by Robert Boren
“Yeah, we’re sure. The encryption is impossible to break.”
“Nothing’s impossible,” Izzy said.
I shook my head. “This is pure math. What’s the name of this planet we’re going to?”
“Cremonia,” Tim said. “I was just looking at it.”
“Hopefully the survey for this world is more up to date than the one for Valla Cappos.”
Izzy and Tim shot each other a glance.
“It’s way back there, even for a level twelve world, Captain,” Izzy said. “Hopefully we won’t get forced onto dry land this time.”
“What period are we talking about?” I asked.
“Mesozoic,” Tim said.
“Yeah, but what part? Triassic or Jurassic?”
Tim shook his head. “I wish. Cretaceous.”
“Shit. That’s what Nolan picked?”
“It’s close to Sheppard One,” Izzy said. “I think that’s why he picked it. He wants to run scans. Given that parameter, it’s arguably the best choice.”
I sat in my captain’s chair, thinking. Maybe he’s right. “How long till we get there?”
“Under an hour,” Izzy said.
“What were you two murmuring about when I got here? If it’s personal, say so.”
Izzy smirked. “It wasn’t personal, Captain. Just something I’ve had a hard time understanding.”
“Perhaps you can do a better job of explaining it than I did,” Tim said.
“What’s the question?”
“Since we have the same DNA on all worlds, why didn’t they all develop at the same rate? Why do we have some in the Archean period, some in the Mesozoic, some in the Neolithic, and some in contemporary?”
“You should ask Nolan. He’s the science officer.”
Tim and Izzy chuckled. “When you ask Nolan a question like that, it isn’t just a question,” Tim said. “It’s an invitation for ridicule.”
“Yeah, and I’ve had enough of his ridicule to last me a while,” Izzy said.
“Oh, come now,” Nolan said, walking onto the bridge.
“It’s not polite to eavesdrop,” Izzy said.
“And it’s not polite to talk behind people’s backs, either. What’s the question? I’ll be gentle.”
Tim snickered.
Nolan shook his head. “Well, maybe I’ll be gentle. Whose question is it?”
“It was Izzy’s question, Nolan,” I said, “and being polite is helpful if you’re trying to make a point, at least with Earthlings.”
“All right,” he said. “What do you want to ask, Izzy?”
She eyed him for a moment, then sighed. “I was wondering why there’s this diversity of developmental phases on planets, running the gamut from pre-history to modern times. Why aren’t all worlds on the same timetable?”
Nolan smiled. “That’s an excellent question, for which I don’t have a concrete answer. Only theories, and there are too many of those for my taste.”
“What’s your favorite theory?” Tim asked.
“Favor doesn’t come into it. I’ll tell you what makes the most sense to me.”
“Go ahead,” Izzy said.
“I think it comes down to a large complex array of very tiny differences. When they’re combined on a given world, they help set the timetable.”
“What would be the differences?” Izzy asked.
“How hot the sun is, what exact radiation profile it has, what the orbital path of the planet is, when the atmosphere was settled, how many large impacts took place on the planet as it was forming, the size and nature of volcanic eruptions, what meddling from more advanced planets happened before controls were put into place. A million things like that. And remember, not all planets were created in an instant, and there is still planet creation happening now. That, given the number of years in play, is enough to explain most of the issue.”
“Those ideas are all from one theory?” Izzy asked.
“No, I’m cherry-picking,” Nolan said. “I might be missing the most important factor.”
“Sounds to me like you’re calling it luck,” Tim said.
Nolan chuckled. “That’s a loaded term. There’s no such thing as luck. I’ve used that term myself, when talking about a situation that is too complex to analyze completely. We aren’t all knowing and all seeing. All theories are a combination of things we know to be facts and our expansion on those facts, using our imagination and our ability to reason.”
“What happens when all expansions in theories are proven to be facts?” Izzy asked.
“They’re no longer theories,” Nolan said.
“That’s not entirely true,” I said. “We can prove out some phenomena as a fact, removing it from the realm of theory, but we may not understand the why, so some theory exists.”
Nolan laughed. “That’s why we have religion.”
“Don’t religion and scientific theory conflict most of the time?” Izzy asked.
“Not in the least,” Nolan said. “There are things we can’t explain. That gives us two choices. We develop a spiritual answer to the question, or we develop another theory and work it until it’s proven or debunked.”
I chuckled. “And in the case of the why, we might never get beyond the theoretical.”
“This is interesting. A refreshing conversation. I’m glad I made it back to the bridge in time to participate.”
“Well thank you for not calling me stupid for asking the question.” Izzy said.
“You’re welcome, my dear, and you are far from stupid. I have a sarcastic turn in my personality. I consider it a flaw. In fact, only the brightest of students I’ve had in the past have asked questions like yours.”
Tim shook his head. “We don’t have any better understanding now than when Izzy and I were talking about this before.”
