Cast:
| Ray | Banker |
| 5'10", late 20s-early 30s, neatly kempt ship pilot. Obvious spacer gait and complexion on a lean athletic build just now "going to seed." He suits his language and attitude to the company he keeps due to long experience as a ship's steward. Co-owner of the Sorcerer. | |
| Will | Eddie |
| Shy of 6', late 20s, close-cropped hair, ship engineer. Average, if slightly used in appearance, his build hides under grease-stained coveralls. Co-owner of the Sorcerer. | |
| Randy | Croy |
| "The Shepherd", a man of philosophy in his late 30s-early 40s, sporting a warrior's build and a black ponytail. | |
| Marian | Jamie McFarlane |
| Petite 5'2" beauty with fair skin and brown hair. Always wears wrap-around goggles. A translator and negotiator specializing in alien cultures. | |
| Sheryl | Jannisett |
| 5'7", wedgewood-blue skin, long shimmery-white hair; a stunningly beautiful martial artist. Seems to be in her early 20s, possibly younger. Her perfect proportions belie her evidenced strength. | |
| Peter | To Be Introduced |
From the journal of Jannisett
Day 30, Planet Unknown, Solar System Unknown, Galaxy Unknown.
On FRW, Katie told me that I should practise my writing as well as my reading even though I am not taking classes. As my "job" is not much needed aboard a ship, practising anything helps me fill my time. Sam was correct; everyone needs something to do. I think I'll write about Art.
Malik... no. [scribble out] . I have learned more about titles too, and that is one I should not use. Killian once referred to me as his "deadly piece of art"; he was enamoured of beautiful things. Now I understand more about art, and I find the memory troublesome rather than pleasing. I may as well start with how I've come to that understanding, though there are many other things that I don't yet understand.
Identifying herself, she said, as "BE3" (which, I now know stands for "Bug-Eyed Alien race #3), Jamie had activated an elevator and, when the door opened, we all - Jamie and the small being Roks, Banker, Eddie, Croy, and I - entered a room with two doors (other than the elevator) and a corridor. The corridor was 10-feet high and 5-feet wide. The far door was 4x4. The middle door, 7x7. As the air was deemed "good", Roks climbed out of Jamie's suit with an "Eeep" of strain.
We were about to choose a path when Eddie said, "Something's happening behind us, above."
Banker, concerned: "Without the ship, we don't have a prayer of getting off this planet.
Roks: "Let's go through the little door."
Eddie: "We'll never learn anything if we run back every time something odd happens in an odd place."
Nonetheless, Banker and Croy decided to go "topside" via the elevator, after they checked out their radios for Eddie to assure function.
Banker's voice came over the radio: "What the heck do I press to get out?"
Jamie gave precise instructions and reminded the two that only she could let them back in.
Banker: "The door's open. I can see, uh, 12 umbilicals reaching from the ground to the ship."
Eddie: "Are they refueling or eating?"
Banker: "Can't tell."
Eddie: "Keep an eye on it and let me know if something changes. Watch your own backs."
Banker: "I guess we'll watch the..." and the radio sound cut off.
Eddie: "Sounds like they were outside when the door closed." I think Eddie understands radios.
Jamie and Roks started arguing. The symbols outside the elevator had represented "old" races; Roks was of one of those. All such races could fit comfortably through one or the other of the three exits we had not yet tried. Roks claimed that he would be more comfortable going through the smallest exit. "Do you have experience in old installations like these?"
Jamie: "Hell, no!"
Roks, smugly: "I'm a crypto-archaeologist. I've seen sites this old before."
Eddie: "Working?"
Roks, hesitantly: "None were precisely broken."
I asked, "Could you give an example of something you recognized from another site?"
Roks: "The wall with the symbols.
Jamie said to me, "Remember, he finds pouring alcohol in a glass exciting." I took a closer look at the small being; in my opinion, he was showing the beginning signs of withdrawal from addiction.
Despite the argument, Jamie decided that the 7x7 entry was most appropriate to her use of the BE3 identifier. There was a slight slope to the straight corridor as we walked a couple of miles. The light level was low. Eddie mentioned that he detected a power source two-thirds of the way along, perpendicular to the corridor. (His suit may have sensors that I don't know about.) He tried to mark the location but the walls were impervious to his writing implement. So he left the instrument itself to be a marker. (I do not understand how that could be; we were not in a maze.)
