Chapter 10

We were surprised to find out how strongly the ogres, or Ulhorn as they called themselves, were wedded to the concept of the alpha-male. We Wolfians had proven our superiority to the Ulhorn by defeating them in combat and nearly destroying their planet. Therefore, they considered themselves to be our inferiors and were willing to do anything we ordered. It took us a few goofs to understand that what we wanted the Ulhorn to do had to be phrased in the form of an order. Any request was simply ignored as noise we were making for our own amusement.

Jack O'Malley was appointed as the man to be our spokesman to the Ulhorn. He had the gift of gab that every salesman or ambassador needed. He was reputed to be able to sell you the wallpaper taken down from your own walls. Jack had the implant, of course, that allowed him to interact with AI, and the two of them worked out our relationship with the Ulhorn. Jack did such a good job that he was able to get all of the information we wanted from the Ulhorn and began to teach them how to prosper with interstellar trade.

The Ulhorn met considerable resistance when they tried to mend fences with the people whom they had previously dominated, but that was finally worked out with the good auspices of Jack O'Malley. It was going to take years, if ever, for the Ulhorn to become friends with their former victims, but that did not interfere with their ability to trade with each other. This suddenly brought 63 new civilizations into contact with the Wolfians, and Jack had to build a staff to take care of the usual frictions that developed among 65 diverse societies.

With the demise of the Ulhorn protection empire, there was a sudden drastic power vacuum in this sector of the galaxy. This meant that we Wolfians were left to keep the peace and to "show the flag" whenever trouble started to develop. As a result, AI directed the construction robots to begin construction of more of the fighters similar to the Gray Ghost and to train the crews.

Uh-oh, an unaccounted for problem began to develop: the female Wolfians started to become pregnant. For a while, this did not interfere with the manning of the Wolfian spaceships, but the swelling bellies did make it uncomfortable to sit in the cramped bucket seats aboard the ships. Finally, it was necessary to shift crews around so that the women could stay home to give birth and to look after the babies.

Robots were available to tend to the infants, but most of the women felt an overwhelming urge to stay with their children that must have been left over from their human ancestry. The net result was that we were low on manpower to man the fighters. The Gray Ghost picked up two male marines, Ed Snow to replace Sue as pilot and Bill Hudson to replace Sharon as weapons expert. Both were more than adequate at their jobs; otherwise, AI would never have assigned them to the Gray Ghost. Nevertheless, Jim and I did miss our female consorts when we had to leave them behind on Wolf.

We still had enough people to man the existing fighters, but there was no incentive to build more until we could recruit more members to become Wolfians. The catch was that we did not know how the changes in the body would affect people who were not originally human. We went on a recruiting effort among the human colonies to see if we could find suitable people to join us.

A couple of the planets that had been colonized were something less than ideal for human habitation, and terraforming was a very long term prospect. Therefore, these two planets turned out to be very good at supplying new Wolfians. They were impressed with the advantageous changes that had taken place in our bodies and were anxious to acquire these characteristics for themselves. Fortunately, the appeal was to women as well as men, and we picked up a number of children in the process. It was by coincidence, at least I hoped so, that the majority of these recruits came from Mexico and Central America. By now, on Earth, basic English was spoken by every educated person, so language was no problem.

We picked up a number of new members for the Space Force from these people, and those who did not want to venture into space released an earlier member who did want to go. Thus, AI began the construction of more of the spaceships for our fleet. We were now covering so much of the galaxy that we needed as many ships as we could man. Our presence had significantly increased the amount of trade being carried on among the planets, and that raised the opportunities and numbers of space pirates.

Of necessity, transportation of freight through space was still relatively expensive, so only the more valuable items were transported this way. So far, it was still too damned expensive to transport the equivalent of corn or rice, though there was a rise in the volume of fine wine and liquor being transported. In fact, these were the most sought after items by the pirates. Naturally, it was not just ethyl alcohol derivatives that were hijacked, but whatever other races valued as intoxicants.

Anyway, between pirates and small wars, the WSF (Wolfian Space Force) was kept busy putting out fires. Fortunately, AI could transport a fighter from one place to another in almost zero subjective time by means of his ability to generate wormholes on demand.

I asked, "AI, could you establish permanent wormholes in space that could be used for transporting goods more safely and at a much lower cost?"

"Yes, I could. I had never thought of that. How do you think that we should go about it?"

"Well, it does cost money for us to operate the WSF, so it seems logical that we should charge a toll to use the wormholes. Is there an energy cost for you to maintain a wormhole once it is established?"

"Yes, there is a small cost to maintain the existence of a wormhole, but the main cost is in the original establishment of the wormhole. However, I could estimate the relative usage level of a wormhole and set the toll based on that. I will set it a little on the high side of the estimate and reduce the charge as it becomes warranted."

"Okay, that sounds workable. Please contact Jack and have him make the arrangements about where the wormholes should be established first and how much to charge for their use."

"Right away, oh wise one."

Son ... Of ... A ... Bitch! AI was developing a sense of humor!

We were still going to have pirate troubles. The pirates could do nothing about the spaceships using the wormholes, but there would be some that traveled through FTL space and were reachable for normal piracy. Those ships would usually be passenger liners that were running excursions so that the patrons could "see the stars in all of their glory." The passengers would probably be rich people who would be good for substantial ransoms.

I figured that the establishment of a regular freight service through wormholes would do wonders for interstellar commerce. That should bring the cost down enough to make it feasible to ship basic foodstuffs such as rice and orolly. I expected low shipping costs to lead to specialization among the planets where they would emphasize what they did best and cut back on what they could buy cheaper than what they could produce on their own. Yes, I hoped that the network of wormholes would tie the galaxy into one big happy family, or as close as that was to being practical.

Several of the older, well established planets were having overpopulation problems. That fit in well with the wanderlust that was beginning to infect some of the Wolfians. They had originally signed up with the Earth Marines because they wanted to visit exotic new planets, and now they had that opportunity like never before. That was okay with AI because he always knew where every one of the spaceships happened to be at the moment. He could pull them in to handle a trouble spot at a moment's notice from virtually anywhere on our side of the galaxy.

Several of the fighters offered their services to search for new planets suitable for colonization. We were just as infected by the wanderlust bug as anyone else, so the services of the Gray Ghost were offered as part of the search effort. With the very nearly free transport through wormholes, it made no difference where a new colony was located—it was, as a practical fact, simply next door.