A Larger Universe (28 page)

Tommy pushed out to examine the point where the cable met
the green surface.  The cable terminated in an ordinary male plug, inserted
into an equally ordinary female jack.  He saw markings on the wall next to the
plug.  In spite of Dals' grunts, he leaned out even more to get a closer look. 
The symbols seemed to be writing, but, if they were, it wasn't in the lords'
language that he knew.

Cold sweat dripped from Dals’ face. 

He had enjoyed his work with the electricians.  Climbing the
cable shafts had allowed him to see many new parts of the ship.  He had looked
outside the shafts on each deck, and found one part of the ship much like
another.  Even what he had seen of the lords' decks wasn't much different from
what he was used to. 

This was something else.  The gigantic green thing Tommy had
found made his skin tingle and his stomach feel queasy.  If he had eaten
recently, he would have thrown up.

He wanted to run.  Instead, he had to hold on to Master
Tommy, who seemed intent on getting them killed.  One slip by either of them would
pull them down the gap at the passage edge.  What could be worth this risk? 
Why was Master Tommy interested in this thing?

Not that he understood anything about Master Tommy, anyway. 
Master Tommy's mind was always somewhere else, even when he was talking to
you.  Some of the farmers said he was the one sent to rescue them, to return
them to Earth.  What did they think now that Tommy was a lord? 

Tommy said he was human, but he didn't look like any human
Dals knew.  He didn't act like any human Dals knew, either.  Was this what all
feral humans were like?  If they were, what would it be like to return to
Earth?  How could the ship humans ever live with millions like Tommy?

"Pull me in," Tommy said.

Gladly
, Dals thought.  Aloud he said, "Are we
staying much longer?"

When Tommy had both feet on the floor, he grinned at Dals. 
"Does this bother you?  You were fine with climbing in the shafts.  I
don't know how far you could fall here, but the cable shafts run the height of
the ship."

"This thing’s not right.  It's like nothing else on the
ship.  That's what bothers me."

"I think you're right.  We've discovered something
alien."

Tommy started laughing, then continued, "Something
alien at the exact center of the ship."

"What's funny?"  Dals asked.

"Not so long ago, everything on this ship was alien to
me.  I've come a long way.

"Are you hungry?  Maybe some food will make you feel
better.  I know it would me.  And I need a tool, anyway."

He’s coming back to this place!
Dals thought.

The next day, Tommy ruined a second set of clothes climbing
in shafts above and below the Commons.  What he found explained little.  A dark
green cylinder, about a hundred meters in diameter, floated inside the central
column in a space extending to the top of the Commons and for a distance below
the Commons.  As best he could tell, the cylinder's center coincided with the
exact center of the ship, and he couldn't understand how it stayed that way; he
found nothing from the ship that touched the cylinder except the one cable from
the bridge. 

Nor did he find a break in the cylinder's surface except the
one female jack.  After touching the surface with an insulated rod without
effect, he touched it with his hand.  The cylinder wall was smooth and cool and
seemed inert.  Dals reported his skin tingled and itched whenever he was close
to the cylinder, but Tommy hadn't felt that.  The pencil and paper rubbing of
the symbols next to the jack proved they were not from the lords’ language.

That night, he decided he knew enough to draw one obvious
conclusion.  Cables from computers that controlled internal gravity and
effected any movement of the ship were all united with a single cable.  The
cylinder had to be the transit drive, insystem drive, attitude control, and
gravity generator all in one.  A reasonable second conclusion was that the
lords hadn't built the drive.  Maybe they had built the ship, but if they had,
they built it around a drive they got from someone else.  And if the ship were
two thousand years old, the drive had been in the ship the whole time.  Major
sections of the hull would have to be removed to move the drive in later.  He
had to talk with Ull.

The encounter the next day didn't start well.  Tommy entered
Ull's chamber while she was eating her morning meal, and she ignored him while
she floated on her back and finished her fish. 

She scrubbed her hands with bottom sand and then joined him
at the flat rock. "You have been one of The People for two days,” she said. 
“We bestowed a great honor on you, and you insult us in return."

Tommy took a step back from the water’s edge. 
"How?"

"You are still living with the humans."

"You expect me to move up here and live in one of your
ponds?"

"That would be proper," she replied in a cold
tone.

Why do I have this argument with everybody?
 
"And what would I eat?" he said.  "You know I don't eat raw
fish.  This place was not built for humans, and my work would suffer."

After a slow backflip in the water, Ull said, "That is
a consideration.  However, you must maintain appearances.  Normally, you would
live in one of the larger lakes with other unmarried males."  She gave an
undulating whistle.  "But, because of your unique situation, I have
obtained quarters with a private pond for you."

"You think this is funny.  You are not concerned at
all."

"Yes, I am," she replied.  "I just think it
is funny, too.” She whistled again and slapped the water.  “I have been trying
to imagine you competing against the other males for the eligible females,
trying to gain their attention.  Doing flips and rolls and leaping from the
water."

"It was your idea to make me one of The People,"
Tommy said.  "At least, I assume it was your idea.  You should have
considered this first.  Can I do both?  Will anyone care if I have quarters in
both places?"

"Where will you keep your cat?  I know that will be
home to you." She agitated the water with her arms.  "No matter. 
Keep both quarters.  Though, if you must meet with one of The People, do so as
one of us, not as a human."

"That should not be a problem."

"When we have finished here, I will take you to your
pond.  Now, what did you want of me?"

"In this ship's core, inside the central column, is a
green cylinder.  A single cable links it to every computer that controls the
ship's motion.  Can you tell me anything about it?"

Ull's whistle was a buzzing whisper of sound, as if it had
been ground out of her mouth.  "Why do you need to know?"