Suddenly the lights increased in intensity and Eddie shouted, "Incoming!" My suit-screen darkened but I had seen the light source's angle so I put myself between it and Jamie. I heard Eddie hit the floor and Jamie trying to dodge. As my vision cleared, Jamie said, "It is some sort of greeting and challenge. I recall a fight with BE1 that included a genetic component. BE1 is similar in social structure to BE3. I'm taking off my helmet." She started to remove her helmet but I made sure my hand was between her and the light source. At that moment she stated, "The communication has vanished." The intensity of the beam was increasing.
Eddie looked at me, "It may be trying to burn through your hand."
Jamie: "Take your hand down." I did so. A probe moved towards Jamie's eyes then retracted without touching her
Eddie: "The power surges are extremely fast, but I think the power source has now turned off."
Jamie: "I guess I 'said' the right thing." I had not heard her say anything.
Eddie: "Is the air OK?"
Jamie: "Yes."
I turned to Eddie: "You said the air would kill slowly." Eddie shrugged.
At the end of the corridor was a 5x5 room containing a big console. Jamie and Roks examined it and, according to Eddie, "geeked out" trying to decide which of them had more applicable knowledge. Jamie seemed to know more about BE3, I think. Eventually they put the "'hedron" into the console and a probe extruded. Eddie seemed to listen to something inaudible to me [8 batteries powering up] then shouted "Incoming!" I spun around to place my hand up against the beam. The room was bathed in light and energy [30 Body, 60 Stun in the left hand] . I must have blacked out. Eddie says I was flung towards him, my hand glowing. I bounced off him and slid towards Jamie who caught me [another 3 Stun] . I woke up just as my suit-screen cleared. The arm of my ship-suit was gone and my hand was badly burned. Not having a medkit, I tried to ignore it; the hand was now useless anyway. Roks, too, was singed, but Jamie and Eddie seemed to have been protected by their suits. Eddie looked up at the beam source, "I think the machinery's been slagged." The 'hedron was on the floor, no longer part of the console.
Eddie examined the room's walls. "A military ship would take two shots to get through these walls," he muttered and shot me a strange look. But ever since I would not go with him on Gulf, he has given me strange looks - when he has looked at me at all. It may have been bad manners to have turned him down, but I think that is what Sam would have wanted me to do. I am not sure. I do not understand Eddie.
Roks was gloating over Jamie's mistake with the console. She tried again, warning Eddie and me to stand well back. A circular panel opened with a slight whirring sound from behind it. Eddie: "There's some kind of carousel beyond that door." We could see a wedge-shape room with a 30-degree arch. Eddie continued, "There's probably a bunch more such rooms. It picked this one for us." Jamie: "It's a BE3 living area."
Jamie started talking to the console, telling us it had an "area communicator". Eddie: "Does it have facilities for re-charging our vessel?" Jamie listened to the room answer and said, "Details include some non-BE3 terms. I don't think it can do the recharge." Then she asked for a "star chart" and the room filled with a series of 3-D images. Jamie said, "It's showing things in different frequencies of light. I can see some that normal human eyes can't." She asked it to "highlight the BE3 homeworld". The room filled with a different galaxy. Then she asked for the nearest Stargate; the images rapidly changed, highlighting something she said was "7000 feet to the right."
Eddie: "That's our ship."
Jamie: "Also there's another one in this galaxy."
Eddie: "Does Banker have any idea how to tell the ship where to go? I don't think so. This could be difficult."
Jamie said she would have the communicator "down load the maps to the ship." Then the room spoke and she translated, "Completed."
Roks said that he would have "it" synthesize a communicator for him; a tentacled ball was extruded from a slot in the console and Roks placed it on his abdomen. Then he said, "This thing is very tired and very old. We should turn it off when we leave."
Jamie asked the room about our ship. It started speaking very fast and I saw her eyes glaze. I caught her as she fell. When she came to she said it was "information overload." She could only remember the basic specs it had given her. Eddie asked for an open frequency to the ship. The radios crackled to life and Banker answered him, "Nothing bad's happened. Nothing good either." Jamie asked how to use the ship's communicators and seemed frustrated with the answer, "It's just giving me the frequencies it's currently using."
