Trade World Saga 1: Manual Interpretation (15 page)

The onlookers cheered wildly when they landed.

Philips cell MemDex vibrated. “Yes. It worked. Went how high and stayed. How fast was it clocked? Okay up to 100,000 kilometers per hour in one of the flights but that was almost breathing on the acceleration. They had trouble fine-tuning landings because they regularly overshoot. I imagine they’ll have that problems squared away by Friday. This group doesn’t let problems plague them for long.

Andrew later went to Susan's living quarters and when she opened the door to admit him he said, "Hi there sixty kilos of loveliness."

"That's about right, though I won't admit which way you're wrong," she said running her hand through her hair as she went and poured herself a drink.

"Are you rationing or can I have one too?" he inquired with a grin.

"Andy, I'm really tired. Why don't you come see me tomorrow," she said softly.

"I bring glad tidings and I want to share them with the woman I love," Andrew said as he reached and pulled her close to him. "I want you to be my first mate for the trip."

"Wait a second, I already am the second-in-command on this trip," Susan replied.

"I know that. I just asked you to marry me," Andrew admitted.

"Andy after years of visualizing a man on his knees to propose; I get a pun," she said as the weariness dropped off her face like a mask.

When they disentangled, Andrew said, "The medical team will be arriving tomorrow with an experimental surgical and treatment system that they were working on. By the way, I brought you an engagement present."

After a delightful frisk for the present, Andrew said, "It's outside the door on the left."

"You cad," she said as she went out the door with a grin and came in sliding a huge box in front of her. "What is in here, a small pony?" she inquired.

Andrew was silent as she tore into the tough bindings on the box.

"What in the world?" she said. "Oh, it's beautiful." She had picked up a silver Mem-Dex that was exquisite in its design. "What's the basic storage in it, so I can transfer memory cores?"

"Touch no cores in that one because it's ten times any Mem-Dex you ever had. It was designed especially for you. It's the culmination of all the research done on you up to last week. Any data you stored in your other Mem-Dex since last week you'll need to transfer, of course. It has everything from metallic and crystalline phases to phase diagrams and a small 3D display screen and projector," Andrew boasted. "And I've got one for everyone else in the group but I don't want to get engaged to them. They even serve as communicators and have telemetry sensors built in.”

"What else is in this huge box?" Susan said and dug into the box and came out with an odd golden helmet. It was light as a feather and seemed to be made of some type of plastic. It was like a flattened globe with the back third of the helmet opaque. As Susan examined it further she exclaimed, "I know what this stuff is and this helmet must have cost a fortune."

"Darling, just thank Brad. Make sure to thank Brad," Andrew grinned as she pulled out the white suit. It was supple as silk but was much thicker. The suit was also incredibly light. It came with built-in boots, but gloves attached to special plastic brackets at each wrist. The left wrist had a clear panel in it so each person could see their Mem-Dex screen.

"Can I use this in the suit?" Susan asked and held up her new Mem-Dex. "It looks like it should fit under this clear panel but I don't see how it will work. Will the Rimloff speaker work inside there?"

"You can hear quite well. The suit takes some practice to get used to but you won’t understand why ‘til you try it on," Andrew replied."

Susan took the contents of the box and strode into the adjacent room to try on everything.

After many grunts from the next room, Andrew said, "Need any help? You know the backpack unit temporarily generates oxygen so there aren't any bulky tanks to wear. The biggest design problem with these suits, believe it or not, was in getting rid of excess heat and moisture and better ways of controlling bodily wastes. Of course they’re much more supple than the old EVA suits."

"Oh, that's how it works. That's fine," came Susan's voice quietly from the adjacent room.

"If all else fails, read those instruction booklets that came with the box," Andrew yelled. Shortly thereafter, he heard the snap of the helmet's static attraction seal.

In walked a dream. It had the obviously healthy body of a female though it had a golden helmet where its head would be.

"Hey, this feels like I'm not wearing anything. Can you hear me all right? I thought I'd sound like I was talking in a cave but it doesn't at all. Ooh, this is kinda sexy," she said and twirled about on one slender white boot. "Why does this suit feel like it's not touching the skin except the top of the shoulders, plus my hands and feet?"

"It isn’t except at critical points all over the body. The suit is self-sealing to small punctures. Also,” Andrew stated in his best, used car salesman voice, “it has electro-dynamic cloth that is controlled by embedded nano-sensors that can amplify your strength so the suit will near-instantly react to you straining to lift something and will assist you.”

“I heard a report on something like these suits that the military was testing a part of the soldiers’ personal protective equipment. They had sensors that would react to muscular activity and send a tiny current through the cloth that would contract like muscles,” Susan replied. “But how does it stay off the skin? I understand the current activated cloth bit – that’s been around for decades and is just now coming into its own.”

“It has some new combination air-flow and static repulsion that has been waiting for a mission. It stays just a bit off the skin to allow airflow and conditions the interior to the right humidity and temperature. If you think it was expensive to fit two for each crewmember; you would not believe what Brad said it actually cost," Andrew emphasized. "You should also be able to lift about fifty kilos without straining at all and the energy cost on the suit isn’t very great either. Let's see about taking it off," he said with a leer.

STRESSED SPACE FIELD

Tod, Steve and Susan cornered Brad the following afternoon.

“Well. We’ve finished the preliminary permeability tests. Really interesting stuff,” Tod said. “You want the details now?”

“Of course,” Andrew supplied with an exasperated sigh.

They moved to a small conference room and Tod turned on the projector of his new Mem-Dex. “I love this thing,” Tod said, indicating the Mem-Dex. “Thanks boss. We figured you were behind us getting all these gadgets.”

“No problem,” Andrew grinned. “What’s the bad news?”

