The Well of Time

by Robert I. Katz

  “What was that maneuver supposed to accomplish?” Lieutenaant JG Forrester, Michael noted, had obviously been spoken to. There were no more snide glances, disdainful sniffs or long-suffering eye-rolls. He was still obstinate, but obstinacy was within the bounds of acceptable behavior. Michael had no doubts that he was faking it, but faking it was just fine, so long as he could fake it for at least thirty years, or however long it took to reach retirement age.

  This time, however, Henrik Anson frowned and Commander Dumas looked away, his face troubled.

  “We deliberately expressed aggressive intentions toward Akadius,” Michael said. “We baited them. I wanted to see what they could do. I am not surprised that they had a fleet waiting for us, but the capabilities of that fleet were beyond anything we could have suspected. Everything we’ve seen before now and everything we were told regarding Akadius’ technology was wrong.

  “Obviously, we’re not in a position to cause Akadius serious damage, not now. Those ships are new. If they had them for very long, the other Corporate States would know it. Probably, the other Corporate States would have long since been conquered by Akadius.”

  “We only saw three,” Commander Dumas said.

  “Three large ships, and a fleet of smaller ships that resemble First Empire destroyers. I think we can assume that there are others, or there will be shortly. I want to know where those ships came from,” Michael said. “Did they build them themselves? If so, where did they get the technology? Probably, they came from elsewhere. The Akadius Corporation has suddenly turned into a significant threat, not only to the other Corporate States, but to the Second Empire. It is imperative that we learn the extent of what they have and what they can do.”

  Michael sighed. “We tried Akadius, and we bounced. Their number two world is Geneva. We’ll try there next.”

  Forrester shrugged. Ensign LeClair, sitting next to him, frowned, but kept her mouth shut. Good to see that Ensign LeClair had a sense of self-preservation. Michael had very little patience left for Ensign LeClair.

  Gehenna stayed far away from the planet and kept her shields up. The Lady Luck, commanded by Lieutenant Jeffrey Billings and crewed by twenty marines plus another twenty naval enlisted men and women, approached Geneva. They came in unshielded, just another merchant ship among all the rest. They were contacted by the customs authorities, identified themselves as shareholders of the Jensen Corporation with goods to sell, and assigned a landing slip at the main port.

  Hundreds of other ships surrounded them, very few of any identifiable design. Under cover of night, they released over a thousand small drones, which spread out over the city. The next day, Jeffrey Billings, under his assumed identity of Captain Joseph Bell, a mid-level Jensen shareholder, met with his Akadius counterparts.

  A strange bunch, Billings thought. Their appearance was wildly different, from the human norm and from each other. Skin dyed every color, horns on foreheads, enlarged, pointed ears, red, cat-slit eyes, wings, tails, fur, bulging with muscle or thinner than sticks. Each of them seemed to strive to set themselves as much as possible apart from the others.

  The place was a constant shock to the senses. Nevertheless, Jeffrey Billings and his crew, experienced merchants and shareholders of Jensen, took it all in with apparent aplomb, even boredom.

  His principal contact was a woman named Hannah Chun. She had green skin, pink hair and bat-like wings rising from her back. Must have been tough to get clothes, Billings thought.

  “Pleasure doing business with you,” Hannah Chun said, and held out a clawed hand for Jeffrey Billings to shake.

  “Likewise.”

  They were selling entangled communicators, with an effective range larger than the first moon’s orbit, a highly regarded Jensen product. Hannah Chun was a tough but reasonable negotiator. The price they agreed upon was fair.

  Another day, another credit in the till, Jeffrey Billings thought. He glanced at his interface. So far, a routine assignment. Billings had enough experience to appreciate routine assignments. Assignments that were not routine were much more likely to get you killed.

  The next day, Lady Luck rose on her AG, drifted upward and headed outward, ostensibly back to Jensen. They left the drones behind.

  Chapter 13

  “I don’t understand him,” Gloriosa said. She wrinkled her tiny, perfect nose and sipped her drink, a mug full of hot chocolat flavored with nutmeg and bourbon whiskey.

