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Earth as an Example 

Chapter 1 

Jesse Allen 

Copyright (c) 1991



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The sun was setting behind the polished chrome building tops of the planet Museum. It was a dim, reddish ball that, even at noon, only feebly lit the surface. Setting, it seemed an ominous bloody colour. Clouds, chrome, and snow all caught the red hue and reflected it to the giant window, where the Procurator of Museum stood, staring at the horizon. `How appropriate,' she thought. `I am soaked in blood.' 

The voice relay at her desk interrupted her morose thoughts. 

"Admiral Perry is here, sir," it announced. 

"Send him in." 

A section of the wall turned transparent as the Admiral entered, then blended back into the brown decor once he stepped through. He strode angrily across the room, his face set with determination. He stopped at the desk that divided the room and saluted the Procurator sharply. She returned the gesture with slightly less vigor. 

"I protest the highly irregular nature of this inquiry," snapped the Admiral. "This is a purely military matter and the introduction of another civilian into the matter, as well as sending myself, Dr.~Drucker, and Captain Huston here, has delayed matters a full month. There will be a number of questions concerning classified knowledge~--- I will have to ask you and Dr.~Drucker to leave for part of the proceedings." 

"Please take a seat, Admiral," said the Procurator politely. "Would you care for a drink?" 

"No, thank you," replied Admiral Perry gruffly. 

She sighed. "Your objections to the setup of this inquiry are noted. The Secretary-General, however, felt that this would be the most appropriate way to handle the matter. I have full authority and both myself and Dr.~Drucker will be present for the entire inquiry. We have been granted the necessary security clearances." 

As she spoke, she pulled a circlet of silver off her finger and passed it to the Admiral. He picked it up and as he examined it, his eyes opened in surprise. 

"My apologies, your..." 

"Not needed," interrupted the Procurator as she accepted the ring back. "You are correct. Making this debriefing a full fledged inquiry and bringing everyone here has been time consuming. Were it not for the unique circumstances, this would all be inappropriate. But too much is at at stake here..." 

"Doctor Drucker and Captain Huston are here, sir," announced the voice relay. 

"Let them enter." 

The wall disappeared again and two figures strode through. The taller of the two was a thin man with closely cropped steel gray hair that made him appear elderly. His reputation belied that, however~--- Dr. David Drucker was easily the most famous archaeologist in the Union and his work showed none of the signs of an aging mind. 

Captain John Huston gave no such appearance of age. Although well into his thirties, he could have been mistaken for a full decade younger. He was solidly built though somewhat stockier. His posture gave the impression of great strength. 

"Dr.~Drucker, nice to see you again," began the Procurator, "and Captain Huston. Please be seated." She indicated the two chairs in front of her desk. 

"Mr.~Huston," corrected John Huston as he sat. "I've filed for a permanent release and prefer not to use the military title." 

"Has your release been granted yet?" asked the Procurator. 

"No, sir, not yet." 

"You will be Captain Huston for the these proceedings, then." Before the Captain could utter an objection, the Procurator turned to the Admiral. In response, Admiral Perry pressed a button on a small device he had placed on the table. 

"These are the proceedings of the debriefing of Captain John Huston, AJN 164," began Admiral Perry in a formal tone, "the current commander of the Federal Starship Nikaljuk, and Dr. David Drucker, the head of the archaeology team involved in the Nikaljuk's most recent mission. Presiding are Admiral Nicholas Perry, BCQ 217, and," then the Admiral glanced towards the Procurator, who responded by placing an upright finger across her lips, "the current Procurator of the planet Museum, Dr. Drucker's employer on the mission under review. These proceedings have commenced on the 14th day of the year 1503 R.A." 

"Thank you, Admiral," said the Procurator. "These proceedings can now progress in an informal manner, although they are being recorded. This is not a military inquiry. The Secretary-General has asked me to participate, so this will not be a normal debriefing either. This is simply an opportunity for you both to report fully on your mission before me." 

* * 
"Archaeologists?" exploded Captain Huston. "A freight ship? I thought I was working for the Navy! Have we been bought out by Republic Transport? What am I doing shuttling mudhens around when there's a war being fought?" 

Admiral Perry sighed. He had expected this --- he and Captain Huston had been friends at the Herculean Naval Academy and John's enthusiasm to come to grips with the Kalganians had been famous even then. Despite that enthusiasm, or perhaps even because of it, Captain Huston had never been assigned to duty on the front. Out on the eastern dust rifts, starships grappled while John Huston had been assigned escort duties deep in the heart of the Federal Union, guarding ships as they plied the star lanes. It was vital work, for without the munitions and supplies, the war would come to a grinding halt and all too few merchants made it to their ports of call unescorted. But no one who knew John Huston could believe he would be satisfied so far from the battle zone. 

Unfortunately, his luck was not about to change. This new mission would take him nowhere near the upstart Empire. 

"Captain... John, I realize you'd rather be elsewhere, but look at it this way. You'll be doing what you do best, running a ship. On the front, you'd be a fourth class officer or worse. And I know what you think about the glory of war and all, but it isn't all that it's made out to be. It's vicious out there. People die, friends as well as foes. Serving duty here, you'll still be around in two years. We frontliners can't count on that." 

"Fourth class officer?" snapped Captain Huston. "Bullshit! You were in the same graduating class as me and look where you are now, all from serving in the war while I've rotted on the sidelines!" 

"Oh, I've done well, have I?" roared Admiral Perry back, suddenly furious. "Do you know how I got this rank? I tried to save the life of my best junior officer and her crew, breaking half a dozen flight regulations in the attempt... and they PROMOTED me for FAILING! Oh, I destroyed those cruisers when the blundered into the Maelstrom's range. They were just too intent on killing my patrol ship. If they'd looked properly at their instruments, they'd have escaped, the patrollers would be alive, and I'd be court martialed for breaking course and violating acceleration safety limits! And quite frankly, I'd rather be in the brig with my friends alive than Admiral with them dead!" 

Admiral Perry stopped and when he spoke again, his voice was much calmer. 

"Sorry. But believe me: The battlefield is not the place for you. Or anyone. The glory and honour of war is false. It's kill or be killed out there. The Kalganians that murdered my soldiers were simply doing their duty --- did they deserve to die for that? They had families, husbands and wives, children, friends... and their sorrow must be just as painful as the loss of my crew is to me. Think about that before you start sputtering about wanting to fight. There are times when I wonder if all sacrifices will be worth the victory... 

"Besides," and now Admiral Perry was smiling, however artificially, "think what it would be like if these archaeologists find what they are looking for. It would be quite a discovery and you'd be among the very first to know. And remember, you were selected by Dr. Drucker from a list of highly competent commanders. He wants you." 

Captain Huston was silent. He was still reeling from the verbal assault. Oh, he knew there was more to that incident with the Maelstrom than the news services had told, that both navies had been killers that day. But nothing had prepared him for the intensity of Admiral Perry's feelings. Perhaps there was more to frontline command that met the eye... 

After a few moments of silence, Admiral Perry spoke again. 

"You'll be working in the Betelgeuse sector. It's nicknamed `Beetle Juice' after a supernova remnant near the sector's center. From the right places, the remnant looks just like a giant bug. I know a few of the better viewing angles. I'll give your navigator the co-ordinates before you leave. It should only be a minor deviation from your flight plans and it's worth the visit." 

"Ah," said Captain Huston, his composure regained somewhat. "So I'll be playing the part of a civil captain to the hilt. Passengers and now even sight-seeing. What larks!" 

"John," replied Admiral Perry sternly, "you are a military officer and you will obey orders. But the Navy will never order you to enjoy a job. THAT is up to you." 

The Admiral strode out of the room, his footsteps echoing down the hall. 

Three hundred years ago, Ian Nikaljuk had been a stellographer of some note. He was best known for his last mapping expedition, when he ventured beyond the great dust rift of Cygnus. There, behind the cold clouds of interstellar dust, he found a rich bounty of water/oxygen planets, circling G type primaries --- ideal planets for human colonization, the most precious commodity in the Union. Of these gems, he choose the very best and named it after his wife, Kalgania, then, together with his family, led the first colony ships there. 

His choice was wise. Within a century, Kalgania dominated the trade of the entire region to such an extent that the whole sector came to be known as Kalgan, and Kalgania was its capital. 

`Yes,' thought Captain Huston. `Of all the ships they could have given me, they hand me one named after the founder of our enemy...' He came to the door he was looking for and pressed the annunciator. 

"Who is it?" asked the grill on the wall. 

"This is Captain John Huston of the Nikaljuk." 

The door snapped into nonexistence and Captain Huston walked through. He had entered a small office, occupied by a tall, thin man with short, steel gray hair. He had been sitting behind his cluttered desk, the floor around him in equal disarray, but as the Captain entered, he stood up and offered his hand. 

"Welcome, Captain Huston," he said. "I'm David Drucker, the archaeology team leader. Pardon the mess --- I'm still packing. What brings you here from the docks?" 

"I have a few questions," said Captain Huston, starting to shift back towards the door, "but nothing that can't wait `til later." 

"Oh, that should be no problem," said Dr. Drucker. "I can spare you some time, though not much. What do you want to know?" 

"Well," began Captain Huston, "why us?" 

"Didn't they tell you?" asked Dr. Drucker. "Your crew came with the highest recommendations. I appreciate excellence." 

"Well, thank you," said Captain Huston, nodding his head with the compliment. "But that's not what I meant. Why the Navy? Wouldn't a civil freight liner suit your needs better?" 

"Ah, a complete answer would take some time," replied Dr. Drucker, settling back into his seat, his proclaimed busy-ness apparently forgotten. "Please take a chair. Just move the papers onto the floor." Captain Huston lifted a small pile of printed pages off the only other chair in the room and put them on the floor before sitting. `Printed paper?' he thought. `An anachronism, but then you might expect that from an archaeologist.' 

"In short," continued Dr. Drucker, "the reason is flexibility. Civilian ships depend on a network of subsidiary services: space stations, shuttles, and the like. The military does not rely on such sundry items as not all their destinations are serviced by those middlemen. The Nikaljuk, for instance, has landed right here on Museum for loading. It can take off directly, cruise through interplanetary space, then switch over to the hyperdrive once it reaches deep space. A civil freighter of similar dimension could hold almost twice the Nikaljuk's capacity, but is not equipped with an interplanetary engine plant." 

"But there are interplanetary shuttles serving every inhabited planet in the Union!" exclaimed Captain Huston. 

