In Earth's Service (Mapped Space Book 2) Read online

  “Really?” she said, silently dropping us a few more rungs on the evolutionary ladder.

  An immense, flat sided hexagon loomed out of the darkness ahead. Several other prism orbitals drifted in the distance while the star Pelani had shrunk to a tiny glowing orb and Ansara was no longer visible. Our small craft entered the circular tunnel at the center of the prism, then passed through a huge space door into an enormous cylindrical chamber that could have docked dozens of ships. We glided to a stop close to the curved wall as a narrow bridge extended toward us forming a sealed walkway between our craft and the orbital.

  “Is this entire station a hospital?” I asked as Meta led us across the walkway.

  “It is more a laboratory than what you would think of as a hospital. It is equipped to remedy any Tau Cetin physical condition, conduct biological research and synthesize replacement components as required.”

  “Like cloning body parts?” Jase asked.

  “No,” she replied as we entered a long, softly lit corridor. “Cloning copies the patient’s own genetic material. We construct new components from elementary biomatter and program the genetic coding directly. It is a process that eliminates replicative failure.”

  “Is that how they made you?” I asked.

  “I am biomechanical. My outer dermal layer is human-like, but more durable and long lasting than your skin. My interior structure is flexion-carbon.”

  “Flexion-carbon?”

  “It’s a material we use extensively, extremely light and many times stronger than your polysteel. It is the strongest artificial substance in the universe. This orbital is constructed of it, as are our ships.”

  “Any chance of getting a sample?” I asked.

  She smiled, amused at the prospect, then led us through a sliding door into a darkened room where Izin floated naked, bathed in soft beams of light. Three curved metal strips forming segments of a circle slowly orbited his head emitting thin beams of yellow light that swept up and down rhythmically over his long cranium. I started toward him, plowed straight into a pressure field and was pushed back with a gentle, unyielding force.

  “What are you doing to him?” I demanded.

  “Copying the electrochemical structure of his brain,” she replied. “I assure you, he feels nothing.”

  “This is how you question a suspect?”

  “The method is flawless. Once we have copied his memory and mental processes, we will disable any deception or resistance inherent in the original, creating a compliant duplicate which will answer every question with absolute honesty. If Izin Nilva Kren is a spy, the duplicate will confess.”

  “Does he get to testify in his own defense?”

  “That is neither necessary nor desirable.”

  “So his life depends on what the copy says?”

  “Yes. Such confessions have far greater weight under our law than his own testimony because there is no possibility of deception.”

  “What about his right not to incriminate himself?”

  “We recognize no such right. That concept is nothing more than a piece of legal trickery used by primitive societies to allow criminals to avoid responsibility for their actions. Advanced societies are built upon a fundamental concept, that justice avoided is injustice. That applies as much to an individual as to an entire civilization. We seek truth. Once we know it, we act upon it.”

  “You have no secrets,” I said, realizing in their society, no one could ever lie and get away with it. If they did that to me, my copy would reveal everything I knew, my threading, my work for the EIS, every dirty trick and double cross I’d ever pulled.

  “Secrecy stands in the way of justice,” she said simply. “In this case, it threatens the safety of the Tau Cetin people and of the galaxy itself.”

  “Is he asleep?” Jase asked, peering through the darkness toward Izin.

  “He’s conscious, but disconnected from all sensory inputs. A certain degree of cognition is required for the process.”

  “What does he think is happening?” I asked.

  “He knows he’s being interrogated, but is unaware of the method being used.”

  “Can he see me?” Jase waved a hand experimentally, then yelled, “Izin!”

  “He cannot hear or see you,” she said.

  “Free him now!” I demanded.

  “Not until the copying process is complete.”

  “You have no right!”

  “We have every right. The interrogation of Izin Nilva Kren is being conducted according to galactic law and with the full authority of the Forum. We must determine if the terrestrial amphibians of Earth are in contact with the Minacious Cluster.”

  “That’s crazy,” Jase said. “The tamphs couldn’t keep something like that a secret from us!”

  “We disagree,” Meta said calmly.

  “Is that why you’ve been following us?” I asked. It was a theory I’d been considering since Izin’s arrest.

  She gave me a puzzled look. “Why do you think we are following you?”

  “There was a ship tracking us on Novo Pantanal. It wasn’t emitting neutrinos. The only ships we know that can do that are yours.”

  Meta fell silent, listening to a conversation among those who were eavesdropping on us. Finally she said, “No Tau Cetin ships are following you.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “What you believe is of no concern to us, but it is the truth.”

  As an android, she could have lied through her teeth without any of the human signs of deceit, yet I believed her. The Tau Cetins played their games, but they’d never directly lied to us. “Who else has ships like yours?”

  “No one in the Orion Arm. There are others elsewhere in the galaxy with similar capabilities, but why would they be interested in you?”

  “What about the Intruders?” Jase asked.

  “They have recently acquired a theoretical understanding of aspects of our technology, but they are still some way from being able to practically deploy it.”

  Damn! “They’re catching you aren’t they? And not just in weapons!”

  “They have a remarkably single minded focus, at least for what they want. In any event, you would find their existing ships difficult to detect.”

