Jim Baen's Universe

Serials - parts and parts.

Travails With Momma, Part 2

Written by John Ringo

Illustrated by Jennifer Miller

[4: Ignorance Really Is Bliss]

"Josh, you have to understand," his dad said calmly. "The Toolecks are a very efficient race. They discovered advanced biology and medicine comparatively early in their development and lagged behind in . . . hard sciences like physics and engineering. So they had a population problem well before Terra, developmentally. And the way they solved it was by—"

"Growing worms!" Josh said. "Worms you eat! We've been eating worm meat."

"It tastes the same, Josh," his dad said patiently as his mother could be heard vomiting in the bathroom.

"It's worms!"

"Josh," his dad said, with a hint less patience and possibly some trepidation since his wife had quit throwing up and was probably going to be emerging from the bathroom, soon, with less than friendly intentions, "Nari doesn't import any food worth talking about from Terra. Most of it comes from Tooleck or Nalo or Jootan and, Josh, you really don't want me explaining Nalo food to you. So you're going to have to get used to it. Worm meat tastes just like chicken or pork. It's that or starve."

"I'm gonna starve, then," Josh said, his eyes wide. "I'm going to waste away and die. At least there's ollien and keatle."

"Right," Steve said, nodding his head sagely. "Wheat and corn syrup. It's got a lot of nutrition in it, too. Good for you. Helps you . . . grow. You'll do fine."

"Iravo!" Josh said, suddenly. "That's worm meat!" He clapped a hand over his mouth and headed for the bathroom. "Mom!" he said in a muffled tone, pounding on the door. "Mom! Lemme in! Quick!"

****

Josh picked at his ollien and glared at the iravo. The problem was, it was good. He picked up a piece and looked at it, frowning.

His dad was being really quiet this morning and they'd ordered breakfast in the room. His mom was apparently dieting again since she'd ordered nothing. She'd gone to visit Neorak with his father on a project and lost nearly twenty kilos. The Neorakans use really complicated eating utensils and she'd blamed it on those. Of course, he'd heard that Neorakan noodles were really dried worms. But he'd put it down to a rumor until yesterday.

He bit a piece of the iravo off and chewed on it, thoughtfully, suppressing an automatic gag reaction.

"It's not that bad, Mom," he said, swallowing and suppressing the gag reaction again. "And the ollien is okay. Try it with the keatle syrup."

"I don't . . . maybe a little of the iravo." After Josh was firmly asleep Jala had insisted on a precise briefing on local foodstuffs. After which her stomach was empty of not only dinner and breakfast but everything she'd eaten for the last year. Which meant she was very hungry and likely to starve to death. And she'd thought Neorak was bad.

"What's on the schedule for today?" she asked weakly, picking at a piece of iravo.

"I arranged a tour of the Tooleck temples," Steve said. "They're amazing architecture and have some tricky foundation problems in places. . . ."

****

Josh had to admit that "amazing" was the word for Simonan Temple. It was the last of four they were visiting and it was . . . well . . . awesome.

The temples were made from a volcanic glass that was found only on Tooleck. The glass had very high strength properties, as he'd been told three times so far, and was easily workable. The temple was almost seventy meters to the ceiling of the nave, with flying buttresses of colored glass, and the weak sun gleamed through the walls and ceiling. All of the glass was colored so that throughout the day and year the colors blended and shifted. The effect was something like walking through a rainbow and Josh had never felt the way he did now, just walking down the aisle from one strange hue to the next.

"Look here, Josh," his dad said excitedly, pointing up to a spot near where the bell tower joined with the south wall. "See that?"

"It looks like it's . . . welded," Josh said. There was a thicker spot on the wall.

"It is," his dad said, grinning. "This thing almost came apart about two thousand years ago. That was before the Tooleck were space travelers and right after the temple was built. They built it on bad soil and the south tower, which weighs right at fourteen thousand kips, started to sink. It took them nearly a hundred years to figure out a way to stabilize it. Told you they were lagging in engineering research. All they had to do was backfill it first. Maybe pile it. They ended up grouting it but they had to restabilize it about two centuries ago. Now there's a grav generator in it to reduce the weight."

"So, you're saying that it could fall over any time the power went out?" Josh said.

