Offspring Ch. 026

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"This is a very interesting model you boys have come up with. Difficult to prove though. It's still all speculation."

"There is more."

"There is?"

"Yes. Take those huge ships. Why do you think the Federation has no ships anywhere near this size? They have the industrial capacity to build something like that. Why do you think they don't?"

"Perhaps too expensive?"

"No. We don't build ships like this because they are virtually useless. You are familiar with the Robertson equations I take it?"

"Vaguely. It's been a while. Refresh my memory."

"The Robertson equations are about the power to mass ratio required to propel a ship into hyperspace. It is a logarithmic curve. Beyond a certain mass the power required becomes prohibitive. I have done the figures. The power plant required to take a ship this size into hyperspace would be bigger than the vessel,. That means ships this large can only be powered by sub light drives. It would take far too long to cross interstellar spaces to be a worthwhile proposition for anyone. You would only build something like this if there were compelling reasons.

"You have heard me say that I think these ships are transporters for colonists, not warships as everyone seems to think. I go one step further. These ships were created by a desperate civilisation on the brink of extinction. Maybe some asteroid or rogue planet on a collision course with their home world or some other pending catastrophe. They built these ships to give at least part of their population a chance to survive elsewhere. It might have taken them a century or more to get here."

"I must say you make a good case. Surely the Federation could work that out for them selves. Why do you think they haven't?"

"To the Federation Okton4 is a sideshow of a sideshow. Sure, they are interested if something new comes up. It would be a totally different story if they suspected this entire sector is up for grabs. That's why I didn't tell them. I don't want to see a Federation takeover."

"But you are telling me. Why?"

"Because you need a Federation takeover like a hole in the head, Sir. You have a cosy arrangement here which will even get cosier in time. All your business will come to very little if the sector comes under Federation control and every Tom, Dick and Harry with a freighter can land here and do business. Your interests in this are the same as mine."

"But you are still working for the Federation, even under the new arrangements."

"Because I have to. As long as I am feeding them information I am reasonably safe. If they suspect I am running my own race they'll arrest me, pump me full of drugs and try to find out what else I know. They have threatened me with arrest once before when they thought I wasn't coming willingly to the Fed cruiser to be questioned. All my life I had to bow and scrape to Federation bureaucrats just to get a job done. I want to be free of these arseholes and here is an opportunity. I would stake my last credit, Sir, you feel the same way."

"Quite, Mister Walters. Tell me, how many humans do you think are on the mainland."

"According to the level of activity, bearing in mind that Oktonians can only function in minor positions, somewhere between one and two-hundred thousand, including women and children."

"That many?"

"That is my estimate, Sir. Tell me, Tai-pan, do many slavers arrive here with human cargo?"

"There is no human trafficking going on here, I would know if there was."

"Then, according to what is known the only humans on the mainland are the spacers who jump ship because they are addicted to Oktonian sex."

"That is so."

"There wouldn't be all that many."

"No, only between thirty and fifty a year. I can get you precise figures, if you wish."

"Then where are all the humans coming from we already know of?"

"What? The fifty or so negotiators?"

"There must be a lot more. From what I can make out there are about fifteen to twenty-thousand Oktonians working in the spaceport alone. The way it looks they all carry the human genome. Who then fucked their mothers? Just the few deserting spacers? I don't believe it."

"Maybe they are using artificial insemination."

"I somehow doubt that works. There would be a lively trade in human sperm if that were so. Is there?"

"No."

"Then my figures are right."

"If there was only some way to prove it."

"There is, but I can't furnish it. You could though."

"I could? How?"

"Here I go with my assumptions again. I don't believe for a minute you have a mole at headquarters who can feed you a secret document from a five star General's desk. That leaves only one thing. You have a way to get into the Federation's communications network and God knows what else, bypassing all controls. Some secret back door into their system. If that is true we could find out what we want to know with ease."

"Assuming you are right, Mister Walters, what do you want me to do?"

"All Oktonian negotiators are accredited by the Federation and carry identification, showing name, date of birth etc. as well as their biometric data. There must be a list going back to day one. In addition, all spacers who have gone to the mainland will be on file as well with the same kind of information. Forget about the names and such, compare the biometric data of all negotiators with the biometric data of the spacers who went over. I bet you you won't find a match. That will prove the masters have access to humans the Federation doesn't know about. By inference, proof that there is a human colony on the mainland."

The old man got up. "Excuse me, Gentlemen," he said, "this won't take long."

He went to his office and left me and Feng to get another beer from the fridge. It wouldn't have been much more than half an hour before he returned.

"You are right, Mister Walters. What was it that made you so sure?"

"Common sense, Sir. Would you entrust the entire foreign trade of your planet to a bunch of people who are only with you because they were chasing alien pussy?"

The Tai-pan laughed out loud and said: "Of course I wouldn't. Only an idiot would do that. I should have seen this years ago. I wonder why I've missed it."

