04. The Return of Nathan Brazil (11 page)

Gramanch, a Planet in the Galaxy M51

THE    BLUE-WHITE    EXPANSE    OF    GRAMANCH    SPREAD
below the shuttle as it rose toward a small and not very imposing moon. Gramanch had several moons, most no more than cratered rock and airless wastes and none larger than three thousand kilometers around. The shuttle's destination was smaller than that but different in that it was a private moon acclimatized for its owners and not very natural at all. It was said that they had snared an asteroid, refurbished it as one would an old spaceship, added a drive, and moved it into orbit. Certainly it had not been there even a year.

Approaching it one could easily see the differences. One hemisphere was protected by some kind of energy shield that gave it the appearance of slightly opaque plastic; there were signs of greenery beneath, and of clouds.

The other hemisphere was harder to make out but as the shuttle approached the surface could be seen. It was pitted but not as cratered as the other moons. Only a huge concave dish whose metal ribs gleamed in the sunlight indicated that this must be the area of the space drive.

The Gramanch were a spacefaring race; they were expanding and had managed to do so without conflict, although there were some uneasy moments with several of the nonhuman spacefaring races they had encountered. The people of Gramanch were small, barely a meter tall, swaddled in long sable fur from which faces like miniature lions or Pekinese dogs peered. They were unusual in that they walked on all fours but sat on hind legs when they wanted to use their thin, delicate, ape-like, fingers with opposable thumbs. They were like some sort of impossibly furry kangaroos balanced on thick thighs and curled yet muscular, furry tails.

The ship docked easily and the passengers felt slightly lighter than they had been. The difference was enough to put a spring in their step, but not enough to be uncomfortable.

Their hostess, a striking female whose flaming orange fur was tinged with gray and white, greeted them as they debarked: "Welcome, welcome to
Nautilus,"
she told them, apparently totally sincere. "I am Sri Khat, your hostess and the manager of this facility. Please do not worry about your luggage; it will be transferred to your rooms. If you will just follow me."

They trotted happily after her, thirty-four in all, taking in the strange little world beyond the tiny two-ship-terminal.

It was green and beautiful. Grass was everywhere, and they could see copses of alien trees off to the left. The buildings, too, were alien, but were somehow pleasing and not a little imposing. Strange birds flitted through air that was exceptionally invigorating and pleasant; flowers, familiar and alien, grew everywhere; here and there small animals scurried to and fro. They passed beautifully manicured gardens and fountains spurting crystal-clear water. Amid this bucolic wonder the hostess stopped, turned, sat up and faced the crowd.

"Welcome again to
Nautilus,"
she repeated in the pleasant, professional tones of an old-hand tour guide. "This world, the only known product of the cooperation among private interests of alien creatures, exists for your comfort and pleasure. It is a resort free from pressures and fears. Feel free to come and go as you like, to wander our fields and woods, to fish our streams—to jump into a fountain if that suits you."

They chuckled at the last, as they always did, and she continued.

"Shops and stores here are for your convenience; no tax collectors will spoil your leisure. We have fitness programs, sporting courts, restaurants, clubs and lounges, and even a gambling casino for your enjoyment. Everything on
Nautilus
is designed to help you enjoy the money you have spent and will spend here. Maps are to be found in every guest room."

A furry hand made as if it were pawing the air, the Gramanch version of raising a hand. She nodded, recognizing the man.

"What is 'Nautilus'?" he asked curiously. "It is not a word that I've ever heard."

Sri Khat's mouth formed a toothy Gramanchian grin. "Nautilus is an alien word, of course," she told them. "In the legends of a long-dead alien race it was the name of a fantastic pirate ship."

They laughed again at that, for there was a joke in it. Their bank accounts would be far lighter when they left this place.

Another pawing. "Yes?"

"We've heard rumors that you can do wonders— arrest aging, cure even the most severe illnesses. Is that true?"

