Misha intended to invite the base commander to dinner. Of course, technically the Professor is in charge of the base -- all the IFSS personnel are at his disposal. There is a liaison officer who is in charge of the IFSS group here, the highest ranking officer, and that's who Misha invites. Misha tells Vonish Kehnaan about the arrangements, so he can prepare the meal.
Before he arrives, Misha reads through the
beginner's
guide to the IFSS. All the IFSS personnel are Imperial citizens;
there are some research people who are not.
The overall stated mission of the IFSS is to observe
and nudge. Their intent in nudging is to improve stability and
ensure
a peaceful area -- as much as possible -- so they're free to do their
observation.
As for the observation, notes to new trainees indicates that they're
supposed
to observe everything, whether it's important or not. There are
some
atmosphere and background pieces that say that sometimes they'll feel
like
they're looking for something but they don't know what it is -- well,
that's
what they do. If they feel the urge to go off and do something,
take
it -- it's amazing what one finds through intuition.
The IFSS is an open secret out here, but it's not
known within the Imperium. It was founded in 993 by Emperor
Gavin, shortly after the Third
Frontier War (and during the Solomani
Rim War). Originally it reported directly to the Emperor,
although
subsequent Emperors have sometimes delegated that -- but always to a
close
member of the Imperial family. Currently it reports directly to Grand
Princess Iphegenia. They're not supposed to bother her with
routine
stuff, but when any connections spring up, that's to be reported.
Everything from interesting combinations or directions of technology
all
the way to conspiracy theories, all that is reported. There is no
reporting through any other Imperial service, and no other Imperial
service
is supposed to know of the IFSS's existence.
That evening (Imperial time; the local day is
over
500 hours) a groundcar arrives with Captain Wendy Farradon aboard,
driven
by Ensign Ted Horlicks. The Ensign is Ed "Shark" Teeth's
bartender
friend from the base -- apparently he did manage to arrange an
invitation.
Both seem relaxed and happy to be on board.
They welcome the crew of the Third Eye to their "little base,"
as
Wendy puts it.
Vonish's meal starts with hors d'oeuvres and drinks,
and proceeds through a full set of courses with appropriate wines and
drinks.
It is absolutely superb.
Light conversation continues throughout. The
Professor is still working on his usual stuff, spending time fishing,
and
so on.
Wendy herself has only been in charge here for about
nine months, and wasn't here when the Anastasia last
visited.
She replaced Captain Rickenbacker. Her homeworld is Trin
/ Trin's Veil, not
far
from Ed's homeworld of Romar
/ Glisten.
The presence of Sagan does not seem to faze the
visitors at all. They are quite comfortable with the hiver,
despite them being so rare this far to spinward.
There are Vargr and some
Aslan out here -- even
some
Vargr worlds in this sector -- but virtually no hivers.
"So," Shark says, "You keep an eye on things around
here?"
"Well, we watch stuff. Keeping an eye on is
about right, we don't do a whole lot. Our job here is just to
keep
things running for the Professor."
"So what's keeping the bugs from coming back?"
"Well, the Imperial fleet did something to Dulu."
"What did they do?"
"I don't know. They don't tell me."
"Did they leave anyone behind, do you know?"
"As far as I know, no. I believe all their
personnel came back with them. They just moved on out. But
with that in the way, supposedly we should be OK for another century or
so."
"As long as they don't figure out jump3."
"We're pretty sure they don't have jump3.
Even if they did have it, they couldn't put together a big enough force
to invade. They'd have to come through the TradeMain Foundation,
and their navy is pretty well sorted out now."
"The got pretty much beat up, didn't they?"
"Not really. From what I've heard, the ones
who got beat up were the Zhodani."
"That's what I've heard too."
"Basically the war's over for now. We're going
to start running some ships out into Roach territory."
"Isn't that a little dangerous?"
"Yes, it is. But, you know, I'm sure that
some of our ships have gone out there anyway."
"Your ships jump pretty well, then?"
"They're just standard Donosev class survey ships,
the standard Imperium design. They're non-threatening too, which
is good considering we're not supposed to be a military organization."
