Carinae Sector: 01 - Traders' Scourge - Part 2 - Maveen Offer (28 page)

Douglas had kept watch on the schematic, and quietly rejoined the section leaders as they viewed the shield component sections of the Trader fusion reactor. Ian was getting in several questions to the ever patient Trader engineer.

‘You are saying you use the shields as automatic cross flow dampeners so that as the reaction rate cycles up, you constrict the dampers and lower the fuel rate?’

Halbindestat looked delighted at his human charges as he replied.

‘Essentially correct and the fusion reaction is most stable anyway at the spectrum range for a white star. This is about 9,000 degrees in your Kelvin measurement, or fifty percent hotter than the reactions of your own star.’

All the humans took a quick step back as they warily eyed the fusion reactor. Halbindestat grinned at their discomfort, gave a wheezing cough of humour and continued on again.

‘Of course the reactor shields provide excellent protection from heat and radiation. Now on the subject of fusion reactors, I recommend that you avoid building them too large and too cool to start with. A yellow reactor at 6,000 degrees Kelvin is still stable enough though inefficient. But a red reactor at 4,000 degrees Kelvin is dangerous due to radiation flux promoting either a runway surge or drop in power output, even at a size of only a few metres across. Basically the behaviour of the cooler red reactor mirrors the behaviour of the red flare stars in the galaxy that your astronomers would have already detected.’

Douglas was ready with a question or two of his own as he viewed a series of cutaways of the fusion reactor.

‘So you are effectively stating that the strong hydrogen lines in the reactor equal strong stable fusion of hydrogen? Also the helium produced must be dealt with in some manner I presume?’

Halbindestat now gave Douglas an appraising look as he replied.

‘Two very relevant questions and you are correct about the hydrogen lines and reactor performance. Now we use the helium both as a physical dampener in the fusion reactor as it is being extracted and as part of the ship drives. Though of course we have to cool the helium first and that takes an appreciable fraction of the power we generate to do so. Also the shields allow us to dissipate heat at certain settings when we are in space. Now since we are talking about the drives, I should now take you all over to see the main fusion drives and our two large aero spike engines.’

Halbindestat now led the six humans off further across the ship, as Captain Narindestat nonchalantly trailed behind to watch for any stragglers.

                                                            ***

Chapter 14

Samantha and Rebecca had met with Emeria briefly under the awning, before all three had taken the side corridor through the ship and up to the sick bay to discuss the handful of remaining patients. They had had a quick laugh along the way as Emeria rubbed her tattoos and showed that now they remained fixed in place.

‘We improved on your makeup idea as we had the paint onboard. Interestingly the tattoos seem to be painted on again in pairs. One of the males will help one of our females if they are bonded or good friends. Occasionally two females will help each other if they are space sisters. But space brothers will not paint each others tattoos, and lately the males have been getting noticeably more aggressive with one another.’

Samantha and Rebecca had a good chuckle, and Samantha replied.

‘Your males are so like our men in many regards, and it is interesting to see the social changes in your group after the loss of the tattoos. Now you mentioned bonding, so has there been an increase in the pairing off of couples?’

Emeria smiled stiffly at the question, for she considered the question to be uncomfortable but disarming direct. So she answered in kind.

‘Samantha, well we indeed we have seen an increase in pairing off. Now there will be a spate of formal ceremonies once we are in space again. Not least of all the one between Garendestat and myself.’

The two human females gave broad grins and then whispered polite congratulations, before Rebecca ventured a question.

‘We have so many questions about your species, for example how long is your lifespan? And how old are you before you find a partner?

Emeria looked at the human females, and recognised her own scientific interest being mirrored back to her as she replied with a tight smile.

‘Rebecca, we live roughly nine hundred to a thousand of your years. Our females can first breed at forty years, and we can breed until we are two hundred and eighty years of age. I am sixty years old now and Garendestat is a little older.’

Samantha was amazed by the information and now asked a question of her own.

‘You are both still young then for your race. We have a saying in our race about children ‘So may all your troubles be little ones’. So how long does a pregnancy last for in your species Emeria?’

Emeria found she liked the human saying though she was still a bit uncomfortable with the question topic. But then she remembered the briefing earlier this morning, as she replied with first a gentle admonishment.

‘Please be careful discussing the bonding, pairing off or other aspects of our reproduction in front of our general crew. We do not have enough females to go around, and our biology precludes sharing partners. Now in answer to your question, one of our pregnancies will take twenty of your months, or roughly one of our years. We have a term for it amongst ourselves and we call this time ‘the life year’.’

Even as Emeria paused, both Samantha and Rebecca offered hurried requests for forgiveness. Before the Trader medical officer spoke again at length to reassure them and provide information.

‘No need to apologise, as I was truly not offended. I am just concerned about the reactions of some of our male crew. We are an easy going race compared to other races, for instance the Tilmud and Jerecab can be highly offended by these types of questions. Now with our pair bonds a couple only has to wipe each other's tattoos, speak their intention to be life mates, and they are considered married. The formal ceremonies are to pay homage to our parents and friends, and also of course to celebrate. Now the tattoos we lost had a contraceptive effect in that it can take five to ten of our years before a Trader baby is conceived, so our reproductive rate is low even with our lengthy life spans. We often only have two or three children at five to ten years between each of them, so our population can take awhile to recover from disasters or wars. I wonder how our biology will react now that we are back to our fallow state.’

The two female humans and the female Trader continued to discuss the biology of both their species as the morning progressed. At several stages Samantha looked thoughtful as she considered how the Traders had ended up with their tattoos in the first place.

