Chapter 10: The Game is Afoot

Ieshia pressed a sub-dermal contact on the base of her jaw and tapped it twice and with that she activated her Data Brain connection to GalNet. She now could make GalNet calls directly using her minds speech center without opening her mouth. It took a little practice to separate what you were thinking and what you wanted to say without using your vocal cords or your mouth, but she had been doing it for a long time and because of that she earned a very generous salary. She was an employee, but even she only knew her employers as ‘The Company’ and her direct contacts only as the ‘Managers’. She had never seen one in person, or more precisely she didn’t know if she had ever seen one.

With a few movements of her tongue she scrolled through the GalNet menu displayed directly into her retina and blinked at the necessary symbols to make the desired connection. The expensive Bombardier Private Space Yacht had left the penal colony, already raced past the orbit of the fifth planet and slipped into Quasi Space.

Her ‘Manager’ came on right away. A suave looking green skinned humanoid posing as a Hegloian and wearing an expensive Saresii silk business suit in the classical and very distinguished Cambridge cut. Yet she was certain it was a generated image and had nothing to do with how the real person looked like. He sat behind a featureless glass desk in a sterile white looking office. He had his fingers steepled and said. “Ah my dear Ieshia, I gather there weren’t any complications?”

“None at all, Manager. As predicted the Watch Tower satellites were over 1000 year old, well maintained but completely obsolete and inadequate. We left plenty of Shiss Engine Trail residue, used an old Shiss Computronic Virus routine to disable the Watch towers. The Warden’s Island was void of any life signs and the Guards shuttle was gone. We destroyed it anyway.”

The manager did not change his position and remained almost like a static image, if it wasn’t for his moving lips. “The Warden and his small staff were very open to the suggestion to take a little vacation. I know of all the details Ieshia, did you secure the Greenie?”

“Yes, Harlex Gedde is currently sitting in the yellow salon enjoying his favorite whiskey and my company.”

“How did he take his liberation and did you make him aware that his new employers insist on his full cooperation?”

“His reaction of our activities co-related to his predicted Psych-profile are right on the money. He currently enters stage two: Realization of his current situation.”

“Good news then Ieshia. I trust we can proceed then. Failure would not only ruin his day but I would have to re-evaluate your employment status with a very terminal outcome.”

While the rented Bombardier Yacht traversed space; speeding with glowing Isah Pods and many times the speed of light through this other dimensional condition known as Quasi Space; towards its distant destination, almost two thousand light years away a man disconnected a highly secure GalNet link and with it a Simu-Life ™ sequence entitled: White Office.

The real surroundings however weren’t all that different from the simulation. He was accused of many things, but never accused of having too much of a creative streak or any real imagination.

Clive Khan was the owner of a small but very profitable consulting firm, specializing in advising import and export companies about the legal and cultural conditions doing business with Free Space civilizations. For almost forty years he crisscrossed Free Space as a Freelancer living hand to mouth doing little jobs and slowly build him a reputation of being reliable, never asking too many questions and knowing every pirate outpost, every Free Space trading market and where to get what. Everything changed when he stared to do business with the Hanuman Cartel and now he was a respected business man with a plush office in the second tallest sky tower of Pluribus. His unseen business associates bankrolled everything; including his high roller lifestyle of course failing them was no option. He had never asked questions or was too curious, but even he wondered what was so valuable on that strange planet, to explain such a detailed operation that went on for many years.

Of course he knew that Green Hell was the origin of the drug Califerm, but the stuff was now grown and synthesized all over the place. Drug business was still a somewhat profitable venture, even though not even once percent of the Union Population used any illegal drugs.

Heck even the use of legal recreational drugs had steadily declined over the last millennia and the Union Health Council estimated that less than eight percent of the entire population were using rec drugs on a regular basis.

The main reason was that the very reason for drug use had virtually vanished from the daily lives of the main population.

No one had to work if they didn’t want to (surprisingly 90% wanted a job). GalNet Virtual Worlds were a much better escape from reality than most drugs could provide (Virtu-World addiction was a much more severe problem).

Many of the social problems and conditions that existed in societies where illegal drug use was rampant simply didn’t exist at least for the average Union Citizen.

The Gal Drifts who were the main group of illegal drug users were mostly Non-Cits in the first place and their numbers were truly insignificant.

Okay, the exotic animal market, especially the black market on dangerous life forms was very lucrative. Rich collectors, private hunting venues and of course the Death Arenas paid astronomical sums for something rare and deadly, but even that did not really explain the operation his clients made him execute.

He was certain he was part of something much bigger.

Curiosity in his line of business and especially in this case would be deadly, but if there was something profitable beyond drugs and exotic animals, he really liked to have a bigger slice of the pie.

So he pulled up his desk unit and made a general info request: Most valuable substances and items. The GalNet Search was instant and populated his field screen with a list:

The most valuable substance by weight is Tritherium shelled- Ultronit lattice Neutronium. A gram of this material manufactured by SII costs about 1 Billion Credits. While it is theoretically the ultimate indestructible material and thus the material of choice for battleship armor. The manufacturing process takes many years and the cost of machinery and processes makes it prohibitive to be used. Still it is the most expensive material/ item/ substance known.

Information is among the highest valued commodities. It could be argued that it is the single most valuable commodity. Considering what governments and corporations spend on resources to gather it.

