Trade World Saga

by Ken Pence

  “Sir, the Ylee are contacting us,” said the Antares comm officer to Commodore Williams.

  “Commander Post,” Andrew said to his Dex. “Prepare your troops for boarding. I want a dozen of their officers as prisoners -- after they attack. Okay everyone. Brace for impact. Comm. Link us to the Ylee communications. I want to see video if they allow it. I want to see their reaction when their weapon doesn’t work.”

  ***

  The Ylee communications officer turned to the Ylee commander and raised a tentacle to indicate he had a strong signal.

  “Greetings. I will now discuss our final plans for you,” he said to Commodore Williams. “I think you should leave lamlee alone as you are lessor beings,” he said and turned to signal engagement.

  “Wait. Wait…before you fire your dimensional pulse. Realize that you are the one responsible for what comes next.”

  The Ylee commander hesitated a moment and then indicated to fire. He turned back to view the results.

  The humans on the viewscreen looked like they had hit a bad bump in the road. The image steadied but the communications link had not even been broken.

  Commodore Williams gave the word to the progeny. They sped out of the Antares and were soon on the hull of the Ylee ship.

  Andrew could see the Ylee agitation. One Ylee came in and reported something to the Ylee commander who looked in horror at the monitor and cut the link.

  The Ylee commander watched in horror as humans boarded his ship and started herding officers into their suits. They all spoke the ancient Ylee dialect and appeared not to breathe or wear suits. One of them – the leader approached him.

  “Get in your suit, Commander,” Lee Post said.

  “I will not. You can not do anything to force me,” said the Ylee.

  The human commander’s arms transformed into strong tentacles, “You can do it on your own or we will use our tentacles to stuff you into it.”

  “You are lamlee!”

  “Get on with it, Commander. I will not take no for an answer.”

  The Ylee Commander scrambled to get into his suit.

  The Alien Enclosure

  The Ylee commander was surprised to be taken to another Ylee ship of antique design. How was this possible? he thought. He was given Ylee food but he was separated from his crew. A Ylee entered his water filled cell. It had a device on its wrist like the humans. Maybe they used that like the Allung did with their slave collars.

  “What do you want?” asked the Ylee commander. “Why did you attack my ship?”

  The Ylee stopped moving…not hesitating…just …evaluating. “You just tried to kill thousands of beings because you think you are better than them. Tell me everything you know about lamlee. We know a lot but we would like to hear your story.”

  “You have already taken my suit and left me here with nothing. You can kill me and I will tell you nothing,” said the Ylee commander.

  “Very well,” said his Ylee captor. “If you ever decide to talk – just push this button,” his captor said and indicated a lit circle on the wall. His captor left and the light brightened in the room.

  ***

  “What is your plan?” Commander Lee Post asked Octi.

  “We brighten the light each time we enter. We pump out water gradually. We have set the time acceleration to fifteen times normal. We will also increase time between food servings. It has been a while since my last visit – a day for him. We have pumped out half the water. We will not let him talk to another. You have suggestions.”

  “Oh yes. I did something on Earth that was quite fun – yes fun. I pretended to be other species. Why don’t you turn into a species that gives fear to our species? Try as an Earth shark but with arms. I have images for you,” Lee said and extended a finger that entered the side of Octi’s head. “Here are the images and what I did.”

  Octi leaned back. “Interesting. I see possibilities.”

  ***

  The Ylee commander huddled in the little puddle of fouling water in the bottom of his cell. He had been here for days and a long line of terrifying creatures had brought him food. Some had talked and some not. He would have welcomed the contact. He could not avoid eating the food. The feeding and who brought it became a focal point of his existence. He plotted an escape and he had examined every aspect of his cell. One serving of food had come on a plastic serving plate. He had worked days bending the edge of the plate back and forth until it had finally broken off. He had rubbed the edge of the plastic strip until it had a point and one sharp edge. He had his weapon.

  The cell door opened and a terrifying creature with huge jaws and arms ending in webbed fingers with claws. It set the food on the floor of his damp cell. The Ylee commander knew that this was his chance. He sprang up and stabbed the creature in the eye and hoped he had reached its brain. The rough skinned, gray creature shuddered and dropped down with tremors rocking its body but getting less and less until they stopped. Its body was wedged in the door. The Ylee commander searched the body and found nothing but slid out into the bright, dry corridor. One route was blocked so the commander edged along the corridor. One human crewman was walking but stopped when it saw the tentacle creature in the corridor and it ran the other way. The commander, grasping its pitiful weapon, heard pounding steps and suddenly was confronted with humans with a large barbed, multi-pointed spear and hand lasers.

  The commander realized he could not make progress in this direction and moved into an adjacent doorway – a dark room. He shut the portal behind him with the last of his strength. The room brightened and the commander looked up to see two humans sitting there. The table was laden with Ylee delicacies. There was a tank of fresh but salty water off to the side. He pulled himself into the tank of water. It was wonderful. It was just the right temperature and salinity. He reveled in it for a bit before remembering how hungry he was and reached for the food on the nearby table. They said nothing as they let him stuff himself. He watched them the whole time when he wasn’t glancing at the food.