"Yes, every INHABITED planet," replied Dr. Drucker. "But not abandoned planets." 

"Abandoned planets?" asked Captain Huston. "What is there of interest in a place even colonists gave up on?" 

"Planets have been ill-chosen by colonizing parties since humanity first took to space," explained Dr. Drucker. "After being abandoned, virtually all of those planets have suffered no further disturbances from humans. Colonists tend not to make the same mistake twice. Since, of all the agents that destroy archaeological evidence, humans are the most potent, the likelihood of finding interesting remains is better on those planets, save where abandonment was due to violent weather or geology. By sifting the remains, we could find some of the clues we are looking for." 

"I'm afraid my briefing was limited," said Captain Huston. "What is this `First World' we'll be looking for?" 

"It is current theory that there is one, or possibly two or three planets from which all humanity sprung," began Dr. Drucker. "It is based on some complex anthropological studies. Among other things, those studies show there once were three distinct classes of human skeletons. Time and intermarriage has blended most of the distinctions in modern humans, but sufficiently detailed genetic analysis can still trace contemporary skeletons to those three bone types. Some presume on that basis that there were three separate planets on which humanity evolved. Others, such as myself, find the interfertility of those three races suggestive of a single planetary origin. All humanity developed there and began to colonize soon after developing space travel. Our team is trying to find further evidence to support the single planetary origin hypothesis, and to find that planet." 

"But why this mission?" asked Captain Huston. "Couldn't you simply examine the histories and find which one has records predating space travel?" 

Dr. Drucker shifted in his seat. "A sensible suggestion. In fact, that is exactly what we have spent the last ten years doing. Do you have any idea how many planets claim to be the first?" 

"A few dozen?" suggested Captain Huston. 

"A few dozen per sector!" exclaimed Dr. Drucker. "There are thousands of planets that have histories extending from before the establishment of the Federal Union, and virtually all of those planets claim they have always been inhabited. Some claims were easy to eliminate, other were more difficult... and eventually, not a single one of them passed every test we could devise. Archaeological diggings found that, even at the most ancient sites, there was evidence of space age technology. Anything older predated human habitation." 

Dr. Drucker sighed. "Our best guess now is that the planet in question is unaware of its special status." 

"But how could a planet be the source of all civilization, yet think it was not?" inquired Captain Huston, finding himself suddenly intrigued. He had come to Dr. Drucker's office more to please Admiral Perry than in any genuine belief that the mission would prove interesting. He was glad now the Admiral had pressured him into getting more involved. I guess I owe him an apology, though the Captain. 

"That is one of the mysteries that has made this project so complex," answered Dr. Drucker. 

"Is there some special reason for choosing the Betelgeuse sector?" asked Captain Huston. 

"Oh, a very special reason," replied Dr. Drucker. "We made a breakthrough a few months ago, one which made this mission feasible. Come with me and I'll show you." 

Glittering in the bright lights that shone down on it lay a metallic box adorned with three long arms and a large bowl. A pair of technicians were carefully replacing a side panel when Dr. Drucker and the Captain entered the room onto the ramp that ran around the room's length, ten feet off the floor. 

"This is it," said Dr. Drucker waving at the object on the floor. "A military convoy crossing the sector stumbled across it drifting in deep space. It appears to be a probe of some sort. Unmistakably a human creation --- there's a pair of human figures, male and female, on one of the external panels, along with some other etched marks that we haven't been able to decipher. 

"Notice the big dish? It's parabolic, with an electromagnetic sender at its focus. Because of the time lags inherent in electromagnetic communication over astronomical distances, we're fairly confident that the probe was designed with an interplanetary mission in mind. The size of the power supply backs that conclusion up. Even with a fresh fuel sources, it could only send a very weak signal." 

"So what makes this a breakthrough?" ask Captain Huston. 

"Why send a probe for an interplanetary mission? It has no drive system save for some low power maneuvering jets, and there's no evidence of one ever having been attached to it. A ballistic probe in an age of powered flight between the stars? Senseless! 

"Besides, the instruments are rather primitive looking as such things go. The people who built them could teach us some things about miniaturization, but the technology is simplistic. 

"The real clincher, though, was radioactively dating a sample from one of the fuel cells. The probe was powered by a simple nuclear electric generator, so by assuming the fuel was reasonably pure when it was launched, we can determine its age by measuring the radioactivity of the cell now. Other tests, like measuring the interstellar dust coating, confirm the result. This probe is over ten thousand years old: The oldest man-made find ever. 

"We're very lucky to have this. Something like this on a planet would have weathered beyond recognition. But deep space is a rather good preservative. There's been some scoring and organic molecules from the interstellar medium have done some damage, but otherwise, it's practically in the same condition as when its makers first tossed in into space." 

Captain Huston look at the probe below him with new respect. Ten thousand years old, yet still recognizable, just drifting through space... 

"If this was a ballistic probe," said Captain Huston, "then you could backtrack its course from where it was picked up." 

Dr. Drucker sighed. "Indeed you could, and this mission would be very simple. Alas, the ship that picked up the probe suffered a partial power failure. All their navigation log data was lost. We know the probe could not have been traveling past light speed --- it's doesn't have the Hollings field generator necessary to defeat relativistic destruction. Nor was it traveling near light speed: if it had been, the damage from colliding with interstellar dust would have been much more extensive. 

"But that is all we know. It could have been traveling at mere metres per second, or hundreds of kilometres. Over ten thousand years, that adds up to a lot of uncertainty... and the region that uncertainty spans is our search volume. Right in the heart of the Betelgeuse sector." 

"Are there any inhabited planets there?" asked Captain Huston. 

"Yes," replied Dr. Drucker, "Turkenstan. We've already been there. It was one of the planets that claimed to be the original and one whose claim could not be dismissed immediately. But Turkenstan was not it. It must have been one of the first colonies, since one team found remains from an ancient starship shuttle which were over nine thousand years old. But there's no trace of human habitation earlier than that find." 

Captain Huston scratched his head. "Anything near this region? Perhaps the error margins were underestimated when guessing the probe's trajectory at its pickup." 

Dr. Drucker smiled. "Ever thought of becoming an archaeologist? You're asking all the right questions... But to answer your question: yes. There are two inhabited planets nearby. Both have clear records of their colonization. The older, a place called Janella, is a pre-imperial planet. Its settlers arrived there about four and a half thousand years ago. They had to terraform it to make life outside enclosed cities possible, but they eventually did make the surface livable after a fashion. A very cold place most of its year, but still better than here." 

`You can say that again,' thought Captain Huston. `The surface of Museum is so miserable that the population all burrowed beneath the crust. What a way to live!' 

Museum had been overlooked by colonists precisely because of its inhospitable climate. Even the starship captains who regularly visited the system after the orbital refueling station had been built two hundred years ago knew it only as a zipcode in the sky. The planet didn't even have a name until the Republic Historian's Guild had applied to turn the planet into a public library specializing in the Union's history. Terraforming the planet's climate was too expensive, so the historians had contented themselves with honeycombing the crust with underground tunnels and rooms. A few building tops poked above the surface, but by and large, the bulk of Muesum's habitation was deep in the planetary crust. 

"The other planet, Srosa," continued Dr. Drucker, "was subsequently settled by Janella. We'll be dropping off teams at both planets to see if there's any more elderly records to be found. But that does seem a long shot." 

"And if those teams don't find anything?" 

"Then we'll look for abandoned planets. Since the original home is somewhere in there, it seems reasonable that there would be planets settled early on, planets that might well have been abandoned as wider ranging surveys found better places. Of course, there's no record of any such planets, but then again, you wouldn't expect to find much after so long." 

"So how will you find them? There must be a lot of stars in the search region and over 30% of all stars have planets." 

"The region the probe came from has been surveyed, so we've already narrowed the field down somewhat. There are a few planets that are marginally habitable which might have been settled early on. In particular, there are two G type and three F type stars with oxygen/water planets orbiting within the acceptable orbital parameters. The Fs would be long shots --- the only populated planets with F primaries have very heavy radiation trapping zones and even so, they can be pretty grim places to live. But the very first colonists may not have been so picky... or aware of the consequences of living on a planet with such a high flux of energetic nuclear particles." 

Captain Huston frowned slightly. Something was still out of place, a fact being overlooked... `Ah, yes.' 

"That will find you early settlements. But that's not ultimately what you're looking for. What about this First World? If there's only one currently inhabited planet around where this probe came from and it's definitely not First World, then where's the missing planet?" 

"Well, I can think of only two possibilities. First World may have been abandoned, which seems bloody unlikely. Why abandon a planet that must have been so well suited to life? It makes no sense..." 

"And the other possibility?" asked Captain Huston. 

"First World is still out there in the Betelgeuse sector... and the Federal Union doesn't know about it." 

Captain Huston knocked on the wall paneling lightly. He had come down to the spare cargo bay where the archaeologists were housed on the doctor's request. It was the first time he had been in this part of the ship since the engineers had installed the temporary quarters. They had done a good job in the short time available, but there was no mistaking the partition walls for anything permanent. If he had knocked a little harder, the Captain was sure, the whole wall would have shook. The door to Dr. Drucker's room was nothing more than a curtain. 

"Come in." 

Captain Huston expected the interior of the archaeologist's room to look as temporary as its exterior, but he was surprised. This was not a room --- it was somebody's home. The hammock was neatly rolled out of the way and the walls were covered with framed trimenographs, posters, and news clippings. The most striking of these was a large trimenograph facing the door. It was a picture of a nebula, apparently floating in the wall. It had a striking sense of depth even though the image plate was flat. The cloud had twisted arcs of glowing gases stretching out into space, so realistic that Captain Huston had a momentary vision of the arms reaching out and grabbing him. Swirls of bluish oxygen mixed with the yellow-orange of hydrogen, all spread across the inky blackness in the shape of... 

"Looks rather like a bug, doesn't it?" remarked Dr. Drucker. He was accustomed to the startled look the image drew from visitors. Trimenographs were nothing new, but few were quite as startling as this one. The sense of depth was so strong that it appeared there was a hole in the wall in which the plasma cloud hung. One friend had even tried touching the nebular formation, not fully comprehending the true nature of the image until his hand had struck the plate on the wall. 

"The `Beetle Juice' supernova remnant?" asked the Captain. 