"Wasn't there a report in the news that the IFSS
had made a raid?"
"Oh, yeah. That was a couple of the
Professor's
ships. One was privately owned, subcontracted. Yeah, that
would
have been the Anastasia, and the Professor's latest ship that
he
put together here, the Sir Walter Raleigh. We told him
not
to send it out without some local trials, but he rushed it in and it
seemed
to work out."
"By the way, did you have the news items we brought
in?"
"We didn't have the one from Vargoe,
about the attempted coup."
"Ground reports indicate that it wasn't suspected,
it was successful." Shark turns to Otto Harkaman, "Isn't that
right?"
"I don't think so," replies Otto. "The same
people seem to be in power with just a few people missing
afterwards.
I think they were trying to take over the starport."
"So basically the mid-level and down of the
bureaucracy
stayed, it was just the upper levels that... disappeared."
"It appeared to be the opposite. The governor
of the starport area and all those people were in the same place, but
people
like the magistrate and lower, that were supposed to hear my case,
those
people disappeared."
Shark explains to Wendy, "He ate too many of the
chocolates."
"Mints," corrects Otto.
Shark continues, "So I understand you're mostly
administrative here. What do you do for fun?"
Wendy replies, "Mostly we just hang about.
There's a lot of wilderness around here, we're very careful about the
environment.
Actually that's how I took over from Rickenbacker. He got caught
for releasing some plants here. They bumped him a grade, put him
on a ship, and sent him on active duty again... which he was happy
about."
"Plants? He put plants out? Wait, I've
heard some rumors. It wouldn't have been a bean plant, would it?"
"Yeah, I think it was."
"OK, I understand from the rumors why, but you
probably
shouldn't allow them to grow anywhere."
"Well, we eliminated what we could."
"They're still out wild?"
"We don't know for sure."
"You're not cultivating them?"
"Oh, no. Absolutely not. We eliminated
all the ones that were being cultivated. I think he got some with
him on his ship, the Lost Sailor."
"The Lost Sailor. Do you know which
way he was last lost?"
"He just declared walkabout and he went. I
have no idea where he is."
Shark tells Mich -- who was involved in a jump
discussion
with Helia Sarina and Otto -- that Rickenbacker has some beans aboard
the
Lost
Sailor. Mich is very disappointed that there are no longer
any
on this planet.
Shark says to Mich, "So what was the name of the
other ship, the Anastasia and the Sir...?"
"Sir Walter Raleigh," Mich replies.
"Is that ship around?"
"No, the Raleigh was destroyed."
Wendy adds, "That was the last one the Professor
sent out."
"Those nasty cockroaches, and Jill."
"Jill?" Shark and Wendy ask.
"Jill."
Otto asks, "Jill was a nasty cockroach?"
"No."
Wendy says, "We had a report it was sabotage, but
I'm not familiar with the details."
"I strongly suspect Jill had something to do with
the sabotage."
Shark changes the subject. "How did you guys
get recruited into the IFSS? Obviously you don't have a
recruiting
station..."
Wendy says, "There are some folks around looking
for people with the right sort of caliber. People who don't fit
in,
are out there a bit."
"We usually put those guys in the Scouts."
"The people who are a bit too out there for the
scouts."
"I mean the special forces, the Marine recon, and
so on."
"Oh. No, you have to follow orders
there.
Too many orders to follow."
"You've got to get the mission accomplished."
"Well, we get the mission accomplished. Of
course it's a somewhat vague mission, but we get it done. You've
got to like a service where you can just, like, take a ship and take
off
for a while. As long as you come back and say what you did, it's
fine."
After dinner, Shark offers gambling. Wendy
declines, but says they can probably find a game back in the station.
Shark starts telling tales of planets -- like one
that professes low technology but makes super high quality zuchai
crystals.
Wendy says that's the sort of place they look for
out here.
"Well, we found it without coming out here.
What was the name of the place? Digitis."
"We don't really have jurisdiction over there,
but..."
Robert says, "They had an antiquated phone system
and yet through a couple of data links they were transferring data
almost
at the theoretical limit of the medium."