  Suddenly the creature he had stabbed in the eye came into the room. He was terrified. The creature still had one blind eye but as he watched the eye healed and the form transformed into a Ylee. It joined the humans and sat comfortably across the room. They waited and said nothing.

  “What do you want? Lamlee? You have lamlee. You have more lamlee than we do. Why do you want more?”

  “We have a lot of lamlee. We want your history. We are tracking down the beings that designed the lamlee.”

  “Tell us the history of the Ylee. At one time we thought the Ylee designed lamlee. We know better now.”

  The Ylee commander was silent for a long time. “You will not interfere with our collection on the nearby planet.”

  “You have my word. We will wish to view your retrieval methods. We will suggest improvements if you allow us. Realize that we have more lamlee than you do now. Your weapon was ineffective against us.”

  “Yes. It was,” he said.

  The Ylee commander paused a long time before speaking. “Millennia ago, my ancestors came upon a strange field on a rocky planet near our home planet. It was malfunctioning. There were rudimentary life forms on the planet. The huge enclosure happened to malfunction while we had my people in the system. It just quit. We didn’t know why. We began looking into what was under that field…worms. That is what we found. Soil creatures. They produced a type of waste produce that we call lamlee. One of my ancestors put his tentacle into the goo and wished he was doing something else. The goo turned into an object.”

  The commander continued. “We learned we could add that waste product to electronics and it improved enough so it gave us an edge over others. We harvested tons of the waste products. One day, one of those Ylee workers doing the harvesting wished he had help. His tentacle was touching the waste. A lamlee Ylee appeared out of the muck. We started making Ylee surrogates. We spread out all over the galaxy. We found a few other of the mysterious force fields but we could not get thro
ugh those. Soon we had to limit the devices that needed lamlee.”

  He continued. It was like somebody asks the time and then they tell you the history of Swiss clocks. He kept talking. “My ancestors soon ran out of new lamlee and had to start using the surrogates for parts. Many of them had been alive for years and did not want to be turned back into spare parts. The Ylee Empire fell into decline. We were almost beaten by the Allung 2,000 years ago. We only stopped them when we used the weapon we tried to use against you. Our scientists that had been studying the force fields developed the weapon. It has never failed us until when we tried it on you.”

  “About five hundred years ago we discovered the field near here. It cuts off for a short time every four years. Ylee that perform the harvest are at risk because the field seems to turn back on at random times. Some get trapped inside for years and soon die. It is also not producing as much product as before either. That field is due to cut off in a few more days.”

  Evidently he had run down on talking. “Did you determine the minerals and metals in the soil the worms use? What techniques have you tried to turn off the field? Have you identified the purpose of the fields?” Andrew asked.

  “Metals in the soil?” The Ylee commander asked.

  “Yes. Of course…if worms produce the lamlee they need raw materials. We have used cadmium chloride and sodium tellurite on Earth to produce quantum dot light sources for many years. Worms rid themselves of metals quickly and the molecules are changed. We can help you find those materials and then you can seed the ground again and increase your production. You must have tried to transplant some of those worms. What happened?”

  “We did. The soil grew better crops but never produced lamlee and the worms produce little waste.”

  “Ah. We can help you if you will let us. This area of the galaxy will not improve without lamlee – whoever supplies them. We just don’t want to fight a battle every time Ylee see us. We do not want to eradicate another species if we can help it.”

  “You tortured me. You held me captive.”

  “You tried to kidnap us on the surface and tried to kill thousands of us and destroy all our ships. We had done nothing to you. We are wonderful allies and terrible enemies. We are not a lessor race – we are another race. We do not tolerate slavery and will not tolerate being treated as a lessor race. Do you wish to work with us? We will take your word that you will not attack our ships. Give us some code to contact you when we meet. We do not want you to destroy our ships. We would not want to have to destroy all your worlds.”

  “You must return me to my crew here and then return us to our ship.”

  “Do you agree not to attack us? Can you keep other Ylee ships from attacking us?”

  The Ylee commander was quiet for a full minute. “Yes. Any ship where I have control will not attack you. I will try to persuade others not to attack you either.”

  “Go enough for me. Your suit will be brought to you immediately and we will return you to your ship. They got it working yesterday,” Andrew said.

  “What about returning my crew?” the Ylee commander asked.

  “They were returned when your ship was repaired. Their information confirmed what you said.”

  “We will meet you at the lamlee site. We call them enclosures,” Andrew said.

  ***

  From the Journal of Desiree Bardeen

  We arrived at the coordinates given them by Retra and there were five Ylee ships in orbit and two on the surface. It was very tense. This sun was not even in our database – no name. It was a G2 yellow dwarf like our own sun. The planet was rocky with an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere though with a lower oxygen content…more methane.