"Yes," answered Dr. Drucker. "My daughter had a rather strong love of space travel. She made a number of trimenographs of astronomical objects to share her enthusiasm for space... and she succeeded. Not only has she captured the three dimensional sense of the remnant extraordinarily well, but the view is also taken from an unusual viewing angle which she calculated for herself. Her line of sight makes the remnant less bright overall but accents the outer regions. The higher oxygen content from this angle strengthens the blue, enhancing the appearance... But pardon me, Captain. As I said, this is one of Marguerite's greater successes and I am prone to play the part of the proud father." 

"Oh, that's quite all right," said Captain Huston, breaking his eyes from the trimenograph. "Your daughter is to be complimented. It is one of the best trimenographs I've seen taken from space. One of the best I've seen at all, in fact. In a few days, we can even compare it to the real thing." 

"We'll be visiting the remnant?" asked Dr. Drucker, a hint of hopefulness in his voice. 

"Yes," confirmed Captain Huston. "Admiral Perry ordered me to stop there while we were in the sector." Then the Captain paused for a moment. "Actually, it wasn't so much an order as a strongly worded suggestion, but he did give me the co-ordinates for the best viewing angle. One of his junior officers apparently had computed a better perspective than the standard angle tourists see." 

"Admiral Nicholas Perry?" asked Dr. Drucker. 

"Yes. Do you know him?" 

"You're right about comparing this," and the Doctor indicated the trimenograph with a sweep of his hand, "to the real thing. That junior officer probably was my daughter!" 

"Your daughter serves under Admiral Perry? Small Universe!" 

"The Admiral was a Commander when she was in his service, but yes. Margie was one of his junior lieutenants." 

"Was? Has she moved on to her own command now?" 

Dr. Drucker breathed in deeply. 

"No. She was killed a couple of years ago on a patrol mission." 

"I'm sorry," said Captain Huston, suddenly feeling very awkward. `You've really put your foot in it this time, John,' he thought. There was a long silence, then Dr. Drucker broke the quiet. 

"The war has not been kind to me. But that is in the past now. And though I would much rather have my daughter alive, it has made all this possible." 

"Oh?" said Captain Huston, failing to see the connection and befuddled by the sudden awkwardness of his position. 

"Yes. Admiral Perry and Margie were good friends and he blamed himself for her death. Not justly, I should add: There was nothing anyone have done to save her and she realized the risks when she signed up. However, he has not forgiven himself for his supposed failure yet and thus feels he owes me a debt as her father. He heard of my interest in this mission and pulled a few strings on my behalf." 

Captain Huston remembered the Admiral's explosion, simultaneously noticing a medallion hung above Dr. Drucker's desk. The certificate read "For bravery in the service of the Federal Union, Lieutenant Marguerite Drucker is awarded the Silver Swords," beneath which was the seal of the Secretary-General. `Silver Swords,' thought Captain Huston. `The same medal Commander Perry was given for the incident with the Maelstrom...' Then all the pieces fell into place. 

`What do I say now? "Your daughter served her nation well?" The Silver Swords already says that better than I ever could. "I'm sorry?" I've already said that. Damn it! War is supposed to be simple. There's an enemy to be defeated. Not without cost, but everyone dies eventually and what better way to go than in the service of the people? But how do I say that to the face of the father of a fallen soldier?' 

`And if I can't say it to his face, is it really true?' Like many wartime military college graduates, he had not really ever been forced to consider the human side of war. `What do I do now? Change the subject?' 

Dr. Drucker solved the Captain's dilemma for him. 

"I've had the trimenograph for almost ten years now, but I've never seen the real thing. That will be something to look forward to. I wonder if it will look any different?" 

"Not much," answered the Captain with some awkwardness. "In ten years, the remnant will have expanded several million kilometres and radiated away more energy than an entire planet consumes in the same time. But compared to its total size and power, those changes are miniscule. They would take a trained eye or professional equipment to notice. 

"I've never been out this way before, but I've heard about the nebula. Judging by your trimen, it will be every bit as spectacular a sight as I've heard. 

"But I presume you didn't call for me to discuss supernovae," continued Captain Huston steering the conversation further from its morose turn. "What's up?" 

"Have you ever played Knights & Castles, Captain?" 

"Yes, it was all the rage when I was in school. I managed to get reasonably good, though I've not had much time for it since. Do I detect a challenge?" 

"You catch on fast," said Dr. Drucker with pleasure, both from the change in conversation and his own scheming. He did not need to be told that Captain Huston played the game. Admiral Perry had mentioned Huston's nickname `The Dark Master' which he had earned ten years ago for his prowess at the game. Ever since Dr. Drucker had heard, he had been looking forward to this challenge. He had tried to play against others on Museum, but few showed much interest and only the Procurator had proven a worthy opponent... and she was too busy to play frequently. 

"But," continued Dr. Drucker, "I'm not exactly challenging you to a game of Knights & Castles. Our archaeology team on Turkenstan discovered a manual to a similar game that the original colonists played. I've not had a chance to really study it carefully yet, but it's more complex than Knights & Castles, demanding more thought and patience to play properly. Janella spaceport is many days away, however, and I thought a military strategist such as yourself might be interested. A battlefield for you, of sorts. Admiral Perry hinted that you were rather the fighting type and our mission otherwise is most peaceful. Interested?" 

"With an introduction like that," replied Captain Huston almost jocularly, "how can I refuse? Kind of living history. How does it work?" 

"As I said, it's similar to Knights & Castles, but it's played on a two dimensional grid instead of a cube. The pieces move in more complex fashions. The Turkenstan colonists called it `Chess'..." 

The F.S. Nikaljuk hung a mere parsec from the supernova remnant. As Captain Huston had predicted, it looked just like the trimenograph, though it was even more impressive, filling a full quarter of the sky. Even from this close, the nebula's expansion rate of over a thousand kilometres per second was invisible. Seven hundred years ago, this had been a red giant star. The hydrogen in its core had all long since been fused to helium, and thence to carbon, then oxygen, and so on to iron. There, everything stopped. Beyond iron, fusion consumed more energy than it produced and so the star stopped burning. No longer supported by the tremendous radiation pressure from fusion at its core, the outer layers of the star collapsed inward, releasing their gravitational energy as they fell. 

The resultant explosion defied imagination. The name `supernova' hardly gave a hint of the incredible blast of energy that was released in the mighty detonation of truly astronomical proportions. As the stellar surface fell in, the gases heated and fused. The star's iron core was crushed to the density of an atomic nucleus while the outer layers were flung back out into space with such violence that even now, they outstripped the fastest interplanetary yachts. And the interstellar hyperdrive, the only man-made engine that could rival that fantastic speed, would not operate in the plasma of the explosion. The Nikaljuk was as close as any ship could safely get. 

The resemblance to a terrestrial insect was remarkable. There were legs made of glowing filaments of excited gases. Captain Huston would not have been surprised had the antennae-like loops of hydrogen started wavering around, exploring, poking. What if it took to life and started crawling across the inky void, a monstrous interstellar bug? Captain Huston suddenly chuckled. 

"Something humorous?" asked Dr. Drucker dryly from the Captain's side, looking out the window from the observation deck. 

"I was just imagining what it would take to kill a bug of this size. An enormous foot, perhaps?" 

The Doctor made no response. 

"Okay," admitted the Captain, "so it's a little strange. Who said I didn't have a twisted mind?" 

The Doctor smiled slightly, but maintained his silence. 

"You said there were only two explanations for the absences of any records of the original planet," said Captain Huston, trying to break the silence of his companion. "Have you considered this possibility?" and Captain Huston waved his hand at the sight out the window. 

"Sorry?" said Dr. Drucker, startled from his silence. "I don't follow you." 

"Well," said Captain Huston. "We are well within the Betelgeuse sector. Consider for a moment that First World orbited this star. During the supernova explosion, the planet would have been vapourized completely. Of course, the inhabitants would have known about the impending explosion and would have been long gone. Long enough that records of their exodus were not front page news. No more planet, hence no planet with records extending before star travel, and also no records of having existed prior to the Federal Union." 

Dr. Drucker frowned for a moment. "You know, I never thought of that. But the nebula is well outside our search volume. The probe could not have come from here and we are all agreed that the probe came from First World." 

"We are deep within the Betelgeuse sector," said Captain Huston, "and not that far from the nearest edge of the search volume. Perhaps the error margins on the probe's direction and speed were underestimated?" 

"Ha!" snorted Dr. Drucker. "If anything, they have been overestimated. We were quite generous in applying uncertainties. And I question calling ten parsecs `not that far.' It would take a light beam over thirty two years to get from here to the nearest edge of the search region." 

"A systematic error? Perhaps an undiscovered black hole that the probe passed close by?" 

"I said the error margins were generous!" replied Dr. Drucker. "It was precisely because of such factors that they are so large! If you can come up with something plausible to throw our calculations that much off, I'd like to hear about it." Then his eyes narrowed. "You seem unusually keen on this idea. What are you up to?" 

"You caught on fast," said Captain Huston, smiling as he aped the archaeologist's earlier words. "Let's just say there's a sum of money involved." 

Then Dr. Drucker suddenly grinned. "Of course! How stupid of me. Habitable planets only have a certain narrow range of stellar type primaries. Supernova progenitors are not among those. They are more massive stars, red giants and the like. Stars that eventually go bang like this," and Dr. Drucker indicated the remnant, "are known for hundreds of thousands of years of distinctly anti-social stellar activity. Violent flares, mass loss, intense microwave laser emission from surrounding gas and dust, you name it. You wouldn't want to get near one of these stars even ten thousand years before the bang. 

"A sum of money, you say? Have you been making bets on me?" 

"Yes," said the Captain, "and I just won. My navigator suggested the supernova destroyed the planet we're searching for. I suspect Georgia was just teasing me, seeing if I knew why it wasn't a possibility. After failing to trip me up, she put a hundred rials on you not seeing it." 

"Does she do this sort of thing regularly?" asked the somewhat astonished archaeologist. 

"Oh, quite regularly," replied the Captain, "as does the rest of the crew. This is a small ship and that makes for a lot of frustrated energy with no space to vent it. I can either have friendly competitions or much more serious bickering. As long as the games don't interfere with the bridge, I tolerate it --- sometimes, even encourage it. 

"Besides, it gives me an intellectual battlefield of sorts. The crew sets me up with some sort of idea with a plausible appearance yet with a built-in flaw... like the properties of a supernova progenitor. I try to find the flaw. For my part, I occasionally set them some task that's supposed to be impossible and see if they can find what I've pulled on them... or if they can fool me into believing it's possible anyway. 

