Trade World Saga

by Ken Pence

  Be cautious. They have now all their ships with the molecular disruptor and intense light beams that cut metal. Though primitive otherwise, they are most creative with weapons. I have secreted plans for these death beams. They foolishly lied -- saying they were so commonplace that they weren't secret. I see through their lies. They are quite skilled in making small electronic devices. They even have machines. They call them computers, and they do their calculations for them. The making of these devices is very menial or we, Tros would have done it ourselves. This report is even being made on one of these computers. I about have them figured out as I can now work this one easily.

  I know what you're thinking, colleagues. These computers are like our calculators but more. They are much faster and can do more than our devices. Some machines even talk to you! That's right. I may have to stay with these beings longer than I anticipated. Though they are not as racially advanced as we Tros, they do have certain native skills you would appreciate. Since I know how to use these computers, it is only a matter of time until I know how to build one. They are very evasive when you ask how computers work. They either say they don't know or some say it is too complicated. Others even started drawing diagrams and writing what they said were equations to explain their function. They try to explain it all using ones or zeros and bits like that would explain how a machine could talk. How naive do they think we are? They try to conceal their art with mysticism. Imagine a Tros who isn't capable of understanding anything made by another race.

  They say computers use magnetic bubbles, quantum tunneling and some use dirty silicon or diamond. Indeed. Bubbles. They also foolishly let me have a secret password and access to a worldwide network of these computers. I can now search for information over the entire planet...though some of the references are obscure. Many beings on the Net want to be friends with me but the authorities screen my fans or some such nonsense. I am not sure what that means but they say it repeatedly. I am sure to be a powerful influence here because I have had hundreds of 'get rich quick' mailings that were directed at me, personally. The humans try to dissuade me but I obtained a small credit rating here and have contacted those who will make me rich and powerful. I will contact you soon as my promised passage is arranged.

  SETTING UP THE MOON BASE

  Andrew was thinking about the enormous changes that had occurred over the last ten years that had passed – relatively - since the Wildcat had come back to Earth.

  Well, I guess I ought to say eleven months since that is how long it had been in standard time, not in relative time. It had taken almost three months to build a big enough field generator to cover the new manufacturing and research facility in the desert west of Tucson. The compound was a big area the size of two large football stadiums. We had to lower the intensity of the fields daily to refresh the air until Rett figured out a way to make a graduated step-down portal that worked like locks in a canal. Just give him some grape juice or peaches and he would crank out the work. He had already turned down the passage to his home planet twice but I think he is wavering a bit and will relent and go soon.

  We have built several prototype ships for exploration and defense. Number six looks like the best candidate with its jet black, oblong cigar shape. It makes the Wildcat look like a Model A versus a modern sports car. The little power supplies had paid for most of this development. The world's industry was gobbling up the power units but the impact on infrastructure was still to be fully felt. Lucky they're still a little hard to come by but imagine the impact. Now for the cost of two months electrical bill you can buy a device to power your house. It would provide all the electricity to heat, cool and operate all the appliances and electrical devices you’d ever need. You could remove the generator of a plug in hybrid or use it locally with your home generator. The strained, national electrical grid was still in use but was no longer strained. The economics of the switch caught everyone’s imagination as it was so obvious but the impact of most people changing to locally generated power had not hit home yet. Early adopters paid premiums for the first power plants off the assembly line and people could not change from natural gas or home heating oil fast enough. The petro chemical stocks plummeted. So did vehicle production. And just wait ‘til our little personal body field with pressor moves from development to commercial sales if we decide to let it out.

  We’re going to hang on to that little secret for a while longer. The world's industry was gobbling up the power units but the personal flying belts would create a storm. Lucky they're hard to come by even for the World Government operatives but imagine the impact when they are plentiful. Give someone a device that costs little to operate and will carry anything that will fit into its field at hundreds or thousands of meters per hour in or out of an atmosphere. Imagine the deaths - the laws that can't be enforced – the borders that will mean nothing. You name it -- Earth is in for drastic changes. Imagine the drastic ecology shifts from unregulated borders.

  Industry didn’t like the changes because it threw uncertainty into the path of people who had been in power, in control, all their living memories. The auto industry could change from internal combustion engines to all electrical drives if they kept making them after the flying belts came out. Corporations would have to change their pricing structure. An average McDonalds® uses 6,000 kilowatts a month. When they could buy a generator that would pay for itself in two months – they were going to do it – it was a given.

  Third world populations who had never had reliable power to begin with were more or less impacted. They could now get power but didn’t have the devices, vehicles, or homes that could use the power – yet. They surely would get them. All advances in standards of living could be defined by the amount or “power” available to the individual whether it was human power with slaves or workers, or animals like horses or oxen. Later wood, water, coal and petroleum products defined power availability though clean nuclear, solar, geothermal, wave power, and wind power began to play a small part. You name it -- Earth is in for drastic changes when power distribution changed from mass distribution to dispersed, individual sources…if those individual units actually were as inexpensive and reliable as they appeared to be.