“Not really
bad
news. Permeability really is a function of field strength. Look at this…we put a lot of different bars of material within the boundary of the field and increased the strength.” The bars of material looked a bit distorted at the intersection as an indicator on the lower right went from 0.01 to 2. At a reading, 0.6, the material had shown the first sign by getting “hazy” at the intersection. Above, 0.65, the material at the boundary layer just disappeared.

“Whoa,” Andrew said. “Any out-gassing? Trace gases? What materials did you test? What does the number indicate?”

“You mean the 0.6. That’s just 0.6
Tod
,” Tod said with a grin. “Okay. Okay,” he said when he saw Andrew frown. “Just kidding...it’s a unit based on gravity and time differential…they’re related. The material begins to sublimate at 0.6 and at 0.635 any material just disappears. Yes. Like you guessed there is a little increase in hydrogen. The field strength number loosely relates to the differential between time rates and gravity compared to an Earth normal. The alien belt almost got up to 2.0. We’ve been able to get much higher readings.”

Susan jumped in to the discussion. “We tested everything we could get our hands on. Metals, ceramics, organic and inorganics, polymers, rare Earth elements…it dissolved them all at the same point. Evidently, that is where the molecular/nuclear bond dissolves matter. We still can’t project it like the alien evidently did but this must be an adaptation of that effect.”

“What about radiation?” Andrew asked.

Tod jumped in again. “The fast neutron projector works through the field if it’s set at 0.6 or below and the laser will work for higher levels to visible light in the infrared or any visible light at much stronger levels. We haven’t quite mapped that all out but the higher the frequency the more energy dumped into our side of the field. You can punch a laser through as long as it isn’t x-ray – actually, anything above terahertz frequencies is blocked. Some microwaves could get through at lower field intensities but you can set it up so almost no radiation of any kind gets through.”

“Thanks team. Seems encouraging...let me know if we hit any real showstoppers,” Andrew said and headed back to his office.

Two days later, Andrew was helping the two man, one woman medical team in storing crates of their equipment in the bare rooms on board that were to fill out the ship's new medical bay. Most of the crew was on board preparing for the test flights. Andrew delegated Joel and Ling to show the newcomers around, as they had with many dignitaries before them.

Brad came running up to Andrew and pulled him aside by the arm. "The World Government just received an ultimatum from a coalition of previously unaligned nations."

"Talk sense Brad. The unaligned nations are just that; unaligned. They could hardly even agree on a standard unit of measure," Andrew said.

"Up 'til now, you mean. Those countries fear that we will use the ship against them and bring them under domination of the World Government. They are informed enough to know about all the help we've been given by the government. They have recovered several medium-range nuclear missiles that were listed as destroyed decades ago," Brad gasped.

"But they couldn't know about the ship's armament or governmental assistance, unless..." Andrew's voice trailed off.

"I've personally checked all crew and workers with access to any sensitive information. My guess is that somebody bugged some of the workers’ rooms and doesn't want this thing to leave the ground. We must have been letting out information for God knows how long," Brad said.

"How could they get one of those missiles close enough to hurt us here? How much time do we have and what did the ultimatum state that we were supposed to do?" Andrew questioned.

"First of all, two of the unaligned countries are what used to be called Cuba and Argentina. Though there is still too much distance, they each have a freighter twenty miles offshore at the point closest to the coast from us. We are supposed to send them documented proof via satellite that we have destroyed the ship or we are to evacuate the area and they will do the work for us," Brad said. "We've got three hours and none of the defenses at my disposal could stop those missiles."

"But can't you just board and destroy those ships?" Andrew questioned.

"We could if those were the only two missiles but the Coalition has given proof of dozens of other missiles that they will loose on their neighboring countries all over the world. Special teams can go into those countries and destroy those other missiles. But we couldn't destroy all those missiles in three hours even knowing where they are, Brad admitted.

"But you do know all the locations?" Andrew asked.

"Yes, but we better evacuate all personnel from the university and the surrounding area now," Brad said.

"I agree but I'll need your help to get everyone together. We'll evacuate all but crew personnel and we'll give this ship a test flight like no other test flight was ever given. Get me all the coordinates you have on those missile sites and send them to me in the control room of the ship. Here's what I plan to do," Andrew began to explain.

Brad listened with barely concealed anxiety at the plan but set out to do Andrew's bidding even though it ran contrary to all training. Sometimes you have to put your faith in some idea or someone and stick to it, Brad thought. There isn't time to consult any of my superiors in time for them to do anything and if it doesn't work, it will be the end of any World Government for the next few generations anyway.

Brad contacted Tod and Steve and sent them to the control room as directed while Andrew sat in the command chair and prepared some complex formulas with the aid of his Mem-Dex. Andrew was finishing a discussion in point with the Mem-Dex when the two came in.

"There is a ninety per cent probability of success if you destroy the first two in mid-trajectory allowing for no alternate factors," said the Mem-Dex on Andrew's wrist.

Andrew briefed them on the plan as Brad came in with a small stack of paper. Finding that there were twenty locations other than the ships was not a great relief.

Tod finally said -- out loud -- what all of them had been thinking. "This ultimatum, it's insane. It isn't even rational. This is an act of war. How can all those countries believe that this will be tolerated?" Tod asked.

"Fear can make any action seem justified," Andrew replied. "To them this is simply an act of self defense, though they use extortion as a tool. Believe it or not -- the Coalition said they would settle any claims made against them due to the destruction of the ship and its technology. I believe they think of this as a surgical procedure to remove a tumor. The US has used preemptive strikes on known threats in its history too. If they’re successful -- then they’re acceptable. We don't have much time. You two had better get those coordinates into the ship's computer and set up the basic data for the fire control while I round up the rest of the crew."