Heat and Light Read online

  I mused, “That's the outer arm of the spiral. The Beta Quadrant is almost on the other side of the galaxy from us. It would take a ship with standard interstellar jump drives, seven months to reach that area, with no pit stops.” I was testing my Zees. I had a suspicion.

  “Yes, sir. However, as you know, we can be there in less than a micro second.”

  “Ranger, how is it that you have no problem understanding my slang and idioms, as well as cultural and historical references?”

  “Sir, we have studied your culture since your forebearers discovered how to do quantum manipulation on a large-scale. We have simply been waiting for the most opportune time to engage your species.”

  “So, there are no other advanced species around that could help you?”

  “Currently, none whatsoever. The most important piece of technology we needed to be able to manufacture a ship with our jump-drive was only made available when you found the Surron ship. We had lost that information during a transformative event in our history, or we would have transferred that knowledge to another race.”

  “Many potential species either died out when natural selection did not favor them or they killed themselves off, or were exterminated by others. We never interfered with species development. It’s our policy.”

  “Humans were close to the technical level we needed, but you lacked several key scientific knowledge blocks, that is until you found the Surron ship. Using the Surron data extracted by your scientists, we had the information we needed.”

  “So, it’s not your policy to interfere? Policy, huh? So, just who makes your policies?”

  “I suppose that the best answer is that we all do. Existence in our dimensions is not comparable to what it is in yours. I suppose, for a broad-brush example, you would see our individuality as constantly merging, dividing, branching off, and intertwining. Once, and only once in our existence, did we completely merge as a distinct single individual. But individuality to us is not the same as it is to you.”

  “So, right now, we’re the only game in town?”

  “In this galaxy, yes.”

  “And in other galaxies?”

  “Spread across the universe, there are multi-millions of higher levels intelligent life, both organic and inorganic. From a pure technology standpoint, well over half of those are ahead of you.”

  “So why pick us?”

  “As they say, luck of the draw. A Surron vessel was discovered here. Your civilization had the means to not only extract and quantify the necessary data for us, but also a high enough manufacturing and technical capacity we could use to support us on this side. It was the shortest time distance between the start and completion of our mission”

  “How long do you think it will take to find the rift?”

  “Probably no longer than three months.”

  “In that case, we're going to make a side trip. I need to sign on at least one other human crew member I can trust. Hopefully, I can get one or two of my old crew. And since I seem to talk with you the most, put Traveler in a behind-the-scenes mode.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain”

  And there it was. I finally had the answer to my 'friendly' aliens’ question.

  7 Fair Winds

  We arrived back at Ambigon Station after entering the system beyond their heliosphere. I didn't want to just pop up on someone’s scanner. I had Ranger gradually fade out the ship's cloak as we traveled inward squawking our Q-signature.

  Docking was uneventful. I had paid for an enclosed berth. Those were closer to the civilian areas and further from the military sections. Military personnel have a tendency to window shop other ships when they were in port. I wanted to avoid ship knowledgeable lookie-loos.

  After arranging for port services and supplies to support an extended voyage with a larger crew, I left the ship in Ranger's hands. I gave him standing orders to double scan and stow everything I'd ordered when it arrived. No one was to be permitted aboard in my absence. I told him to remain mute and to route all inquiries to my Q-Com. The Anders were to remain out of sight.

  My first mission was to contact Sandy and invite her up to the station to have dinner at a nice bar and grill I'd found on my previous visit. I really wanted and needed her to accept the Engineer Officer position. I didn't fully trust the bots to look after the ship without human oversight.

  When Sandy answered my communication, I found that she was already aboard the station. We set a meet-up time for an hour after our call.

  I arrived early. Slipping the hostess a nice bribe, she showed me to a secluded booth in the back, away from the kitchen and restroom traffic areas. I ordered a brew from my home planet, sat back, and tried to relax. I was mulling over how I was going to broach the subject of my situation and the alien extra-dimensional crew, not to mention the fascinating systems she would find on the ship.

  I looked up and saw Sandy being escorted to my booth. She looked much better than she had during our call a few weeks ago.

  She slid into the booth opposite me. “Guess you don't go by Hornblower on this station. The hostess didn't have a clue who I was looking for until I remembered your real last name. You clean up pretty nice for a spacer boy, by the way,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows up and down at me with a grin.

  “Ditto to you, too Sandy. Looks like billions of credits agrees with you.”

  Sandy's grin dropped. “I came up to the station knowing you'd be back. Just didn't think it would be so soon. After three months planet-side, I needed to be closer to the cold dark and away from the hoard of scammers and scrapers down there. Money, like crap, draws flies.”

  I pointed to the freshly scraped up knuckles on her right hand.

  “Yeah, well, some junior jerk-off needed corrective facial surgery, and he was in a hurry. So, I obliged.” She paused, and then added, “Been looking at some ships myself. Just a way to get into some familiar surroundings for a few hours. Not seriously considering buying one. I'm not the captain or owner type.” Another pause. “Tell me what you have on the front burner. And just what the hell do I call you since you seem to have dropped the Hornblower tag?”