"Right now, one of the junior engineers is working on constructing a stealth device for the Nikaljuk. Some time soon, he's going to realize that a conventional device takes about twenty times the capacity of our onboard power, not to mention the sheer physical size of the thing. I wouldn't be surprised if he knew that before I even set the task. So he's going to come up with something a little nonconventional. I suspect it will fake a cloaking device from the bridge's perspective, but will have no actual effect on another ship's scanners. Thus he turns it on its head for me to work out what he's really done. 

"It's wonderful when you really think about it. I hardly have to work to keep them busy and I get constant feedback on my skills. If someone catches me unawares, then I learn something new. And I have to teach myself a lot just to make sure that doesn't happen. Like stellar evolution." 

"Ugh!" said Dr. Drucker. "There's more to commanding a ship than I would ever have guessed. I'm glad I'm not doing it, stuck on this tiny can for months on end." 

"Tiny?" asked Captain Huston. "I admit this is no giant lumbering tanker, but tiny does seem to overstate it a little. We've got two dozen on board --- there are pleasure yachts that seem crammed with just one." 

"Tiny in comparison," replied Dr. Drucker, warming to his line of attack. "I'm used to thinking of ships carrying tens of thousands rather than the smattering aboard the Nikaljuk." 

"Tens of thousands!" said Captain Huston. "I think you mean tens of thousands cubic displacement, not tens of thousands of people. Even the largest deep space carrier, the Haiphong, holds fifteen hundred and it's the biggest starship ever!" 

"The Haiphong is NOT the largest starship ever built," answered Dr. Drucker happily. "The shuttle we found at Turkenstan clearly predates translight travel. Therefore, the first colonists had to practically make an entire world to live in while they traveled between the stars. Farming, industry, government, the lot. Their journeys took hundreds of years. The original flight crew would have had grandchildren by the time they reached their destination. The smallest number of people capable of making such a fully self-sufficient world is fifteen thousand. And that's just a minimum. Ships ten, twenty, maybe even fifty times the Haiphong's capacity plied the star lanes for at least a thousand years. Compared to one of those ships, the Nikaljuk is nothing more than a gnat. 

"Perhaps you should follow your lesson in stellar evolution with a history of space travel," and with that, the archaeologist left. 

Captain Huston stood in apparent silence, looking at the supernova remnant out the window. But someone standing close might have noticed a slight chuckling. 

`So Chess is not the only game this man will play with me,' he thought to himself. 


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Earth as an Example 

Part 2 

Jesse Allen 

Copyright (c) 1991



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There was a knock on the door to Captain Huston's cabin. Or rather, a knock on the wall next to the door--the door itself was open. 

"There's no need to knock, Dr. Drucker," said Captain Huston. "In the Navy, an open door is an invitation. Come on in." 

Dr. Drucker entered, then seemed startled when he saw Captain Huston was not alone. With him was Captain Second Rank J`ali Suliman. 

"If you're both here," started Dr. Drucker, "who's on the bridge?" 

"Relax, Dr. Drucker," replied Captain Huston, amused by the archaeologist's concern. "The bridge is less than twenty seconds down the hall. Chief Navigator Smythe is in command. She has intentions of future command, so I deemed it appropriate to introduce her to the throne." 

"Don't believe him," cautioned Captain Suliman, his teeth showing as he smiled broadly. "He's just afraid of failing to catch that prankster Jones in the act of pulling the wool over his eyes. So he put Georgia in command while Jones installed the gadget." 

"J`ali," said Captain Huston, turning to speak with his second, "you truly hurt me with your disrespect. Of course I put Georgia in command while Jones put the shield modifier in. I'd hardly be giving her a fair feel for command if she wasn't handed something a little unusual during her watch." 

"Go ahead and make excuses," said Suliman, "but I know you better, John. Your style of command is to leave someone else to hold the bag whenever possible. You know it. I know it. And you know I know it." 

"If you're done assaulting my good character," replied Captain Huston playfully, "I should remind you that she is replacing you, not I, in the Captain's seat right now. Perhaps you'd like to test Jones's creation yourself?" 

"No," said Suliman, "I respect your decisions completely. You are, of course, completely correct to leave a junior officer in command while an engineer with even less experience than the acting captain is tinkering with the hyperionic shields. 

"You must excuse me, sirs," Suliman continued, "but I have other matters to attend to." With that, he began to leave the room. 

"Remember, J`ali," retorted Huston gleefully, "this was your watch. You know it. I know it. And you know I know it." Captain Suliman did not even pause as he walked out the door, but Dr. Drucker though he heard a slight snigger from down the hall moments later. 

"What was all that about?" asked the incredulous Doctor. 

"Oh, just J`ali and I playing games with each other and the crew as usual. I left Georgia on the bridge while Warwick Jones, the junior engineer I mentioned earlier, puts his stealth system in." 

"That should be interesting," said Dr. Drucker. 

"Indeed," said Captain Huston. "What's worse, I'm not really sure if Warwick is pulling my leg or not. Usually I can tell such things and then it's just a matter of working out how they're doing it. But Warwick is new and I can't read him as well. Worse, engineering is not my forte. Warwick's compounded the problem by being very thorough in describing the thing's limits. Apparently, a lot of the power and size of standard electronic stealth systems comes from their countermeasures defense circuits---the part of the gadget that keeps other equipment, particularly other ships, from scrambling the cloaking shield. By cutting that out and trimming a few other corners, he says he's saved enough power and space to fit it. Given the thoroughness of his description of the gadget's flaws, I'm tempted to believe him. I do not, however, intend to give in to that temptation easily." 

"And Captain Suliman's claim that you gave Lieutenant Smythe the con while Jones was at work to dodge responsibility?" 

The Captain smiled. "I see you've caught on to some of the ropes. Yes, there is some truth to it. I've just spent the last three days checking up on Warwick's claim that most of the power goes into counter-scrambling. I was sure that was where he laid a trap for me...and I've just managed to learn enough to believe him after all. At least whatever logical pitfall he's laid for me isn't there. So I need more time to search engineering texts to detect other possible tricks. 

"But it is just as much a challenge to Georgia as it is me dodging Warwick. You see, she now has the task of proving her ability to command and she knows she'll get quite a recommendation from me if she can find out what Jones has really done before I do. 

"If, on the other hand, I work it out when I go on duty in a few hours after she has failed, I'll gloat unmercifully." 

"I will feel sorry for Lieutenant Smythe should that happen," said Dr. Drucker. "I know just how unmerciful your gloating can be." 

So far, the Captain and Dr. Drucker had completed three games of Chess, all three of which the Captain had won. Dr. Drucker had watched in horror as his pieces were chopped off the board in bold moves that left his King stripped of all protection. All his defensive moves had been countered ruthlessly. 

`I had not counted on such an aggressive opponent,' though the archaeologist. `But with each game, his victory comes harder. I am learning his style...' 

"It's bad manners not to gloat when someone else challenges you to a game and then proceeds to lose repeatedly," said Captain Huston in a mock self-satisfied tone. "I believe it is your move now." 

"I know," said Dr. Drucker with equal mockery. "I shall enjoy wiping that grin off your face. Bishop to Queen 7. Check." 

"Feeling assertive today?" said Captain Huston. "Well, let's see what I can do about that. Check, you say?" and the Captain moved over to the side table that now held the chess board. Real pieces of either blackened or bleached steel on the wooden board rather than the holographic projections common to most Knights & Castles games. Yet another anachronism, but it seemed appropriate to play the ancient game by hand. Captain Huston moved a steel bishop to its new position. He contemplated the board silently for several minutes with his hand still on the piece, Dr. Drucker standing across the board to see what happened. 

`He plans at least three moves ahead of me,' thought Dr. Drucker, `and undoubtly knows exactly where he wants to move now and is just playing with me by pretending to work out moves as he goes. But he has a surprise coming to him...' 

Captain Huston reached forward and moved one of his pale pieces, taking the grey bishop off the board. Without even waiting a moment, Dr. Drucker reached down and moved another dark piece. 

"Check," he announced. 

Captain Huston looked up at the archaeologist with an expression that was a mix of surprise and a frown. `Now what's he got up his sleeve?' thought the Captain. `He's not usually aggressive at all and it's obvious he's plotted his moves out in advance. He's not even TRYING to hide it!' John contemplated the board carefully, then moved one of his pieces to take the attacking rook. Again Dr. Drucker did not wait, but moved his piece immediately. 

"Check." 

`What the hell?' though Captain Huston. `If I take his piece again, he'll have three less than he did five minutes ago without improving his position at all. What is he up to?' Then suddenly, John saw the strategy. `Sneaky fox! If I take the bishop he's using to put me in check, I'll have set myself up to lose all three of those pieces. He's not attacking the King: He's after my playing pieces! But how to counter him...' 

Dr. Drucker read the Captain's thoughts from the frowns crossing his forehead and his eye movements across the board. A full half hour passed without a word or move. Dr. Drucker smiled to himself. `I have finally gauged him well,' he thought. `I knew he would attack those pieces, yet realize within a few moves that he places his own in jeopardy. Yes, I've finally rattled `the Dark Master's' cage.' 

"Jaffles, John," said the ship's cook who had entered soundlessly to peek over the chief archaeologist's shoulder. "And a pot of coroco. I just ran some up to the bridge and Georgia thought you might want some too. Oh, and she told me to tell you `Warwick's little gadget works,' whatever that means." 

"Thanks, Theo," said the Captain as the cook placed the food on the side table. "Smells good." 

"Oceanian cooking always does," replied Theo. "Playing games again? Watch it, Doctor. John has a mean streak and he plays to win." 

With that, the cook disappeared as silently as he entered. 

"Do all your crew use first names like that?" asked Dr. Drucker. 

"Of course," replied Captain Huston. "Discipline and formal titles are all very wonderful for parades. But off duty, I'm a person, not a Captain, and I like being treated that way. You'll find most of the crew feel that way too. 

"In fact, it might be good practice for you and your team to use first names when we're off duty, David." 

"Oh," replied the archaeologist, "of course. We always try to adjust to the local customs, Capt...John. I simply hadn't realized. I would never have imagined the military was quite so... well, human. Margie always gave me the impression discipline was a bit on the strict side onboard." 

John Huston laughed. "Doesn't surprise me if she was serving with Nick Perry. He's as good as they come, but he's from the Hercules sector and they take discipline a bit seriously there. I'm from Oceania and we've always been a bit more relaxed about such things. Got better grub, too," and as he spoke, he poured a cup from the pot. "Want some?" 

"Grub?" asked David. 

