Chapter 2

In the office I sat in one of the fancy swivel chairs which had arrived not long before. I didn’t like them much; they had arms which made it awkward for me to cuddle Anya or Romy while occupying them. Anya took another, though she sat poised to leap out of it. We both looked at Romy, who was blushing.

At length, she began to speak. “Hex, you know there are details about this planet and the technology here that I haven’t briefed you on. You didn’t follow up on my comment that the landing field had fallen into disuse. That was not because my creators had ceased to travel to and from this planet.”

I was puzzled. “I remember you saying your people didn’t use Fold ships...”

“No. They used a hyper-space system to effectively travel faster than light. They did develop Fold ships, but by the time they had, the technology was redundant.”

I was frowning by this point. “Redundant, how?”

“The ships were only necessary for the carriage of bulk freight and initial exploration. Once colonies were established, a different method was used.”

This was becoming annoying. I took a deep breath. “Which was?”

“Matter transmission.”

It took a few moments for the words to penetrate. “Matter transmission,” I repeated, flatly. I was aware of theories being worked on back on Earth. I’d heard that they’d managed to ‘transmit’ small coins a few metres, but that they’d arrived ... altered in various disturbing ways.

“I’m sorry, Hex.” Romy was actually trembling and, if she’d been human, one would have expected her to start crying at any moment. Which she did.

I was out of the chair, across the room, and had her in my arms before making any conscious decision to do so. Anya was only a short distance behind. I loved her. It was a strange relationship, to be sure, which took nothing from the love I have for my wife. Indeed, I believe Anya loves her as much. “Easy,” I murmured in her ear. “Easy. I’m not angry, just surprised.”

She sniffled. “I’ll show you the ... station.”

“Okay. But before that, I need to talk to you about Scott.” She lifted an eyebrow. I glanced at Anya. “You need to hear this, too, but of course it’s not for general distribution.”

“Of course. But what...”

“Romy, I don’t know what your people felt about ... How do I explain this? You enjoy sex with me.” She nodded, wide eyed, “And with Anya, too.”

“Well, yes.”

“Some humans only enjoy sex with their own gender. We talked about this when we were negotiating the colonisation treaty on Earth, remember?”

“Yes, but...”

“Theoretically, gender orientations do not matter in our society. In practice, they do. There is still prejudice, especially with male/male pairings. Scott is homosexual, and comes from a group which disapproves of that. You could provide him with an avatar which is male, and his ideal partner, but that would announce his orientation to the galaxy.”

“And if a female, there would be questions if he did not ... engage in sex with her? Most of the human form avatars sleep with their human partners and have had no reason to hide the fact. Of course I am aware of this. Humans with their own human partner have default avatars.”

“I wondered. Anyway, he needs to work out how he wants to handle this.”

“It would be easy enough to have an avatar programmed to appear female in public and male in private.”

“And maybe that will be the way to go. We’ll see. Let’s let Scott make up his own mind.”

The ‘station’ Romy referred to was accessed from one of the ground-car garages. We’d never ... well, we hadn’t had time ... to nosey around. We might have found it, eventually, but without Romy, it would have been difficult to work out what it did. Voice activated, of course, so all that could be seen of the device was a matt-black mesh on the floor, about a couple of metres to a side.

“The power required for transmission is... considerable.” Romy’s emphasis suggested to my mind that we poor humans probably couldn’t grasp the immensity of the requirement. “Reception is much less demanding. There is a power plant buried under here, and there are panels on the roof. The demands are managed by using something commensurate with your capacitors, which are charged over a period of time. Originally, it took about twelve of your hours to reach the power levels necessary to send the maximum load, about five persons or the equivalent in cargo.” Her eyes flickered for a moment. “It has been a long time since the system was used, of course, and the output of the plant is certainly reduced. Being voice activated presents a problem, in that anyone using this would have to use...” she spoke a few syllables in a liquid tongue, “in order to return. At this end, the system is, of course, tied in to me.”

Anya moved between me and the grid. “And, Hex, you are NOT in any way, going to be the guinea-pig to try it.”

I tried to look innocent, though I knew it to be a forlorn hope. “I wouldn’t dream of it, sweetheart.”

“Sure you wouldn’t, darling. I know you too well. Promise me. Promise me, Hex.”

I sighed. She knew that if she extracted my promise, I would keep it. “Okay, love. Okay. I promise not to try to use it. At least until it’s been tested, and you’re satisfied with its safety.” I turned to Romy. “Do you have blueprints? Know how to construct the system?”

“Yes.”

“Could we install a grid, mesh, whatever, on Earth?”

“Yes. Just bear in mind that we ... my creators, that is, never managed to move more than about four hundred kilos at a time with this. It was really only used for personnel.”

“Still, it’s something for our scientists to mull over. Let’s go and see James. He needs to know about this.”

James looked up from some documents as we entered. Scott Ross was seated near James’ desk. I assumed he’d brought some administrative stuff with him from Earth.

His eyes flicked from me to Romy and Anya, then back to me. “Please tell me you haven’t brought me another headache.”

“No. Yes. Maybe.” I said. “James, Romy has just told us something – and showed us – that you need to know about.”

He sighed and nodded. “Hit me.”

I laid a hand on Romy’s arm. “That’s idiom,” I said.

“I know,” she responded primly. “I do have several centuries of data now. That one’s quite old.” She turned back to James. “Forgive me. I do not mean to imply you are old.”

He smiled. One can hardly help smiling at Romy. “But in fact it is quite possible you may be about to ‘hit me’ with some information which will upset the normal scheme of things.”

“I believe I am. The matter has not come to the fore previously. My creators built a functioning network of matter transmitters. The system requires both a transmitter and receiver and can transfer up to about four hundred of your kilogrammes of material, including living beings. In fact, the system was mainly used for personnel transfer. They also used a hyper-space drive which had the effect of faster-than-light travel. Fold-space travel was developed late, and little used.”

James sat very still. His expression was ‘pensive’ rather than ‘shocked’ or ‘disturbed’. “Well. Well, well, well. So, how do we proceed?” He smiled at Romy. “That was rhetorical.”

“I deduced that was so. But if I may suggest?”

“Certainly.”

“A demonstration is in order. Anya has, very properly, forbidden the Governor to be the first to try. Whoever does go should ... must ... be accompanied by one of my avatars using a portable projector, as the equipment is voice-activated. Once you are satisfied of the practicality of the system, import several highly qualified technicians, perhaps physicists, people capable of understanding the science. I do not think it beyond your people’s ability to replicate. Actually, the system is related to your food replicators.”

Scott Ross leapt to his feet and tugged (unnecessarily) his tunic straight. “Sir. I would like to volunteer.”

James looked at him steadily, thoughtfully. “Relax, Lieutenant. At ease. Sit. I am not sure I want to take a chance on losing my newly transferred courier pilot, but you may well be the best qualified person.” He transferred his regard to Romy. “Suppose we go and take a look at your facility?”

That was not a straightforward matter. Our security had to accompany us, of course. James called them into his office.