he growled, “Look, I’m Jeff Bowman and I’m the Captain of this ship. You can either call me by my name or you can plan on walking back to wherever it is that you came from. I can do just fine on my ship without you.”
Glaring, Tiffany seemed poised for battle. Electrical sparks danced along her fingers.
“Don’t bother!” snapped Jeff. “You already tried it. I’ve got lightning and fire. You can’t hurt me. But as much as I don’t want to, I can really hurt you.”
Hugh stood like a deer in a pair of headlights. He seemed ready to teleport from the room.
“Fine,” hissed Tiffany. “Just fine. I can be as good a crewmember as anybody. Better, in fact.”
Jeff spat, “That, I’d like to see.”
Tiffany ignored him and went to sit at the table in the ship’s common area. She sulked and waited for the meal that Ikko was preparing. The android had been brought back from the life pods to do the cooking and cleaning.
Joonen, who had watched the exchange with wide eyes, stammered, “How … how do you get the powers that you have? Why doesn’t everyone have them?”
Trying to calm down from the encounter with Tiffany, Jeff growled, “It’s a new thing.”
“What?”
Jeff told Joonen about the korei, but didn’t mention where they came from. He explained that having the powers that the korei provided to humans was relatively new. “Some of us have them and some of us don’t.”
“Could I get powers like yours?”
“Maybe,” Jeff told him. “Periodically, our korei have baby korei. If you’re with us at the right time, you might end up with korei of your own.”
An eager looked crossed Joonen’s face; he was clearly anxious to get korei of his own. Jeff decided to change the subject. “Would you like something to eat? Our android has prepared a meal for us.” Jeff gestured toward the table where the android was just laying out dinner.
“Android?” asked Joonen, puzzled. “You mean woman over there?”
“Right. She’s an android.”
“What’s an android?”
“Androids are machines that are made to look like humans,” Hugh explained.
Joonen recoiled in shock. “You make people?” he gasped.
Tiffany made a “humph” noise and retorted, “They’re not people. They’re machines. They serve us. And I’ll give you one in exchange for your local money. I want to go shopping.”
A sour look passed across Joonen’s face. “How do they feel about that?” he demanded defiantly.
Trying to defuse the situation, Jeff quickly explained, “I know these androids look like people. But they’re machines. They are designed to serve humans. They don’t have the ability to feel emotions or want things for themselves. They just do what they’re told.”
Skeptically, Joonen queried, “They are really machines? Even though they look exactly like real people? But aren’t they able to think–like your other machine, Arvix?”
“Yes,” replied Jeff as he nodded. “They’re like Arvix, but they look more human than he does.”
“And they have no feelings? No dreams? No hopes? Surely it’s cruel to create an intelligent creature with no soul and no emotions of its own.”
Hugh responded, “Usually only rich people can afford them. But we had the tools to make them and we really needed them. The androids were the crew on a ship that traveled far across our universe while we slept for years and years in special machines that made it so we didn’t get older no matter how long we sleep. We needed the androids to run the ship and keep us safe.”
“You can sleep in a machine forever without growing older? Why would you do that?”
“We were running away from a war, a really big war that spanned many star systems.”
Joonen’s eyes widened. “A war in the heavens? Were you fleeing from the alien enemy you told us about.”
Glancing warily at Amanda, Kasumi, and Jeff, Hugh shook his head. “No, a different enemy caused the war. It was an alien, but it’s different than the ones we’re fighting now.”
“And this enemy, is it more dangerous than the aliens you already told me about?”
Hesitating briefly, Jeff nodded.
Joonen plunked down into a chair. “You can create people without souls to serve you. You can fly through the heavens. You fight wars among the stars. You are like gods to us. And yet your enemies are even more terrible than you. What hope do we have for survival?”
“I don’t know, Joonen,” Jeff consoled. “We’ll do the best we can for you and your people. But we have our own problems. We have to get back to our universe and stop our enemies from invading.”