I did not want her to be frustrated so I asked about the original owner of the 'hedron's goals. She did not think that those were any different from what ours had been but she started a new line of questioning the room, learning that the 'hedron "functions as a keystone" and it is "one of the [unintelligible] number [unintelligible] of the [precursors to the BE races]."
While Roks continued his researches, we discussed matters amongst ourselves.
I asked, "Where will we go?"
Jamie: "We should try to find the other Stargate to go home."
Eddie: "We'll need supplies." Jamie then requested that the room manufacture such; it fabricated a stack of sheets of an odd gelatinous material. Eddie took a bite; it seemed to bleed for a moment. "Flavourless," he said. However, as we watched, the sheet started to regenerate itself. Jamie asked for a supply of nutrients to maintain the sheets and the room provided some which were to be used with water.
Eventually Roks turned to us. "Both my extra brains are filled. I can't get it to turn off. It's still fulfilling it's purpose: monitoring and sustaining something, back there..." he pointed. Jamie asked the room for an image of its charge: a ten-foot long egg with tendrils.
Roks: "That's the sustenance unit."
Jamie: "The Computer says that the thing should have 'hatched' some time ago. It's using older and older language to talk about its charge. I can't understand it all."
Roks: "I think the charge must be dead. My race is the longest-lived I know of and one of us could not last even half the time this facility has been here. But I'm not an expert in biologics."
Eddie: "If it's dead, will we be safe if the facility turns itself off? That elevator is the only way out."
Jamie: "I think it needs a protocol to turn off rather than a command."
Meanwhile:
< I am not where I had been. My staff is gone. My clothing is not as it was. I sense incredible atrophy. Something's wrong! >
As Jamie finished at the console, another door opened. A strange creature shuffled into our room. It was about 4-foot high and exhibited bilateral bipedal symmetry, but it was not human. It had no knees, had a humped back, only four digits on each hand or foot, and a vaguely-camel-shaped head. It's skin was a beautiful golden yellow.
Roks stepped forward and chattered unintelligibly (albeit the room's language was also unintelligible to me) and very rapidly. The Being answered and Roks dropped onto his own face.
Being, in the tongue used by Roks: < "Can you understand what I'm saying?">
Jamie, in BE3: <"Hello?">
Eddie dragged Roks back out of the way.
<These creatures are very fast. I sense aggression from the non-speakers.>
Jamie told me: "It's OK. I don't think it will attack."
<I will use my skills with physical communication. Perhaps gesture will enable these creatures to understand me.>
The Being moved towards Eddie and Roks. I, of course, interposed.
<"Young one, get up.">Roks awoke and started chattering. [There was a formal exchange of greetings.] Roks collapsed again [when the Alien gave its name.] Eddie tried to catch him but failed.
<The young one is damaged. I will try to communicate that in gesture.>
Jamie: "It wants to try to help Roks."
I asked, "Does it need help?"
Jamie: "It is talking to the Computer but it can't open the door."
Eddie went over to the Being and pointed to a particular place on the wall. The Being examined it with its snout tentacles and hands, and, after some wait [3 turns] , Eddie pantomimed trying to open it himself. The Being stepped away.
Jamie: "He'd like you to open it."
Eddie tried. "I don't have enough strength."
So I went over and pressed at the spot Eddie indicated. The door opened. The Being shambled into the room and picked up two items out of a slot. It assembled them such that one floated above the other which it held like a staff. Then it gestured and moved slowly back towards Roks.
Jamie: "He says thanks."
<It takes much energy to heal the young one. In so doing, however, I learned that he is very old and suffers from injuries deeper than broken bones.>
The Being's staff glowed over Roks for half an hour. Then the small four-eyed being rose.
Roks: "I'm fine. I feel really strange." Suddenly he looked at the greater Being and became incoherent.
Jamie, sharply: "Focus on me! Who is that?"
Roks, in a shaky voice: "One moment please." He spoke again with the greater Being.
Jamie: "You keep wandering off to talk to him."
Roks: "It's kinda hard to ignore it.
Jamie: "Is this place going to shut down?"
