by Joe Horan
As they came out of the office Benior said, “Let’s go for a drink so we can get to know each other.”
Get to know me, in other words. I may look as if a gust of wind will knock me down, but I will not be the weak link.
So they found one of those little colony house-sized cafés that had sprung up throughout the city. Benior offered to pay, so Shania had a glass of wine.
“I’ve heard of you,” said Kerry. “You’re the girl who gave her pass to a twelve-year-old girl, got left behind and made it off on the last ship.”
“And I remember you,” said Shania. “You’re the girl who took out Adama Shatternac in the catball game.”
“Of course I took him out. He was Clan Azuria, I’m Clan Gbasai. One of us was going to take the other out.”
“Don’t you think that clan rivalry thing is getting old?” said Halston. “Every time we play the Gbasais try to take out the Azurias and vice versa.”
“You’re right. If we had only known what was going to happen…”
“And don’t forget we’ve got League of Planets inspectors with us now,” said Shania. “What do they think of it?”
By the end of the evening Shania had three friends.
They gathered at New Ochira Spaceport to meet their tutor. It was still a muddy field, but a couple of colony houses had been joined together to make a terminal building of sorts. Princess Desiree was there to represent the government; Prince Joaquin, who would have been a much better choice, was off in the south somewhere trying to mediate a boundary dispute.
The shuttle touched down and the tutor emerged. It was a man with long white hair, a high forehead and a pair of metal-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose. He strode across the ground to the waiting group and, discerning that Princess Desiree was the senior person present, handed her a data chip and addressed himself to her.
“My name is Smart,” he said. “Despite what it says on the data chip, until three months ago I was Court Scientist to the Legarian Government, but they took exception to something I wrote[‡] and I am now persona non grata throughout the Legarian Empire. In approximately one year’s time they will realise how badly they need me and I will be invited back with much grovelling, but until then I have decided to accept a contract to teach theoretical physics to savages. I also need the money; with almost unbelievable vindictiveness the Legarian Government has imposed currency restrictions specifically to prevent me removing my considerable financial resources from Legarian Space.”
“Welcome to New Ochira,” said Princess Desiree, determinedly sticking to the script. “I hope you enjoy your stay.”
“So do I, but I doubt it is a hope that will be realised. Are these my students? I’ve seen worse. That blank, ape-like expression is common to students throughout the galaxsphere. Well you four, I know what happened to you and, believe me, nothing has prepared you for the next twelve months. It is going to be absolute hell. I have a data pad for each of you. On it is a test which you will complete and return to me tomorrow morning so I can gauge just how deep your ignorance is.”
“May we work together?” asked Shania
“If you like. I have no expectation that either together or separately you will be able to answer more than one tenth of the questions. Now if the formalities are over I wish to be shown where I am staying and where I can get a drink, in that order.”
He stared at Princess Desiree, who looked round for someone to help, saw no one and said, “Follow me.”
They gathered in Halston’s parents’ house, mainly because his mother would supply them with free food and drink. They turned on the data pads and found the test. The first question was:
2 + 6 =
“It’s got to be a trick,” said Kerry.
After a discussion they decided to take it at face value and Benior entered 8.
Correct! said a disembodied voice from the data pad. This question was included so that you could get at least one right.
The next question was:
3x² – 4x – 2 = 0
Find x to two decimal places.
“How the hell do you do that?” asked Kerry.
“There’s a formula,” said Shania. She wrote on a piece of paper:
x = – b ± √(b² – 4ac)
2a
“Of course,” said Halston. “The version we use looks a bit different. We use ordinals[§] instead of letters.”
A couple of minutes work and they all had 1·72 and 0·39.
Well done! You could have reached the answer a bit quicker, though.
The next question was:
x² + x + 4 = 0
Find x, if you can.
“You have to find the square root of minus fifteen,” said Kerry. “There’s no such thing.”
“Yes there is. They’re called imaginary numbers,” said Shania. “Let me show you.”
Once again there were two answers, but this time each was the sum of an ordinary and an imaginary number.
So you understand complex numbers.
“We call that a mixed number,” explained Shania. “The Star People call it a complex number.”
There were more questions. Geometry, trigonometry, orbital mechanics. They had to calculate the orbit of a hypothetical planet; not too difficult, both the Engineering Institute and the Institute of Cartography had been involved in working out the orbit of the World, its moon and the other planets in the system. Then there was something that looked impossible. There just wasn’t enough data to calculate the answer.
“I think the answer is that there is no answer,” said Halston. “He expects us to say we can’t work it out.”
“There is a way,” said Shania. “It’s something the Star People call quantum probability theory. It will give us an answer; it’s not guaranteed to be exactly right but it will be close.”
