Trade World Saga 1: Manual Interpretation (5 page)

Andrew took the
borrowed
belt and swung it toward the weapon hand that was rising toward his middle. No sooner than the heavy belt clanged into the weapon did Andrew notice the fist-size hole appear in the decking near his foot. With a backhand motion, Andrew swung the belt to the alien's head and heard the dull thunk as the alien staggered out of the way, to the side of the hatchway. Andrew squirmed past, jumped down and ran around the ship and toward the hopeful direction of his car and then to the university.

Rett replaced the weapon in his holder and adjusted the covering on his already healing ear. Annoying but not incapacitating injuries, Rett thought moodily. Rescued, assaulted, and victim of a native…thoughtless to dissolve part of my own ship due to a native. It will be many years before I will tell any of my colleagues about this trip in its entirety. I will simply tell them that the solo interstellar craft I built was successful. At least, I still retain the primitive's knife and water container. These are odd enough artifacts to convince even my colleagues of my far travels.

Rett shut the hatch and then stood by the controls to prepare to leave the planet. Rett made quick mental calculations and checked the ship's clock.

Rett realized that his colleagues were right, at least in part. The Exploration Service would not like solo personal trips. Interstellar experimentation was best left to explorers. Established trips to civilized worlds with full indoctrination were the safest way to travel. Homemade or even the best solo traveling gear was stimulating but not conducive to long life.

Rett also knew the prohibition about unregulated contact with an intelligent race but rationalized that no damage had been done and no one would find out about this out-of-the-way trip to the spiral arm. His intent had been to avoid the authorities who would otherwise have to approve new devices or improvements in older devices. Rett relaxed after setting the automatic directional device and activated the main drive field. He settled into the relaxed traveling state and thusly thought no more on the subject as his eyes closed and breathing became deeper as the ship sped to his home world.

Andrew heard a loud hum behind him and stopped his run in time to see the craft become a translucent sphere. The craft appeared to wobble slightly, like a leaf in the wind, and then shot up out of sight so fast that it would even have been correct to say it disappeared. Explanations of the phenomenon could not be concise unless someone had experienced it for himself. Andrew looked at the slight depression in the dirt where the device (vehicle) had rested.

No one will believe this. I don't believe this myself, Andrew thought with little actual conviction.

Andrew then felt the water containers in his shirt and looked down at the alien's belt dangling from his strong hand. He then began the slow, plodding trek back to the university. His fingers, his hands, hurt like hell but there wasn't much he could do about it.

He came to a roadway with signs that showed he was very close to the car. Andrew continued his walk 'til he found his old Ford. It started easily but never met any vehicles on the roadway, since it was early in the morning. As he drove closer to the grounds, he noticed how the buildings still appeared the same. The few students that were up at this hour looked so young and innocent…nothing had really changed but everything seemed different.

I'm the only thing that has changed, Andrew thought exhaustedly as he parked and walked toward his quarters. Heading to his room like a homing pigeon, only half conscious, he opened the door, took a luncheon packet from his shelf and downed the contents after gulping water for a minute. He had to refresh himself instead of immediately going to sleep and then went gratefully back to bed. There he took off his shoes and climbed on top of the sheets, still fully clothed. He trembled with teeth chattering for a minute or two as the adrenaline wore off and the fatigue and stress bore in and then fell deeply asleep.

"Andy. Andy. Wake up. What's the matter with you? Come on. Wake up!"

"Huh. What? What do you want? Leave me alone. Let me sleep, will you?" Andrew said as he forced open one eye to see, who the hell, was shaking him.

"Good grief, Susan, leave me alone. I just want to sleep," Andrew said, even though he was now awake enough to feel the pressure of nature and probably couldn't have gone back to sleep easily anyway.

"Why weren't you at the seminar yesterday? I called and still you didn't answer so I came on by your room. You know how important yesterday was; we were supposed to narrow down our synthesist proposal. Everyone's angry and worried. How are we going to get our Synthesist degrees if you don't help co-ordinate our project?" Susan went on, "What's the matter with you anyway? You look terrible. What happened to your poor hands?"

All Andrew's ordeals came flooding back to him and he sat up in the bed as if struck. He bolted up to a sitting position.

"My God…Andy. What's the matter with you? Are you sick? Do you need me to take you to the infirmary? All the color just drained out of your face," Susan said anxiously.

"No. No, I'm OK. I'm just a little shaken up." Andrew really looked at this girl closely for the first time as a person. She was tall and slim with short brown hair and flashing green eyes. Not very pretty, but so alive and energetic that she had a stronger presence than he noticed before when she had worked with him briefly this year as a materials science specialist.

Andrew reflected, "Look, stick around 'cause I want to tell you something you won't believe. Let me go take a shower and clean up and then you can treat me to breakfast. OK."

"All right," Susan said slowly, "but it will have to be lunch because you slept through breakfast."

"Better yet. I'll meet you down in the cafeteria in a half hour after I'm presentable again," Andrew said and couldn't help smiling when he saw the concern written on Susan's face.

"OK. I'll also call off our group hunt for you. We thought you had panicked because you hadn't found the group proposal topics yet for our synthesist degrees. This had better be good," Susan emphasized. "You sure you're okay?"

She looked once more over her shoulder, he nodded, and she went out.

Andrew began to feel alive again only with the refreshing sting of the shower against his skin. Removing his facial hair and clean clothes helped wash away most signs of his ordeal. He would have thought he imagined the whole affair if it wasn't for the severely bruised left arm and sore fingers. The arm was quite sore but still slightly mobile. Andrew rolled up his sleeve, and rubbed an athletic balm on the bruised area and then headed out to meet Susan.