“I don’t agree with that,” Nolan said. “I gave you a list of issues. We can prove that most of them are correct, but we can’t tie them all together and portray any system we develop to explain it as a fact. It’s like the theory of evolution that almost every world has had as a cornerstone in their explanation of the natural world. These theories generally got the progression correct, but we know they weren’t right about the how or the why.”
“What do you mean?” Izzy asked.
“We know there’s a progression from lower to higher forms of life, and we know that living things of all types adapt over time. The early theories all used something like natural selection to explain the how, but we now know that’s wrong. The concept of natural selection was a release valve for the theory of evolution. It was the luck component.”
“You’re losing me here, Nolan,” Tim said.
“Think it through. We know that all inhabitable planets follow the same basic order of progression with the same set of species. There is some environmental variation, but it never alters the flora and fauna content that all planets have over their history. It only affects the timing. The early scientists who developed the evolution theories, like your Darwin, got the phenomena right based on observation of what happened, but they had no idea that life had a built-in time table controlling it. In Darwin’s case, his concept of natural selection was random. In his theory, what eventually became an elephant could’ve gone in a very different direction due to random environmental factors. We now know that to be impossible. Elephant DNA is elephant DNA no matter where it is or what environmental challenges it was dealt. That doesn’t mean what we call an elephant was always the same. The species did adjust itself over time, but it’s the same everywhere. Only the timetable changes.”
“Wait a minute,” Tim said. “What about the dinosaurs on earth? Why did they go extinct? Remember the comet impact? That messes with your theory, doesn’t it?”
Nolan shook his head no. “Dinosaurs existed on earth for roughly 177 million years. They existed for only 50 million years on some worlds, and over 500 million years on others. The timing is what varies, but the flora and fauna of the Mesozoic is alwa
ys preceded by the flora and fauna of the Paleozoic, and always followed by the flora and fauna of the Cenozoic. Every time, every planet.”
Tim rolled his eyes. “So, you have it all figured out.”
“Hardly. I have no idea why this is the case, nor do I understand the mechanism that begins the movement from one period to another. Most cultures have created these buckets of time, but those are just constructs put together by humans to aid in understanding and bounding their observations. The cretaceous period might actually consist of a million periods made up of very small lengths of time.”
“It’s a continuum,” I said. “Scientists develop consensus on where one period ends and the next one starts, but as you say, it’s really just a construct that humans use to organize their thoughts.”
“Exactly, Captain.”
“How were these timetables developed?” Izzy asked. “Hell, why was the Universe created, and what existed before it? Are there other universes outside of it?”
Nolan laughed. “I have no idea. That’s what you would call a rabbit hole on your planet. I’m not going down that. We could spend years trying to sort that out, and not be an inch further towards understanding it than we are at this moment. There’s a whole raft of scientists working various multiverse theories, and I haven’t seen one yet that I can get behind.”
“Awe, Nolan, where’s your sense of adventure?” I quipped.
“I’d like to understand more about our own universe before I entertain the possibility that there are more that we can’t see.”
“But if we discover other universes, they might shed light on unexplained features of our own.”
Nolan laughed. “Yep, and that’s why the multiverse scientists keep getting their grants funded. Enough of this. How close are we to Cremonia?”
“We should be out of our jump soon,” Izzy said, looking at her PA. “Do you have the coordinates for our location yet?”
“Yes, but I should punch them in again,” Nolan said.
“You haven’t cracked the PA system yet?” I asked.
“No, I’m working on something else, Captain.”
I eyed him. “Oh really? What could be more important?”
“I used my intuition,” Nolan said.
“That again.”
“The last conversation should tell you why it’s important, sir. Hear me out.”
“Go ahead,” I said, trying to keep calm.
“I wondered how that Clan Battle Frigate showed up so quickly, so I checked to see how close Valla Cappos was to a natural wormhole.”
“What difference would that make? Their major ships have Samson drive.”
Nolan smiled. “Sometimes things are so obvious that everybody in the room just ignores them.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The corporation can track normal Samson drive travel, and you know damn well they’d be alerted if a Clan ship’s drive profile showed up in the Central Authority Zone.”
I felt dizzy, numerous possibilities flashing behind my eyes. “Son of a bitch.”
“That’s how I reacted when it struck me,” Nolan said.
“You’re about to tell me there was a natural wormhole right by Valla Cappos.”
“That is correct, sir.”
“Is there one near Cremonia?” Izzy asked, her eyes wide.
“No, I made sure there wasn’t before I selected it,” Nolan said, “but I have been looking at the detailed map for our zone. I know where they are now. We need to check this out in more detail.”
“How many are by planets below level six?” Tim asked.
“More than I remembered, including one right by Earth. Those aren’t the planets I’m worried about, though.”
“Why not?” Izzy asked.
“All planets level five and below have sensors everywhere, of many types. The chances of a Clan ship successfully sneaking onto one of those planets is near zero.”
I leaned back in my chair, looking at the ceiling for a moment, trying to clear my mind so I could think.
“You’re getting it, aren’t you Captain?” Izzy asked.
“Perhaps,” I said. “They could be building bases on planets where we wouldn’t notice their presence.”
