A Planned Improvisation (9 page)

“I haven’t noticed that,” Marisea admitted.

“She only does it at embassy parties and other official get-togethers,” Sartena admitted. “Like Park said, it’s a social display of friendly intentions among her people, but I am firmly heterosexual and I don’t have the ambassadorial training most in my position do. I won’t retract what I said about her sexual behavior though. Even without trying to keep track of her, she seems to have gone through an amazing number of partners while on Earth. Most of us don’t date outside our species, but…”

“Never mind,” Iris laughed. “She isn’t hurting anyone and, from what I’ve seen, never takes offense when her advances are turned down.”

“Well, that aside,” Sartena shrugged, “she may be a good one to consult about the strange ship.”

“She’s an anthropologist,” Park pointed out, “or rather a culturologist, I suppose. Why would she be an expert on alien technology?”

“On the technology, she probably knows less than my kid sister,” Sartena admitted, “but she does specialize in other cultures. It is possible she has heard of people beyond the Alliance.”

“Are there people beyond the Alliance?” Park asked.

“Of course there are,” Sartena nodded. “The Diet does not officially recognize them and the Defense Force repeatedly denies the existence of any space-going enemies, but everyone knows Mankind spread further into the Galaxy than the volume held by the Alliance.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Park admitted, “but it is hard getting an official of the Alliance to speak of outsiders.”

“I’m an official of the Alliance,” Sartena pointed out, “but I don’t suppose I came by that status in the usual way. The plain fact is that we don’t know much about outsiders.”

“Seems like bad military strategy to me,” Park pointed out. “A nation might have enemies who live within its bounderies, but it’s far more likely to have enemies without. The Alliance has a large and powerful set of armed forces or so I hear. I seriously doubt their main job was to keep an eye on Earth.”

“There are other emerging worlds we keep an eye on,” Sartena replied, “but you’re right. If that was all the Defense Force was for, the Navy would be far smaller and we would hardly need an army or marine corps.”

“Then what?” Park prompted her.

“A good question,” Sartena admitted. “We’re told our mission is to protect the Alliance. No one ever says from whom.”

“Nice to see you again, Park,” Doctor Beniala Morava purred as she entered Park’s office. Her cat-like ears were both facing Park and, along with her body language, expressed extreme interest. Park gave her a friendly smile and politely motioned her toward a chair. Beniala smiled in return, but something in her attitude was abruptly less flirtatious.

Park then sat back behind his desk and reached for a computer pad. Park’s office continued to be inside the old subterranean Van Winkle Base even though people only occasionally entered the old base. In fact, the only other person who still kept his office inside the base was Arnsley Theoday, but Park had very little use for the office, preferring to work with his torc and computer pad wherever he happened to be. The office was just a place for people to meet with him. He figured it would be less wasteful to use this one inside the old base rather than in one of the new buildings where office space was at a premium. Also it was much quieter here.

As soon as Beniala found her seat, Doctor Deeni Vasson knocked on the door of the office and entered. Unlike Beniala, who looked like a grown-up anime cat-girl, Deeni’s immediate appearance did not immediately expose her as a member of a genetically altered species. Her skin tone was an exotic golden brown, but not outside the normal range for a member of
Homo sapiens
, and her hair light blonde, while unusual in combination with her skin, might well have been accomplished by bleaching.

After greetings, Park quickly got down to business and told Beniala and Deeni about the mystery ship they had encountered. “I have heard rumors of the people beyond the Alliance,” Beniala admitted. “Supposedly they are enemies. Of course the Defense Force denies
 
it, and the War Committee of the Diet is, well, first consider we have a War Committee and that it is one of the more powerful and prestigious parts of the Diet. Yes, I think we have one or more enemies living beyond the periphery of the Alliance, but all we hear about them are unsubstantiated stories.”

“What sorts of stories?” Park asked.

“Oh, the usual scare stories,” Deeni shrugged. “That they have fantastic technology; they can make their ships invisible…”

“And that they have a weapon that causes complete matter disintegration,” Beniala added.

“Really?” Deeni asked. “I’ve heard that it makes solid matter flow like water, causing catastrophic blowouts in space.”