"Sorry. Local slang for `food.' " 

"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with Oceanian `grub,'" said David. "I take it that the drink is coroco?" 

"Yep. It's water percolated through the dried grounds of a common plant on Gardia, one of the better agri worlds in the quadrant. It's good stuff, though I recommend you limit yourself to a cup a day `til you get used to it. There's some trace chemicals in it that not only give it the flavour, but might make your bladder work overtime and keep you up all night if you're not careful." 

"Sounds a bit like coffee," said David. John gave him a blank look. "It's a drink from home that, from the description, could be fairly similar. These square things are called jaffles?" 

"That's right. Leftovers sandwiched between two slices of braco, then sealed and cooked." 

"And braco..." 

"...is good stuff. My training is in naval command, not food production, I'm afraid, and describing everything that goes into good braco would be long and tedious, not to mention possibly inaccurate. Try one. You can always interrogate Theo if you get really curious about our cooking." 

David took a jaffle in his hand. It was warm and light brown, a palm sized square which bulged in the middle. He took a bite and chewed. There was a taste of processed grain and mildly spiced meat along with something he didn't recognize, a gooey yellow substance that fill the jaffle's interior. Steam wafted gently from the filling. 

"This is SNACK food?" asked David in disbelief. 

"Yeah," replied John. "If you want real Oceanian cooking, you'll have to visit sometime. I tried to convince Theo to serve us real food more often, but most of the crew rebelled, having taste buds cultivated elsewhere. Hence the meals to date." 

David took another bite, then sipped his coroco. It was slightly bitter, but with a subtle sweetness to it and a hint of something else that he couldn't quite place, though it was familiar. 

"You're right, this is good. If the fare---sorry, `grub'---is as good as this regularly, I could be talked into moving very easily. There's something in the coroco that I can't quite make out, though...ethanol?" 

"Just enough to keep the toes warm. But none goes to the bridge. This is strictly an off-duty pot." 

John returned to eyeing the chess board, sipping from his cup while silently contemplating his next move. `So the good doctor is getting tricky. There must be some way to foil him, though...' 

"Is all your crew Oceanian?" asked David. "The Maelstrom's crew seemed to be from all over the Union." 

"No," replied John, "but about half the crew is from my home sector. The Navy is divided on how to billet crews. Basically, there are two schools of thought---assignment by ship or by commanding officer. On the Nikaljuk, the two schools meet, or collide if you prefer. J`ali has worked on this ship for ten years and probably won't be assigned another command for at least a decade. He has a skeleton crew that stays with the ship at all times, mostly engineers whose greater experience with this ship gives them an edge. Then there's the crew that's assigned to me. Georgia, Theo, and Norman have all served on four different ships with me. There are a few others, some who've been with me longer, some shorter. Warwick was the latest addition, courtesy of Admiral Nick. Due to some regional political settlements with the Union, the Nikaljuk and its native crew are Turian, me and my crew are all Oceanian. So we get decent grub when we can, but we have to put up with J`ali's hot spices when the shipbound crew rebels." 

"Ah, so he is the person to thank for last night's flaming curry?" 

"You got it! Vicious stuff, isn't it?" 

"Actually," said David, "I rather liked it. I've never had Turian food before. I'll have to ask Theo how it's made." 

"The primary ingredient is rocket fuel, I believe," said John. 

"I'll admit it was rather hot. By the way, what does `Warwick's little gadget works' mean?" 

"The Nikaljuk either has a working stealth shield or a navigator who's in league with the engineers. Quiet now, please. I can't play two games at once." 

David sipped his coroco and smiled. 

"No word from the Janella spacedock yet, sir," announced Suliman as Captain Huston relieved him at the con. 

"How long have we been in hailing range?" 

"Seven hours. At our current rate, we should make planetary orbit in half an hour. A bit long for sleeping on the job." 

"Have you been calling them the whole time?" 

"Just for the first quarter hour, then we got sick of it and just tried every twenty minutes or so." 

"Hmm...Sounds like a general power failure. Can you get a visual of the station?" 

"Visual scan on maximum magnification," announced Norman Clarke, the Nikaljuk's pilot. 

The forward screen showed the blue ball of a planet, complete with white streaks of water clouds. Orbiting high above it was a small splodge of shiny metal, reflecting the starlight of Janella's primary. 

"I've not been able to find any emissions from the station whatsoever," continued Norman, monitoring his instruments as he spoke, "including the normal radio noise from their power plant. Not even emergency band signals, which they should be using if there's been a blackout. I'm also not getting any infrared signature other than reflected starlight, though it would be hard to pick up their waste heat even from this distance." 

"Anything on the threat board?" asked Huston. 

"Nope," replied Suliman. "The nearest action is at Rosanna, over two hundred parsecs from here." 

"Hmph. Have you been playing with the would-be stealth shield?" 

"No, sir. I had planned to call Janella, then flip it on and see if they could track us, but we haven't even got that far." 

"Very well. You are relieved of the con." 

"Thank you, sir," said Suliman, saluting sharply before walking off the bridge. 

"I have a target solution, Subahdar," announced Ordinance Officer Mikoyan aboard the Kalganian Raider Bristol. "The ship has been hailing the spacedock without response or change of course. Passive scanners identify it as a lightweight military merchant craft." 

"Military?" asked Subahdar Argen. "Are you sure it is alone?" 

"There are no other ships in detection range." 

"Hold your fire," instructed the Subahdar. 

"Captain, I have engine emission from high and right, approaching from our stern," announced Norman. 

"Can you identify it?" asked Captain Huston. 

"Negative, Captain. I've never seen an engine plant signature like it." 

"Display it, main screen." 

Norman threw the image onto the front viewscreen, erasing the picture of the approaching planet. 

"Battle stations!" snapped Huston. "Pilot, dive for the planet, maximum acceleration. Navigator, calculate a hyperbolic orbit for optimum gravitational boost from Janella. We've picked up a raider..." 

"The merchant has detected us. It's diving for the planet, probably to get a gravitational assist," announced Mikoyan. 

"Prepare to fire," commanded Subahdar Argen. 

"Torpedo one is locked on target." 

"Fire!" 

"Inbound torpedo," announced Norman. 

"Slingshot ready?" asked the Captain, slipping easily into the abbreviated speech necessary to handle the rapid pace of battle. 

"Orbit computed, sir!" answered Georgia from the navigation console. 

"Execute!" 

"Done," replied Norman. 

"Okay, folks," said the Captain as calmly as he could, "this is what you've all been trained for. We've been shot at before and lived. Stay calm and we'll do it again. Our friend seems to be on his own. We can lose him yet..." 

`Start taking your own advice,' he thought to himself. `Stay calm! They're only trying to kill you...' 

"Engineer Jones!" he ordered, the ship's computer automatically picking up the tone of voice and name to connect him with the engineer. 

"Yes, sir?" asked the grill next to his command chair. 

"We've picked up unwanted company," explained the Captain, "and I wouldn't mind disappearing. Is your stealth system up to the job?" 

"Sir," replied an obviously frightened Jones, "it is only a partial shield, just as I told you. We will be much more difficult to detect at standard search frequencies, but not invisible. Off those search patterns, the stealth characteristics are much weaker. And any cloaking scramblers will be effective against us." 

"Thank you, Senior Engineer Jones," said the Captain. "If this works, I'll confirm your promotion with the Navy." He straightened from leaning towards the grill, signalling the computer to cut the comlink. "Stand by, stealth. Lieutenant, compute an orbit change..." 

"The merchant has gone behind the planet," said Mikoyan. "He'll be eclipsed for five minutes. I am continuing tracking via the torpedo's systems. It confirms the merchant is using the planet's gravity to boost him away from us. He will be in range for fifteen minutes after he re-emerges from the planet." 

"How soon `til the current torpedo makes contact?" 

"Three minutes, Subahdar, but it will be eclipsed in thirty seconds." 

"Set up a shot to intercept the Federalli ship when it comes around the planet, just in case the first torpedo does not finish it off." 

Mikoyan bent over his instruments. 

"Rough solution prepared. I can lock it in when the merchant comes out from behind the planet's disk. Ten seconds `til torpedo eclipse." 

"The planet has eclipsed the raider's contact with its torpedo...now!" announced Norman 

"Release decoy and cloak, then execute course change," commanded Captain Huston. 

"Decoy free and running," said Georgia. 

"Stealth activated," announced Norman. 

Outside the Nikaljuk, the invisible energy shields that warded off meteoriods from the ship's hull underwent a subtle change. 

"Course change initiated. The raider will be visible in two minutes," said Norman. "The torpedo has acquired the decoy: Ninety seconds `til impact." Then he turned from the his console to face the Captain. "That was close, sir." 

"We'll be closer still soon. Stay calm, but remember: The decoy might have pulled the torpedo off us even without the stealth. Let's hope that little gadget really works..." 

"The merchant is overdue to emerge from eclipse," said Mikoyan. "The torpedo must have destroyed it." 

"Or the captain outmaneuvered it, then shifted to a lower orbit," countered Argen. 

"Unlikely. That's a lot of fancy dodging for a freighter." 

"Oh, very likely. You have never fought the Federallies before. Simpleton ship, maybe. But rarely a simpleton captain. I know them from battle. They are sneaky bastards with tricks you can only dream of. Bring us around the planet in a slow orbit and keep your finger near the trigger..." 

The Bristol's pilot began to move the ship around the shining blue globe of Janella. 

"Further engine emission, sir," announced Georgia. "He's headed for a high orbit." 

"Firing solutions?" 

"Torpedoes one and two are locked." 

"Fire both and set up a third." 

"Firing..." 

"Inbound torpedoes!" announced Mikoyan. 

"What!" 

"Two torpedoes, coming straight at us. I can't see the merchant. He must have a cloaking device..." 

"A freighter? Impossible!" 

"The ship does not appear on any of our scanners and the torpedoes were not launched blindly from behind the planet." 

"Evasive maneuvers! Fire!" 

"At what?" 

"Two inbound torpedoes," announced Georgia. "They've fired back down our tracks." 

"Running time?" 

"Thirty seconds," answered Norman. "The Kalganians are jamming." 

"New solution?" 

"It's very rough, but it would give him a nudge," replied Georgia. 

"Hold your fire." 