Artifacts and items – Verified artifacts of extinct civilizations: Items from such civilizations as the Dark Ones, Celtest, Pree, Uni or the The First League are the highly valuable items and are traded both legally and illegally. (Illegal items are artifacts that are working military weapons)

Artifacts and items of the Y’All or Piostla Artifacts of ancient unknown or little known civilizations.

True Calipharm Dust – (From Green Hell) 1 gram is traded for about 5 Million Credits

Clive stopped reading there and revised his opinion on Califerm, The real stuff so he just learned was worth many thousand times more than the illegal drug sold on the black market to junkies.

According to this article, there was great interest in obtaining quantities of the genuine material by the Shiss and the Kermac.

He deepened his research and found out that the genuine material was used by the Saresii to create Psionic Drugs, medication that, according to what he was reading could increase the Heidelberg PSI Index of a person, without the ill effects of God Dust as the Gal Drifts called the illegal synthetic version. Clive wondered if that was the ultimate goal of his clients, getting a supply of that stuff. While he was reading that he noticed a note tagged to the article that is was generally believed that the real Calipharm could kill a Narth. He shrugged and then made sure his clients were updated on the progress.

Roy

It was almost dark when Roy found a cave. At first he wondered why the first visitors to this world did not land on the mountains, as it seemed there was nothing really dangerous. But then his sense of danger made him aware of patches with violent ice worms in the snow and he found that not all boulders were just inanimate objects, but cleverly disguised huge relatives to the Blister crabs. Green Hell was what it was even here in the mountain region. The idea to make a cave his home was a good one at first, but now as he stood before the dark crack that appeared to be the entrance of a cave even he didn’t feel brave enough to actually find out what Green Hell life forms lurked in there. To Partner he said. “Well Uncle Sam was right, there are caves but I didn’t even bring a light and I don’t think it is a good idea to go in there.” Partner snorted and with two fast strides disappeared inside. Roy pulled his blaster and went after his friend. As tough, as he knew his friend was, there could always be something that was tougher and more dangerous. His four legged friend surprised him with his abilities all the time and now was no difference. The short stubby horns on Partner’s skull were glowing in a bright white light and illuminated a cavern of about twenty meters in diameter. It smelled dry and musky.

Pieces of something pelted and bloody stuck between Partners wide chops, streaks of dark blood ran down the animal’s chest, proved that Partner encountered something in this cave. Whatever it was didn’t have a chance so it became apparent. Partner was neither distressed, wounded nor upset. He sat there on his hind legs and looked as pleased with itself as ever. After an inspection of the cavern and his instincts told him it was reasonably safe. He didn’t find any passage way deeper into the mountain, so he bedded down next to Partner who now was settling down as well, between him and the cave entrance. He had spent a few nights out before, but never to bed down and sleep. This was the first time he actually closed his eyes to sleep. He was more tired than he wanted to admit to himself. More emotionally drained than physically and soon sleep came to him and he slept, with a big black paw gently placed over his side and dark red eyes glowing watchful towards the cave entrance.

Martha

Ranger Solomon, Martha, and Paul Masters arrived at Sam Brown’s Farm as the local sun was just about to slip behind the horizon. Martha had never seen the place and now as she looked over the neatly rows of cultivated fields, surrounded by only a twelve meter high energy fence and not a complete energy dome. The most unusual site to her was the log home in the center. Not an Ultronit construct but a house, a genuine house made of wooden logs, with a smoking chimney. Paul was all excited as it looked like something out of his Pre Astro books. The tall black man standing on his porch and waved his raised finger. “Not a step further!”

Martha and Paul wore full gear as usual and stomped their armor suits from the landed armored floater across the packed dirt path. The black man said. “Not a step further, folks. My home isn’t an Ultronit shell you know. It isn’t built for Off World Geeks in 8,000 pound monkey suits.” He eyed them with open contempt.

He stemmed his fists into his sides and shook his head. “If it isn’t the Masters, Roy’s parents. Let me introduce myself. I am the bad influence and I used to be a dumb brute as you call us Marines ain’t that right?

“I am the one who pulled your asses out of the wreckage too, if you recall.” Sam Brown raised his massive arms. “Oh right, you are too busy to call your son or me to say anything.”

Martha showed she was much braver than Paul and opened her suit, stepped down from it and onto the reddish dirt.

Now wearing just her Bio Seal suit just like Sam Brown did.

Paul almost fainted as he saw his wife completely exposed. There was no force field above them and Martha was breathing the real air of the planet for the first time since she had landed here seventeen years ago. The fresh breeze of natural wind and a sweet flowery scent felt strangely invigorating. She said. “Mr. Brown, we know we have acted like social recluses and we have used words and did things we are not proud of. Things that only became apparent to me as I was forced to look into the mirror and see our own reflection. Whatever we have been can’t be changed and we will try to remedy our behavior in the future, but right now our son Roy is missing. We know he thinks the world of you.” She continued without taking a breath. “I begin to realize now that you have been a better adult influence in his life than we have been.”

Sam completely ignored Paul or the Ranger and said stepping to the side. “Come on in Ms. Masters. I think it is time you and me have a long talk about Roy. I have fresh Hell-ade or something stronger if you care and we can sit on the veranda.”

She watched with horror as an arm long centipede slithered over the path and into the low green plants she recognized as Fire Nettle Bushes, neatly planted in rows and obviously cultivated. Sam had seen it too and said. “No worries Ms. Masters this is Lockjaw, one of a few thousand living around here, hunting for Vamp Fly larvae and Suck-Painers. Not interested in you at all.”