“That’s a nice touch,” Beniala admitted admiringly. “I’ve never heard that one. But they also supposedly have an energy weapon that causes all organic life to die instantly.”

“I think I’ve heard that one too,” Deeni agreed, “and, of course, their ships are faster than any we have and they can shoot from well beyond our weapons range.”

“Of course,” Beniala agreed companionably.

“Okay, let me get this straight,” Park cut in to sum up. “They might have a cloaking device. They might have a disintegrator gun or a death ray or a melting ray of some sort?”

“Sounds about right,” Deeni agreed. Beniala nodded at the same time.

“Nothing about that sounds right to me,” Park told them. “Think about this ladies. Somewhere, outside the Alliance, there is a group of people with ships and weapons that completely out-class your own and they are your enemies. If your relations with them are so inimical, why aren’t they attacking? If your stories were true, there should at least be constant border skirmishes, or do you have stories of secret armistices as well?”

“No,” Beniala shook her head, “I’ve never heard rumors of a secret deal with outsiders. Have you, Deeni?”

“Not at all,” Deeni replied, “but, Park, you have to understand these are just stories. Even if they are true, it is possible the Alliance far out-numbers any one set of outsiders. Perhaps the political cohesion of the Alliance makes it strong despite not having their super weapons.”

“Or maybe they do not exist at all,” Park concluded. “I’m a quarter of a billion years out of date. Are any of these super weapons theoretically possible?”

“How would I know?” Deeni countered. “I study people.”

“And I study history,” Beniala added. “I could tell you if there had ever been such a war, but so far as I know, there hasn’t. You need to talk to a physical scientist.”

“Easier said than done,” Park admitted although he sat down with Dannet later that afternoon and repeated the conversation.

“I’ve heard of those stories, but father says that’s all they are,” Dannet told Park. “Yes, there are people outside the Alliance with whom we have no relations, some of whom do not like us. Relations on the periphery are tenuous and distrustful and if you want to know what I think…” he paused thoughtfully.

“I do,” Park encouraged the younger man.

“Hmm? Yes,” Dannet grinned. “Well, I think the Alliance has reached a natural limit as to the size of the volume of space it controls. A central government can only control territories to which it can communicate efficiently and the periphery is that limit. The way I see it, outsiders may have different ship types. Our own ships vary in appearance so why shouldn’t theirs and their weapons might be different, but those tales of super weapons? No I doubt that very much.”

“But are they theoretically possible?” Park asked. “Might they account for what we saw?”

“That bothers me as much as it bothers you, Park,” Dannet admitted. “But we need a technologist from the Alliance to answer those questions. I could request one, of course, but I don’t have a lot of hope one would be allowed to visit.”

“Why not?” Park demanded. “We have a star drive now.”

“You haven’t flown to another system with it yet,” Danet replied, “but I’ll ask.”

Just then, however, Sartena arrived with a tall man whose orange skin and antennae proclaimed he too was from Tzantza. “Park,” she told him excitedly, “this is my cousin, Tenadin. He just arrived in Van Winkle Town.”

“Welcome, Tenadin,” Park greeted him with a firm handshake. “I hadn’t heard any ships had landed here today.”

“My ship landed in Sanatis,” Tenadin admitted. “I had to fly from there.”

“A long flight,” Park noted. “Sanatis is on the other side of the world.”

“I didn’t realize that until I got here,” Tenadin laughed at himself. “When you’re traveling from another system, the concept of a few thousand miles seems so small, until you actually have to travel the distance. I took the first ship down from Luna and then had to wait a few days for a thirteen hour flight. But I’m here now.”

“Tenadin has a degree in engineering,” Sartena told Park and Dannet.

“Really?” both Dannet and Park asked with interest.

“Mechanical Engineering,” Tenadin qualified, “and it is only a bachelor’s degree, but Sartena thinks I might be of some help to you.”

“Perhaps,” Park nodded. He told Tenadin about his previous conversations, finishing up with, “Is any of that possible?”