  If it was an Intruder ship, why would it be following us? Were they trying to contact Izin? He’d been the one who’d detected them, proof he wasn’t working for them, but other tamphs might be – especially the females. It made frighteningly good sense for the Intruders to use the tamphs of Earth to spy on our closest neighbor, who also happened to be their greatest enemy.

  “Suppose there are Intruder spies among the tamphs. What then?”

  “Skipper!” Jase exclaimed. “What are you saying?”

  “Izin isn’t a spy,” I said, “but he’s only one tamph in ten million.”

  “If the terrestrial amphibian population of Earth are cooperating with the Intruders, then they are implicated in the attack on the Alliance Fleet, in which case the tamph population will be returned to the Minacious Cluster.”

  “But Earth is their home!” Jase snapped.

  “The Minacious Cluster is their home,” Meta corrected. “Their presence on Earth is an accident of history, our mistake for not detecting them at the time.”

  “How can you return them?” I asked. “You’ve lost control of their home cluster.”

  “They’ll be placed in suspension until the present hostilities have ceased.” She motioned to Izin, indicating he was in the state she was referring to. “An orbital is being prepared as we speak.”

  “You’d turn them all into sleeping zombies?” I asked.

  “They will not be harmed, but if they pose a danger to us, they will be returned to where they belong.”

  “Does Earth Council have any say in this?”

  “They’ll be advised of the sentence, but will not be allowed to interfere in its execution.”

  “We’ll protest to the Forum!”

  “You
are not yet members. Even if you were, you would find such a decision is in their interest as much as ours.”

  Suddenly, it hit me. They were looking for an excuse because the tamph presence so close to Tau Ceti made our mighty avian neighbors nervous. It was an abject lesson in how powerless we were when their interests and ours conflicted. All it would take was one tamph traitor and Izin would be condemned to their collective fate whether he was a spy or not.

  It wasn’t justice, it was a great power flexing its muscle.

  After watching Izin float helplessly for almost an hour, Meta said, “Jesorl wishes to speak with you.”

  “Has he made a decision about Izin?” I asked.

  “No, he wishes to discuss the substance you brought to Ansara.”

  In my fury over Izin’s arrest, I’d almost forgotten my reason for being there. “Does he know what it is?”

  “I only know to take you back.”

  “I’m staying here, Skipper,” Jase said, “until they let him go.”

  I glanced at Meta. “Any objections?”

  “It is permitted. We will provide sustenance and accommodation while our investigation proceeds.”

  I left Jase there and followed Meta back to the boarding bridge. Floating above our spindle shaped transport was a large Tau Cetin ship. She was a sleek metallic dart hundreds of meters in length. Her normally mirror-like hull was pockmarked with circular black scars and her sharp bow had been completely blown off. Amidships, two ragged holes exposed melted interior decks. The only other TC warship I’d seen had been Observer Siyarn’s Arbiter a year ago. It had left me with an impression of immense military power while this smaller version warned there were limits to Tau Cetin power.

  “She looks pretty beat up,” I said, stopping to watch as the stricken ship glided toward several docking bridges extending to meet her.

  “She was lucky to survive,” Meta conceded. “Many weaker allied ships did not.” Once docked, lines of small silver capsules began streaming across to the prism orbital’s open doors. “Those survival modules contain our wounded.”

  No wonder the TCs were mad. I hoped for the sake of all tamphs on Earth that they weren’t on the wrong side of this fight. I hid my concern as I followed Meta into our transport, not taking my eyes off the damaged warship until we shot away from the prism orbital toward Ansara.

  “That didn’t look like you have much of a lead on the Intruders,” I said.

  “Once all laws of the physical universe are fully understood, technological advancement plateaus,” she explained. “The differences between mature civilizations narrow even when they are of greatly different ages.”

  “That’s why you’re paranoid about being spied on, isn’t it? They’re closing the gap.”

  “They have always been a threat, now more than ever.”

  “But if the Tau Cetins are on the plateau, you must be closing in on the Precursors?”

  “Progress exists on the plateau, but it is slow. Nevertheless, ten million years of gradual advance is an insurmountable lead.”

  “Does anyone ever pass someone ahead of them?”

  “Only when civilizations stagnate or collapse. Generally, everyone advances together, at their own pace, only slowing as they near the plateau.”

  So, no matter how hard we tried, our place in the universe had been determined by a clock we didn’t control and could never adjust. My mind turned back to the battered TC warship. “Did your allies survive?”

  “Only the Yhinsar and the Ovani escaped.”

  “I haven’t heard of them.”

  “They are Observers,” she said as we plunged into Ansara’s atmosphere. “The Yhinsar are from the Cygnus Arm. They fought with us against the Intruder Fleet two and half thousand years ago when it transited your Solar System.”

  “And the Ovani?”

  “Their homeworld is very far. I don’t know if they’ve ever visited Earth.”

  “So if only three of you survived …”

  She nodded. “Hundreds of ships belonging to minor powers were destroyed, including more than forty ships from the Orion Arm.”

  “Anyone we know?”

  “The Syrmans, Minkarans, Matarons, Carolians and Gienans all lost ships.”