"Well . . ." Steve paused with an abstracted look on his face. "Hopefully not today."

The Tooleck buried their dead in glass catacombs that were up to ten stories high. The ones around the temple were smaller and old, but you could see the dessicated bodies in them. Each of the cubicles had an inscription on the front, and his dad dragged him over to one that had a special plate set on the ground in front of it.

"This is the Tooleck poet Gobasan," his dad said excitedly. "He did some of the best poetry and stories ever written. The metal plate's because so many people come to visit his tomb. They wore out the stone and that must have been tough because it's a high olivine dolomite. . . ."

Josh peered at the inscription and brought up a translation meme.

" 'At last the talons are gone from my digits'?" he translated aloud, confused.

"Uhm . . . he was really tired of writing," his dad said sheepishly. "He said there was a monster on his back every day that made him write and the only place he would find peace was the grave."

"Well, if he had to do it by hand I can understand," Josh said.

****

After two days in Tooleck they were back on the road. Or, at least, back in the spaceport.

From Tooleck to Nari they were taking Nari Spacelines. Josh had expected the ship to be piloted by Nari but instead, as they were being given their take-off instructions, it was clear from the accent that the pilot was a Tooleck. The stewards were Tooleck as well and one Nalo, a really cute female one in a tunic and high-cut skirt.

His mom and dad were in the same compartment, this time, but they were sitting across the aisle from him. Seated next to him, taking up two couches, was another Sjoglun. Josh hoped that he wasn't carrying Purple Spotted Fever but he resolved not to bring it up this time.

The ship left the spaceport on time and climbed into space rapidly. Josh didn't even get a glimpse of the planet this time and in ten minutes the pilot announced they were jumping to hyperspace.

He was pushed gently back in his chair and watched the stars start to blue-shift ahead and then the ship slowed down and the stars shifted back to normal. It sped up again and started to rumble alarmingly and then slowed back down.

They did this two more times and then the announcer clicked.

"Ladies, gentlemen, neuters and ?T*Reen," the captain said in a bored tone. "I'm afraid we're going to have to check in at the nearest spacedock, what? Seems the hyperdrive has developed a bit of a tick."

The announcement was repeated in what Josh assumed was Nari.

The stars wheeled around them as the ship turned and then headed off, presumably back to Tooleck. From time to time the stars would blue-shift then go back to normal as the captain used the malfunctioning hyperdrive to speed up their progress. One time, Josh was sure they almost made it into hyper. Since they were pointed in, as far as he could tell, a random direction, going into hyper would have been a bad thing. They could have ended up anywhere.

Finally, he could see the bulk of a spacedock out the window and they slid into a docking bay.

"Ladies, gentlemen, neuters and ?T*Reen," the captain said. "It will just be a moment while our highly trained maintenance teams check over our warpcore and ensure that it is perfectly functional. Please feel free to move about the cabin but be prepared to resume your seat at any time."

Josh had never been in a hypership dock and he was excited to get a chance to watch the ship engineers go about their business. The bay was, apparently, unpressurized because the beings moving around were in space suits. Again, most of them were Tooleck but there was one that had the distinctive outline of a Nari.

Two Tooleck wearing the blue and gold uniforms of Tooleck Airlines vanished under the ship for a moment and then came into view towing a large silver box on a floater. The box was marked with the red and gold bird-creature of the Nari Spacelines. The top was sealed on but not airtight and a blue glow could be seen around the edges.

"What's happening?" the Sjoglun asked, curious.

"They pulled a box out of the ship," Josh said. "It's glowing."

"Ah, that would be the hypercore," the Sjoglun said, craning over to look out the window.

"Why's it glowing?" Josh asked.

"I don't know, young Terran," the Sjoglun said politely. "I am not a hyper engineer."

"What do you do?" Josh asked as the two Tooleck, watched by Nari wearing the red and gold of Nari Spacelines, started removing the maglinks that held the top on the core.

"I am a seller of bathroom fixtures," the Sjoglun replied. "The Blefrib company makes the finest kunerac in the known galaxy if I may be so bold. And quite inexpensive for the quality we provide."