“Hmm,” Tenadin considered. “Disintegration rays? Just a scary story that gets told from time to time. It came up in college bull sessions frequently enough, but no one I ever heard of could come up with a viable theory to support it. Theoretically matter might disintegrate at absolute zero, of course, but that’s as attainable as light speed. We can only approach that state, not actually chill something all the way down. Death rays exist, but they’re just directed radiation.”

“But that’s not instant death,” Park objected, “and there is a defense against them.”

“True,” Tenadin agreed. “Magnetic shielding diverts such attacks and that sort of radiation does damage to more than just organic life, but I think that’s where that sort of story comes from. I can think of a dozen sorts of death rays if you want to call them that, but they all involve what you call lasers, phasers or other forms of directed radiation. However, there is nothing, even in theory that can cause matter to liquefy without generating vast amounts of heat which, I believe, is what the stories imply when they mention melting rays. Once again a laser can be used to melt hull metal, but it’s more effective to
 
use enough power to
 
just drill a hole.”

“We saw a ship that changed its shape, growing wings and weapons as we watched,” Park told him. “Couldn’t a so-called melting ray be used to explain that?”

“No,” Tenadin denied. “That’s something else. There are ancient records of smart matter – materials that could be programmed to change shape, color, density and so forth. It is lost technology to us, but that’s what your description sounds like. We even have theories to explain how it can be done, but it’s not something anyone in the Alliance knows how to do.”

“I’d like you to talk to Ronnie Sheetz about those theories,” Park decided. “If anyone can make heads or tails of that, she’s the one, but it sounds like that ship was definitely not an Alliance ship.”

“I would say not,” Tenadin agreed. “Well, I suppose it might have been some top-secret design, but I’ve never heard of such a thing. I’m not a government-paid scientist so maybe it’s something very new, but we heard of a lot of top secret research while I was in school. Most of the professors were conducting it and their students assisted, but if there ever was an alien technology, that would be my nominee.”

“What about cloaking devices?” Park asked.

“What are they?” Tenadin countered. Park explained the concept and Tenadin replied, “There are materials and designs that can make a ship radio-silent and invisible to radar. There are even ways to keep infrared emissions down to a bare minimum, but nothing can make a ship truly invisible to the eye.”

“I recall hearing about Alliance disintegration rays a few years ago,” Park commented. “I believe they were supposed to work by suppressing the
 
weak and strong nuclear forces.”

“Scare images and stories again,” Tenadin replied.

“Identical scare images?” Park pressed. Tenadin merely shrugged.

Two weeks later Dannet’s father, Lord Rebbert of Dennsee, arrived on Earth with mixed news. He met with Arn and Park initially, but the Mer political leader, Prime Terius was flying in to Van Winkle Town to greet him as well.

“I’m afraid the Premm are gaining support for their anti-Earth faction in the Diet,” Rebbert reported in Arn’s apartment living room, two levels above Park’s office. “Most of that is just the normal political tide. It goes back and forth, but I have my own sources of information and one of them reports that the Premm have been dealing with a group of worlds outside the Alliance.”

“It’s about time someone admitted there are outsiders,” Arn growled.

“Of course there are outsiders,” Rebbert laughed. “Who denies it? The Premm worlds are on the periphery of the Alliance and it’s long been known they have traded with their neighbors, but I think you are referring to outsider supermen who are secretly at war with the Alliance? I can assure you that we have experienced no confirmed attacks from outside the Alliance in over a millennium.”

“So what can you tell us about these outsiders?” Park asked.

“Not a lot,” Rebbert admitted. “We know nothing about them beyond their existence, not even their species. For that matter I am not certain any of the Premm know precisely who or what they are dealing with save that they have been dealing with them for a very long time.”

“How can the Premm not know?” Arn asked.

“They never meet in person,” Rebbert replied. “It is possible that these outsiders are neither Human nor oxygen-breathers or maybe they are both and just like being mysterious. If the Premm know, then only a few of their leaders do. The average Premm citizen certainly does not, but then it is doubtful the average Premm citizen knows much about the Alliance. The leadership of the Premm worlds prefer to keep a firm hand on their citizenry.”