                                                            ***

The six mission team members looked at hologram showing the aero-spike design details in awe. Halbindestat made a quick point about the shield technology, and even Steve, with his generic engineering knowledge could get the gist of his reasoning. The shielding technology underpinned both the aero-spike and the fusion drives that the Traders used in their ship.

‘Our shielding allows us to prevent high temperature ablating and maintain laminar flow inside the aero spike engines. However we have a usual fault with one of engines that I am investigating.’

Ian was amazed at the design aspects as he pondered the performance figures against the stated output of the fusion reactors. The brilliant American scientist seemed to be mentally calculating the figures as he spoke.

‘The power from those aero-spike engines during their operations time is amazing. Even so you produce a lot of power, but your combined engine performance is marginal in an atmosphere without the aid of your sneak ships?’

The Trader engineer looked at Ian with further approval as he answered.

‘The Illuria has power and fuel conduits running to each of the main wing pylons that allows the sneak ships to be powered past their standard drive output rating. Our design is actually the best one for our needs as a space based race. None of the other races operate larger ships that can land on your world. The Jerecab lifter is a third of our size and one quarter of our engine performance, so they would land but not be able to leave unaided. The other races all use specialised civilian lifters that are much smaller than our ship.’

Steve then did not have to think too much as he asked his first questions of the day.

‘Captain, you seem to have a large reserve of power generation compared to engine power in your ship. So am I correct in assuming that most of power reserve is used for either weapons or shielding during battle? And on the subject of other races, they would have to bring atmospheric ships to land on our world?’

Captain Narindestat ruefully looked over the avid faces of the humans as he replied.

‘Well the main guns take most of the surplus energy in combat, as our aim is to avoid damage in most cases. If we are disabled in this part of space, we would be attacked by successive waves of Tilmud frigates until they took or destroyed the ship. We deal with the opportunistic Tilmud from a position of strength by having more powerful ships and not staying in the one place a long time. Now with regards to the other races, I did say larger ships. Note that most of their smaller frigates and destroyers are capable of landing on your world. Also the bigger cruisers can use their strong shields to enter your upper atmosphere in high speed strafing attacks.’

The now mollified humans looked at each other and grimaced, and the Trader captain continued on again.

‘Now the two smaller ships we are leaving you with are not capable of flight, though the design cues and technical information they contain are valuable. They are merely smaller wingless versions of our main ship. If you would like to follow the chief engineer we will now take a tour of our main guns before we return outside for a meal.’

As they moved through the ship towards the main guns, Steve was trying to parse the ramifications of what the Trader captain just told him.

‘So how do we defend ourselves in such a potentially hostile galaxy?’

The Trader captain now walking slowly ahead looked around at Steve as he replied.

‘Well I have a few suggestions for your race and they are not all military in nature.’

Steve listened carefully as he followed Captain Narindestat, and he repeated key points aloud, so that Dan and Douglas could in turn follow the conversation.

                                                            ***

Samantha and Rebecca had remained with Emeria in the sick bay and conferred over the few remaining patients that still occupied beds. The human medicines appeared to be working well, and Emeria congratulated the two humans.

‘Now just remember, the galactic races are not infallible and your assistance with treating our illnesses proves that as well as being invaluable. We are truly in your debt.’

Samantha and Rebecca graciously accepted the warm gratitude of Emeria. Samantha then moved onto her own research results as she fetched her data tablet from her backpack.

‘Emeria, I looked at the tissue samples and I obtained some interesting results. The tissue sampling from the tattoos seems particularly interesting. I think that the immunological affects of the tattoos are largely in place, though I cannot say how the changes will affect your species’ life spans or reproductive abilities.’

Emeria looked at the data tablet as it quickly started up in front of her. After several moments she positively evaluated both the human technology and the results displayed.

‘Samantha, I understand your race has enjoyed a growth in computer technology and what I see here is an impressive offering for a junior race. You should highlight this technology to the rest of our crew. Now the results you show here are very similar to my own findings.’

The Trader medical officer looked over the results and charts to verify what she was observing. She then asked a question about an enzyme workout chart towards the end of the findings.

‘Samantha, these charts are in a series of three elements, only one of which I recognise as belonging to Trader biology, though it is skewed from my own estimations?’

Samantha knew too well what the charts represented, as she had spent two very late nights with Rebecca working over the results of the enzyme sampling.

‘Well Emeria, possibly our methods are different. Now you are seeing two human element profiles, before and after our pandemic, plus your own Trader element. I have no previous Trader enzyme element profile, but I stand by my earlier comment for what it is worth.’

Emeria accessed a nearby console, and hauled up a hologram display that somewhat matched the information on Samantha’s data tablet.

‘Samantha, this is our initial Trader enzyme baseline. Can you please call out your own information and I will overlay it on my display. Call out the Trader sequences first then both your human enzyme elements.’

The initial reference line soon had three other lines present on the display, and Emeria circled the slowly rotating display critically for several more minutes before speaking again.

‘Samantha and Rebecca, once again I am in your debt. I will have to talk to the Captain again, but what I request is that you carefully analyse the Voorde fragments with your technology. I have some frozen samples here and they are full of pathogens so be careful. I agree with your assessment about our health status, subject to further verification. Now we should consider going back outside to rejoin your team on the island.’

After several more minutes the frozen Voorde samples were loaded into the medical samples box in Rebecca’s backpack, Samantha repacked her data tablet and they headed out of the sick bay. As they walked the long corridor down to the ramp Emeria seemed preoccupied, and she paused before commenting about another concern that was bothering her a great deal.