When he got to the door, he noticed the belt and one of the remaining water balls on the floor near his hiking boots. Well, at least, I didn't imagine these. He picked up a water ball after deciding that the belt might be too conspicuous, tossed it up and caught it as he carefully shut the door to his room and his MemDex had it locked before they had stepped away. He was actually whistling on his way to the cafeteria though he was deep in thought.

They'll just send me to psychiatric examination if I take this tale to the authorities. Andrew knew the mood of the world had turned inward after the influenza nightmare. Ironic that one quarters of the world's population had died from a wimpy, adaptive virus and not the nuclear holocaust everyone had anticipated. Populations became paranoid of people from a country or region where there was an outbreak and soon travel between many countries was blocked or severely curtailed. When deaths started occurring in the Western world the health care system in the U.S. and Europe was compromised for years. Travel and tourism suffered, and people, in general, became more insular. Later, when trade became restricted after the height of the influenza deaths, the World Government was formed as an offshoot of the World Bank. Nation states became
local governments
.
Two thirds of the free nations joined and the rest became the “unaligned nations.” It had been the goal of the World Bank to make third world nations dependent on the Bank for loan service -- thus controllable. The reality turned out to be a bit different as there was little “control” yet many inherited problems. The World Government was inefficient, as most governments are inefficient, but the bit of oversight it provided was enough to add some competency where there had been none before. The reality of a distant, weak, slightly incompetent government actually worked. It didn’t work everywhere because culture and corruption were so endemic but that was the reality.

With all the world's problems, people looked to restoring their own areas and their own homes. Technology was hardly affected but it stopped progress in its tracks for a few decades. History tapes of the last decades were almost incomprehensible in their violence and contradictions.

No, this story, of mine had better stay with a select few. Maybe we can use the power source of this belt for our group proposal because the project I had planned was too expensive – too mundane for others at the college. That field had to be produced with a ridiculously powerful power supply. Any power supply would be revolutionary plus that field kept the gray ghastly from touching anything – affecting mass and gravity like that ship would rewrite physics. Funny, how lack of motivation should prompt me to take a hike off my regular schedule. Look, where it got me, he chuckled to himself. Nobody is going to believe me, he thought.

He had only met Susan a year ago when the materials science specialist of their group had been forced out because his grating personality had eroded their efficiency. Susan had come in after an entire group she had been working with had dissolved. Now it seemed like she had been made for the group even in the few times they had worked together. Andrew hoped she'd, at least, accept his story better than any in the group. He was obliquely attracted to her. Of course, any super competent people are good to have around. He saw her waiting for him on one of the benches outside the cafeteria.

"Hi, Andy. You sure look better," she beamed with the transgression of his missed seminar seemingly forgotten.

"Hi. Let's eat first, I'm starved."

They went into the cafeteria and Susan eyed the water ball he carried. "May I ask what that is?" she inquired.

"No, you may not... yet!" he replied.

She was politely silent as they passed through the line and didn't even say anything about the voluminous amount of food he heaped onto his tray. She only raised an amused eyebrow when she saw the credit amount for the food he had to spend. He had relented and paid for the meal as he authorized his MemDex before Susan. He didn’t know she had no intention of paying for his meal but was preparing to pay for her own.

They sat down at a small table and before she could ask anything, Andrew had started into his food.

Picking at her food, she was silent as her amusement changed to amazement at the volume of food and drink that Andrew was inhaling. He ate so fast! Susan barely touched her food as she became absorbed in watching Andrew. It wasn't until Andrew had polished off every morsel of food from his plates that she broke the silence.

"Well… Out with it… Why did you miss the seminar? Do you have a workable group proposal for us? Why are you grinning at me like that?" Susan said, with all her frustration rushing out. She hoped he was going to live up to his reputation. She hadn’t seen too much special out of him since joining the team. Maybe that was changing, she thought.

"Here. Look at this," he said as he tossed the ball to her unexpectedly. "What do you make of this?" he asked as he got up and started toward the door without looking back.

"Hey, wait a minute, you!" she blurted; torn between close examination of the object in her hands and the retreating figure. "What is it?" She called as she jumped up after him, "What is this supposed to be? Is this the big secret?"

"'That," he said as she ran up beside him, "is part of our group proposal."

"But it's just an odd shaped container made out of ordinary... “Her voice trailed off as she held the ball for closer examination. After scratching at it with a little knife she had pulled from her pocket, she said, "OK. I'll shut up, you talk."

He led her to an empty bench in the shade of a tree nearby and after getting comfortable he began describing his trials and tribulations of the weekend. She drew him out with questions but otherwise didn't say anything.

When he finished, he asked her, "Well, do you believe me?"

After a pause she answered, "I'm reserving judgment 'til I see that belt you got. Let me see your arm. Realize that your arm doesn't prove anything. There is more to this that you're not telling me isn't there?"

"Some, but not much," he answered slightly embarrassed, but pleased that she was as astute as he rolled up his sleeve and winced. "I'll tell you everything when we can get the group together again.

"Ooo...bad bruise," she said as she spread her fingers trying to match the weird, wide pattern of bruising on the arm and realized that it wasn't from any hand she had seen.

He had left out the function of the belt in his story other than as an escape weapon. "How about calling a meeting for our usual time this evening?"

"You want me to call. That's your job," she stated.

"I'm going back to bed for a while," he said and left her staring at his receding back. “I’m crushed right now I’m so tired. Guess I’m out of adrenaline.”