"It is true that we have certain curative methods," the hostess acknowledged. "As you may know, we accept a large number of seriously ill people every day for treatment in
our special wards, and we don't charge for it. Our success rate is quite good with terminally ill patients. Of course,
you
are helping pay for the service by spending your money on
Nautilus,
so if you drop a bundle in the casino you can at least console yourself that your loss helped save someone else's life."

They liked that touch. It was also good for business.

"May we see where this is done?" another asked.

A head signaled the negative. "I'm afraid not, for several reasons. First, our space is limited—the medical work is done inside this world, far from here. Second, we cannot maintain a sterile environment if people other than the staff and patients continually troop through. And, finally, how would you like to be terribly ill and find yourself a tourist attraction in your own hospital bed?"

They accepted that.

Soon they were off to their rooms, settled in, and had their first gourmet meal.

Sri Khat relaxed in her private office and looked over the passenger list. It was a good bunch. Three corporation presidents, two in heavy industry with Important political connections, plus one Vice Premier. A good batch.

This was a delicate business, but a rewarding one. The Gramanch had expanded peacefully but that was ending now. They were breeding too fast, consuming too greedily, their nine colonies were getting crowded —and they had counted. Some of the alien races with whom they shared their region of space outnumbered them five or even ten to one. The Gramanch were technologically superior to any of the others, without doubt, but they were competing with other races for the same types of planets and finding very few. An expand-or-be-damned attitude, based only on the uneasy realization of who outnumbered whom, was spreading through the ruling circles. Paranoia had inspired a mind set that would lead inevitably to aggression and conquest. The Gramanch refused to limit their population because other races outnumbered theirs; yet they could not support the population explosion their paranoia was creating.

That was the mission of the
Nautilus
this time: an exclusive resort with a wonderful reputation gained through free miracle cures and word of mouth, attracted the wealthiest and most powerful. Change those minds, and, perhaps, a disastrous future could be prevented.

Sri Khat was still sitting, relaxed, when
Nautilus
seemed to shudder. A momentary loss of power caused lights to flicker and small objects to fall over. The effect was something like that of a mild earthquake; but no such thing could possibly happen here.

She was on the intercom in a second. "Attention all personnel! Calm guests as first priority. Damage Control, see to any problems Topside! All hands stand by!" She flipped a switch anxiously. "Obie! What the hell happened?"

"I—I don't quite know," a shaky tenor replied. "One moment all was going well, then, suddenly, I felt a stabbing pain, a real wrenching pain! It caused me momentarily to lose control!"

"You're a machine, damn it! You can't feel pain!"

"That's what
I
thought," the massive computer who was
Nautilus
replied, "but—it was horrible! I can still feel it!"

Khat was thinking fast. "Are you damaged? Did something blow?"

"No, no, nothing like that. I've already performed a complete maintenance check. The source is external." He was calming down, anyway. How many times had she gone through similar things with the computer, calming and soothing him—it was impossible to think of Obie as an "it"? The most sophisticated computer complex known save one, Obie often behaved like a child crying in the night.

That didn't mean, though, that the situation wasn't serious. Obie was frightened only because so great a computer normally so much in control now faced something outside his experience. To be reminded that you are neither totally in control nor omnipotent can shatter your confidence.

"Analysis, Obie. What caused it?"

"No way to tell," he responded, sounding more assured. "It was not a local disturbance. It was not, in fact, anywhere in this galaxy, I think. I—I'm very much afraid that something might have happened to the Well of Souls computer. I experienced a double impact, one much stronger than the other, but from two directions. One would indicate the Well, the other is from somewhere in the neighborhood of the Milky Way galaxy. I'm afraid something terrible has happened—first because the impact was instantaneous, despite the distances, which rules out anything except the fabric of space—time, our very reality; and second because I can still feel it. I think we'd better drop this project for now and investigate."