Joonen bent forward, propped his elbows on his knees, and dropped his head into his hands. “It’s like the old legends,” he moaned. “Are they all true?”
“What do you mean?” asked Amanda.
Lifting his head, Joonen replied, “There are legends among our people. Old stories that once there were two great civilizations here. They could do the things you do. They traveled among the five stars. But they had a terrible war that destroyed most of the continents on this world at the time. The old legends say that the losing group fled across the heavens through a portal in the sky, like the ‘wormhole’ as you call it.”
“Another wormhole?” exclaimed Jeff? “Where?”
“No one knows. But according to the legends, they went through a gateway in the sky to a new sky. I don’t know anything more than that.”
Hugh blurted out, “That makes sense.”
Blinking, Jeff looked at him and asked, “What? Wait, what?”
Hugh explained, “It wasn’t an accident that we ended up here in this universe. And it isn’t an accident that the Bowman system has so many wormholes. Remember that wormholes are tunnels through higher dimensions of space.”
Not seeing the relevance of that, Jeff simply replied, “Yeah, well yeah.”
Hugh continued, “Wormholes and wormhole fragments, like the one you were in, are attracted to gravity. This universe is a bubble universe that touches our universe at certain points in space.”
“So?”
“So wherever they touch, there’s increased gravity in hyperspace. That’s what attracted the wormhole fragments to the Bowman system in the first place. The Ellsworth, and all the other ships that came here in wormhole fragments, ended up here because the fragments were attracted by the gravity where the two universes touch. Wherever the two universes touch, there’ll be a lot of wormhole fragments from the explosion that stranded you in the Bowman system.”
“And?”
Hugh informed him, “And we know another system where there’s lots of wormholes.”
“The junction system,” Tiffany broke in. “We passed through it to find that Akio guy. There must be a wormhole from this universe to the junction system just like there’s a wormhole from this universe to the Bowman system. And that junction system is in the Vishnu expanse right near the Federated Alliance.”
Shaking his head in disbelief, Jeff countered, “But Joonen’s talking about old legends. There can’t be a wormhole to your junction system if all of that happened a long time ago.”
Hugh told him, “Wormholes can be unstable in time. Akio had an experience with that on the Hiryu.”
Eyes widening, Jeff realized, “We did too. The crew and passengers of the Ellsworth traveled forward twenty years in time in an unstable wormhole fragment.” Then realization dawned on him. “So that means …”
“That means that the dairei and all the tahkti can use this universe to easily invade the Federated Alliance,” Hugh finished for him. “And maybe other parts of the universe too.”
“But how can that be?” demanded Jeff. “This universe is only 21 light years across. It can’t touch at two points in our universe that are 50,000 light years apart.”
“Yes,” countered Hugh. “Yes it can. You’re thinking three dimensionally. But the universe extends into higher dimensions. And in those higher dimensions, two places on opposite sides of our galaxy can both touch this universe.”
With increasing dread, Jeff speculated, “So if the dairei finds this universe …”
“If the dairei finds this universe,” Hugh warned, “he can take his tahkti invasion fleet to the Federated Alliance and do the same thing to all of humanity that he did to all of the tahkti. And with tahkti technology, there’s nothing that anyone can do to stop him.”
“We can’t let that happen!”
Very solemnly, Hugh stated, “No, Jeff. We can’t let that happen.”
30
By the next day, Jeff and Amanda had both fabricated backpacks, which they packed with food, clothes, and other necessities.
With that, they headed for Athar Eabent’s vessel. The “boat” was really just a large, triangular platform with removable guardrails. Hugh, who had followed along to see them off, pointed at the corners of the floating platform and explained, “Those spheres down there in the latticework under the platform are gravity mirrors. Big ones. Look at the wood stove under each one. They heat the mirrors up to randomize the molecular structure of the crystal lattice slightly. When they do, the mirror reflects less gravity, so it drops. The other mirrors are colder so the crystal lattice in them is better aligned. That means they reflect more gravity.”