  “Well, for starters, you can call me Gene. That's my real first name.”

  She slid her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh. “Sorry, just expected a more rugged name.”

  “Well, if you sign on, we can go back to captain in short order.”

  “Sign me up!”

  “Whoa. Don't you want to know about any fire you might be jumping into?”

  “Nope. I trust you. Just need to get back into the cold dark and go places. I'm not the settling down type.”

  “OK. You're on crew as Engineer Officer. You can look over the ship after we eat. I’d like to find at least one other crew member before we set sail. Any recommendations?”

  “Well, certainly not Jenkins. He always gave me the creeps. He never cleaned the galley when it was his turn. I admit he was the best at scanner ops, but it was uncomfortable standing bridge watches with him. And I wouldn't want WB either. I want to be the only double-X on crew for a change.”

  WB was another ex-crew member. Her moniker stood for Wonder Butt. She had a rather large one. She had expertly handled our cargo ops.

  “Well, beyond that, it leaves only Mica, unless you have someone I don't know in mind. I don't want to put out cattle call on the spacer boards for crew.”

  Mica had gotten his nickname from his little sister, who couldn't pronounce his first name correctly. As part of my crew, Mica had been a Steady Eddie.

  “Yeah,” Sandy replied, “I could go with Mica. He never takes offense when I tell him to shove it up his ass. Couldn't get to him, and I really tried. He was an enjoyable challenge.”

  “Any idea where he might be hiding out?”

  “When we all split up, he said he planned to buy a moon and populate it with bots in medieval armor. Have them joust and fight with swords for some lady-bot's honor. Glowing sword fights. He was gonna build a castle for his domain.
Lord of all he surveyed, that kind of stuff.”

  “Well, I've still got his Q- number. I’ll give him a call to see if he's interested.” Yeah, Sandy and Mica would do just fine. I told Sandy that, along with her being the Engineer Officer, she would also wear the First Officer hat. I needed a backup to keep me from doing anything stupid. Again.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  When Sandy saw the ship at the docking bay, she let out a low whistle. “That's the biggest small-boy I've ever seen. Nice and shiny, too. Hope it's not underpowered.”

  “Don't let her good looks fool you.”

  “Yeah, that's the same thing I told you about that chick on Targo who was chasing you a few years back.” And under her breath, she muttered, “That bitch.” She never let me forget that mistake. Probably a good thing.

  “Let's get aboard.”

  Sandy's eyes darted over every detail as we made our way to the crew section. Not a peep. Not one question. She just ran her hands and eyes over everything. As we moved past the crew lounge, she glanced in and saw Jack and Joan sitting in front of the entertainment screen. When we got to the bridge, she asked, “So, who the hell are those two Humpty Dumptys?”

  I gestured her to the communication station seat, and I took the navigation station. We swiveled to face each other, and I filled her in.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  It took much less time than I had anticipated to cover all the events of the past two weeks. As she listened, she occasionally wrinkled her brow or pinched her lip or put on a yeah, I'm gonna have to see that before I swallow the hook expression. After I was done, all she said was, “I want to look over engineering.” I let her go, knowing she didn't need me to show her around and wouldn't want me looking over her shoulder.

  Six hours later, she joined me in the crew lounge for a bite to eat. She sat and nodded to me. “Do you know, we have two Nano-compilers in engineering?”

  “You mean the fabricators?”

  “No, besides those. Two real functioning Nano-compilers.”

  “Ranger? What about that?”

  “Captain, we do have those. She and I had some very interesting discussions in engineering.”

  I looked at Sandy, “So, why are you surprised we have those?”

  “Well, first, I have never heard of one that worked. Years ago, I toured an engineering research facility with other students. One of the things we were shown was a Nano-compiler in development.

  “They could get it to output single constructs but could never get them to accept on-the-fly programming or commands. The Q-programming always went sideways, and the outputs remained inert.

  “Later, I heard that the project had been dumped since fabricators could do a better and cheaper job of making stuff. I've not seen anything mentioned about them since in any engineering publications or message boards. And don't give me that look. I'm not just a grease jockey. I do read and stay up to date you know.”

  ♦♦♦

  I didn't see Sandy much over the next three days.

  She had Ranger run through every system diagnostic routine at every station. Inspection and maintenance covers were removed to get up close and personal with the ship’s guts. At night, she gorged herself on gourmet food and the ship’s manuals. After day three, I asked her if we were close to being ready to leave.

  I wasn't going to push her. We were in no real hurry. Sandy gave me a long list of tools, equipment, and bulk materials she said were essential. She was rolling-in-it-rich, but it was apparently my dime that was going to pay for all the extras she wanted.

  Sandy took a full day to run all the bots through their maintenance and repair cycles so she could tweak them up to her standards before she would let any of them near her equipment.

  She was back to skinned knuckles and happy as a drunk in a whiskey barrel.

  With Ranger, I planned a list of bulk materials we might need in the near future for the fabricators and Nano-compilers. After looking at the list, we decided not to get very much of it on Ambigon Station. The type and amounts of materials we wanted might raise some eyebrows if we purchased them all from one place.