Sri Khat agreed. "We don't want to shock or disrupt anybody, though. We'll have to manufacture failures of our own, refund everybody's money and send the Gramanch home. Then we can announce to our agents planetside that we've had mechanical problems and will have to go off for a complete overhaul. That should take care of it."

"But that'll take several days!" Obie protested.

"Nevertheless, we have a responsibility," she reminded him. "And we want an orderly withdrawal or we'll fuel their paranoia as you've never imagined when we go."

Obie emitted a very human sigh. "Well, you're the captain."

"You bet your sweet metallic ass I am," Mavra Chang replied.

In Orbit Off the Well World

IT WAS A STRANGE AND SOLITARY SOLAR SYSTEM;
even Obie was not very clear on where it was located. He simply allowed himself to be drawn there along the massive energy force fields radiating from it to all parts of the Universe.

The system itself didn't amount to much—a medium-yellow G-type star of no special attributes except that it should have burnt itself out billions of years earlier and burnt in fact at a precise, constant rate; some asteroids and planetoids of no consequence or interest; a few comets and other such natural debris; a lone planet circling the star at about one hundred and fifty million kilometers out in a perfect circle.

Beyond the perfection of its orbit, the planet itself was extraordinary. Not huge, not imposing, it shimmered and glistened like a fantastic Christmas-tree bulb, perfectly round, with a dark band around its center. Its period of rotation was a little over twenty-eight hours, standard, and it had no axial tilt.

The two hemispheres defined by that dark band were quite different, although both north and south reflected sunlight from hundreds of hexagonal facets. The blue and white South Hemisphere was home to seven hundred and eighty carbon-based races, each existing in its own hexagonal biosphere; the North, swirling with exotic colors, supported seven hundred and eighty noncarbon-based races that breathed esoteric gases if they breathed at all.

In the first few billion years after the creation of the Universe, a single race had evolved capable of expanding beyond its planetary bounds. Carbon-based but nonhuman, it had attained a demigodhood on planets throughout the galaxies, a state that eventually led to boredom and stagnation that the race, in its greatness, recognized. Something had gone wrong in the climb to the top; the creatures had reached god-hood and found it wanting. Somewhere, somehow they had taken a wrong turn, a turn they could not divine, and they were frustrated. So frustrated, in fact, that they had decided to give it all up, to restage the creation under different rules and circumstances. This banded, honeycomb world, the Well World, was their laboratory, where new races and biospheres were created by the best engineers and artisans and allowed to develop—up to a point. Then, using the great computer that was the planet beneath the crust, they created and developed worlds where the great drama of evolution could be replayed with different rules and a different cast. Giving their own bodies and minds to the project, the masters became their new creations, surrendering immortality and godhood in the hope that their descendants, alien and ignorant of the past, would find the greatness their creators had missed.

Over seven hundred years before the arrival of the Dreel on Parkatin, Obie had double-crossed Antor Trelig at his demonstration on New Pompeii. The computer thought everyone present would die but, instead, the Well of Souls, the great Markovian computer that monitored and maintained reality, had drawn them to the Well World.

"It has been a long time." Obie's voice spoke to her from the monitor.

Mavra Chang nodded absently. "A long time," she echoed.

They paused for a few moments, thinking, remembering experiences from centuries past.

In her natural human form as she appeared now, Mavra Chang was tiny and thin, with the physique of a champion gymnast. Her face was exotic and quite Oriental. Long black hair trailed down her back. Although well over seven hundred and fifty years old, she looked about twenty—Obie's control over the equations of reality was complete, although localized. A great computer, he easily handled complexities that had baffled the Com, yet he was quantum jumps below the Well of Souls in capacity or sophistication.

"Can you see anything wrong?" she asked him at last, breaking the introspective silence.

"No, nothing," Obie responded. "There is evidence of a slight seismic disturbance but it did no lasting harm. I am monitoring communications between various high-tech races, but business seems to be going on as usual. The Well World is being maintained."