Allotropes Read online

  Ryan turned to his audience with a mournful look, “Raquel just doesn’t take hints very well.” He turned back to her, “So now I’m going to spell it out for you. Raquel, he’s d-u-m-b.” Ryan turned back to the crowd, “Don’t worry about me hurting Shan’s feelings. He can’t spell big words like that.”

  He turned back to Raquel who was snorting with laughter. As Shan rolled his eyes, Ryan said, “Now I know you’re thinking that everyone says Shan’s,” Ryan made finger quotes, “good at math… I have two words for you… ‘idiot-savant.’” Ryan had to pause again for laughter. “Raquel, as long as he’s got someone like me to wipe the drool off his chin, he can appear to be pretty smart about ‘rithmetic. Even Donsaii thought Shan was pretty smart ‘cause he noticed that the decimals got wonky in her math after a lot of light years. But, Raquel honey, she wouldn’t have been impressed if she’d known I had to help him get dressed that morning!”

  Ryan turned back to the little crowd. “All kidding aside, Shan only has one true love… basketball.” Ryan paused for another round of chuckles. “He and I play in a three man league. This year Shan actually made a couple of shots. We even won some games… when his girlfriend showed up… and subbed in for him.”

  Ryan looked at Raquel a moment, then turned back to his audience and sighed, “Ah well folks, Cupid’s arrow struck deep. I can see she still loves him despite my incessantly pointing out of his innumerable flaws.” He turned back to Raquel, “Just remember, Raquel, when you do come to your senses, you can have the ‘best’ man,” Ryan theatrically placed his hand on his chest, “whenever you want. You wouldn’t even have to deal with a divorce. Remember, the man’s about as smart as a pound of pebbles… you can just tell him the ‘marriage came undone…’ send him out to empty the trash… and move out before he finds his way back into the house. ”

  Ryan raised his glass to the group, “Until then my friends, raise your glasses in a toast,

  We wish this joyous pair

  Endless love and blissful care.

  He clinked his glass with Shan and Raquel’s as the group said, “Hear, hear.”

  Among the other toasts that evening was an announcement by Ell’s Gram that she was sending them on a honeymoon to Venice, Italy, “the most romantic place I’ve ever been.”

  Ryan looked around at the people celebrating Shan’s marriage. Most of them were Shan’s close relatives. He’d been surprised that Roger Emmerit and Emma Kenner not only came but participated in the wedding. They were pretty big names at D5R and he’d had no idea they even knew who Raquel was. He worked with them fairly often and had never even seen Raquel down in that area. In fact when Ryan asked what Raquel did there at D5R, no one really seemed to know. She spent most of her time away from the main facility on various assignments and a lot of people thought she was some kind of trouble shooter for Donsaii. Hearing this Ryan had wondered if even Donsaii and her reclusive boyfriend might show up at the wedding, but it appeared that Roger and Emma were as high in D5R’s hierarchy as Raquel reached.

  He saw Bridget starting to dance. The girl looked good and she was dancing by herself! After a moment he strode out to her. He waggled his eyebrows at her, “Need a partner?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  ***

  Shan and Ell had the tiny little bungalow down at the end of D5R’s island for their “honeymoon suite.” After the reception wound down they took a little jeep down to it. Ell bounced up the steps to the small porch and stood looking out over the moonlit sea. Shan walked over and leaned up against the rail beside her. “Paradise huh?”

  Ell turned to him and slid her arms up around his neck. Smiling up at him she said, “Anyplace with you… anyplace with you.” She lifted her lips to his.

  When they broke free she grinned up at him and lifted an eyebrow, “So you going to take me inside?”

  “Thought you’d never ask.” Shan turned and walked to the door holding it open for her.

  Ell stepped up next to it and peered inside.

  “You afraid somebody booby-trapped it?”

  “No,” she whispered, “just waiting for my big strong man to carry me over the threshold.”

  With a snort Shan picked up his bride and carried her in…

  At six in the morning Shan woke from the sleep of the righteously exhausted, thinking how… he would never have believed a night could be that wonderful. He reached out to Ell’s side of the bed. She wasn’t there!