  “What’s not to understand?” Rosanna said.

  They were sitting at the same table on the sidewalk outside the same café. It was getting to be a habit, but one that Frankie quite enjoyed. The avenue looked like a prosperous street in ancient Paris, with low, colorful buildings, planters with flowers beneath shuttered windows and pigeons flying overhead. The designers, she thought, had done an excellent job.

  “He didn’t want to fuck,” Gloriosa said.

  “Oh,” Rosanna said.

  Frankie blinked. “Is he gay?”

  “No. I could tell if he was gay.”

  Frankie accepted this without question. Most women, in her experience, could tell. “Sometimes, they don’t,” Frankie said. “Want to fuck, that is.”

  “No?” Gloriosa sounded doubtful.

  “So, what happened, exactly?” Rosanna asked.

  Jeffrey Billings had sent Gloriosa an invitation to accompany him on a virtual exploration of Mars, followed by dinner. Gloriosa, having never before received such an invitation, had been bewildered.

  “It’s called a ‘date,’” Frankie said. “It’s something people do when they want to get to know somebody, maybe explore a relationship.”

  Gloriosa, the majority of whose previous relationships had lacked emotional nuance, being more in the nature of master to slave, seemed uncertain, but at Frankie’s urging, had accepted.

  “We toured the sights on Mars. Did you know Mars was the first settled planet after Earth?”

  “I did know that,” Frankie said. “I read it somewhere.”

  “Then we had dinner.” Gloriosa fell silent.

  Frankie and Rosanna glanced at each other. “Then what?” Rosanna said.

  Gloriosa frowned. “We talked.”

  Frankie and Rosanna exchanged another glance. “Isn’t that good?” Rosanna said.

  “I don’t know,” Gloriosa said. “What is the purpose of all the talking? What’s it supposed to achieve?”

  Frankie sighed. “The purpose is to see if you share any common interests, if you find each other to be compatible, to see if you like each other.”

  “Was he boring?” Rosanna asked. “Did he seem like a jerk?”

  “I wasn’t bored. I was bewildered. The whole thing seemed strange. He talked about himself for a while, then he asked about me. After that, he didn’t have much to say. He seemed surprised by my answers. Then he seemed thoughtful.”

  Rosanna winced.

  “Yeah,” Frankie said. “I could see how that might happen.”

  “Explain,” Gloriosa demanded.

  “You’re having difficulty relating to each other because you lack a shared background. You don’t have the same reference points. He was expecting you to talk about your happy family, Mom, Dad, big sister, little brother, growing up in a big city or maybe a small town; what your parents do to earn a living. How they always annoyed you with their stupid demands but now that you’re all grown up you realize that they love you and only wanted the best for you. Going to school. Your favorite subjects, like art or music or quantum theory. Your hobbies, like riding horses, building model star ships, playing the violin or knitting ugly pieces of clothing that nobody wears. Your hopes for the future. Your plans. The usual stuff.”

  Gloriosa wrinkled her nose. “This is usual stuff?”

  “Pretty much,” Rosanna said.

  “What is knitting? I’ve never heard of knitting.”

  “Never mind,” Frankie said. “It was only an example.”

  “I see,” Gloriosa frowned into her mug, whic
h by now was nearly empty. “No wonder he didn’t want to fuck.”

  “He probably did want to fuck,” Frankie said, “but he felt uncertain about the situation.”

  Gloriosa looked at her.

  “You weren’t what he was expecting. He needed time to re-evaluate.”

  “Or maybe he just didn’t like me.”

  “That’s possible,” Rosanna said.

  “Did he mention doing it again?” Frankie asked.

  Gloriosa sighed. “He said he would be away for a few days on a mission. He said he would call me when he got back.”

  “Could be bullshit,” Rosanna said.

  “How did the evening end?” Frankie asked.

  “He walked me back to my room.”

  “Did he kiss you?”

