Chapter 7

That was the last straw. The Janglers wanted the Arlo to wipe out the Mongers. The Arlo community was against such drastic action, but something had to be done to eliminate the threat from the Mongers. Unfortunately, none of the people directly involved could come up with an acceptable solution, so I proposed my own idea.

I suggested that CC (Central Computer) come up with a sector not currently occupied by residents. So many people had been lost during the gamma-ray burst that there was no problem doing that. I proposed that the Mongers be transported to a deserted section of the Dyson Shell and left there to fend for themselves. CC agreed that a 100 g wall could be put up around the Mongers so that there was no chance for them to escape. In effect, they would be in "solitary" confinement where they could do no harm to anyone else.

CC spent enough time, 600 milliseconds, searching so that it was certain that it had found an appropriate place to jail the Mongers. There were game animals and flora in abundance, so the Mongers should have no trouble feeding themselves. What else they did was their problem. CC set up the jail with the local Emmeight AI, and our AI transported the entire Monger community to their new home, lock, stock, and barrel.

The Janglers were relieved to be rid of the Mongers, as were the other neighbors, so everybody but the Arlo were happy. Well, some of them, anyway. A few of the members of the Arlo army were disappointed that they were not going to be able to fight again after the battle with the Hankers. They were earmarked in my little black book to be the start of a police force if we ever needed one.

The way that the Mongers simply disappeared without a trace had one more good effect. That fourth group of troublemakers, the Sipsers, heard about the way the Mongers vanished, and that seemed to scare them straight. The Sipsers had not yet reached the stage of being a real problem to anybody, but they suddenly "got religion" and became ideal neighbors. I wish all problems could be solved so easily.

Life now settled down into a kind of paradise with everybody being nice to everybody else. This lasted for about six months, so we Wolfians decided that we wanted to see more of the Dyson Sphere than we had investigated so far. Specifically, we were looking for some sort of center of learning that might have survived the gamma-ray burst. We were not really expecting to find any such activity, but we wanted to look for it. If there was such a place, we might find out what had happened during the last 90,000 years. Our curiosity just would not let us alone.

Obviously, this world was way too damned big to be explored by scooter, or even by spaceship. The first thing we did was to ask CC to scan its input to see if there were any sectors that seemed to have maintained the old way of life. Once the question was posed, even CC was interested in what we might find, so it was an enthusiastic partner in the search.

When it finished going through all of its recent records, and that was a long and detailed search lasting nearly two days, CC reported that there were four sectors that warranted investigation. We got the coordinates and set out to take a look at the nearest one. We traveled by fighter because we needed to have the logistics support that they provided. We promised to return to report to the Arlo if we found out anything interesting, but they should not expect a quick answer.

The sector we were interested in looking at was Efftwenty-seven. It was at the southern edge of the nominally habitable zone, about 25° down from the equator. As we approached, we did observe what looked like some efforts at agriculture. Actually, that was not a good sign from the point of view of finding a place that had survived the destruction by the gamma-rays. The food consumed 90,000 years ago was all produced by duplicators, so there would have been no need for farms, except for decorative plants. What we were seeing definitely was not decorative horticulture.

What we were seeing were rows of plants that looked to us like some sort of beans or peas. Of course, we were from a different culture, and our esthetics might be grossly different. The only way to be certain was to land and ask somebody.

There was a moderately large building near the farm, so we figured that we could find someone to talk to with a minimum of difficulty. Unfortunately, the Efftwenty-seven AI was partially damaged, reason currently unknown, so that queries to it were not very helpful. The local AI didn't even know that it was damaged.

We landed and smeared our faces with the grease paint supplied by AI. We were fully dressed so that there was no other skin exposed. Just to be on the safe side, we kept our assault rifles with us. For practical purposes, we looked like any other resident of the Dyson Sphere.

We walked up to what looked like the main door of the building closest to the farm and looked for some sort of doorbell. Nothing was obvious, so I tried to open the door. It opened easily, and we went inside the building. We entered a large room that was lined around the edges with desks, but there was nobody sitting at any of them. Were the residents deliberately avoiding us, or did we just arrive at an awkward time?

Sarah pointed out a desk that was marked with a sign saying "Information." I marched over to it and found that there was a large red button that was labeled "Press for service." The logic of that was irrefutable, so I pressed the button. We heard a distant chime, so we expected that someone would show up presently.

After 10 minutes, still no one had shown up, so I pressed the button again. If I didn't get a response this time, we were just going to have to start wandering through the building until we found somebody to question. Still nothing after 15 minutes, so we broke up into four pairs, husband and wife, and began to search through the building. There were 13 doors leading from the room where we were, so we started with them.

All of the doors but one led to an office that was unoccupied. The odd door led to a stairwell going both up and down. Strangely, there was no elevator, at least not one that we could recognize. Maybe these people were a bunch of health nuts who didn't believe in elevators.

We split again into two groups. Four of us went up the stairs and four went down. Just as we had almost reached the next level of the stairs, I got a call through my communicator in my head. "Andy, this is AI. I have detected approximately 20 people waiting for you at the next level. As far as I can tell, they are the only people in the building. They are all holding clubs and appear to be planning to ambush you as soon as you step through the door."

"Thanks for the warning, AI. Please contact the other group and send them to us. I am afraid that we might wind up killing somebody if they come at us with only four of us on our side. We will wait for the others to show up."

"I applaud your caution and will do as you ask."

We waited until the other four people joined us and held a quick conference. I said, "I don't understand what is going on. This is a fancy building like the ancients would have built, but surely they would have put in an elevator. There is no question that the locals have electricity because of that working chime. Why aren't they using it? Something is very screwed up, so we better be careful. Keep your rifles handy, but be damned sure you don't accidentally shoot somebody. Any comments or suggestions?"

Nobody offered anything, so I said, "Okay, here goes nothing." I opened the door as if I had no idea of the reception committee waiting for us. As I stepped into the room, I heard a concentrated sigh of relief.

Some woman said, "Thank the Ancients! They are not the invaders."

I said, "Will someone please explain what is going on. We are explorers from far away, and we don't know what to make of the way you people are acting. We will not hurt you unless we are attacked, so don't be afraid of us."