  Raising his head he peered over that way. Ell sat in a chair drawn up next to her side of the bed. Gazing up into the lights of her HUD she was murmuring something. He heard her say “Sigwald,” but couldn’t understand the rest.

  Her eyes glanced his way and widened. “You’re awake lazy bones?!”

  Shan nodded.

  “You ready to fulfill your husbandly duties to your new wife?”

  Shan laughed, “Girl, you’re gonna wear me out!”

  She pulled off her head band and leapt onto the bed, “I’m gonna try!”

  Over a breakfast of big slabs of crunchy, citrus flavored French toast Shan said, “So, are you going to tell me what’s happening with Sigwald?”

  Ell frowned at him, “You’ve got a headband, why haven’t you checked it out for yourself?”

  He laughed, “I’m but an ordinary human. I must sleep sometimes,” he raised an eyebrow, “unlike the she-demon I married.”

  Ell smirked at him, “Such weakness… pitiful. I had Sigwald approach the construction building,” she glanced up, “machine shop? I’m not sure what to call it. Anyway it looks exactly like the one where we met Keenar. You might be right when you say that the sigmas are kinda boring. At any rate, Sigwald went to it this morning but there weren’t any sigmas there. I think they have off shift periods. Remember how Querlak and Keenar sometimes took us away from the one Keenar worked at without much explanation?”

  Shan nodded. “I thought they slept then?”

  “I have a feeling it was also ‘cause they didn’t want us there during the ‘on shift’ to encounter any of the other sigmas. Trying to keep Sigwald to themselves?”

  Thoughtfully Shan gave a little nod, “I can see that being the reason.”

  “Oh.” Ell looked up at her HUD. “Here come some sigmas.”

  Shan looked up at his HUD and saw a gaggle of sigmas approaching. Most of them appeared… dull to him. They weren’t as animated as he’d been used to seeing with Querlak and Keenar. In fact, they saw Sigwald and barely reacted, proceeding on into the building with little notice. However, two of the sigmas reacted much differently, one leaping far to the side and flapping its wings a few beats as if tremendously startled or shocked. The kind of reaction one might expect someone to evince upon encountering an alien.

  The other sigma turned toward Sigwald and focused its big eye on him. Though he tried not to attribute human emotions to an alien for which their understanding of body language was limited at best, Shan’s impression was that this sigma exhibited no more than mild surprise. Shan had the impression he had had before of a sigma sort of ‘inflating’ as if something suddenly filled it with more purpose and intelligence. Then it said in English, “Hello Sigwald.”

  Shan felt a shock run down his spine. He didn’t think he should be able to recognize sigmas with surety, nonetheless Shan felt certain this sigma was neither Querlak nor Keenar. Shan glanced at Ell. She murmured a moment and Shan heard Sigwald say. “Hello, who you and how learn my language?” Then Sigwald said something in the sigmas language, presumably a translation.

  “I Keldap, of Keenar and Querlak’s clade.”

  Shan’s eyes widened. Ell had told him how members of a clade were connected through the 5th dimension. Perhaps through quantum entangled molecules separated at birth? Ell said, “Have Sigwald say, ‘I thought Keenar and Querlak were from different clades?’”

  Allan said, “Saying, ‘I thought Keenar and Querlak different clades?’”

  Keldap had been speaking loudly in t
heir language to the other sigma. Again guessing about their body language Shan had the feeling that the other sigma was very upset, but after a moment it turned and went in the building leaving Keldap there with Sigwald. Keldap turned to Sigwald, “Same clade now.”

  Allan said “Keldap told the other sigma to go in and get the work started.”

  Ell said to Allan, “Say again that we thought that Keenar and Querlak were from different clades?”

  Allan said, “Saying, ‘I think Keenar, Querlak not of same clade?’”

  “Clades now joined. Person in Keenar clade, join with person in Querlak clade. Make new sigma. Join clades.”