He didn't have a reason he could justify, but he did want to
know.  He decided it would be best to bluff.  "The more I know, the better
the new computers will execute their tasks."  Of course, he had every
reason to believe that wasn't true.  The object had apparently been sealed in
the central chamber for a long time without affecting the lords' computers.

"I will tell you what I know, which is little, but I
would rather not here.  Come with me," she said as she climbed out of the
water.

The elevator door opened on a chamber like the Commons,
except smaller.  He noticed other differences:  the foliage was greener and the
air was more humid and not as dusty.

"This is the Sanctuary.  Now that you are one of The
People, you may enjoy this as we do.  But you must be careful with what you
find here.  When I finish answering your question, you will understand
why."

She walked down the path from the elevator to a small lake,
her tail swinging in a short arc behind her.  Instead of diving in, she
reclined on a rock at the edge that was shaped to fit her long body and invited
him to sit beside her.

"Now for your question.  Others might tell you more,
but not on this ship.  If my tale is not enough, at the Gathering I will
introduce you to someone who knows more."

The Gathering?  She's mentioned that before.

"Some of what I know could be legend and not truth. 
Other parts are clearly true, because the drive is in our ship and in other
ships of The People, and we still endure those who provided them to us.  I will
tell you what my mother told to me, and what I will tell to my kits someday. 

"The story begins more than two thousand years ago.  We
were a great people then, more than just traders, and over a billion of us
inhabited a world much like yours.  The People of Stream had just begun to
venture into space."

"Your home world is called Stream?"

"Yes.  Are you surprised?  Your world is called
‘Earth.’  To continue, we had built outposts on both our moons and had sent
probes to a nearby planet.  The outposts were primitive, but our moons were
smaller and closer than your single moon.  We used multi-stage rockets as tall
as some of your planet's tallest buildings to keep the outposts supplied.

“Our scientists claimed to be unraveling the secrets of the
universe.  On one of our moons, physicists were building a device they believed
would show the relationships between the extremely small and the very large and
how to understand gravity.  The scientists had run a single test and were
examining the results when our government was contacted by entities who called
themselves the Kadiil.”  Again she made that grinding whistle. 

“They arrived in a ship bigger than
The People's Hand
. 
Around this ship were arrayed hundreds of smaller ships.  They could not be
ignored. 

The Kadiil told our government they had come to protect us
and to save us from ourselves.  They said the experiments being conducted on
the moon would destroy our civilization.”

She stood and walked in tight circles, her tail swishing
through the grass behind her. 

“A great debate began among the scientists and the
government.  The scientists said the first test was promising.  A new theory of
gravity and the universe was emerging.  Some said it should even be possible to
control gravity as easily as we control electricity.  They claimed it might
someday be possible to alter the structure of space and travel faster than
light--something that had been thought impossible. 

“The results that excited those conducting the experiment
worried other scientists who were not involved with the project.  When the
Kadiil warned of worlds being ripped apart and suns forced to nova, the
troubled scientists went to the government and took the Kadiil position. 
Others not involved with the project took the other side of the debate, asking
‘why should we believe the Kadiil?  They bring no proof.’”

She stopped and looked down at Tommy.  “The argument might
have continued for decades had the Kadiil not offered a trade.  Yes, gravity
control and faster-than-light travel were possible, but most civilizations
destroyed themselves when they achieved them.  The Kadiil offered an unlimited
number of drives like the one you have seen and wanted one thing in return:  we
had to stop further research on this forbidden subject.  That, of course,
included any attempt to understand how the drives work.”

"That was unbelievably altruistic of them," Tommy
commented, frowning.

"Others said the same," she replied, "but
their voices were submerged by those who insisted we take this gift."

"So, you are telling me the answer to my original
question is that you know nothing about the drives because your scientists
never tried to find out anything?" Tommy said.

"The People wish that were true," she said. 
"No, I have more to tell of the story, though the result may be as you
say.  Do you want to hear the remainder?"

"Yes, of course."

She resumed her pacing, her tall body swaying back and forth
with each stride.  "When the contract was made, The People became obsessed
with using the gift, and they considered it a gift, not a contract, since
nothing tangible had been given in return.  However, even with the drive,
building one of these ships proved costly.  Many sacrifices were required to
build even one, and, during the next fifty years, more than seventy were
constructed.  The research center was shut down as was agreed, but even without
the agreement it probably would have been; The People had few resources for
science during the years the ships were built.  Many technologies suffered as
well."

"That could explain your computers," Tommy said.

"Yes, it could," she replied.  "For several
decades all went well, even though there were surprises.  When our first ship
emerged from a short transit out of our system, its radios began blaring with
transmissions from hundreds of other civilizations.  The Kadiil revealed they
had been watching The People for many centuries, waiting for us to become
advanced enough for contact.  As a part of that watch, they protected us with a
communications barrier around our system."

"Does Earth's solar system have the same barrier?"
Tommy interrupted.

"Yes, approximately sixty light seconds beyond your
most distant planet's aphelion."

"Why are you allowed to go inside the barrier?"

"The Kadiil do not interfere with trade with primitive
societies as long as it does not become generally known to the natives.  An
alternative and plausible explanation must always be provided, of course."

She paused.  "Should I continue?"

"Yes, Yes."

"All was going well.  The Kadiil were always nearby to
deliver another drive whenever we called them.  Our ships began exploring our
neighborhood of the galaxy and bringing back many things.  We met the ships of
other civilizations and traded with them.  Every starfaring species we
encountered had made the same contract with the Kadiil.  They were all using
drives exactly like our own and had renounced all research on gravity and the
structure of space and time.  If anything, this made it more plausible the
Kadiil had told us the truth.