Roks, with suddenly awareness, turning to the greater Being: < "Ah - Is there anything else you need here, Exalted One?">
Being: <"Not at this time. This is not the place I should be.">
Eddie commented quietly: "Roks' behaviour is...."
Jamie, nodding: "Subservient."
Eddie: "Yeah, groveling." Then he spoke into the radio: "Coming out soon."
Radio: "OK. Umbilicals no longer attached."
Eddie: "We'll probably be bringing a new guest." Then he turned to Jamie, "Can it eat what we eat?"
Jamie: "The Computer doesn't know what he eats."
Roks, picking up the last part of the conversation: "What do your gods eat? This is the specific progenitor that brought my race to sentience!"
I asked: "Was it a prisoner? Did it want to be there?" The small being did not answer me but turned to the greater Being.
Roks, in the alien language: <"Is the purpose for which you were resting still applicable, Exalted One?">
Being: <"I believe it is.">
Roks to us: "He doesn't know where he is."
Jamie told the room to display the galaxy image again. "You are here," she pointed.
Roks: "The Exalted One believes that this is not the correct galaxy even taking into account time drift. Let's show the Stargate that's not the ship."
<I do not know where I am.>
Being to Roks: <"Is there a Star Conveyance?">
Roks: <"There is one; it is not mine."> [ Thence commenced a discussion between the two about the social structure of ship ownership, including the information that Eddie along with One Not Here owned the conveyance and that Jamie had some sort of Interest in it.]
Eddie: "We ought to be leaving."
Jamie: "Now!"
Eddie: "You coming with us, Roks? Or are you going to stay for the place to collapse?"
Roks to the greater Being: <"They think there is urgency in leaving.">
Being: <"If there is urgency, let us go.">
Roks to the group: "Is it OK if he comes with us?"
Eddie: "I assumed he'd come."
The being traveled with incredible slowness; even at its fastest I could walk rings around it. I wanted to pick it up and run, but it has a very awkward shape and, I suspect, such action on my part would not be polite. I behaved properly.
As the elevator opened onto the upper level, Jamie translated the computer voice, "Systems are shutting down." The Greater Being spoke. Jamie added, "I can no longer hear the computer." Eddie spoke into his radio: "We've got a friendly, I guess."
As we approached the ship Roks said that the Being recognized the ship.
Inside, Eddie showed the Greater Being to a room not far from the bridge. It entered and seemed to spread its legs for greater stability, lowering its center of mass. I had noticed no lids over its eyes. It said something, <"I must contemplate.">
We found a healing pack in the ship's stores which helped my hand a little. [1 BOD] I shall have to work harder to be able to adequately protect without the use of that hand.
Day 32, Planet Unknown, Solar System Unknown, Galaxy Unknown.
Two days later the Greater Being emerged from its room.
Roks announced, "The Genetic Facilitator would like a tour of the ship."
Eddie: "I'll call him Fred." There commenced a round of introductions wherein Jamie recited her lengthy ancestry. It was appropriate for me to mention only Jinan as she is the only other product of our mutual uterine replicator who has any claim on me. It seems a long time since I've seen her. A year now seems a very long time.
Roks said, in turn, "The Genetic Facilitator himself is three generations removing from the beginning."
I asked, "The beginning of what?"
Roks: "There were only three generations before him."
I: "That is not informative."
Roks: "The generation before two generations before him was before the beginning of his race as a race."
I do not know what was the beginning of my race - whatever my race is, so I stayed silent. Perhaps I will ask Jamie about this.
Roks spoke to the others. "The Genetic Facilitator would like to know how he can fit in with the community. I myself am somewhat unusual, being a loner; my race usually travels in groups of ten."
The Shepherd stopped Rok's ensuing discussion of how the Genetic Facilitator would "help" humans. Roks said that the Genetic Facilitator thought that Jamie's eyes could be better integrated and that my hand could be repaired. He thought that Banker would provide a baseline. However he would like everyone to provide DNA samples: plasma and reproductive. I do not know what the Shepherd thought of that. Although the rest said they were willing to provide such, I limited my contribution to plasma. My memories of the Owners are still too green for me to volunteer to submit to anything else. Though the Genetic Facilitator does not act like a Malik.
Eddie and Roks took the Genetic Facilitator on a tour of the outside of the ship. Roks assured the man, "I don't think the Genetic Facilitator breathes."