  One Ylee ship challenged us immediately. We communicated with it and were presented a video image of an Ylee with one tentacle that was bandaged and half the normal length. It must have been the one on the planet we had injured when we were rescued recently. We knew it wouldn’t be an easy task to placate old squiggly – he turned red just looking at us but paled a bit when the planetoid and forty plus other ships backed us up. He paled more when he got a communication from the Ylee commander saying their dimensional pulse weapon didn’t work on us. It’s one thing to feel superior – guess it's a shock to have your prejudice shoved down your…beak. Never did like calamari much.

  ***

  From the Journal of John Brattor

  Tod, John, Steve, Lee Post and Octi were at the alien enclosure site. The Ylee were uncomfortable having us there but we were there with a crowd of them. One Ylee with half a tentacle was talking a lot and he was red half the time. Guess he was an angry Ylee. We had the suit modifications and looked quite normal though we had our suits on with helmets extended. We kept our fields set to about a quarter-strength because higher settings tended to mess up our instruments.

  The enclosure field was as impenetrable as the one back at Upsilon Sagittarii. Suddenly the field disappeared and the Ylee jumped forward in a frenzy of motion. They started scooping up soil in with their tentacles and dumping soil into sacks. They also pulled up long snakes – maybe just large earthworms and threw them back down. They would inevitably kill quite a few in their fervor. John knew the constituents of lamlee so he took some soil samples and ran them through his small mass spectrograph. He knew cadmium chloride and sodium tellurite were important. Earth scientists in the UK had discovered that earthworms produced quantum dot semiconductors. It was not a stretch that these had been genetically programmed and the soil seeded with other minerals to produce lamlee. The soil samples will tell me what materials were needed.

  The quick analysis indeed showed cadmium chloride and sodium tellurite as well as many other materials. The list of materials started scrolling across the screen: silicon was the most prevalent, then silicon-germanium, boron-nitride, gallium-arsenide, uranium-dioxide, lanthanum calcium manganite, and some form of silver, tellurium, and bromine -- Ag10Te4Br3. Lord – what a combination. I got the proportions and sent the data to the Antares.

  Dr. Schroeder and Lee Post were examining the technology within the enclosure. It had taken a while to find the mechanism that projected the field. It was about two meters high and its power supply looked similar to the ones developed on Earth. The whole enclosure seemed divided into sections where materials were moved in stages from one stage to another. It looked like the Ylee were removing materials before they could be transitioned to the last stages. It was unclear how the material was moved from one stage to the next.

  They were examining the large device when the enclosure field cut on. Absolute darkness! …They were trapped inside – for four years! They would not be able to get out. The Ylee had said the field regularly cut off for a full revolution of the planet. This had been just a fraction of that. Since this was probably a time acceleration enclosure – they could be here MUCH longer than the four years that passed on the outside.

  Dr. Schroeder turned on a hand light and talked to them. “I will go talk with the Ylee. Lee. See if you get to the data in this thing. John. I want those proportions and see if you can find out what the next stages are for.”

  I asked him what was the use and he told me we weren’t done yet and walked off in the direction where we had last seen the Ylee.

  ***

  Tod saw the Ylee all sitting down and huddled together. He walked close and spoke in Trade. “Who knows the most about this place? Who knows about the different stages of the lamlee? I also want to talk with any of you that understand your dimensional pulse weapon.”

  “I understand the weapon human,” said an Ylee with one half tentacle. “It does not matter now. We are all dead…if not now…soon. We have no food. We cannot eat the muck these lamlee are grown in.”

  “Tell me what you know then. I would like to know before I die,” Tod said.

  “You shall die before me human,” said the Ylee who reached out with two good tentacles and wrapped them around Tod.

  Tod turned his suit visuals off and expanded his field.
The tentacles kept trying to find purchase as Tod floated a few inches off the ground. “Should I kill you now or will you tell me what I want to know. We build enclosures similar to this on my planet but I need details to turn them off or pass through them.”

  “What?” the Ylee said and dropped off and slithered back a bit keeping eyes focused on Tod. Tod’s suit again just displayed his ordinary clothes with no apparent helmet. “You were wearing that when you were captured…you wanted us to capture you. You knew we were planning an attack against you. You knew about this location. Is what you said true? You think you can get us out of this place?”

  “We have food and water for about a week as time passes in here,” Tod said.

  “As time passes in here?” queried the Ylee.

  “I will trade you information for information. This information is free. We are warriors – even our scientists but we would rather learn and trade. We like a battle every now and again but not a battle with as intelligent species as you. Can we not learn from each other?”

  “Time passing?” asked the Ylee.

  “Very well. Enclosures have different time differential between the inside and outside. You cannot pass through unless you can synchronize another field.”

  “Stages of lamlee. We harvest the lamlee at this stage because they take permanent forms later when there is sufficient quantity.”

  “Interesting. Thank you. Please remember we are wonderful allies and terrible enemies. The power supply for this enclosure – we call them enclosures and have built many similar to this on my home planet but this is a different.”

  “You build enclosures?”

  “Some much larger and there is a time differential between the inside and outside. Our standard ratio is for every thirty time units that pass here – only one passes outside,” Tod said.