  At least I take two hours a day meeting people outside the field. I enjoy being able to throw something in the trash without it being scrutinized. When you're in the field -- you conserve everything so something else does have to be imported and the waste removed. The molecular disrupters, we finally developed, remove the noxious stuff but water needs to be recycled and we have to use the free hydrogen that's released. We are learning to cope and have made tremendous strides with interstellar craft. Deciphering all those volumes from the Exploration Service is tedious because there is so much that is conjecture. Those seven alien manuals have certainly given us a fit trying to get our people and infrastructure up to speed with the details they must have conveniently took for granted…they left so much out!

  We have struggled with the detailed descriptions but the manuals didn’t say how to do some of what was required and we were running out of time. Those beings had said “an Earth year” before they would allow visitors but they hadn't made it anywhere close to that. It had only been five months before a ship belonging to the same race as the E.S. ship's commander had come prowling around the solar system. We had the first couple of prototype ships completed by then and flashed alongside long enough to give them a warning message and direct them out of the system until we can complete the moon base in another seven months. The prototypes were used to ferry supplies to the moon base and it was looking to be almost on schedule.

  Ullumff TRADER

  Rett’s Journal

  These humans are determined to trade for more language machines and other devices on my home planet in the near future. I find myself unsettled about returning there just yet. I think I can convince them to take me to another system where the feeding is wonderful and the gravity is normal. I convinced them to make their marvelous calculators using E
.S. standard symbology for their trade. Then they can get those training machines and a long list of language and culture and history cylinders they want. They 'swapped' several with the treaty-negotiation ship personnel for 'high Trade' language cylinders from planets near the Core. Only the Central Worlds use dialects in those languages and only at the large, central trade hubs of the galaxy. I amuse myself with this subterfuge, but they were very easy to get from the treaty ship crewmembers since only high nobles use 'high standard dialects' in Trade. These humans are amusing... imagine... these humans claim that those calculators they traded were powered only by visible light -- absurd. They should not anger beings they trade with using calculators that will run out of power in a few days so I plan to trade for things that are not very valuable if I help them...'High Trade' cylinders...what a jokester I have become...no one uses 'High Trade' out here in this deserted end of the galaxy. The ES troopers they traded with acted like the 'humans' were the one getting fleeced. I, Rett, also think the humans acted foolishly to trade valuable calculators for so little, but what can I do. I'm only one Tros and I can't show them how to do everything. They will have to make some mistakes on their own before they'll learn.

  ***

  The first, 'official' visitor to the solar system was also from the E.S. commander's home planet. In fact, the captain was kin to that commander. Captain UmBllatt had been thoroughly briefed by his distant cousin's son. It was all to keep the profits in the family. UmBllatt's brother, UmUff, had jumped the gun several months ago but had been turned away by strange ships by some descendants of the Tros. They had been immensely powerful ships and they used a highly accented Tros basic language to warn off the trade ship. That first, premature trip had not been sanctioned. The Exploration Service had arranged this voyage as an official trade mission. The E.S. had been briefed prior to this endeavor and rumors were floating about this part of the spiral arm. There was word about marvelous devices that could perform calculations yet were so small they were portable. There was proof of transmitters and receivers for color images and sound of incredible quality without the use of tubes! There weren't even any of the new microtubes in the samples his cousin's son had described.

  I will know pretty soon if this is a fool's errand. I have invested heavily in this trip and my kin had better not have been exaggerating about the technological prowess of this race's electrical devices. Better prepare the crew to expect little profit rather than have them mutiny if this turns out to be mere exaggeration.

  "Captain to all crewmembers. We are approaching this new system at the appointed time," actually, a bit early of a year’s orbit but why let these natives be totally prepared, he thought. "We will do our best to turn a profit even out here in this spiral arm but do not expect instant riches this far from the normal trade routes. They will surely have something we can turn a profit on but don't let your expectations exceed your intellect. We will enter their system momentarily to scan what may be waiting. I do not like undue surprises."

  ***

  God. Look how big that sucker is and the bastards are a month early. Colonel Kyger said that there would be more like the first ship, thought the technician, but he didn't mention how big it would be. He, as Planetary Defense Force officer, had been drilled for months in the proper notification procedure and it wasn't long before Colonel Kyger was rousted out of bed.

  "What is it?" he said sleepily.

  "They're here sir," answered the orderly. The orderly continued when he saw the Colonel's expression, "One large ship just inside the orbit of Neptune sir."

  "Thanks. I'll be right up. I want both squadrons of the new ships set up in Plan Delta according to the ship's headings." He continued with an afterthought before the orderly had turned to leave, "What's it doing now?"