A problem in quantum probability, and the data pads had a computing capability so they wouldn’t have to work it out by hand. She showed them the basis of how it worked, then they did it together.
Almost correct, but with this type of problem there is no absolutely correct answer. You have got twenty-two questions right and two questions wrong. One is partially right. You have also surprised me, and I am not easily surprised.
“What are you doing in the Institute of Cartography?” asked Kerry. “We thought we were smart because we could build bridges that don’t fall down.”
It was now after midnight; time to go home and go to bed. The moons weren’t in the sky tonight, so Benior walked her to her house. The power station was due to start working soon and then there would be lights in the street.
The following morning they met with Smart in the colony house which had been named, at his insistence, Ochira City University.
“Who taught you quantum probability theory?” he began.
“No one. I developed it from the knowledge the Ancestors left us,” said Shania.
“Indeed. I suppose I have to take your word for it, considering your previous planet and everything on it is submerged in a sea of radiation.”
“How do you know how we did in the test?” asked Kerry.
“Your data pads are linked to an embryonic data net. I just connected to it and so I was able to communicate with you. The test was fully interactive, by the way. I could hear what you were saying, which was very instructive. You have to learn to use the data net. I’m not coming out to hold your hand every time you can’t solve a problem. Now I start teaching you quantum mechanics and the pain really starts. And for the benefit of young Enterada, quantum mechanics is not the same as quantum probability theory.”
The day after Smart arrived New Ochira made a formal application to join the League of Planets and soon more inspectors arrived, headed by a Pork who caused a sensation on New Ochira. He had quills instead of hair and large fleshy structures on the side of his head which, it was rumoured, could be extended to form a set of wings.
Over the next year they worked hard. Smart didn’t believe in time of
f. They studied every day and were grudgingly given a sevenday off for the winter solstice and another for the summer solstice. Shania got a chest infection during the winter, as she usually did, and Smart brought her a data link – a big screen that could be positioned in front of her bed so she could continue to participate in the lectures. He also sent one of the Star People’s healers, who took samples to find out what was causing the infection and gave her some tablets that cleared it up in days instead of weeks.
Shania gradually learnt how the universe really worked. The laws underpinning it were far more complex than she realised, and in some cases far stranger. The Ochirans already understood that the sun produced prodigious amounts of energy, but they didn’t know how. Now she learnt it fused hydrogen nuclei together to make helium, that the helium had slightly less mass than the original hydrogen, it was this missing mass that was converted into energy and it was only the weird, counterintuitive laws of quantum mechanics that made it possible. The same basic process took place in the power station that she would eventually learn to control.
She learnt space was not empty, there was a structure to it that contained energy. Space could be bent and so could time; in fact she learnt there was something called spacetime. It really existed; it was the way they could manipulate it that allowed the Star People’s ships to travel faster than light. It all came together in one complex, counter-intuitive, wonderful whole, though there were gaps in the knowledge that even the Star People had yet to bridge.
Eventually came the final exam, they all passed and then they had degrees in physics. Smart returned to Lagro, where they had indeed realised they needed him and sent a high-ranking Pork to bring him back.
Next they went to the power station, up and running for nearly a year now, to learn the specifics of how it worked. If anything this was harder. There were so many parts, so many systems that had to work properly. They had to learn what to do if any one of them went wrong, if any one of a million things happened. They were put into an exact copy of the control room and had to make the right decision when simulated incidents occurred. They had to get it right every time; in the real world if you made the wrong decision just once the result could be disaster.
The other three were taking warrior training. This had been introduced at the instigation of Prince Joaquin to keep them in contact with their heritage; now they had applied for membership of the League of Planets they could expect their society to change rapidly. It involved weekends, and sometimes whole se’enights, spent in the forest training to use swords and bows and generally learning how to be warriors. There was some practical benefit in being able to use a sword or bow; they had deliberately spread out to occupy the whole continent, but as there were only four hundred thousand of them the population density was very low. Most of the continent was covered with pine forest in which the homesteads and landholdings were scattered like islands, there were no roads and the only way to travel was on horseback. The forest cats could be dangerous and a sword or bow sometimes came in useful.
Warrior training became very popular and suddenly everyone was doing it. You saw them in the street wearing their warrior coats and belts. Shania knew she wasn’t strong enough for warrior training and felt a bit left out, but she still had something exciting to do. They had finally been passed as competent to run the power station and could take over from the Atumcarians. The thousands of credits the Ochiran Government had spent on them were justified.