  “The Matarons were there?” I asked incredulously. I’d assumed the idea of cooperating with anyone would have repulsed them.

  “Since the Vintari Incident you were involved in last year, they’ve been actively seeking to improve relations with us and the Forum Membership.”

  “Doesn’t that strike you as strange? I mean, the Matarons hate you. Why would they suddenly want to help you?”

  “We have embarrassed them on numerous occasions. After Vintari, they sought to improve relations with us. It is normal behavior for a weaker power to seek good relations with a stronger neighbor. Such a decision is rational and inevitable, even for inherently aggressive, fearful societies like the Matarons.”

  The snakeheads might just be sneaky enough to cozy up to the Tau Cetins, hoping one day to catch humanity out. I didn’t like it, but Meta seemed unconcerned by their change of heart.

  “How many ships did they lose?”

  “Five. Mataron ships are as inferior to Intruder vessels as they are to ours. They could have escaped, but chose to stay and fight. A commendable, if rash choice. You see, even the most xenophobic species can learn in time to become valuable galactic citizens.”

  Once the transport settled on the landing platform above Jesorl’s house, we took the elevator down to the surface. Jesorl was waiting for us on one of the curved lounges in the center of the main room. He began clicking in his native avian language before I’d even taken the seat opposite him.

  “He wishes to know how you obtained the cylinder?” Meta translated.

  “I removed it from a human ship on a planet we call Novo Pantanal.”

  Jesorl twittered again in bird-speak, then Meta said, “And how did this human ship obtain the material?”

  “I don’t know, yet.” If Siyarn had been there, I might have mentioned the frozen alien and the strange tech the Merak Star was smuggling, but with Jesorl threatening to turn every tamph on Earth into mindless zombies, I wasn’t in a trusting mood. “I was suspicious. I couldn’t identify it so I came here, because I thought we were on the same side of the galactic fence.”

  “Galactic fence?” Meta asked.

  “Figure of speech. I don’t suppose there’s any chance of contacting Siyarn?”

  “We have already communicated with Observer Siyarn.”

  “He’s back?”

  “No. He is with our fleet assembling along the Halo Threshold.” The galactic halo was a long way away. For us to send a message even one light year required a courier ship, which took time. When she saw the puzzled look on my face, she added, “Our communications do not operate under the same limitations yours do.”

  Or course they don’t. “What did he say?”

  “He said we can trust you.”

  If my android liaison could read human expressions, she would have seen relief wash over my face. “What did I tell you!”

  “But,” Meta added slowly, “he could not vouch for Izin Nilva Kren.”

  “OK. You trust me, I trust Izin. Now tell me what’s in the cylinder?”

  Jesorl clicked once, giving Meta permission.

  “It is a form of matter, with negative inertial mass and negative energy density.”

  She might be translating for Jesorl, but if she was going to talk like that, I’d need Izin to translate for me. “That means absolutely nothing to me.”

  “It reacts oppositely to normal matter.”

  “So it’s antimatter?”

  “No. Antimatter has positive energy and mass, like normal matter. This material has negative energy and mass. Matter with a like electric charge repels. This material attracts. Your scientists call it exotic matter.”

  “Is it dangerous?”

  “No. If released from containment, part
icularly in a planetary environment, it would instantly dissipate. Unlike normal matter, exotic matter is repelled by gravity. Its reaction to an applied force is opposite to what you would expect. Some prestellar civilizations believe they need it for superluminal flight, but lose interest once they learn to amplify the Casimir Effect, as mankind did.”

  The smuggler Nazari had been trading it for weapons. I wondered if it was a like for like trade? “You said it’s not dangerous, so you’re sure there’s no possibility of a negative energy bomb?”

  “We are certain.”

  “OK,” I said with some relief, “so what’s it good for?”

  “Opposing positive energy.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “Stellar core engineering, wormhole stabilization, several quantum mechanical field solutions and certain forms of stellar communications.”

  Considering mankind didn’t use this exotic stuff and couldn’t do any of the things she’d mentioned, I was left with a sinking feeling. “What’s the communications range?”

  “Transgalactic,” she said slowly, exactly what a spy needed to spill the beans on Tau Cetin activities to a bunch of malevolent Intruders plotting their destruction in the Minacious Cluster.

  “Humans don’t have that kind of technology,” I said, “so if someone on Earth wanted to call long distance, they’d need help doing it.”

  “They would,” she agreed.

  Was that what the alien-tech hemisphere on the Merak Star was for? “What would a transgalactic communicator look like?”

  Meta and Jesorl fell silent while another discussion excluding me took place. “Any size,” she said at last, “any shape, depending on the degree of miniaturization.”

  It was the proverbial how long was a piece of cosmic string. “Who knows how to make all this stuff?”

  “Many mid level civilizations have the capability.”

  “How many?”

  “Thousands.”

  “That narrows it down,” I said bitterly, well aware that the Drakes could be dealing with any of them, swapping alien-tech contraband for Nazari’s weapons.

  “The energy requirements for exotic matter based technologies are very high,” she added, “considerably above your current generating capabilities.”