"When I first arrived here I asked Colonel Nakov about something that didn't make any sense to me. This is a weird society, he said, many things here don't make much sense. It's in the nature of the place. He left it at that. I couldn't accept what he said. Most things happen for a reason. Sometimes things only appear strange because we don't know why they happen. I made it my business to find out more, but then, I wasn't caught up in the daily grind of a full time job. I had time on my hands."

"You are right, my boy. I often would like to follow up on something and just can't find the time for it. It gets forgotten after a while."

"Well, Sir, I have put my cards on the table. Now I need something from you."

"You are talking about money, aren't you?"

The old man seemed displeased.

"No, Tai-pan, not money. I want something else. I need to know what possesses the Oktonian masters to offer you a planet in the proscribed zone. They must want something very badly to make such an offer. Something only you can supply. What is their price?"

The old man looked at me intently and studied me for quite a while before he made up his mind to answer.

"A Zephyr Mark Four supercomputer."

"That puts a new complexion on things. This is highly classified stuff, only the Federation has them. And you can supply?"

"The company that manufactures them is associated with the Chang Corporation."

"That explains your back door into the Federation's system. I take it you are bringing it in in bits and pieces to be assembled elsewhere. Very, very smart! You are a genius, Tai-pan."

"It doesn't require genius to get hold of the bits, just good connections."

"That's not what I'm talking about."

"What are you talking about then, Mister Walters?"

"You couldn't possibly assemble it here and the Oktonians will not permit you to go to the mainland because they can't allow you to see their predicament. A planet in the proscribed zone is an entirely different matter. There you are free to do what needs to be done and acquire an empire into the bargain. I take it the planet we are talking about has a breathable atmosphere?"

"Of sorts. Too thin to sustain us for more than a few minutes. With a bit of compression quite tolerable though. Not as bad as Mars, but something along those lines."

"Excellent. The Oktonian masters must be desperate. I can just imagine what is happening."

"What do you think is happening?"

"They are running out of time. According to our reckoning they arrived a little more than two-hundred years ago. They would have unloaded all their manufacturing equipment and other gear when they first arrived. Then disaster strikes. The crews get quarantined, their best people are on the surface and doomed. Now the crews are on their own up there. Few machines are designed to run for two-hundred years. Infrastructure starts breaking down. Perhaps they shove most of the survivors onto a single ship and man the others with skeleton crews, just enough to keep them in orbit and do some patrols.

"Things break, specialists die, each new-born puts more strain on the system. They cannibalise the ships with the skeleton crews for parts. Jury rigs everywhere just to keep things ticking over. Fewer and fewer of them understand the technology. Apathy sets in with many. A few are able to keep the whole trip together but it gets more difficult by the day. They need a solution, they must find a vaccine or a cure. There are only the humans left who can provide this.

"I can't believe the humans are very keen to find a way for creatures who have murdered millions to return to the planet surface. Their response to the increased pressure is to ask for something they think is near impossible to obtain. There are enough spacers on the mainland who would know what to ask for. In the meantime time passes, time the masters can ill afford. I don't know why the masters have not tried to go to another planet, my guess is they would need the equipment that still lies on the surface of Okton4 hidden somewhere, which they can't use because it's contaminated.

"Anyway, something like that, more or less."

"So you don't want them to get hold of the machine?"

"No, Tai-pan. Give them the best machine you can. The humans will find a use for it. The one thing they won't do is cure the invaders. It'd be suicidal. They've probably had a cure for decades. I don't know what the masters have over them. It has to be something though or the humans would just ignore them, leave them to rot in their ships and do what they like. That doesn't seem to be happening for some reason. I need to find out what that is."

"And how do you propose to do that?"

"By getting close to the negotiator. He'll be the best technician they have if he is handling this deal, just to make sure they are getting the real thing. They won't let a bureaucrat anywhere near it. This guy will also know most of what's going on over there. Technicians as a rule get on very well with other technicians regardless of race, creed or politics, you should know this from your time as a miner. After a while he'll tell me everything I want to know, if I can get him to trust me. Don't forget those people could do with some assistance to free themselves from their overlords. What will help is that he'll know we aren't working for the Federation because of the scam we're doing. This is going to come together rather neatly, I think."

"Thank you Mister Walters. You have given me a lot to think about. It is time though I devoted myself to some other things."

We shook hands and Feng and I left. Feng had my computer in his case. He said he would put it into my deposit box first thing in the morning. We went to his Chinese restaurant for a meal and some drinks. I rang the hotel and cancelled my lesson for the day.

It was late when I returned to my hotel, half cut.

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hakdrakkenhakdrakkenalmost 12 years ago
Brilliant

I love the way you think, it's fun. I'm curious, though, if you had to work this out in reverse. Otherwise there would seem to be a huge risk of logical failures in the plot, and I haven't found any yet.

Maybe I'm just not seeing them!

Either way, great story.

AnonymousAnonymousalmost 12 years ago
Amazing!

Your story is coming together quite lovely and its mysterious. What is really going on with this planet?

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