"Oh," Josh said as the top came off. The reason for the blue glow was immediately apparent; the interior of the box was packed with clear tubes through which a glowing blue substance was flowing. In one spot near the right upper corner two of the globes were glowing extremely brightly as they approached one another and the blue material in one tube was flickering as it came in close proximity to that in the adjacent tube.

The two Tooleck backed rapidly away from the box and apparently spoke by com to the Nari, who pointed at the spot and began gesticulating. The Tooleck began gesticulating back, the one on the far side of the box much more vigorously than the one by the Nari. This went on for some time until the more agitated Tooleck came around the box and grabbed the Nari by an arm, trying to drag it over to the corner. The Nari knocked the hand away with a gesture of what could be clearly read as disdain and began waving its hands again. Finally, it reached into a pouch and pulled out a roll of what appeared to be some sort of tape.

The more agitated Tooleck had apparently had enough, picking up one of the magwrenches and charging the much larger Nari, waving the wrench overhead like a battleaxe.

There was a brief scuffle before the less upset Tooleck managed to get his companion off the Nari. The more aggressive Tooleck was dragged away, still gesticulating and making some motions that Josh felt had more or less universal significance involving the inability of the Nari to find its tail with all ten hands.

A much larger group composed of a mixed group of Tooleck and Nari came out. Some of the Tooleck were in red and gold and some in the colors of Tooleck Spacelines. All of the Nari wore red and gold. More digit waving commenced with some rubbing of helmets and lots of pointing and in the case of one undersized Tooleck in red and gold a certain amount of hopping up and down. Finally, consensus was reached and the Nari approached the glowing box with the roll of tape in its hands.

Sensing something unusual was about to happen by the way the Tooleck were backing away and ducking behind large items of equipment, Josh sensibly ducked, shut his eyes and put his hands over them.

The flash was visible even through his hands.

When he looked back all that was left of the tape-toting Nari was a pair of smoking boots. The three Nari that stayed by the box were all on their backs and the interior of the box was empty of blue stuff. In fact, it was entirely empty except for some scorch marks and a cloud of slightly blue vapor that hung around it in a pall.

The Nari were hauled away on floaters, except for the boots, which were ceremoniously dropped into a clear bag by the small Tooleck wearing red and gold.

The box was hauled away. A blower appeared and sucked up the cloud that was still hanging around despite the vacuum. Then a warpcore marked in blue and gold was rolled into the bay and under the ship. After a bit of clanging from the underside of the ship, the whole group dispersed. The short Tooleck in red and gold appeared to be skipping as he left, dangling the bag with the boots in one hand.

"Ladies, gentlemen, neuters and ?T*Reen," the captain said, "please resume your seats and we'll continue our interrupted travels."

As the ship lifted off, Josh looked away from the window, frowning.

"What's a kunerac?" he asked the Sjoglun.

The Sjoglun had stopped looking out the window some time before and now was sitting rigidly upright, quivering, all his eyestalks stiff and extended.

"Hey, you okay?" Josh asked.

"Fine," the Sjoglun whistled plaintively.

"What's a kunerac?" Josh asked, again.

"What? Oh." The Sjoglun paused and then for the next ten minutes tried to explain Sjoglun waste removal processes, in passing giving Josh the answer to what "Purple Spotted Fever" was.

"Gosh," Josh said, his eyes wide. "No offense but I thought you smelled kind of funny. I'm glad we just have to use the flusher. . . ."

[5: Take the Last Mango]

"Ladies, gentlemen, neuters and ?T*Reen," the captain announced as they were about halfway to Nari. "It will be necessary to make short fuel stop in Terub. We'll only be there for an hour or so. Please prepare for exit from hyperspace."

Josh cocked his ears at the buzz of conversation in the compartment and looked at his Sjoglun companion.

"Terub?" Josh said. "What's so special about Terub?"

"Ah, larva, it's a sad story," the Sjoglun said, sighing out of his spicules. "Terub was once called the Sparata of the East. A beautiful city, I have been there many times. But the local Alyt have been engaged in a civil war for the last two cycles of their sun and it has done much damage to the city, to the planet. I doubt that many more ships will dock there for fuel; I could wish we were not doing so."

"Are we going to be spacejacked?" Josh said. Secret agent Josh Parker . . .

"One would hope not." The Sjoglun sighed. "Nor that we take fire on landing or take-off. But all are possible. We shall have to see what we see. . . ."