Far behind the Bristol, a pair of silvery darts drove on through space, headed for the bright engine glow of the fleeing Kalganian. Inside their streamlined metal cases, instruments picked at the subtle signals of the jamming, trying to sort their true target from the dozens of shimmering ghosts thrown at them. At random intervals, each would shift frequency, momentarily clearing away the false images. Fooled for a moment, the first torpedo passed beneath the Bristol, harmlessly passing through the image it had perceived. Now, with the Bristol astern of it, the torpedo detected nothing and drove straight on, its undirected acceleration stopping only when its fuel supply was exhausted. Janella's primary had a new comet. In a hundred years, the metallic dart would fall in to the fiery star, adding in minuscule measure to the star's vast reserves of metallic gases. 

The second torpedo was not fooled. It homed in on the exhaust of the fleeing Kalganian and ten metres short of the engine's vents, the warhead ignited. The entire torpedo was vapourized in an instant. The rear of the Bristol softened with the heat and flowed outward, driven by the internal pressure of the air within its hull. Further from the explosion, solid chunks came free and flew on random courses. The hull was punctured in at least a hundred places, completely overwhelming the safety systems. One flying piece ripped the side out of the Bristol's main generator. Shipboard power failed completely. The few not yet killed by the force of the explosion found themselves breathing vacuum instead of air. Backup power sealed sections from venting their atmosphere into space, but the punctures were so frequent that few of the bulkheads could hold long. Sections of the hull that had not been perforated were severely weakened. Under the continuing pressure of even the partial atmosphere remaining, they buckled and collapsed. In all the ship, only one section remained intact against the damage. And no crew were alive in that sealed tomb. 

The Procurator touched the button on the trimensional recorder, deactivating it. Behind her, the sun had set and the night sky was visible. The dark was broken by myriads of shining stars. 

"Gentlemen," she said, "my pardon for making you speak so long without a break. Would you care for some refreshments?" 

The Doctor stood up from his chair and stretched. 

"Yes, that would be nice. Iced water?" Then he arced his back, groaning slightly as he did so. "Old age is catching up with me. My body can't sit still for so long the way it used to." 

"I feel a bit worn out myself," said Admiral Perry, "though I bet it has more to do with it being dark outside than anything else. The clock might say it's midday, but my body still thinks dark means time to sleep." 

The Procurator smiled. "The price of having an office with a view on a planet where everything is underground. Museum's primary sets every twenty-seven and a quarter hours while planetary time goes full cycle in twenty-five. The last two days, I've just been finishing the day around sunrise." 

"No time zones to worry about at least," said Dr. Drucker. "After a few years here, it's strange to visit a more traditional planet where the time is set by the cycles of their primary." 

"Yes," she replied. "Museum is much more civilized that way. I can call someone on the other side of the planet in the morning and know I'm not interrupting their dinner. But I'm neglecting my job as host. A drink, Captain...sorry, Mr. Huston? Admiral Perry? A snack of some sort? Perhaps even one of those Oceanian delicacies...what did you call them? Jaffles?" 

"That's correct," replied John, "though I've never heard them called a delicacy before. Some iced coroco would be nice." 

"A tofaton for me, thanks," said Admiral Perry, "if that's possible." 

"Our bartender is familiar with Herculean drinks," replied the Procurator. "I've yet to have a visitor ask for something it couldn't make. I think I will stick with local custom and have iced water. Pardon me a moment." With that, she moved to the door where she spoke with a guard. 

"So that's how you did it," said Admiral Perry looking straight at John. "I heard you pulled some sleight-of-hand trick, but no one told me the details." 

"Come again?" asked John. "I don't follow you." 

"Your trick with the meteoroid shields at Janella. Neat." 

"Actually, it wasn't my trick---as I said, it was the creation of a junior engineer. It was him, not me, that saved our skins." 

"He's not a junior engineer, you know," said Admiral Perry with a hint of slyness. 

"Not anymore," replied John. "I promoted him on the spot and the Navy confirmed it when we stopped at Maxel." Then he paused for a moment. "You know, it's funny, but I don't think he'll be a senior engineer any longer than he was junior. I've never had so...well, so COMPETENT an engineer who wasn't master rated at least. I won't be surprised if Warwick is assigned to a cruiser in a few years. I wonder how he came to have such a junior rank?" 

"That's easy to explain," replied Admiral Perry smiling. "I gave it to him. Regulations required that he either start from the bottom and earn his promotions from there, or go to officer school for three years before getting rank. He and I both agreed that school would be silly or even disastrous when he'd know more than any of his instructors, so he started from the bottom...as a junior engineer on the Nikaljuk. 

"You see, Warwick Jones was a master engineer just a year ago. But civil, not military, and permanently groundside. But after having been on the job for a few years, he discovered he wanted to work on ships, and he came to the Navy. The local recruiter was sharp enough to see that Jones was an unusual candidate and immediately passed him on to me. 

"But Admiral or no, I can't bend rules to suit me. I had an eager young man qualified in all but logtime to be chief engineer on a cruiser...but without the ship time, there's no way I could even have put him in charge of a pleasure yacht. And giving him junior rank and placing him on a big ship would be disastrous, both for himself in lack of satisfaction, and for his bosses who couldn't help but notice his superior ability. A lot of people feel threatened when they have to give orders to a more capable officer. You can imagine what might happen in a situation like that. 

"The obvious solution was to find a small ship, one large enough to interest him, but small enough that there would only be a couple of other engineers who might potentially get aggravated. Besides, mismatches in rank and ability are a little more common on certain small ships, or so you seem to allege." 

"Oh?" said John in mock innocence. 

"I recall you thinking yourself on par with me once upon a time," replied Admiral Perry jovially. "But I haven't heard anyone call you `Admiral Huston' yet." 

"Well, thank you," said John. "For a moment there, I thought you were implying that I was incompetent and overranked." 

"Maybe I was... But I digress. I knew I wanted a small ship, preferably with an Oceanian crew since Jones hails from there, and your name came up on the top of my list. 

"In many ways, your crew was the most ideal. Jones would be joining you just at the same time you were changing to the Nikaljuk, so only the ship's permanent crew would be more experienced with the ship and they would not be surprised to find a highly capable engineer unfamiliar with the shipboard routine. 

"The deciding factor, though, was how you work with your crew. I've heard what happens on your ship, playing games with each other like you do. Some of the officers who've served with you have mentioned it...or worse yet, tried the same thing on unprepared commanders elsewhere. I find it all most undignified and quite out of character with the code of conduct expected of a naval officer..." and as he said this, Admiral Perry's voice grew stern, then suddenly softened, "...but quite a lot of fun. You should have seen the look on Byron Parry's face when he discovered one of his senior engineer's had wired the Brach Y Pwull's bridge lights to start a strobe show every time someone used the officer's head! Our commanders could do with a few more safe surprises, and burning up the crew's energy on pranks improves discipline remarkably. 

"So here I was with the perfect prank to pull on you, the original prankster himself. I told Jones to use his electrical wizardry on you whenever possible, then deliberately neglected to tell you anything about his background when he was assigned to you. And it all worked even better than I could have imagined. I warned Jones it might be quite a while before he got a promotion...and he came back from his first mission crowing victory in my face." 

"Yes," said Captain Huston. "You managed to pull quite a joke on us all. Three quarters of my crew managed to get entangled in the attempt to find out if that gadget really was what Warwick claimed it was. J`ali thought it was the real thing while his chief engineer swore no such thing could be so small nor run on as little power as it did. And neither Warwick nor the device revealed a thing `til we stumbled on the Kalganian raider. He save our lives...and the chief engineer STILL insisted it had to be a fake." 

"I wouldn't blame him," said Admiral Perry. "While this is the first time I've ever been privy to what exactly happened, I've heard a few whispers in the halls of power...and they are just as mystified about how such a useful thing was never made or even thought of before. Jones seems to have a real genius. 

"It's just sad that proving his device cost twenty crew their lives, even if they were Kalganian." And with that, Admiral Perry stood up wordlessly and stared out the window. 

"Did you notice her ring?" whispered Dr. Drucker leaning into John's ear. 

"What ring?" asked John, disoriented by the sudden change of conversation and Admiral Perry's reaction. 

"The Procurator's," whispered Dr. Drucker in reply. 

"It's a signet ring," answered John quietly, still looking at the melancholy Admiral. "All upper rank civil servants have one. Why are we whispering?" 

"Look carefully at the design..." but the archaeologist cut himself off as the Procurator returned. 

"The drinks will be here in a moment," she said, then turned to the Admiral. "Beautiful view, isn't it?" 

"Yes, it is," said the Admiral, startled out of his silent concentration. "I always liked the night sky from Inner worlds. There are so many stars in the galactic plane. I grew up out on the Periphery where there are fewer nearby stars. Just the distant dusty white splodge of the galaxy." 

As the Procurator talked with the Admiral, John caught a glimpse of her ring. 

`The design is familiar,' he thought, `but it shouldn't be. Before this business with the Nikaljuk, I've never even heard of the Procurator of Museum. Where have I seen that design before?' 

A soft bell tone sounded from the desk. 

"Ah, our drinks are ready," said the Procurator. "Bring them in!" 

One of the uniformed guards brought in the tray and placed it on the desk. He saluted sharply, then turned on his heel and left. Just as he did, John recalled where he had seen the signet design before... 

`How can the Procurator of Museum be wearing the seal of the Federal Commander in Chief unless...' 

"That's the imprint of the Secretary-General!" whispered John. "The only person who can wear it is..." 

"Plotting something, you two?" asked Admiral Perry. "Come look at the view. Oceania can't boast a sky like this." 

"True," said John, coming to the window. "Oceania's in an intermediate sector. Enough stars to dazzle the visitors from the Periphery, but so much less so than the Inner worlds that the ambassadors consider our sky bland. What about your home, Dr. Drucker?" 

"My home is gone," Dr. Drucker replied flatly. 

John cursed himself inwardly for not remembering. The room was silent for several minutes while they drank and looked out the window. John wrinkled up his nose at the iced coroco. `Every time I ask for iced coroco offworld, they mess it up.' He had been handed a glass of refrigerated coroco with an ice cube floating in it. On any of the Oceanian worlds, it would have been served blended with frozen cream instead of with ice. `It's easy to forget they don't serve it properly elsewhere.' 

"Well," said the Procurator finally, "we should get back to business. But before we do, I have some trimens I want you to see." She turned to her desk and pulled out a set of prints from a drawer. She passed them to John. 

"These were taken from...well, I'll let you guess." 