  Startled, Shan turned to Ell, “Do you think that people in the two clades mated just to join the clades because of Sigwald?”

  Ell shrugged, “Allan, ask why those other sigmas in the repair center weren’t interested in Sigwald?”

  After Ell’s words had been translated to Keldap he replied, “Bad sigmas. Go ringworld through port. Go through port make not smart,” Keldap swung his lower manipulators in a shrug, “so not notice you. You tell how go stars now?”

  Ell sighed, “I wonder if he’s saying that going through a port has the same effect on them that it does on our test animals here? You know, how it seems to reduce their intelligence?”

  “It sounded that way to me.”

  Ell shrugged, “Allan, “Tell them we still don’t know how to travel to the stars.”

  After Allan translated, Keldap began speaking loudly in the sigman language.

  Despite now being no more than a minor cog in Keenar’s huge Delnitch clade, Querlak felt horror wash over her as the TS she was a part of decided to capture Sigwald. She tried to apply pressure against the decision from within the TS but there were too many Delnitch in the TS, used to demanding, and strong-arming to get their way. Her pressure achieved nothing.

  Keldap called out to Gesdin inside the repair shed to bring out some convicts with graphene straps. Keldap spoke rapidly, evidently in hopes that Sigwald wouldn’t be able to understand. It seemed that the strategy worked because Sigwald stood stolidly in place, saying, “I sorry I cannot tell stars. You want other knowledge?”

  “No! Stars!” Keldap shouted as Gesdin dropped a long graphene strap over Sigwald, cinching it quickly around the midpoint of his arms. Sigwald struggled to fly away on the jets under his feet but Gesdin had a number of the convicts holding onto the strap and the end of the strap had already been attached to the graphend wall of the repair center—which, of course, was bonded directly to the ring’s graphend. More of the convicts appeared and applied more straps around Sigwald’s feet, knees and hands.

  Although Sigwald proved to be astonishingly strong, he could not, of course, break graphene straps. Nor escape from them.

  Keldap had Sigwald carried into the building. He proved to be quite heavy so they had to get a dolly to move him. Keldap had the straps bonded to the wall of the building so there would be no chance of escape. He stepped in front of Sigwald and said, “You ready say how go stars now?”

  Sigwald stood motionless and did not react. Querlak had the feeling that being strapped motionless didn’t bother Sigwald. It would drive a sigma insane, but perhaps the sigwald people weren’t affected the same way?

  Keldap had been expectantly watching Sigwald. Through her link Querlak knew he awaited a frantic reaction to this imprisonment. When no such a reaction appeared he said, using Querlak’s English words, “You say how go stars! We not let you move before you say!” He turned and returned to his tasks as the master of repairs at the station, releasing Querlak from the TS.

  Ell said, “Allan, don’t have Sigwald say anything, just stand and watch. We’ll see if we can outwait Keldap. Let me know if they do anything to harm Sigwald, otherwise just record what happens in his visual field. You can turn his head to track things that are interesting but otherwise don’t try to break free.” She turned to Shan, “I wouldn’t mind a break from following things on the ringworld. It’s been pretty boring.” She raised an eyebrow, “Except for what they can do with carbon allotropes of course.”

  “Boring but anxiety producing. Aren’t you worried about what might happen if the sigmas somehow figure out how to get back to earth? They aren’t exactly sweetness and light. While they aren’t that far ahead of us in a lot of areas and are behind us in some I don’t think we want them escaping from their own solar system.”

  “Yeah, I’m worried sick just about the fact that we’ve made it obvious to them that it is possible to travel between the stars. Maybe that’s all they’ll need to connect up a whole lot of sigmas into some kind of super-genius that will figure out how to get here. Before we got to know them, I’d been assuming that if they could build the ringworld, they’d be way ahead of us in everything and would therefore already know how to get to the stars.”

  “Is there any way for us to keep them from figuring it out?”