Josh was looking out the window curiously as the ship banked to approach the planet. It looked much like most planets he'd seen so far, clouds, land, oceans. But then he saw some bright pinpricks on the surface, lights like he'd never seen.

"What are those?" Josh asked, pointing.

"Kinetic energy weapons," the Sjoglun said unhappily. "Perhaps negamatter bombs. A great battle is raging there."

"Is it near Terub?" Josh asked, his eyes widening.

"Yes."

The ship entered the atmosphere faster than for the landing in Tooleck, and the atmosphere burned at the edge of the flight-shield. Josh knew that as soon as they were down the captain would have to disengage the shield. And while the shield might stop chemical explosives from bombardment rockets, there was no way it was going to protect the ship from a negamatter bomb.

The ship banked sharply and landed at the port, taxiing fast towards the terminal. Josh got a fleeting impression of a city of low buildings in the distance. To the east there were low mountains or high hills and as he watched, one hillside erupted in white fire.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Bombardment rockets." The Sjoglun sighed again.

More explosions suddenly erupted on the edge of the spaceport and Josh watched in a mixture of terror and wonder as a flight of air-ships flashed across the port and laid down a string of bombs. One of them began to spin as it passed out of sight and then dropped towards the ground. There was an actinic white explosion from where it went down.

"Cool," Josh said, momentarily jolted out of terror and into pure wonder.

"The Nastari have the spaceport at the moment," the Sjoglun said. "At least at last report. They are supporters of the legal government. But the rebels have, apparently, gotten close enough to be dropping mortars on the edge. No, I don't think many more ships will be arriving at Terub. . . ."

There was a crowd of people at the gate, waving at the plane, as Tooleck and something that looked like short Nari rolled up in a refueling bot. The bot extended a probe under the wing as the group on it deployed around the ship. The Tooleck, who had the blue and gold markings of a member of Tooleck Spacelines, appeared to be in charge of the guards. One set of guards held back the crowd while the rest appeared to be watching for more serious threats, fingering their plasma guns unhappily.

The refueling was over in what, to Josh, seemed to be record time and the craft reengaged its engines, lifting off the ground and taxiing to the take-off pads. Another set of explosions rocked the edges of the pad to loud shouts from the passengers and then the ship took off into the skies. Josh noticed that it seemed to be maneuvering more than usual, staying low initially until it was over water and then banking sharply upwards and swinging from side to side. He didn't have to ask the Sjoglun what was happening; he'd read enough about evasive maneuvers.

A bolt of plasma went past the window, but that was all that appeared to happen. Before he knew it they were looking at the stars again, undimmed by atmosphere.

"No," the Sjoglun said, "I don't think that I'll be selling many kunerac in Terub for a while. . . ."

[6: It's All In The Translation]

If Nari was supposed to be a hot, dry world, why was it snowing?

Josh contemplated that as he looked out the window at the city of Heteran. The purple sun of Nari was nearing its zenith somewhere above the clouds, but it wasn't visible. There was plenty of light to see by, however, if anyone wanted to. Most of the city consisted of low, circular buildings that looked like dirt igloos. He hadn't been in one yet but his mom had told him that most of the Nari lived underground. He could see why with the wind outside clocking along at something like ninety kilometers per hour and blowing a mixture of snow and dust that left the snow yellow brown where it piled in shallow drifts.

There were some taller buildings, if no megascrapers, and plenty of ground cars with a few aircars zipping around wildly. Some Nari hurried along the streets as well, gripping ropes that were stung from heavy metal lampposts. The street he was looking at was four lanes wide, flanked on either side by wide gutters down which water flowed. Well, ice at the moment. Dirty ice at that, with bits of rind from some fruit, bones and other debris sticking up from it.

The biggest single impression was one of untidy mess. The small yards around the buildings were mostly dirt with some scrubby lichenlike substance growing in places and they were all littered with trash. Trash joined the snow and dust in the wind, blowing down the streets, piling up in the drifts and being lifted up in the occasional dust devil that flickered through the air.

It was an altogether unprepossessing sight. And he was going to be living here for at least two more years.