  “I think he was thinking about it.” Gloriosa shrugged. “He gave me this crooked little smile. Then he just left.”

  “I like the smile,” Rosanna said.

  “Yes,” Frankie said. “The smile is good.”

  “Do you want to see him again?” Rosanna said.

  “I suppose.”

  “I don’t detect a lot of enthusiasm,” Frankie said.

  Gloriosa drained her mug, set it carefully back on the table. “Pity both your men are taken,” she said. “I like them and they’re both hunks, even Curly in that big, cuddly bear sort of way.”

  Rosanna looked startled, then she frowned. Frankie grinned. “It’s possible I could talk Michael into a threesome, but I doubt it. His feelings toward you are more fatherly than erotic. Also, he’s never had a threesome.”

  Rosanna seemed to choke on her drink. Her face turned mildly red.

  “Really?” Gloriosa said. “Not even one?”

  Frankie shrugged. “Different backgrounds. Different cultures.”

  “Probably not worth trying,” Gloriosa said. “I offered to fuck him before you came along and he said no. I thought he was being unreasonable but I suppose the fatherly thing explains it.”

  “He’s sort of a prude, that way,” Frankie said.

  Gloriosa sighed. “Maybe next time, Jeffrey will want to fuck.”

  Frankie grinned. “Let’s hope.”

  Gloriosa shrugged and looked morosely into her empty mug. “I think I’ll have another.”

  “Good idea,” Frankie said, with a wink at Rosanna. “We’ll join you.”

  “It’s a big Universe,” Michael said.

  “Really?” Henrik Anson replied.

  Michael shrugged. He and Anson were sitting in a small lounge together, reviewing the latest data from the drones and from Gehenna’s own sensors. Jeffrey Billings and Lady Luck had returned to Gehenna a few hours before.

  It was indeed a big Universe. After a week, they had witnessed over two hundred ships arriving and another two hundred or so leaving the Geneva system. None of these ships resembled the big ones that had attacked them at Akadius. The ship’s brain had calculated vectors for them. Nineteen had headed toward Second Empire worlds. The rest had gone on to systems, habitats or worlds of which Gehenna’s databanks had no information.

  The Geneva databanks, however, did have information on these and many other systems.

  “Christ,” Michael muttered.

  Anson solemnly nodded.

  There were small, low tech worlds, mini-empires of thirty or more planets, ghost worlds, water worlds, gas-giants whose inhabitants spent their lives floating on seas of methane or liquid nitrogen, high-tech confederations whose products were at least the equal of the Second Empire, frozen worlds whose citizens communicated by electromagnetic transmission and who appeared to humanity more like moveable rocks than anything organic. At least half of these worlds, empires and what-have-you contained intelligent beings who were either recognizably human or descended from humans. Nearly eight thousand years had seen humanity scatter far more widely than the Second Empire had ever dreamed.

  The Akadius Corporation traded with them all.

  All except for three, all individual worlds. Of these three, there was no data whatsoever.

  “I’m tired of the wild goose chase,” Michael said.

  “We’re discovering new worlds,” Anson said, “seeking out new civilizations. Boldly going where no man has gone before. I wouldn’t call this wasting our time. It’s all useful information.”

  “It’s useful, but it’s not what we set out to do.”

  Anson shrugged. “We don’t know that. In fact, it might be exactly what we set out to do.”

  Anson was correct, of course. Michael had always had an ability to focus on a problem or a goal, to pursue an objective without wavering. He knew this about himself. He also knew that an obsessive fixation had led many commanders into disregarding relevant information. It was easy to ignore what seemed not to matter. Michael had not made such a mistake in many, many years.

  Still, the knowledge that they seemed to be getting no closer to their principal goal, gnawed at him.

  “Those ships change the equation,” Michael said. “Nations and worlds with advanced weaponry generally prefer not to sell it to people who may, sooner or later, represent a threat to themselves. Where did they get those ships?”

  The Geneva database contained no information on very large, technologically advanced ships.

  “They can’t have a lot of them. There aren’t any around Geneva.”