  Ell shrugged. “There aren’t any one way ports on Sigwald for them to reverse engineer and the one-ways are really different from the two ways. I’m hoping that, even if they realize that one-ways must exist and that one-ways were how we got to Sigma Draconis, they won’t ever figure out how to make a one way. There was a huge amount of serendipity involved in figuring out either type of port. I’m counting on the fact that they had their own biological example of a two ended connection through the 5th dimension. Maybe that example let them figure out two way ports, but that without such an example of one ways, they won’t tumble to it.”

  Ell sighed, “But, I am still worried. I hope that, after a while they might stop demanding the stars and accept that we should trade other knowledge for the huge value it has to both of our civilizations.”

  Shan shrugged, “OK, let’s try to wait them out. No reason Sigwald can’t be patient.”

  Chapter Seven

  Ell and Amy were unpacking a couple of boxes in ‘Raquel’s’ new house when they heard a knock on the open doorframe. A lady stood in the door. “Hello neighbors,” she said. “I brought you some ‘welcome to the neighborhood’ cookies.”

  Ell got up, wiping her hands on her pants as she walked over, “Come on in. I’m Raquel Blandon and this is my friend Amy Reston,” she waved Amy’s direction, “who’s being kind enough to help me unpack.” Ell peeled the cover off the container of chocolate chip cookies. “Oh! These smell great! Amy, come take a break.” Taking a cookie, Ell held the container out to their guest, “Won’t you have one, Ms.…?”

  “Oh! Goodness, sorry I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Ruth, Ruth Sparlock. I live in the house next door,” she jerked a thumb, “with my husband Jack and two little girls.” She plucked up a cookie and nibbled at it.

  Amy took a cookie too.

  Ell said, “Ruth, won’t you sit down and tell us about the neighborhood?”

  Looking delighted to gossip, Ruth sat on Shan’s overstuffed chair. “I’ve only lived here a few years, but it’s pretty nice. All the houses seem to be young families except Elsa James across the street who’s in her eighties and two houses that have several young people living as roommates.” Ruth pointed in the general direction of the two houses that Ell’s security team members lived in. “We don’t see Ms. James very often but the roommates that I’ve met seem very nice.”

  Ell said, “Does the neighborhood ever get together? I’ve heard that neighborhoods where everyone knows each other have fewer crime problems. Social events are supposed to help bring camaraderie.”

  Ruth raised an eyebrow, “Like a block party? That sounds like fun.” She said, “Maybe we could even invite your neighbor over the fence.” She jerked her head towards Ell’s farm.

  Ell frowned, wondering where this might be going. “The folks on the farm out back? Are they friendly?”

  Round eyed, Ruth said, “Your real estate agent didn’t tell you? Ell Donsaii lives on that little farm!”

  Ell did her best to look surprised, “Really?! Do you think she’d come to a block party?”<
br />
  “Well, I’m sure I don’t know.” She waggled her eyebrows and grinned, “But we could send her an invite.”

  Ruth eventually finished giving Ell the dirt she had on the folks in the neighborhood and left, promising to plan a block party. After the door closed Amy threw her head back on the couch and laughed. “You’re going to get her to invite you as Ell!? You can’t come as Ell and as Raquel you know.”

  “Sure I can,” Ell sniffed and lifted her nose, “just not at the same time.”

  ***

  Viveka stood red eyed and watched the small crowd gathered for her father’s funeral. Having grown used to wearing western clothing in Delhi, she felt uncomfortable wearing the langhati—or two piece sari—her mother had borrowed for her. She didn’t really know most of the people who had gathered, though many of them told her they remembered her from when she was a child.

  The people danced and beat drums as they normally did for funerals. Some of the men drank excessively which Viveka found repugnant. She knew that men commonly drank to excess at funerals, but to her it felt disrespectful. Her father had seldom partaken of alcohol and she felt like the drinking at his funeral ceremony would have offended him.

  Viveka stiffened as she heard her Aunty behind her, “What will you do with Viveka now?”

  Her mother replied desolately, “I don’t know.”

  “Well, if you couldn’t afford a dowry before, you certainly won’t be able to muster one now.”

  “I’m not worried about a dowry yet. She wants to finish her last year of schooling.”