  "Seems to be nearly motionless...the tech on duty reported, he thought, it might be so they could scan a while... to see what they were getting into."

  Brad nodded and the orderly hastened out of the room.

  Plan Delta called for the first two squadrons to set up at various places and begin a play of normality. Two ships had already been paired and stood off Mars for two weeks per shift. One ship would be replaced every week so no one got crazed waiting in some small environment. The rest of the ships were clones of the sixth prototype, cigar shaped ship that had proved the least expensive to produce, relatively, was sturdy and easily manufactured and assembled with, mostly, standard parts. The relative time fields had literally given Earth a few 'years' to prepare, even with an early arrival. Rett had warned them not to take a 'year' too seriously since 'years' were standard only through the E.S. standard years listed in the manuals they had been given.

  Those manuals had been a wealth of information and with the learning tools, obtained after brief battle and first negotiation with the Exploration Service ship. Over 300 of Andrew's people were fluent in six of the languages of the ES and the network of races it served. Classes had been conducted for 'years' in the relative time fields to perfect the knowledge of intricate Exploration Service rules and procedures from the manuals. Many of Andrew's people were proficient in the docking facility on the moon that had redesigned to incorporate the information from the Standard Docking Facilities and the Standard Artificial Habitats for Signatories manuals. Every detail had been milked and Rett had been 'pumped' for clarification, which he had begrudgingly given when disrupted from his work.

  The Standard Docking Facilities and Navigation Aids had been the easiest to implement because they could use some of the old NASA, Russian Military (V.K.S.) and Chinese files/plans from the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center (BACCC). The moon station, the short-lived centerpiece of worldwide cooperation had been abandoned since the onset of Viral B. The joint project, mainly funded by China and the US, had been quickly dumped when it could no longer be used to focus the attention of the masses.

  The “international” moon station had been placed under a relative time field also to complete the work and only with rapid transit of materials via the new ships could anything have been accomplished.

  There were so many details in the donated manuals that it was doubtful until 'years' had passed that anywhere near the minimum level of compliance could be achieved. The “damn manuals” as they became known would show all these different habitats for strange aliens. They gave all the details of light intensity, wavelength, diurnal/nocturnal periods, humidity, temperature, wind, composition of atmosphere, gravity, acceptable food, sleeping accommodations, smell (yeah smell – how do you quantify smell), acceptable sounds, and amenities. The “damn” lists were near endless.

  Some creatures needed a private, quiet, small enclosure to contemplate their bowels and others needed the wide-open spaces, with bushes, near which to defecate. The Standard Artificial Habitats for Signatories was the worst. Teams of “experts” guessed what a “vision of the far tundra” meant when used in conjunction with bathroom facilities. Other creatures needed scratching posts for their nails or oils to moisturize their fur. Let’s not even mention adjustable gravity throughout the lunar base or the extremes that needed a methane or chlorine atmosphere. They did figure a good way to adjust the gravity adapted from the ships but some things, like the weird atmosphere stuff, were just going to have to wait.

  The World Government had pumped supplies into the relative time fields and spurts of innovations, psychology and controversy would fly outward. The World Government was near to the end of its patience and money and the station was near to completion when the new ship was spotted.

  Captain UmBllatt ordered his navigator and communications officers to report the findings from the scan after they had stopped. He wanted to be prepared for anything. "Your report!"

  "Sir," the communications officer shifted from one pad to another looking very uncomfortable. "Verbally? Sir?" He looked around.

  "Of course...we are due to profit from this venture together," UmBllatt said causing the shifting around the room to spread to other member
s of the crew who knew the captain's greed.

  The communications officer looked skyward in a very earthlike expression and said, "There seems to have been an error in the report you received."

  "In what way!" bellowed the captain knowing the comm officer was referring to the report, his kin and the likelihood for profit in this venture.

  "There is a major Central Worlds station here. There are sixteen field signatures visible and we are being hailed as to our intentions as per Central World's regulations. Sir...according to regulations...if I can remember them from my internship...these ships could declare us hostile unless we acknowledge their hails. They are all speaking very understandable 'High Trade'. It's been forever since I studied that stuff and I haven't docked at a Central World facility since I was an apprentice."

  "Impossible! Sixteen!" the captain shouted and rushed over and shoved the comm officer away from his console. "We'll see about this...this..." his voice trailed off as he scanned the console image.

  "Answer their hails. Answer their hails," UmBllatt said and turned back to his command prop with a perplexed expression. "How could this be? How could my cousin's son have been so mistaken? Is this a setup?" he murmured to himself but began to rally. There are profits to be made no matter the port...no matter the regulations, he thought and his eyes focused and his attention sharpened. "Look alive. Look alive. We don't want them to think we've never seen a port before."