Ten o’clock at night and the alarm went; time to get up. At midnight the Ochirans would officially take over running the power station from the Star People and Shania had drawn the first shift. She got dressed, had a quick meal (you could hardly call it breakfast at this time of night) and went out into the streets of the city. There were streetlights now; in their light she could see her groundcar parked in its special bay. She unplugged it from the charger, got in and inserted the special data chip into its slot.
Welcome Shania.
A groundcar that talked to you. The ways of the Star People were strange. The machine had been provided by the government so she could get to work. The data chip was part of a security system to stop it being stolen. You could leave pretty much anything unguarded on the streets of Ochira City and no one would take it, but the car had come with the system and you couldn’t remove it. If you got out and forgot to take the data chip with you it would beep to remind you until you did.
It was easy to drive. There was a single control stick; you pushed it forward to go forward, back to stop and once it had stopped if you continued to hold it back it would reverse. You pushed it to the left to turn left and right to turn it right. The lights were worked by a switch on the lever, a button on top sounded a horn. The windscreen wipers worked automatically if it rained, or there was an override switch if you needed it. A child could operate it, but she had to drive it round the block a couple of times to test her competence before they gave her a licence to use it.
She headed north, following the road that led to the power station. It was a fine night, with one of the moons low in the sky. Ahead she could see the lights of the power station. The guard on the gate waved her through; they were supposed to check her pass but somehow you couldn’t get Ochirans to take security as seriously as the Star People did. He knew who she was and that was good enough.
She parked in the designated bay and went in through the front door. The guard here waved her through as well. She stopped at the dispenser to get a drink of fruit juice and then went to the control room. It was just after half past eleven when she arrived.
The shift was from midnight to six am. The six pm to midnight shift were still working; one Atumcarian chief engineer and six Ochiran technicians who were there to do what he told them to do.
“Chief Engineer Enterada reporting for the number one shift,” she said.
Chief Engineer Enterada. She could hardly believe she had said that. The Atumcarian acknowledged her.
“Nothing to report,” he said. “Demand is steady at one one eight. Reactor is running at four point nine zero per cent; buffer is steady at sixty-four per cent. Main generator one is running; main generator two is on standby. And we have a League of Planets inspector.”
Shania turned and saw a Pork standing motionless in the shadows against the wall.
“I am Senior League of Planets Inspector Aphithophel Atang, with general oversight of the New Ochira inspection team,” said the Pork. “Please ignore me.”
That is easier said than done.
The time crept closer to midnight. Her own technicians arrived. Eventually it was time. The Atumcarian vacated his chair and Shania took his place.
“Chief Engineer Enterada, you have control,” he said.
“I have control.”
She allowed her hands to touch the control panel. Her fragile body now had the power of a sun at its command. How far the little crippled girl who wasn’t expected to live had come. How far they had all come. They were part of an interstellar community that until two years ago they hadn’t realised existed and somehow their fundamental beliefs enabled them to take it in their stride. The unknown author of the Five Truths had given them so much more than they knew.
SO OUR WORLD ENDED IN FIRE AND CHAOS. BUT THE STAR PEOPLE CAME AND CARRIED US THROUGH SPACE TO A NEW WORLD AND THERE OCHIRA ROSE AGAIN.
The Chronicles of Ochira
Epilogue
Horanus and his wife, Empress Jill, stood hand in hand as they looked at the viewscreen. No one had visited this world since the evacuation, no one had bothered to come and see what had become of it, but he was the Gysr and he wanted to know so, against the advice of the fleet commander, he had come far beyond the boundary of human-controlled space in order to see.
It was far worse than anyone imagined. The surface was pockmarked with huge craters where exotic matter had boiled through the crust. The oceans were gone, even the atmosphere had been blasted into space. The surface was now just a jumble of craters and broken rock. Even
after more than three years large areas still glowed red. Nothing would live here again. Ever.
“We did the right thing,” said Jill softly.
If they had not risked the League of Planets’ anger and ordered the evacuation nothing would remain of the Ochirans; the ruins of their cities, their very bones consumed by the fire that destroyed their world. No one would ever know about this remarkable civilisation, somewhere prejudice was unknown, where all men and women were viewed as equal, where freedom was the birthright of every human soul.
“Yes, we did the right thing,” he said.
* * *
[*] Life Support Limit. The maximum number of people a ship’s environmental system can support.
[†] Galaxy News Service; motto Always first with the news.
[‡] The Physiology and Psychology of the Pork, published on Thispholot. Though written in Smart’s usual wordy, pompous and virtually incomprehensible style it eventually became a bestseller, largely due to the Legarian Government’s determined attempts to get it banned.
[§] A technique, unique to Ochiran algebra, where a variable can be inferred by using the ordinal form of a number if the reader is sufficiently familiar with the equation.