"Interesting."
Shark adds, "Digitis
has the seven trees."
Helia says, "They're not seven trees, they're seven
forests."
They argue over whether each forest was one plant
-- Helia agrees with Shark that it was the case.
Shark continues, "It's a low pressure world, and
the trees built a natural dome where life developed inside it.
Very
strange."
"You think that's strange?" asks Helia.
"I do. I grew up on a desert world where there
were no plants bigger than 10 cm, and to be inside a plant with
thousands
of animals and other people was very strange."
Helia nods.
"Oh yes, they use steam trains. Very
strange. And we've been to another very interesting world
recently,
a water world. Very strange society there."
Wendy asks, "In what way?"
"After talking to people for a while, it turns out
there are dozens -- tens, fifties, hundreds -- of secret societies, all
watching each other. No-one knows what secret society someone
else
belongs to, but everyone belonged to some secret society. I don't
know how it was governed. So if you're looking for natural born
spies
that's probably the place to recruit them from."
Wendy laughs, "We don't do spying."
"Really?" asks Helia, "So what do you do for fun
and games?"
Robert adds, "They also had a drink that..."
Shark interrupts, "You had some of that."
"I still have some. It's a tasty drink that
knocks you out for days if you have too much of it. But it gives
you effective dreams."
Shark changes the subject, thinking of their letter
of passage. He asks Wendy, "Have you dealt much with the Hinay
Protectorate?"
"Yes," she answers, "We don't do much out that way
because they're pretty stable and in general have a good relationship
with
the Imperium."
Conversation lapses into small talk, and eventually
Wendy and Ted leave the Third Eye and return to the station.
Late that evening, Robert finds a sample of the
script he's been looking for. It's in the Professor's data banks
in the IFSS station. It's a photograph of what looks like a
warhead.
It is in a collection of objects of unknown origin. Unfortunately
a lot of the organizational structure of the data seems to be in the
Professor's
head -- the data in the computer is a random hodge-podge of stuff.
About 9:30, Mich gets a call from shore.
It's
Professor Benshani Farol, who tells him to come on over, bringing
whoever
he wants. Mich says that there's a few of the crew of the
Anastasia
that survived -- Teri Cralla from the marines, and Baron Bridgehead
too.
So that means it's just Mich to come over.
He says, "But I've got someone else you might want to talk to --
Helia."
"What? She's already here. Come on over,
bring whoever you want."
Mich invites Helia, leaving Otto as duty
engineer.
Robert would have joined them, but he hasn't heard about it and no-one
told him.
Mich and Helia walk over to the IFSS base in the
bright sunshine.
The Professor is in the lounge. When they
walk in, he stands up and waves them over enthusiastically. He
sits
back down at his table. He's dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, and
is wearing sandals.
Mich asks, "How have you been? Have you got
any of the message I've sent?"
"Yes, definitely, most helpful."
"This is Helia. She's our navigator."
"Oh." Professor Farol looks surprised.
Helia says brightly, "Nice to meet you, sir!"
"Um. This is Sally, Sally Forsythe, who's
joined us recently," Farol says, indicating a tall young girl.
"A mathematician?"
"Sort of," says Sally, "That's what the Professor
calls me."
Farol continues, "Oh, and this is... Helia."
The source of the Professor's confusion is now evident. Another girl, very similar to Helia, looks up and squeals with delight. The two larians leap to hug each other. They start a stream of what is presumably their native language, high-pitched and girlish and very fast.
Mich asks, "So, Professor, where did you pick up
your Helia?"
"Actually she came in the same group as Sally."
"Sally reminds me a bit of our computer operator
on the Anastasia, Linda Gregson."
"You may have heard of Sally. She solved the
Lankmich Conundrum. It was in
the news."
"Oh yeah, we saw that. That was a sticky bit
of math to go through."
"Not if you see the solution," laughs the
Professor.
"She's done some great things here, haven't you, Sally? Yeah, we
picked up a couple of new research people over in the Marches.
Sally and Helia came in that group."