<Exposed to outside sunlight I realize that I am at only a quarter of normal physical function. I am anemic.>
Later the discussion turned, as always, towards what we were to do.
Eddie: "Does he," gesturing at the Genetic Facilitator, "know how to operate this ship. My guess is that it was designed for someone of his physique."
Roks, translating: "He is a genetic counselor, not a pilot. He asks what is our purpose."
After a moment, Jamie summed up our purpose: "To get back to the community. We are well outside the bounds of ordinary travel. Possibly we are lost."
Roks: "If you are able to get close to a star, the Genetic Facilitator could help recharge the ship as well as himself."
Jamie: "How close to a star?"
Eddie: "Would he have to be inside or outside the ship?"
Roks: "He could be outside or within the engine compartment. He asks if he could use the aperture in the engine room."
Eddie seemed surprised that there was a conduit to space in the engine room. There are actually two. Experiments began with Eddie suited up to stop the Genetic Facilitator in event of trouble, while the rest of us took shifts watching the energy gauge on the bridge. In a 12-hour period, the gauge went up 1%. Eddie was astonished and started calculating possibilities. Banker explained, "Stargate jumps take X amount of energy to reach the next gate, 7*X to go two gates away, 25*X to go 3 gates away, and so forth. Major warships have separate power plants for System jumps. No one has ever calculated for Galactic jumps before. The Sorcerer isn't a major warship by our standards." I think that means they're still not sure how we are going to get home.
Jamie asked Roks: "Does he [the Genetic Facilitator] have somewhere he needs to go?"
Roks: "Yes."
Jamie: "Where?"
Roks: "He does not know."
Jamie: "Then we should simply head to the Stargate."
Eddie: "He'll have to do that stick-his-head-out-the-iris another 75 times for us to be fully charged. Was that at all a strain?"
Roks: "No, it wasn't, but I think it was. They don't lie so I don't understand."
Eddie: "Can he safely judge the aperture time to reproduce the 12-hour recharge?"
Roks: "I think I mistranslated. I used the wrong form of 'reproduction'. He said he was working on reproduction."
I asked: "Is he building a replicator unit?"
Jamie, hastily: "Different races reproduce in different ways." I wanted to ask her more about that but I could tell that she was uncomfortable at that time.
Day 33, Deep Space, Galaxy Unknown. Banker and Eddie plotted a course for the ship. Banker sounded strange when he told us that it had only taken a day to get into deep space. Then he explained that it normally takes three to four days just to get to the edge of a solar system. He continued telling the others that this ship's direction is relative to an imaginary Line that runs through the ship. If we are as little as 8 degrees off that Line it becomes a "gas guzzler." Eddie was figuring out the most efficient use of the Line. I think I must listen more carefully in order to understand.
It seemed to me that spaceships travel very slowly. Moreover, there is no use for an Asim - a body guard - on this ship. I practised my katas. I listened to the Shepherd although I do not think I understand him. Banker and Eddie were very concentrated on the ship and the Line. Jamie was teaching the Genetic Facilitator our language. One day, unable to find a kata that I could not do perfectly, I stopped to listen to Jamie. The Genetic Facilitator had become, to my mind, quite facile with our language as Roks translates it. They were discussing property and value and how art added value to function. When the Genetic Facilitator turned to me, I told him that I was Art. That was badly done because I then had to explain how Owner Killian had required beauty in all things around him that had function. Which, by Jamie's definition, made me a form of art. Jamie explained that Art was in the eye of the beholder and not all people would agree on what was Art.
From there we spoke of government and society, ethics and morals. Jamie told us that her family required its members to eschew ethics in the interest of profit and that she had disagreed with such principles. That made me wonder how she could still list her family pedigree as she does, but I did not ask. The Genetic Facilitator asked, "Can one pay for anything?" Jamie told us that one could not pay for intangibles. The discussion then centered on emotions. The Genetic Facilitator had an insight: "If there is no agreed-upon definition of emotion, then is emotion Art?"