  I contacted Mica; he was in the Caspar system. That system had three full service orbital commercial freight and outfitting stations, as well as a huge ground side reservoir of manufactures and supply depots. We could spread our purchases around, and Ranger would backwash the tracking data on the ‘why would you buy that stuff' to avoid awkward questions.

  Most systems didn't require you to declare shipboard consumables or equipment. They were concerned mostly about incoming and outgoing freight and passengers so they could get their tax revenues. Systems that did want to tax onboard supplies and equipment were avoided by most shipping companies, unless the customer was willing to pay the extra fees. Those systems didn't fare well in interstellar commerce. Ship owners don’t like the idea of getting taxed on the same material over and over again.

  ♦♦♦

  Transit to Elphion in the Caspar system was uneventful. It was just the in-system transit times at both ends that made it an actual trip. I was pleased with how well Sandy interacted with the Zees. In her mind, she justified their existence as simply being smart machines. She actually got the twins to engage in casual conversations.

  It was like watching someone train a dog. I think that they were just pulling her chain by acting clueless. Sandy camped out on the bridge during our in-system transits before and after our jumps. She was constantly monitoring every shipboard system. It was three days before she relaxed enough to start using her cabin. Sandy’s presence brought a much-needed sense of normality to my situation.

  ♦♦♦

  At Elphion, we docked at the largest station's commerce center. After the routine customs inspection, we placed our first set of supply requests with several different vendors. We also filed availability for small freight shipment services just to avoid any suspicious appearances. Empty ships don't just come and go. Mica had agreed to come up to the station, but since we were going planet-side, we decided to meet him there. Both Sandy and I wanted to do some browsing in the famous commercial bazaars on Elphion.

  I told the Zees to keep the ship buttoned up tight and coms dark while we were gone.

  Since we had just topped off at Ambigon, there was no need to go through the complications of hooking up to station services.

  We met Mica at an open-air food circuit called Carnival. Crowds of tourists, shoppers, and spacers intermingled. But since the area was so large, you didn't feel overwhelmed by a crush of humanity. A good place for people watching if you were bent that way.

  When I called Mica from the station, he was surprised at how quickly we had arrived at Elphion. Oops, I'm going to have to pay more attention to our official transit times.

  Mica told us about some of his adventures and misadventures. He never did get that moon he'd talked about. Currently, he was leasing a secluded lodge in the highlands, complete with human servants. He was enjoying the security, peace and quiet it provided. He said he was working on a book of essays about traveling the galaxy as an independent spacer and rock-hopper.

  Mine had been the third ship he'd crewed aboard in his eighteen years in the cold dark. He had plenty of material for his book. He told us that when he started writing about our mutual journeys, he wouldn't use our real names. There was still a lot of dust in the air about our find. The corporations hadn't even begun to exploit the information they had sifted from it.

  Mica, like Sandy, was ready to move out into the space lanes again. I told him about the brand new oversized small-boy we had docked up top. He signed on as pilot and navigator.

  Mica was very familiar with the bazaar. He led us to the best vendors to pick through some goodies we might want or need. He asked me about the environmental suits we had onboard. I told him they were all new standard units. He twitched his mouth and thought for a moment.

  “Captain, I think you should consider some of the better custom suits that the boutique vendors offer.
Off-the-shelf stuff is OK, but just OK. I know a few places that have some that will knock your eyeballs out. You're gonna love their stuff.”

  He was right. We ended up getting twelve advanced suits for internal ship emergency use. They were designed as jump-ins. You could be inside one in less than five seconds. They were self-sealing and self-adjusting. I also opted for the accompanying skin suits that could be worn underneath. They weren't really necessary, but being in an environmental suit was much more comfortable if you wore one. As a military pilot, I'd always kept a close eye on mine. I bought each of us five sets.

  The emergency suits would be stored throughout the ship. You didn't want to go scrounging around if seconds mattered.

  We also bought four of what they advertised as radiation hardened suits for use outside the ship or on planets with hazardous conditions. To my ex-military eye, they looked suspiciously like state-of-the-art powered armored combat suits. Those were illegal for civilians to own. Mercenary and corporation security units had them by special dispensation from system governments. The great unwashed were not allowed to have them.

  Apparently, by tweaking the specs, these were rated for civilian use. It wouldn't take too much to upgrade and adjust them to full combat specs. I saw the same thought go through Sandy's mind. She fondled then as if they were couture designer gowns. Throughout the bazaar, all things were available, legal as well as under the counter illegal toys. Sandy loaded up on her dime and had a ball doing it.

  I was going to wait until we were aboard ship to give Mica the full mission brief.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Mica took in the whole bagel in one bite. Nothing in my story surprised him. I think he was one of those who had always expected aliens to eventually show up. He did get jazzed about the sensor and weapon systems. The S-jump drive capability just struck him as an obvious and natural evolution of interstellar travel. I called it the S-jump as a head nod to the Surrons.

  Mica settled in smoothly. Sandy was glad to have him aboard, and I didn't see a need for any more crew. Besides, who else could I trust?