Trade World Saga 1: Manual Interpretation (14 page)

"Which brings me back to my original question. What is your real job and why have we had so much aid in this project?" Andrew asked with a low, serious voice.

"I do believe that last disk you used may have been very beneficial to the project in more ways than you know. I do represent the World Government. My title is Lieutenant Colonel Brad Kyger of the World Defense Intelligence Department. You might say I'm a troubleshooter," Brad said.

"What's your job here?" Andrew said, still serious.

"I am assigned to fill in the place of your friend, John, the chemist who was injured. My primary job, however, is to coordinate security and defense of this project. I am in charge of the military units that guard this university and transport supplies."

"Wait a minute," Andrew said, "I haven't seen any military guarding this place or delivering anything."

"If they do as I direct, you never will, but let me fill you in on the situation a little better. Not everyone wishes your project to succeed. You know those delays in some parts? There has been scattered sabotage at many of the plants where parts are manufactured." There has even been an attack by a company strength band of mercenary commandos that we intercepted not twenty kilometers from here, Brad thought without saying anything about the incident.

"But why? This project hurts no one," Andrew said.

"Wrong. Those power supplies are wrecking havoc with the world economy. There are a lota’ people who don't want you to succeed. They, at least, want control -- a bigger piece of the pie. The World Government's Council realized that any show of military assistance would be seen as a trend toward expansionism to many of the still unaligned nations. The idea behind this project and the technology that it is generating are seen as a threat and a powerful tool. The centralized governments of the world are in for a shock when they realize the implications of abundant, mobile power supplies. Many of these governments will fail without the direction of the World Government. Many important people are afraid that with this power the World Government would become a worldwide tyranny, hence the attacks. Look at the weapons you have developed for your ship. The concepts behind the weapons are about a century old but with the aid of some planted information, Tod was able to rig up some mighty heavy armament in faster than record time," Brad stated and paused to sit back and forced himself to relax.

"What you are telling me, I'll accept at face value since it fits in with a few facts I've been too busy to really consider. What does the rest of the group know about this? Should I tell them anything?" Andrew asked.

"You're still in charge of this menagerie and you can tell them as much or as little as you want, though Susan has most of it figured out and Fran might have an inkling of an idea. By the way, Susan has been in here more than she has been working," Brad said with his amused grin coming back to his face.

"Look, how are those disks made? Could I make a language disk with one of them? I have a hunch that we need every aid we can get. If it works, we will have some point in common with beings we could meet," Andrew said with a worried seriousness.

I'll have to set up the recording set but you need only a simple preliminary session, then you take a drug that is similar to the old truth serums yet it allows limited conscious thought. Transducers near the skin use an ultrasonic scanning technique to record impulses to the speech centers and optic nerves and record and interpret the brains impulses so all information gathering can be enormously speeded up. When the cartridge is replayed, the receiver never gets all the information because some information is garbled and stray thoughts can sometimes dice up a dull session. I remember after one session on mathematics, I had an overpowering urge to go eat some type of red-hot, fishy cabbage dish," Brad mused.

"Set up for a session," Andrew demanded, cutting through Brad's humor. "How far will the World Government go to aid us?"

"They'll do about anything you ask," Brad said stunned.

"I'll need the following things then," Andrew said and then began to rattle off a list of items and needs.

"Whoa! Let me talk down some notes," he said as he tapped his Mem-Dex. "Why do you need new suits? We already received surplus pressure suits from the old manned missions. OK. I said they'd get what you needed," Brad said with bewilderment at the growing list of special suits, Mem-Dexs, miniaturized power packs and field generators.

"I'll get the schematics to those items that you don't have and I want to know the assortment of topics you already have on those disks. I want all members of the group to take the language course I'm going to make and let them absorb as many of the others that interest them," Andrew commanded.

"Yes sir," Brad answered a bit sarcastically, turned and walked out a badly shaken man. He wondered what had been awakened in Andrew's mild personality. Sir? Andrew wasn’t military and I’m still the guy who’s supposed to be running this show from behind the scenes. Maybe I’m losing it because his response hadn’t been really sarcastic at all.

ES PATROL RECAPTURES RETT

The Exploration Service officer was young but he had no doubts as to what he was going to do with this Tros, Rett, when he found him. As the ship entered orbit he showed the desired coordinates to the pilot and prepared the troops for landing.

Rett, who had to set aside his control section for the new stressed space field belt he was building, got up and went to the viewscreen to see who was interrupting him this time. Seeing a squad of heavily armed soldiers by his front gates did not upset him as it would other races, but the interruption to his work again was maddening. Rett simply turned on the stressed space field unit he and his colleagues had designed that was almost as strong as a battle cruiser-class Exploration Service ship. He then settled back to work on a new belt.

The Service officer fumed outside the gates to Rett's estate and ordered his troops back to the ship when he realized what he was faced with.

Bringing the ship down next to Rett's estate, the officer tried various types of the Service weapons against the field. When the ordinary weapons failed to penetrate and the ship's field was too weak to nullify Rett's defensive shield, the officer sat back in the control room chair and decided on a singly dangerous course of action. He ordered the field technicians to coordinate the phasing of the defensive field with the ship's own field. If the Tros stayed in character and did not suddenly change the field pattern, they could merge, ship and defensive field, and slowly pass through. If the Tros noticed them and changed the field pattern when they were part in and out of the field; they would be torn in two.