At the mention of her name, "our" Helia says to
Mich,
"It's so great that Helia's here. Maybe she can explain the math
to you. She's a little better with people who are slow at math."
Mich asks, "Do you know each other, or...?"
"It's Helia!" says "our" Helia, as if that explains
everything. The "new" Helia looks very similar, but not quite
identical.
They're obviously of the same race, perhaps even of the same
blood.
They're both dressed in a catsuit and a vest.
Mich says to Farol, "Our Helia has been working
as our navigator. She puts in the jump coordinates extremely
rapidly."
Helia says to the Professor, "You understand the
thing about the constant, right? Six days is a constant, you get
the shortcut, you do the math, and you can do it in your head very
easily
instead of spending all that time pumping it out on the computer."
Farol says, "We've been looking at that."
"Has Helia been helping?"
"Oh yes. Helia, and Sally as well. Maybe
you girls can talk about it..."
But Helia has turned back to Helia, and is talking
rapidly, albeit in Galanglic this time. "Have you been able to
get
it down to five yet? I've been working on trying to change the
constant
to five, but I haven't quite been able to get that last little bit."
The Professor says, "My specialty is power sources."
"Yes, that's what Mich said. I was hoping
you'd be able to help me understand why we sometimes jump for two weeks
and end up in strange places."
"Really?" says Farol. "What have you been
doing to it?" he asks Mich.
Helia jumps in, "It vaporized itself!"
"Interesting, tell me more. By the way, what
happened to the Anastasia?"
Mich says, "I was doing some augmentation of the
jump system and the jump bubble impinged on the hull and we were thrown
out of jump space. I was unconscious when it crashed."
"Yeah, Helia has worked a little on the viscosity
stuff that you sent me."
"I've set up some vortex generators to help with
the viscosity problems, and that looks very promising. Power
systems...
When I got to Digitis,
I worked with some people there and we worked on the phase inverter
input
selector, where we were selecting the appropriate particles to make
sure
our input buffers..."
Helia and Helia have been chattering with each other again, and suddenly they unfurl their wings and fly back through the lobby and to the ship. On the way, Helia tells Helia that there's a new guy on the ship, who has no idea about the wings. In the high-pitched girlie talk of the larian language, they giggle about the possibilities.
Otto is still standing watch in engineering when Helia calls him to check the bridge for her. He walks up to the bridge. Outside the window are two Helias, flying around on big butterfly wings. They are waving at him. Otto stands there, mouth agape.
At the sounds above him, Shark looks up from
outside.
"Asexual mitosis, or did you run into a friend?"
"Friend... would not be quite the right word,"
replies
Helia. "How are you doing, sir?"
The two Helias land beside him.
"Pleased to meet you. I'm Shark Teeth."
"I'm Helia," says Helia, "And this is Helia.
Oh, you know Helia."
"Yes, this is Helia," says Helia.
"I'm Helia," Helia says again.
Shark says, slowly, "I would have recognized her
anywhere now."
"Of course," says Helia, "She's Helia. It
was so lovely to see her, I didn't know she was in this part of the
universe."
"Yes," says Helia, "I had no idea you would be out
here."
"I thought you were like, back at the last
place.
I didn't realize you guys had moved. Boy, you guys have a cush
spot.
I hear a lot of good things about the Professor. Oh, you have to
come inside, let's go!"
Shark asks, "Did you just run into her in there,
or...?"
"Oh," replies Helia, "She's working with the
Professor."
"Well obviously."
"Oh, not all Helias are mathematicians."
"That's surprising."
"And the same with everyone else who lives with
us. They're not all mathematicians."
After a while on the ship, Shark suggests to the Helias that they have a dinner for the scientific research crowd. The Helias fly back to the station to invite the Professor. Helia is now wearing one of the regular suits, so they look even more alike.
Back in the bar, Mich and Farol are still talking, while Sally
Forsythe
listens.
Farol is saying, "So who did you find to help you
with this stuff on Digitis?"
"Well, it was the Sheriff's science associate, Jane
Southcombe I think her name was. What they were doing at the time
was using zuchai
crystals
to absorb lightning, or so they said, so it wouldn't damage the
trees.