Then I interrupted the conversation and asked the Genetic Facilitator: "What do we call you?" He said that his name was not pronounceable by our kind and not renderable into our speech. Jamie proceeded to explain about human names: given names, family names, titles. I was able to tell them that in my culture - for so I referred to Home - one can tell at a glance (or nearly so) one's clan name and title and so one can easily address someone previously unknown. But one's given name, made public by the Clan Head, designates ones self alone. Jamie discussed how names are given by others, inherited or taken by ones self. She also explained how names gained and lost and changed meaning. The Genetic Facilitator had another insight: "Is naming then a matter of Art?" Thus the Genetic Facilitator asked that we give him a name. Jamie mentioned that Eddie had been calling him "Fred" but I told him that I thought that he had chosen a better name: "Art."
Thereafter we also determined that the proper pronoun for Art was "it", not "he" or "she".
During another lesson we discussed religion. Jamie had been curious about Roks' reactions to Art. I asked Art if it was a savior; it didn't seem to understand. I do not think my people would think Art is a god. As they spoke, I became more and more convinced that their descriptions of "god" sounded like a Malik. It frightened me and I said more than I should. Art asked if the Maliks were omnipotent and omniscient. I said no. Jamie said, "Then the Maliks are only human." She asked about bodily functions and reproduction - but I was too upset to answer properly.
Jamie: "Every person may have his or her idea of god."
I: "That would make life very frightening." For my people at least, I thought, and then I realized what Jamie's words meant about Grey. It took my breath away for a moment.
Jamie: "Everyone accepting the same god does make things simple."
Art: "Is frightening the opposite of simple?" Jamie had to clear up that misunderstanding.
Jamie: "And some believe there may be no god."
I, very frightened: "That would make life intolerable."
Weeks later.
Traveling in one direction along the Line is efficient and quick; in the opposite direction, it is inefficient and slow; and at the perpendicular, it is an average of the two, that is, neither fast nor slow, with a middling use of energy.
Banker: "If we run out of fuel while at speed, we will coast along the Line."
Banker argued for further experiments with the Line; Eddie held out for a safety net of more fuel, calculating that it would take 80 hours for Art to power up in a system with a good sun.
We can travel 3% of the galaxy in 8 days if we are set on speed 3 and fuel 1, which means it would take 8-9 months to cross an entire galaxy.
Art said that refueling the ship regenerated his own capabilities but that he wanted to spend some time on language and culture, some on his END battery, and some on his genetic studies. He is most interested in Jamie's eyes: "the part that's shared".
Art proved to be useful around the ship, helping Eddie to move boxes - something that Eddie will not ask me to help with. I was impressed; Art is stronger than I am. Immensely strong. He will have to be even more careful around the soft ones than I must be.
I listened to him talking with Eddie about their plans for the ship. Eddie hopes to use the ship to increase value because it travels faster than other human ships. But he does not want to use its full capacities lest that create envy and other people try to take the Sorcerer away from him and Banker. I had not known that. Perhaps the ship itself needs a bodyguard.
One day when I was practising my katas in the hold, I overheard Art asking Eddie what I was doing. They talked about martial arts; Eddie explaining that every member of the ship's society is in their own ways battle-worthy. "We don't just stand around and watch Jannisett fight our battles for us." That is the first time I ever heard Eddie use my name.
Five days away from the Line plus Two weeks at 2nd Unknown System.
The first sun we reached was low powered. We spent two weeks trying to refuel. Art said, "My limit is your ability - what is the word? - to be patient." The gauge increased by 1% in three days; the input per day increased over time. The gauge got to 32% capacity.
Eddie studied what Art did. Then he himself practised opening the 2nd iris in the engine room. Eventually he was trying to open anything and everything around the ship using those techniques. He actually muttered something about wanting to design instrumentation to figure out what Art was doing. What he did figure out, however, was that the ship only had about 6-months of air left. He started concentrating on the air-handling system. Even I know that 6 months is less than the estimated 8-9 months to get across the galaxy. We are in long-term trouble. So I asked Eddie and Banker why we did not use the 30% to simply "jump" to the place with the Stargate. Surely there would be another star there from which we could "power up" without loss of time.
Eddie said he'd have to figure out how to tell the ship to jump straight to the Stargate.
Banker said we're going to try for another sun down the line.
I think that I must learn more about space flight before I make any more suggestions.
(EPs: 1, total: 3; Peter: 2, total 2)
Next Run: 16.May.04
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