Dad was gone already. The project he was working on was near the Basadab Spaceport, which was on the other side of the planet. Since there weren't very many facilities for human dependents in Basadab, Dad was going to be working there for three weeks out of the month and then would shuttle back to Heteran for a week. Leaving Josh and his mom alone for the rest of the time.

"Josh, I'm going out to look at a house," Jala said, standing by the room iris. "Order lunch while I'm gone but don't leave the room, okay?"

"Okay," Josh said. He didn't think he was going to be running outside to play any time soon.

He read and memed for a while, checking out the very limited local infonet. Mom had put the usual filter on it and there wasn't much that was interesting. Finally, getting hungry, he tried to access a room service menu, a skill he'd developed to a high art, but couldn't find one.

Prowling around the room he discovered a menu in one of the drawers. It was printed on plascrip and didn't have any link codes at all. He was, apparently, supposed to use the device by the bed called a phone. It didn't even have a vidlink. Odd.

He perused the menu unhappily. There were little flat-pics by each dish with a Galacta name. There was far more writing in Nari, blocks and dots that he couldn't read and which the plant wasn't programmed to translate.

There was a drink he recognized called shaloop. He'd had it a couple of times before and it was okay. After looking at the food on the menu he settled on something that looked like a strip of meat and a side of some yellowish-white things that looked like rice grains. He really hoped they weren't maggots or something. With the still-pic there was no way to tell. The Galacta next to it just said: "Chelo." There were at least a couple of sentences of Nari in addition, presumably explaining what it was to people that would already know.

He walked to the phone with the menu in his hand and considered it carefully. There was a note on it in Galacta.

Eating in the room to dial 315

Physical Service to dial 316

Bed Service to dial 317

Calling Out to dial 1

Calling in to dial 2

Every Other Thing to dial 0

There was a handset with the phone and large speaker. The handset was too big for his hand and the button that had to be pushed was on the wrong side for him. Finally he got the pieces arranged and dialed 315.

"Hello?" he said.

"S'GLOR RESH POOT!" a voice screamed back at him.

"HELLO!" Josh shouted in the phone. "IS THERE ANYONE WHO SPEAKS GALACTA?"

"S'BLOG NEBBUT . . ." the voice went on for some time as Josh set the speaker down where it wasn't causing his ears to ring.

"GALACTA!" Josh shouted. "FOOD, I NEED FOOD!"

"S'GLOR RESH POOT, MORUPT G'G'LOROAT!"

"CHELO!" Josh shouted. "CHELO, SHALOOP! ROOM 748!"

"CHELO, SHALOOP, S'BLOG EBDET B'B'MOROOP!"

"I guess," Josh said, then thought about his manners. "THANK YOU!"

But the phone was dead.

He tapped his fingers together, wondering worriedly about what he was going to get to eat, then prowled around the room some more.

He'd taken a shower the night before, before his dad left and he could get some explanations of the controls. But there were more things in that room than just human settings. He fiddled with the buttons and taps for a while, carefully. The shower was on a flexible hose that you had to hold up. Right now it was sitting in the bottom of the bathtub, which was huge. Josh pressed the button he'd been shown to get water, then kept going. There was a brown viscous liquid, another yellow viscous one and then one that looked like water but when it hit the material that hadn't drained from the others flashed into steam and gave off a sulphurous smell.

"Ah," Josh said to himself, nodding sagely. "That'd be for Sjoglun. . . ."

****

His mother came back just as he was finishing the second dish of chelo, the one he'd accidently ordered. The meat was something chopped up and pressed with spices and not bad at all and the yellowish things had turned out to be some sort of grain or at least they looked, and tasted, like. He just wasn't going to ask. It was something to survive on.

"What's that?" Jala said as she walked in the room.

"Chelo," Josh replied. "I don't know what it is and I don't want to; it's good."

"Well, we've found a house," Jala said. "There's a Nari family that lives there but they rent out the lower floor as its own apartment. And they have a sort of small, indoor, pool."

"Great!" Josh said.

"And I found a school," Jala continued, smiling at his grimace. "It caters to . . . sort of interplanetary middle management and some of the same among the Nari. Mostly Nari but lots of children of diplomats and that sort of thing; you should be able to fit in just fine."

"I don't speak Nari, Mom," Josh pointed out.