John looked at the first on the pile. It showed a silvery spacedock orbiting a blue planet with the characteristic white streaks of water vapour clouds. The spacedock seemed tiny there, dwarfed by the ball beneath it. Even from as far as the trimenograph had been taken, something did not look right. There appeared to be a gash in the outer hull and several of the protruding arms of the dock appeared snapped, others warped, and there might even have been some missing. John was not familiar enough with space engineering to tell, but from his experience of approaching docks, he knew roughly what they tended to look like. This was wrong. He handed the print to Dr. Drucker. 

The next shot was taken much closer and showed the damage much more clearly. Smaller pock marks showed in the hull and the gash now appeared to have ripped through almost all of the hull. Plates of metal were twisted and distorted, bulging outwards where they had been softened by heat and yielded slightly to the pressure of an atmosphere behind them. Other sections of the hull had been heated so fiercely that the metal had vapourized, exposing the interior to the cold vacuum of space. 

The next print showed the interior of the dock. There were bodies... 

John stopped looking. He knew what he would find. It was the space dock at Janella. The close up images looked similar to the brief shots the Nikaljuk had made before they had been ordered to Maxel. The Kalganians had gutted and destroyed the entire station, killing all the personnel. Intellectually, he had known that already. They could hardly have left a ship to ambush the Nikaljuk with an operational space dock in Federal hands at their back. But he had not thought further. The few brief images caught by the Nikaljuk were not taken close up and he had not examined them closely before handing them over to the commander at Maxel. He had not thought what that destruction would look like... 

"How did you get these?" asked Dr. Drucker. "These pictures are from Janella. The Nikaljuk got attacked by the folks that did this and even we haven't seen these before." 

"You've both admired my ring," replied the Procurator with a slight smile, "so you know my position. I have access to such things." She leaned forward and took the prints from Admiral Perry as he finished with them. 

"But you are wrong," she continued. "These images are not from Janella. They were presented to me by the ambassador of Turnay after his release. This is what the Federal Navy did to the space station at Turnay two weeks later. However, the pictures taken by the Haiphong at Janella are remarkably similar. It seems the tactics of evil Kalganians differ little from our own...I can show you the images from Janella too if you wish." 

"No, thank you," said John with a hint of firmness in his voice that conveyed certainty. 

"Why are you showing us this?" asked Admiral Perry. 

"I will come to that in the end," replied the Secretary-General. 

"If you're the Secretary-General..." began Dr. Drucker, "who has been the Procurator of Museum for the last five years? I mean, this is the first time I've ever had even a hint that you weren't in command here. And what are you doing here? What's this inquiry really about?" 

"I have been the Secretary-General of the Federal Galactic Union for ten years, ever since my father passed the title on to me. I've also been the Procurator of Museum for the last five of those years. 

"I had always dreamed of having a job like this, but never thought that holding the federal scepter would ever let me. Then there was the assassination attempt by the Kalganian Intelligence Service. It was not the first, but it came within an ace of succeeding and no other threat to my person had ever been so serious. I went into hiding, eventually coming to Museum when the previous procurator resigned. 

"It has been the perfect disguise. My first years of office were anonymous enough that I have not been recognized save by those I wished and as Procurator of Museum, seeing my face in any corner of the galaxy is perfectly in place. Whenever and wherever I am needed in my role as Secretary-General, there is sure to be a nearby historian, anthropologist, or archaeologist to justify my official appearance. The government on Throne is a mock structure to draw the fire of the assassins and quell the doubts of all but the most inquisitive." 

"But you've just revealed yourself to us!" said Dr. Drucker. "Why? And why does our expedition to First World merit your attention?" 

"The most important reason in the Galaxy, Doctor. But let me deal with that when we finish this recording..." and so saying, she restarted the recorder on the table. 


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Earth as an Example 

Chapter 3 

Jesse Allen 

Copyright (c) 1991



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Maxel space station was one of the products of the war. Though small by Federal standards, the city in the sky regularly housed ten thousand. Unlike its cousins orbiting inhabited planets, Maxel circled no primary. It merely hung in space, the nearest star over three parsecs away. With no populous planets nearby, it was not a commercial stopover. No profit-minded interest had ever been shown in the station. But the war had demanded that there be piers where ships could rest without the normal long haul on ion drive necessary near stars. Once a short distance away, ships departing Maxel simply kicked straight into hyperdrive. A day out of port, they could be a full parsec away, fully ten thousand times the distance covered in the same time on ion drive. Without the lengthy climb out of a stellar gravitational well, and clear of the denser interplanetary medium, ships trimmed days, even weeks, off their voyage time. 

The Nikaljuk was docked at one of the outermost service corridors, a long flexible tube extending out to the one exit hatch in use. The freighter looked out of place among the sleek war ships of the Federal Navy, their shining steel hulls bristling with the weapons of their trade. Dr. Drucker and Captain Huston looked out on the scene from a large window overlooking the quay. Behind them, a number of officers milled about, two concentrating on a game board projected on the table in front of them. 

Suddenly, the stars dimmed as the window darkened. A few kilometres out from the station, a ship cut in its hyperdrive, the bright light of its engine thrust drowning out everything in its dazzling brilliance. But the window had adjusted its filtering appropriately: The bright exhaust tubes could be watched without blinking. The ship pulled away, rapidly picking up speed as it dwindled away into the distance. As it streaked off into the night sky, the stars gradually reappeared as the window returned to its usual transparency. 

"John Huston!" called out one of the game players, suddenly looking up from the holographic playing cube in front of him. "What an unexpected pleasure! What brings you to this corner of the Union?" 

Captain Huston and Dr. Drucker turned from the window to face the speaker. He was a tall, thin man in his middle thirties with short blonde hair, dressed in the dark, close fitting uniform of a navy officer. 

"Byron Parry!" exclaimed Captain Huston, moving over to shake hands with the player. "Good to see you again. Dr. Drucker, this is Byron Parry from the Brach Y Pwull, a friend of mine from academy days. Byron, Dr. Drucker, chief archaeologist of Museum." 

Captain Huston looked at Byron's neckline for a moment, noting the four silver clusters on the neckline. 

"Not a Captain any more? Congratulations!" he remarked. 

"Thanks," replied Byron. "I got the promotion to Commander three months ago. And these days, I'm on the Rodina. Dr. Drucker, glad to meet you. I recall your name from the ruckus back when the historians were stirring up Parliament to fund Museum." 

"My involvement with those affairs was slight," replied Dr. Drucker modestly. "Politics is not my field, though I do think Parliament did make the right decision in the end." 

"Indeed," said Byron. "I've been meaning to visit the place for some time. My kids have been twice already with school and have come home screaming with pleasure and running circles around me in History both times. How about you, John? What have you been up to?" 

"I'm still a mere captain," replied John, "but I have managed to get off the escort roster. I'm working on the Nikaljuk, a light freighter, assisting Dr. Drucker and his team on a research project. A strange occupation for a Navy captain in the middle of a war, but orders are orders." 

"Since you're not going to introduce me," said the player across the board, "it IS your turn." She spoke with a thick accent that Captain Huston did not recognize, swallowing all her vowels. 

"John, Dr. Drucker, this is Siabohn O`Neil," Byron said, "Captain of the Brach Y Pwull. She was my second." 

"Five years on the Brach Y Pwull," said Siabohn, "and he STILL can't pronounce it properly. At least with me in command, the crew has a captain who can talk properly." 

"Perhaps if you Orionians spoke using the same vowels as the rest of the galaxy," retorted Byron merrily, "you wouldn't have such troubles." Then he waved his hand at the game board. "What do you think of this, John?" 

Captain Huston knelt down to look at the board carefully, examining the formation of red and black pieces strewn throughout the cube's volume. 

"It looks like you've been out matched, but there are some possibilities here," said John after a few moments. 

"You're in trouble," Dr. Drucker warned Captain O`Neil, "if you let John join the fray. They used to call him `the Dark Master' for the way he plays this game." 

At that, Huston suddenly looked up at Dr. Drucker who was now examining the playing board from O`Neil's side of the cube. 

"Who told you that?" he asked. 

"Admiral Perry," replied Dr. Drucker nonchalantly. "Did you honestly think I challenged you blindly?" 

"After those first two games," replied Captain Huston, "yes. You knew the whole time? Did you just let me win those two?" 

"I wish I could say yes," replied Dr. Drucker sheepishly, "but I'm afraid that, even forewarned, your style managed to take me by surprise. But you've lost that edge now." 

`Indeed I have,' thought Huston. `This last game has been dragging on for a week now. He just started massacring my pieces all of a sudden. I've struck back and devastated him too, but neither of us is winning, more than a hundred moves since the last capture.' 

"By the way," started Huston, "what's all the excitement about? We've seen four ships kick off in the last hour." Right on cue, the window darkened again as another ship cut its hyperdrive in. 

"How long have you been here?" asked Parry. 

"Just a couple of hours," answered Huston. "What have I been missing?" 

"You missed it, all right," said O`Neil. 

"The Haiphong, mate," added Parry. "Admiral Nguyen himself was here not a week ago, then suddenly scrambled out of here yesterday afternoon. Apparently the Kalganians have started a new offensive. They razed a few planets only a dozen parsecs from here. Clobbered the orbital stations, bombarded the ground-space facilities, then left a few snipers to harass anyone who came to aid the locals too soon." 

"And they sent the Haiphong? Kind of overkill, isn't it?" 

"It seems there was some high level concern. A bunch of civilians were headed for one of the nearby systems that lost contact a few days ago. The Secretary-General had some personal interest in the passengers and wanted the Navy to intercept them before they tried to make planet fall. But that was only the first stop: Haiphong is heading for Sagittarius to handle the new troubles there." 

Captain Huston and Dr. Drucker exchanged a shocked look. 

"This ship..." asked Dr. Drucker. "It wouldn't happen to have been headed for Janella, by chance?" 

Commander Parry's head snapped up from the game cube. 

"That's classified information!" he said sternly. "How did you get a hold of it?" 

"Good grief!" exclaimed Captain Huston. "That was us! We got jumped by a raider at Janella three days ago and barely got out alive. We were about to survey the area and see what was going on when we got ordered to get here full blast. But the Secretary-General? All I'm doing is shuttling around some prehistory specialists!" 

"It seem you've become a VIP," said Commander Parry with respect. 

"You said Nguyen was taking the Haiphong to Sagittarius," said Dr. Drucker. "What's happening?" 

"Hmm," rumbled Commander Parry hesitating. "Well, I doubt the censors will quash this. The razing rampage has only been a small part of a general renewed offensive by the Empire. Sagittarius has born the brunt of it. They've been dropping nova bombs into every star with a ship yard nearby without much regard to inhabited planets." 