They would absorb the strike and then dissipate slowly."
"Well I guess, it seems like overkill to me."
"I thought so too. The system that they had
were of the finest quality zuchai crystals, just absolutely
perfect.
They wanted my help to analyze their crystals to make sure they weren't
having any microcracks or anything like that. So for normal
maintenance
I was showing them how to tear it down and PRIS binoculars and
stuff.
This was stuff they didn't have, but they had the technology to
replicate
just about anything you could describe."
"Interesting, very interesting. Where was
this, you say? Digitis?
Never heard of it."
"So working with them I had the specs for the
antimatter
generators, with small tweaks that I'd been doing, and we built several
of them. Their power engineer looked at the matter input flow and
made some subtle changes." Mich goes on to describe the changes
Jane
made.
The Professor says, slowly, "What is an unspace
hole? This is a new one on me."
"Well that's what I said to her. However,
we worked it out, test benched it, and the input flow was much smoother
than without. So we built several of those and I was suggesting
using
them as a power source to help with their city and their lightning
system.
They took a look at it and said... well my impression was that it was
too
new a technology for them and they would continue with the proving
technology
of their zuchai crystals.
"Well I installed them in our jump engines and did
very good successful jumps. But in one occurrence, a pair of
units
started acting very strangely. One unit was acting as an energy source,
and the other as an energy sink. Once got down to absolute zero
and
froze all the atmosphere around it, while the other started doing
black-body
radiation, and went all the way to hard radiation. These were two
units that were totally out of the circuit -- I took them out as soon
as
they went of normal specs, and there were no connections between them."
Sally interjects, "So they were feeding each
other?
One was feeding the other one, through nowhere. Perhaps the
unspace
hole?"
"It only seemed to happen while we were in
jumpspace.
All the test benches came through with no symptom like this in normal
space,
however in jumpspace -- it would always be a pair of them that would
act
like this. And when we leave jumpspace, they would destruct
violently.
They would disappear, basically. As a point source at the exact
center
of both of them, would be a horrendous explosion."
Sally says, "Well, they just looked like they
weren't
connected. They were in the same place."
Mich says, slowly, "They were in the same place?"
"Yes, they were in the same place. They just
looked like they weren't connected, right?"
"I did do things with physically connecting them,
with a heatpipe and..."
"Did you do any tests with spatial distortion?"
"No."
"Perhaps they were physically really close together
in the jumpspace area, and then when you came back into normal space it
sort of flipped it all together and tried to pull them apart but they
were
connected too much."
"Well that's an interesting idea. What we
need to do is make sure they don't become connected, don't get too
close
together in the unspace. Is there an easy way to do that?"
Farol laughs, "If we knew what unspace was!"
Mich says he'll transfer all the specs. "In
fact, here they are," he says, handing a disk over. "At the
moment
we don't have a full complement to run our jump engines, so it's back
to
standard configuration. I have a couple already built, but I took
one apart atom by atom to see if there was any problem, or out of
alignment.
Included on that disk are the specs to build the machines to build them
atom by atom."
The Professor is delighted. This will put
them forward several years.
"Included are the vortex generators that I've used,
along with the preliminary results showing that it's helping reduce the
effects of the viscosity."
"Interesting. I've have to tell Helia about
that one. She's been really interested in the viscosity thing."
"Our Helia has been a wiz at these navigation
points.
We've done six day jumps every time... except when we've had problems
with
the generators. When we have a problem with those we have a
misjump,
even though the output never fluctuates, because I've reserve capacity
and the ability to bring the crystals online because I've been running
them in parallel."
Sally says, "If there was a spacial distortion it
would change the shape of everything so of course there'd be a
misjump.
Actually changing the shape of the jump bubble and the shape of the
ship
in jump."
"That would be bad."
"That would be interesting," Sally says
brightly.
"Wonder what that would do? I'll have to ask Helia."
"It would make us all extremely sick as we'd jump
for about two weeks, and then come out in the middle of nowhere.
We did a 30 parsec jump when we were trying for a jump3."
Farol says, "And old whatshername said it would
never work. Set us back thirty years on that one, she did.