  “That’s not necessarily true. We know that they have screening technology, and the ability to penetrate it, which we don’t have. There could be a hundred ships sneaking up on us right now.

  “No.” Michael shook his head. “There are three systems about which nothing appears in the databanks.” He took a deep breath. Calm down, he told himself. “We’ve spent enough time here. Let’s look at those three systems.”

  Anson grinned. “So much for destroying the Akadius Corporation.”

  Michael shrugged. “Akadius will still be here. We can destroy Akadius some other time.”

  “Jensen will not be impressed with us.”

  “What Jensen doesn’t know, won’t hurt us. Let them wonder where we’ve gone and what we might be doing, and once they know about Akadius’ new toys, they might reconsider their refusal to ally themselves with the Second Empire.”

  Anson frowned. “Or maybe they’ll decide to ally with Akadius. After all, if you can’t beat them, you might as well join them.”

  Chapter 14

  All three systems contained both Akadius habitats in orbit and worlds wiped clean of human life. Duval, it appeared, was only the latest. These three all showed signs of prior habitation: roads, monuments, isolated buildings scattered across the landscape or dotting the shore. The fires had long since ceased burning but strips of blackened forest still scarred the earth. On one world, drones were busy erecting a new city on a large island near the largest continent.

  Akadius, it seemed, had been doing this for a very long time.

  One of the three worlds had five ships in orbit that resembled First Empire destroyers. None of the three worlds, they were all relieved to see, had any of the large ones.

  They stayed for two days in each system and went on, following the trails outward that the merchants ships leaving Geneva had taken.

  They found one system where modified humans with gills and webbed feet lived cold, comfortable lives in underwater habitats. A small island contained manufacturing facilities. Another held a port where a ship or two per year came to trade. The web was rudimentary but contained enough information to let them know that this was a sleepy, peaceful little world with no history of excessive violence and no ambitions beyond its own borders.

  They found another with a floating ring of debris orbiting a red-giant sun, inhabited by a few million beings with bat like wings and leathery skin, whose ancestors might once have been human, who survived by sucking water and organics from the millions of asteroids floating through their system.

  They found a sentient planetoid circling an ice-giant world that might once have been a habita
t for creatures that might once have been human, riddled with abandoned corridors and corroded machinery. Its large, cybernetic mind seemed content to float in space, pondering the mysteries of the Universe. It acknowledged their presence but otherwise ignored them.

  System after system, most peaceful, a few that curtly demanded they go away, one that attacked Gehenna without warning as soon as they entered orbit around their principal world.

  “What lunatics,” Captain Thorenson remarked.

  Michael made no reply. They were an alien race, apparently mammalian, whose ships were made of aluminum, operated by primitive rockets and contained no shielding capability whatsoever. Nevertheless, they had settled three planets in their own system and spread throughout the asteroid belt. Their primitive missiles blinked out of existence against Gehenna’s shields.

  “Perhaps they’ve had prior experience with unfriendly visitors,” Henrik Anson suggested.

  “Perhaps it’s none of our business,” Michael said. “Let’s go on.”

  Captain Thorenson glanced at Henrik Anson, whose face remained impassive. She shrugged and gave the order.

  Richard Norlin spent most of his time these days plugged into his boards. He was aware, however, that all work and no play made Richard a dull boy, not to mention a flabby one. Richard came from a martial society, was skilled with weapons of all sorts and had been raised to regard his body as a valuable tool. Not that he had unthinkingly followed the dictates of his society, which he had in general despised, but even as a drunken young man, Richard had been wise enough to heed his elders’ advice about staying in shape and being able to defend himself. Being a duke’s son had not saved him from the usual childhood abuse, had in fact made him even more of a target, and his father had done nothing to put a stop to the depredations of Richard’s pre-adolescent fellows, thinking a few harsh lessons would toughen him up. They had. Richard had learned early to give as good as he got.

  Still, now that the war with the Imperium was over, and with it his own obligation to make himself useful, he tended to exist primarily in his own head.