“Precisely. We have some exposure. There are sixty-seven planets over level five that have wormhole access within seconds, and another twenty-thousand that have wormhole access within a day or less.”
“Hey, this might explain something about Valla Cappos,” Tim said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Neanderthals can hear Clan implants, especially those enhanced eyes they use.”
Nolan froze, looking over at Tim. “Very good. That’s why the Clan was fighting the Neanderthals. Remind me not to call you stupid anymore.”
Tim smiled. “Nolan, don’t…”
“Yeah, I know,” Nolan said, cutting him off with a smirk on his face.
“Those beasts would take on Clan fighters on purpose?” Izzy asked. “I didn’t think they were that smart.”
“In some ways they’re smarter than humans,” Nolan said. “Think of them as very intelligent guard dogs. They protect their pack, which could be other Neanderthals or humans. Don’t ask me how, but they know not to trust humans with mechanical implants.”
“It’s a shame they didn’t survive into the modern age on most planets, because they really are noble creatures in so many ways,” I said. “That’s why I wouldn’t ignore the cries of our friend from Valla Cappos.”
“Where are we going with this, Captain?” Izzy asked. “We’ll be orbiting Cremonia in three minutes.”
“We sit down there and try to sort this out,” I said. “We’ve got two things to do. First, we watch Sheppard One for signs that our allies have been discovered.”
“Yes, Captain,” Nolan said. “And I’ll plan a trip to a likely Clan base on a world between levels six and eleven.”
“Why only eleven?” Izzy asked.
“Their ships can’t take depth, remember? Too many nasty land creatures on Level Twelve worlds, and things get less stable on worlds above that from a geological standpoint.”
We all felt our hair rise with static as we came out of the jump.
“We’re in orbit, Captain,” Izzy said.
“Thank you. Let Nolan input the coordinates. Meanwhile I’m going to sick bay.”
{ 7 }
Ocean Base
I walked into sick bay. The Neanderthal was a few meters inside the door, on a bed with a cast on his arm. He was strapped down, sleeping. Deneuve was on one side of the bed, Dr. Clara Hazelton on the other.
“How is he?” I asked.
“We had to sedate him to set his arm,” Dr. Hazelton said. “He’ll be fine, but he’ll sleep for a while.”
“You try any of the dialects?”
“We’ve tried five of the thirty that Nolan sent,” Deneuve said. “He perked up on one, but I don’t think he understood it.”
“I was just telling Deneuve that we should try the Active Learning System. It’ll probably work for him, if we can get him to wear the apparatus.”
“That will work with non-humans?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Dr. Hazelton said. “Might be worth a try, but I don’t know how the drug will impact him.
Okay, here’s something you need to know about. Active learning is a system developed in 2356. It uses a combination of audio and visual stimuli plus a drug to induce concentration and open the mind to the training. The student wears a head set consisting of earphones, a microphone, and virtual reality goggles. The drug is introduced into the bloodstream via an IV, and the training program is run. This training method works very well for teaching languages in humans. It’s referred to as ALS on Earth. Get it? Good, back to the story.
“What if he can’t take the ALS drug cocktail?” Deneuve asked. “I don’t want him dying because of this.”
“I need to do some research first,” she said. “Don’t worry, if there’s sig
nificant risk, I won’t do it.”
I eyed Dr. Hazelton. “Do the research, then we talk it out.”
“I’ll get on that right away, Captain.” She left the room.
“You’ve gotten pretty attached to this guy already, haven’t you?” I asked.
Deneuve shrugged. “It’s not really that, I just don’t want her accidently killing him. He should be able to trust us.”
“We won’t do anything unless the risk is very low. How was he acting before he was sedated for the arm re-set?”
“Afraid, but he’s already come to trust me, so he hollered pretty good whenever I left the room. He tried to get up and follow me, too. Even with the broken arm.”
“They get attached fast.”
“Yes, Captain. I’ve been doing some research on them myself.”
“We think the Clan was after them, not us,” I said. “We don’t think they noticed us at all until they got close.”
Deneuve looked at me, nodding his head in agreement. “That’s what my gut told me too, but I don’t have any data to prove it. You guys found something?”
“Yeah, they can hear the implants that the Clan puts in all their people. For some reason it turns on the territorial protection impulse.”
“What, you mean those artificial eyes they use?”
I nodded. “We think so. Has he shown any aggressive tendencies here?”
“No, just fear,” Deneuve said. “I’d probably better get back to work.”
I shook my head no. “When is he waking up?”
“Should be another twenty minutes or so.”
“All right, then take a short break and get back here. I want you to stay with him as much as possible. We need to communicate with him. It’d be nice if we could use the ALS, but if not we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.”
“Why is that important?” Deneuve asked. “You think he knows something?”
“Possible. We’re working on a theory about the Clan, but I’m not ready to talk about it yet. Your job right now is to let him bond with you.”
Deneuve chuckled. “I think that’s already happened. That’s not the part that worries me.”