"Nova bomb?" asked Dr. Drucker, his face turning white. "What's that?" 

"It's a device dropped into a star. It penetrates deep into the stellar core, then explodes. The detonation, when placed correctly, disrupts the balance of the fusion reactions that power the star. 

"Of course, stirring up something which has a mass of 10$^{30}$ kilograms is quite a task, so the change is quite short lived and doesn't disrupt the entire star. But it's enough --- for at least a few hours, the bomb wreaks total chaos. The high energy particle flux from the star jumps by several orders of magnitude, well beyond the maximum tolerance of even the best shipboard shielding. Anything caught in space within a milliparsec is cooked through and through. Space stations too: Even they can't withstand that kind of blast. If they're on the far side of a planet when it starts, the planet will shield them... until their orbit takes them over to dayside. And most stations are in low orbits with periods around a hundred minutes, far too short to save them." 

"And the planet?" asked Dr. Drucker with concern. 

"Dayside, they'll all get baked... and they're the lucky ones. The particles turn the atmosphere into a hodgepodge of radioactive isotopes. A lot of air is simply ionized and then neutralizes itself violently. But the altered isotopes... Anyone who survives the initial blast will die from radiation sickness. Nightsiders can be evacuated, but their ships have to remain in the planet's shadow until the particle storm is over, which involves defying about a half dozen laws of orbital mechanics. Not that it can't be done, but that can save only a few thousand at best. For everyone else, there's simply nothing that can be done. They'll die. All of them." 

"But rescue missions? Surely they can treat the sick?" said Dr. Drucker pathetically. 

"This is radiation sickness, not a fever," replied Byron. "Once you get it, the best anyone can do is make you comfortable. And how do you rescue a hundred million people? Half of them won't live long enough for a rescue mission to even make it there. For very mild cases, the tissue damage can be undone or removed, but past that exposure level, there's nothing that can be done. A few very lucky people who hid in shelters might escape enough of the radiation and altered atmosphere to have treatable exposure levels. But again, that's going to be thousands at the most." 

"So no one can live through a nova bomb?" said Dr. Drucker quietly. 

"That's about the size of it," replied Byron. 

Dr. Drucker turned to Captain Huston. 

"My family...they're on Hardin, near the center of the Sagittarius sector. And there's three ship construction yards there, two of them working for the Navy." 

"Hardin?" said Siabohn comfortingly. "I've not heard of any action reaching that deep into the sector yet. You can check with the base commander: He can get you in touch with your family if it's possible and he'll know if the action is close. The Haiphong and its escort fleet is setting up blockades around inhabited planets. If Hardin hasn't been attacked yet, the fleet will be protecting it. And the Kalganians will find it hard to run through the Haiphong's screens. Nguyen's the sort you hate to have as an enemy." 

But Dr. Drucker missed the last of her words. He was already out the door headed for the base commander's office. 

Lieutenant Judith Swerth noticed she was chewing her nails and forced her hand out of her mouth. It was the fifth time she had caught herself gnawing at her fingers in the last ten minutes and the condition of her nails suggested she had done it many more times than that. It was a nervous habit of teenage years that returned under stress. 

She had been in the command chair of the Wangratta for the past five hours and was due to change watch in another three. She was one of eight officers from the Chepachet, a federal cruiser assigned to monitor the Hardin star system. Although the entire sector was theoretically protected by blockade ships, the Navy was taking no risks and had assigned additional ships to protect individual star systems within the blockade volume. The Wangratta was a small scout ship specifically designed to monitor shipping traffic while remaining undetected herself. Her crew were all junior officers training for command positions --- they rotated turns at each of the pilot, monitor, engineer and command positions. 

When the unexplained signal came in from the neutrino strips lining the Wangratta's hull, Swerth had been excited and pleased she had the command. It was the third such contact and thus was dubbed Gondor 3, the Navy parlance for a suspected, but unidentified enemy ship. The other two had occurred while she was off duty or at the navigator's console. While she was certainly involved, there had not been a chance to prove herself from the command chair. But now her enthusiasm had given way to worry and tension. Gondor 3 had initially appeared as a middle weight Kalganian raider nearby, approaching at a speed that would bring it close to the Wangratta in a matter of hours. The Wangratta would grapple with the raider, locking on tractor beams to anchor it in space. Her powerful engine plant could generate power enough to maintain her protective shields against the very worst barrage the raider could bring to bear. Meanwhile, the Chepachet would come into position and destroy the enemy ship. 

But the encounter had not happened. Despite Gondor 3's velocity, clearly discernible from the Doppler shift in its energy pattern, it had not yet arrived. That implied it was at a greater distance and its neutrino signal came from a larger power plant than she had assumed. Each passing moment made the smallest size ship still explainable by the signal larger and larger. In another ten minutes, she would be sure beyond all doubt that the inbound ship was beyond the Wangratta's defensive shield capacity...and perhaps would even out gun the Chepachet. Yet how could something that large have escaped the outer guards? 

There was a possible answer. The neutrino strips were very new and few ships were equipped with them. Neutrinos are highly penetrating particles generated in a host of nuclear reactions. The collapse of a supernova, the deep cauldron of a stellar core, and the power plants of starships all produced the tiny, massless particles in profusion. They were so penetrating that they could escape from the depths of a star and it was hopeless to even attempt to contain them in a fusion vessel. But just as they could pass through a reactor wall, they also passed through detectors without appreciable effect. Neutrino detectors were normally giant devices where a single detection implied the presence of trillions of non-detections. 

The Wangratta's detectors, however, were subtly different. A modification of the detector material during its forging yielded a material which, when an appropriate energy field was applied, had a billion-fold greater cross-section to passing neutrinos. Detections remained marginal and little information could be eeked from what signal there were. But it made for a passive tracking system. A ship which shut down its own power plant could lie undetected and yet monitor all traffic within a considerable volume of space around it. And until a way was found to contain neutrinos, there was no countermeasure to thwart it. 

What Lieutenant Swerth feared, however, was the countermeasures for the usual scanners which were quite feasible, such as might have been used to slip past the blockade. A ship with a large enough power plant could hold up just such a device, fooling a searching ship into seeing nothing. Those countermeasures, in turn, could be scrambled, but again, power limitations made it possible for only the largest starships to carry the scramblers. Could it be that a large Kalganian ship could have evaded the scrambling fields and with its stealth system, passed unnoticed by the outer guard ships? 

But that was impossible! Almost all of the Sagittarius sector was surrounded by heavy ships set in positions such that their scrambling fields would have a 25% overlap. There would be no way to penetrate that shield undetected. 

Yet there was definitely something approaching which should not have been and it must have escaped the attention of the outer guards. 

"I have signal resolution," announced Lieutenant Helgth. "Gondor 3 is no longer a single point source." 

`Good,' thought Swerth. `That mean's it's close enough for secondary power sources to be detected, making it quite close. Probably a heavier rated raider instead of the middle weight I had assumed. The Wangratta can still handle that.' Swerth's assumptions rested on knowing the volume of space the neutrino strips could comb, the flux and velocity of the approaching vessel, and its probable distance at the time of first contact. There was also the matter of the spectral signatures --- different class vessels gave off subtly different energy patterns and Gondor 3 had many of the spectral signatures of medium displacement raider. But recognizing neutrino signatures was a new and uncertain business and it was quite feasible for the raider to have been somewhat larger than the energy spread of its power plant initially appeared. 

"Gondor 3 now appears as three contacts," continued Helgth. "Assessment shows central contact is a Kalganian cruiser with two accompanying heavy raiders. From an extreme distance, their combined signature appears like that of a medium raider." 

`Bad,' thought Swerth, her sudden hopes dashed. `Very, very bad.' 

"Notify the Chepachet," she commanded. 

"There is some ambiguity in the identification of Gondor 3," explained Helgth from the signal processor. Then he swiveled in his chair. 

"There could be even more ships," he said in a dead pan voice. 

Siabohn and Byron sat across the table from each other starting down each other's pieces. John Huston sat beside Byron looking at the board, but with an unattentive eye. Occasionally, he would glance at the empty seats next to himself or at the chess pieces arrayed across the table just as they had been put there by himself and David Drucker a week ago. They had been halfway through setting up the board when the Navy reported the vapourization of the Chepachet and the subsequent bombardment of Hardin's primary. Dr. Drucker had left then and not returned. No one had seen him since, though everyone knew where he was. 

John looked at the chess board one more time and had to fight back the instinct to rise and go to the archaeologist's quarters. But John had sat in the command chair long enough to know some griefs were meant to be private. When Dr. Drucker truly wanted to talk, he would come of his own accord. 

"Long range scanners confirm the planet is inhabitable, Captain," announced Georgia. "It has a nearly circular orbit almost exactly in the middle of the life compatible range. Atmosphere analysis shows that the air is predominantly nitrogen with an approximate 20% oxygen content. Carbon dioxide levels are low and within biocompatible limits. This could be it, sir." She couldn't keep a hint of excitement out of her voice. 

"It does sound good," replied Captain Huston, "and we can tell more from here than early settlers. Now we have to hope for something a little bad --- we're looking for an abandoned planet, so there has to be something to have driven the settlers away after they got here. Something subtle enough to have been missed in a preliminary analysis, but annoying enough to have convinced them to leave later." 

"I'll keep looking," said Georgia, obviously pleased. 

The Nikaljuk was slowly spirally in toward the second of the water/oxygen worlds circling G-type stars within the region the probe was supposed to have come from. The archaeologists that had been bound for Janella and Srosa had left them at Maxel. Instead of being flown to those destinations by the Nikaljuk as had been originally planned, they were going with the second wave of military convoys, the first having re-established order. Those who remained with the Nikaljuk began the search for the abandoned planets which might, in the ancient settler's ruins, give Dr. Drucker's team another of the missing clues to the elusive First World. 

So far, the search has not gone well. The stellography mission to this part of the sector was ancient and outdated. The information was skimpier than it had seemed at first glance. Just a simple note of star mass, luminosity, and stellar class, plus the presence of planets and their orbital parameters. Few of the planets had been accurately classified, let alone examined in detail. The Nikaljuk's first stop at one of the F type stars had been typical: The planet reported in an acceptable orbit for life tolerable conditions had proven to be an airless ball with a distinctly elliptical orbit. At periastron, the planet was too close to its primary for livable temperatures while apastron grazed the outer limit. But it had been a long shot to start with since G, not F, type stars were the norm for habitable planets. 