"All instruction is in Galacta," Jala replied. "And they meme instead of writing; I checked."

****

The house was one of dozens of identical domes set along a side street. The door was some sort of heavy wood and there was a pull rope by it. When Jala pulled on the rope a Nari answered the door quickly. Josh wasn't sure if it was a he or a she but it waved its claws for the two humans to enter. Josh watched the claws and thought about the vids he'd shown his class. Suddenly they weren't nearly as funny as they had been.

"This is Dr. Reenig," his mother said, gesturing to the Nari. "He owns the house."

"To be pleased to have you in our nest," the Nari said, whistling the words through a breathing slit set over his mandibles. "Come, come."

Behind the door was a small room with high tunnels sloping off to the left and down. Just beyond the room the tunnels split, one curving sharply inward and sloping down at the same rate and the other continuing in the previous curve but sloping more sharply. Both were closed by irises. The Nari took the left-hand corridor, whistling the iris open, and led them down a tunnel lit dimly by irregular globes that glowed with a faint, greenish light.

The walls and ceiling of the curved tunnel weren't dirt but something that looked like plastic or maybe wood with faint, irregular ribbing and occasional oval or circular patterns. The floor was set in tile that seemed to be marble or something similar. The walls were a deep purplish-red but the tile was white turned slightly pink and green by reflection. Josh felt like he was walking down a marble-floored intestine.

The tunnel finally flattened out at a landing with another iris. This gave onto a large room that was more regularly shaped to human eyes. The floor, again, was made of marble tiles, larger ones, each nearly a meter on a side, but the walls were plaster or something similar. The corners of the room were faintly curved instead of being sharply angular but the room was decorated with humans or Oolteck in mind. Instead of the faint glow-bulbs there was sun-paint on the ceiling, currently set to mimic an earthly tone.

Josh poked around the apartment in curiosity as the doctor showed it to his mother again. There were several rooms: two bedrooms, a sitting room or parlor, a very large entry room that connected to a dining room, a living room, a kitchen with mostly human-style fixtures and a fresher room. The apartment was comfortably furnished in human-style float chairs and couches. But he noticed that all the doors were double doors and very high. And beyond the living room was another room containing what looked to be a very large oval jacuzzi or small pool. It was currently dry but there were controls to fill it.

"See, Josh," his mother said, pointing to it as he was contemplating the device. "It's not much of a pool but you can splash around in it. The doctor called it a . . . conera or something."

"Kunerac!" Josh said, startled.

"Yes," Jala replied. "He showed me how to fill it . . ." she continued in a distracted tone, frowning at the controls and then pushing a blue button.

Liquid began to fill the bowl from inlets on the bottom and she knelt to feel the temperature.

"Mom!" Josh shouted. "Don't do that!"

"Why not?" Jala said, pausing.

"Uhmmm . . ." Josh said, trying to figure out how to explain gently. "Uhm . . . you have any of those rayel things? A small one that's not worth much real money?"

"I think so," Jala said, standing up and pulling around her pouch. She frowned dubiously at the metal pieces and then handed one to him.

"Back up," Josh said, fitting action to words, and then flicked the small piece of metal into the "water."

There was a fizzing and popping sound and when they stepped back to the pool the remnants of the rayel had settled to the bottom where it was quickly being dissolved.

"Acid?" Jala asked, sniffing. "Sulphuric acid?!"

"Yeah," Josh replied. "It's a kunerac. They fixed this place so Sjoglun could use it, too." He looked at the plate set in the wall and nodded. "Yep. Blefrib 2000. No expense spared; that's one top-of-the-line kunerac."

"And what is a kunerac?" Jala asked, horrified.

Josh took a few minutes to explain.

After contemplating the explanation for a moment Jala shook her head.

"I'm glad we just use the flusher. . . ."

[7: Remember, One Seventh Of Your Life Is Mondays]

Josh stood in the cold, waiting for the airbus, rubbing his hands together and wishing he had a hat. He'd been warned that if he wasn't standing out front the airbus wouldn't even drop. So he had to stand out here, freezing and contemplating his first day at the Central Heteran Combined School. His mom had picked it out but he'd never been there. It was somewhere in downtown Heteran and that was about all he knew about it.

A blue and white bus dropped out of the air just as he was