Always wondered what happened to her."
Mich and Farol reminisce about Fostriades.
Mich continues, "As to the Anastasia itself,
the Navy was supposedly trying to recover it after the crash.
They
claim there was a gigantic explosion that destroyed it. Going
back
to that planet, it looked like the city had been taken out by an
antimatter
bomb. The Navy claims that the ship blew up while it was being
recovered;
the city itself on the planet was destroyed by an explosion from the
very
center of the city. It had antimatter signatures on it."
"So who's working on antimatter bombs?"
"I don't know. The phase inverters don't store
antimatter long enough for the Anastasia to have caused any
sort
of explosion. Looked more like a cover-up operation to me."
Farol continues, "Here we've been working mostly
on improving the Sir Walter Raleigh system. And the girls
have been producing some interesting results."
"Again, one of the problems with both the SWR
and the Anastasia was the computer power we needed to keep the
generator
flow even. With the modifications that we had on Digitis,
it was incredibly smooth."
"That's very odd, because I didn't think anyone
else was working on this."
"They weren't working on it, I just showed them
the generators and discussed it with one of the power engineers, and
she
immediately had the idea that if we just did this, it would solve it."
"I wonder how she knew about it."
"I don't know. It was a strange place.
You arrived there, and they had all this antiquated equipment, until
you
went off into the far reaches of the forest area, and the sheriff was
the
center of the high tech area."
"Actually it made a lot of sense," says Helia,
walking
in with Helia and Shark. "If you thought about it."
"Why?" asks Shark.
She launches into what is presumably an explanation
to Helia in their native tongue. Helia turns to Shark and says,
"It
just does."
Helia adds, "I'm sorry, there's just no words in
Galanglic for it."
Farol says, "Maybe Helia and Sally can figure it
out. Sally's very intuitive."
Helia tries her finger puzzle on Sally, who solves
it instantly. Helia tells her to keep it to tease adults with it,
and offers her some candy. They keep talking.
The dinner invitation for that evening is extended. Farol, Helia and Sally will all attend. Shark relays the instructions to Vonish Kehnaan -- three Helias and the Professor for dinner with the entire crew.
At dinner, over a brilliant meal, Shark asks
Sally
how a thirteen year old girl got here from Harvosette.
Sally says, "They recruited me. Lots of
professors
looked at my stuff, and when they said yes it was right, the Professor
contacted me and it sounded very interesting. My parents said it
was OK. It is fun out here." She talks about her home
system.
It's a vacuum world, nothing there but the mainworld and two suns.
Farol tells Misha he's lucky to have such a good
engineer on his ship. This is the first confirmation of Mich's
ability
since he's come on board. They always thought he was strange,
spouting
odd engineering fantasies, but here is an expert in the field saying
that
Mich is brilliant. Farol also says how impressed he is with the
ship.
He is particularly impressed by the vortex generators.
Robert of course has read the original paper that
said the matter phase inverter system wouldn't work, along with
personal
details and a picture of the author.
More important to Robert, though, is the script
problem. He shows Farol a sample of the script he came across on
Digitis, and asks
him if it looks familiar.
"Vaguely," says Farol, "I've seen something like
it before. I don't remember where."
"Could it have been on a warhead or something?"
"Where did you come across this?"
"This was on Digitis,
as part of their communication network. This is a sample taken
from
that. Their outward appearance was low tech, but between a couple
of points they were transmitting communication at the theoretical
limits.
This is some of that transmission."
"Yeah, it was on some nuclear warheads. There
was some stuff that someone picked up from somewhere -- they didn't
tell
us where -- I think they were sent out for the Anastasia.
Part of her weapons complement. I was told to put them aboard, I
don't know why."
Shark asks, "You were told? By who?
I thought you were running this place."
"I am, but you know... I get experimental stuff
to be put on things every now and again."
"Who requested that?"
"It was thirty years ago, I have no idea."
Mich recognized it vaguely too. It was indeed
on the warheads that were aboard the Anastasia when they found
her.
Robert tries to get Sally interested in cryptography
or, more importantly, interpretation of messages, but she's not
interested.