The ship's officers ordered his now cowering but obedient technicians to follow his commands. Only the extensive knowledge of the Tros allowed him to pursue this course depending on the Tros' belief in their superiority. Arrogance as a weapon, the officer mused. If I fail to enter and die it will be quicker than if I fall to find the coordinates from this Tros.

The ship drifted through the field and was only out-of-phase enough to cause momentary dizziness from the crew. Rett, true to form, was absorbed in his work.

The officer and a squad of troops found Rett still working. Sluggish in this heavier gravity, the officer placed Rett in restraints, and under guard, marched him back to the ship and placed him in detention. Still plenty of time to find the coordinates, the officer thought as he razed the estate Rett had controlled and set the ship on course to the place where Rett had first encountered the ES ship. Since the distance is great, I will have plenty of time to obtain the coordinates of the planet that this being, Rett, may have contaminated. It will save time to interrogate him on my ship rather than wait until he breaks at his home planet and then go to the coordinates.

Rett knew that his life would be forfeited if he were to give them all the details of his voyage; therefore, he was determined to remain silent as long as possible. What is the matter with a little culture contamination anyway? There wasn't any commerce in that area and the natives had nothing worth the travel to the primitive planet to trade anyway.

TEACHING
TRADE

Andrew made a detailed language disk of
Trade
he had learned from the alien. Each of the group members went through the session with it and marveled at many of the new concepts. Many of the ideas were totally incomprehensible to the group. The novelty of the teaching aid wore off as members of the group absorbed more and more of the disks that Brad had made available from the World Government. Andrew absorbed more than any single member and the sobering effect on him was marked.

The strain was telling on Brad also since the nearer they approached to the flight trials, the more attacks on the project. A fear or xenophobia spread through the populations as word leaked out that many of the technological developments were alien in origin. Many thought that the ship should never leave the Earth. These people equated travel with death; as it had been when the virus had raged across the Earth with every planeload or boatload of refugees moved from country to country.

Brad became much more snappish as he completed the list of assignments Andrew had given him.

"Brad, I have another request," Andrew said quietly.

"What do you want now?" Brad said angrily.

"You sound like my old Mem-Dex when I need some computations," Andrew said suddenly very weary.

Brad let out a sigh, "Sorry, what do you need?"

"I want those Mem-Dexs that were designed for each member of the crew and I want you to distribute those new sets of suits as soon as we are ready for flight trials. We've delayed and delayed and we have to do it sometime." Andrew punched in a request for a ship diagram and pointed at two bare rooms on the display. "I want a medical bay put in here that will take a lot of punishment and I need a military surgical team of three or four; however many are in a team, to be trained. We’ll need the latest medical equipment for them also since we may be away for a while and we should have medical care available."

Brad didn't even argue anymore; he just said, "Fine. I'll send the orders now and let them select equipment for themselves. The new suits use new principles and we should easily find volunteers from the military."

The day for the first test flight approached rapidly. The plan was to have a partial crew to monitor. Many of the sensors did not work through the field and many critical components could not be monitored remotely. Andrew insisted that Susan was not to be included but she had evidently had been soliciting support for a time because the others were ready for him and wore him down with arguments. The crew consisted of Andrew (and Susan) to pilot, Steve to monitor electronics and communications, plus Tod and Joel for navigation and repairing the unexpected. Brad was along as the rep for the World Government. They weren’t letting anything happen without him along.

Joel stared the power supplies on low output and engaged the stressed space field. It grew in strength rapidly and was invisible to the naked eye. As soon as the field reached a low threshold, he notified the Captain. “Captain. Power supplies are nominal and everything is green.”

Andrew leaned forward and adjusted a control. The deck generators produced a hum as the ship floated off the ground. The ship seemed to sway gently on the displays but no motion was felt on the ship. “Everyone ready. In for penny…in for pound.” They could not hear the cheers for the onlookers outside but could see their excitement when they panned the exterior. “How about ten thousand meters? We’d be just as dead if this thing falls 100 meters but we’d have some time to lose consciousness from pressure loss.”

“Go for it,” Tod said and Susan nodded. To the people on the ground, the ship just disappeared. Those on the ship saw the display rapidly change ‘til they were level at 10,000 meters.

“We’re in controlled airspace still but not on any flight routes. Wonder how we show up on military sensors? Wonder if we show up at all?” Brad said.

Tod spoke out. “Pressure is fine. The ship is living up to plans so far. Space now? We have approvals to 300 kilometers today.”

Andrew nodded and gently touched the controls. The ship shot out to 300 kilometers. The navigation system auto-corrected to allow the ship to stay directly above the University. It was not a conventional stationary orbit because the stressed space field did not produce the effects an unpowered, gravity bound vehicle would face. The ship behaved well on gross adjustments of position but did poorly on small-scale corrections. The ship would overfly target points and recovering often required extensive corrections. It was like trying to thread a needle with poor eyesight…almost impossible. “Enough for today. We’ve got our work cut out us to refine the navigation controls. Tod. Do you see a way to do it?”

“Should be able deploy some different arrangement of field projectors. A day or two on that and Steve should be able to tweak the software to fix that end.”

“Okay. Also, we have some blind spots that we have to cover. We need overlapping coverage and better view adjustments. I want to be able to see everywhere on all planes. Navigation sensors seem to be acceptable on microwave. Want some weapons tests in and out of atmosphere over the next week. We ought to be able to fly several times a day. Brad. Everyone squared away. Let’s head back,” Andrew said. The flight down was uneventful though getting, exactly lined up at the takeoff point took a frustratingly long time with the imprecise controls.