Farol wants to hear more about Digitis.
Helia says, "It's a good place to go for a few
months.
You ought to go there."
"I was thinking I might."
"The trick is to get out before it's too late."
Mich adds, "You also need the invite from the
Sheriff,
because the normal city is not that interesting. You take the
steam
train ride on the elevated rail up the central regions of the
forest.
The forest canopy itself forms a dome holding the atmosphere, all one
tree."
Farol says, "So you found script like that
there?
Regular use? Any sign of nuclear weapons? Jump
drives?
Where did they come from?"
Shark turns around and pulls up the file.
"The story is that they were a bunch of religious fanatics emigrating
from
a planet or for social oppression reasons thought they could form a
utopian
society. For the most part they seem to be doing pretty well, but
they did manage to destroy one of the forest trees before they learned
what they were doing."
Mich says, "Well there were people who claimed to
be thousands of years old."
Shark corrects him, "No, not the immigrants.
There were some other guys there that the immigrants claimed were
runaways
from the initial immigration, but who claimed to be ten of thousands of
years old."
"And he took you through a walk in the forest to
keep you out of the way."
"Yes, and if you followed the navigation you'd walk
for one day and travel couple of hundred miles."
"But then when you turned around to come back it
took you even less time."
"Or more, depending who you were with. Have
we confused you yet? It's like he warped space somehow as he
walked
along. Like a jump drive, but we weren't gone for six days."
"Maybe you were travelling through unspace."
"I didn't feel unwell," laughs Shark.
"They had a firm grasp of how unspace worked."
Shark asks Mich, "Was Jane a native, or a settler?"
"She was a settler."
The crew agree to give Farol a copy of the local
information books on Digitis
they picked up on that world.
Dinner continues, with drinks to complement the meal. There's a lot of discussion about jump calculations, and what constitutes proper astrogator training. It seems like the larians believe in teaching a much wider range of potential situations, such as continuous jump calculations.
During dessert, Robert slumps forwards with a
strange
expression, as if he's drifting out into the distance. The Doc is
not alarmed, and says to leave him alone to recover -- it's just
Robert's
fascinating but messed up brain chemistry, as a result of drinking the
rotten fish juice.
|
(Referee and Robert's player only) |
Robert sits up suddenly. He starts talking,
slowly but a little incoherently, as he stays stock still, staring at
his
environment. The Doctor walks over to him, and suggests
sedation.
At that moment, Robert snaps out of it, and quickly agrees to the Doc's
suggestion that he should lie down. Shark escorts him to his
stateroom.
On the way, Robert talks a little about his
experience.
"The world's an idea," he says. "Everything's an idea."
"You were having flashbacks from your fish juice,"
says Shark.
"No, this is nothing like that. And everything
like that."
"You're sounding like Lap'da, and I was too confused
by Lap'da to be comfortable with that. So please, don't sound
like
Lap'da."
"It's just a little too much information at once
to be really confident, but if I think about it for a while..."
Back at the social function, drinks continue after the strange episode of the communications officer. After a while, the party breaks up, everyone returning to their respective quarters.
Misha talks to the doctor about Robert. The
Doc thinks it might be flashbacks, a residual effect on his brain
chemistry.
Clearly he hasn't been drinking the stuff again or it would knock him
right
out. There's nothing he can do about it, except observe.
Now,
if he had a proper medical facility on this ship, it might be
another
matter. The Anastasia had a proper facility, but this
ship
(or, as he finds out later, the shore base here).
Misha then goes on to talk to Robert, who says he's
just been concentrating too hard on the ideogram problem, because
everything's
starting to look like ideograms. Misha tells him to stop doing
that.
"OK," says Robert.
Then Misha sets up a meeting with Captain Wendy Farradon, and asks if the IFSS has a task that they would want to subcontract to his ship. She replies that she'll have to think about it, and talk it over, and get back to him tomorrow.
Mich arranges with Professor Farol to use his facilities to build the machines to construct the antimatter generators -- that way they can start hands-on work finding out what an unspace hole is and what it does.