Chapter 6: Visiting the Bugs

“Andrea, this is an awesome dreadnaught. I can’t believe you and Linda are also with Jason. Thank you for the lift. I appreciate it. It was great the Emperor arranged this ship to transport us. It is much better than the ferry and better than the ship we traveled on to Mars. I thought we were going to be caught between universes. It shook frighteningly when we did the transition.

“We Ordreg were so proud of our achievements. Then along comes the Emperor and all of a sudden, we get our bodies back and our planets are being moved by the Azayal. We discover we are far behind. The world changed while we languished in Bekta Delta.

“The gates are amazing. These are the first gates I have seen. I am seeing one astounding thing after the other. Mars is frighteningly advanced. The portals are wonderful and the replica cities of London and Paris magnificent.

“I have a feeling there is something unusual going on! Philippa, you are entertaining thirty people for the weekend on your Estate. Your mother is entertaining us all, how can she have so many people for dinner?” Patata asked.

“It will be a tight squeeze dear, but we will fit somehow. My mother entertains a lot and she is used to entertaining and fitting people in,” said Philippa holding Ben and burping him. He regurgitated some milk. Jason wiped it off the floor with a cloth.

“Hey, the baby is speaking to me telepathically. How can that be?” Patata asked.

“My son Ben and all Jason’s other children are ahead of their milestones.

“Patata, after this weekend I suggest you don’t repeat who you saw and what they said. I don’t want to jeopardize Jason’s anonymity at the War College. Say something like we gave you a lift in a shuttle or we ferried you over. I leave the rest to your discretion,” said Philippa.

“We are almost there. We have an escort coming in and a shuttle bringing a portal. We are to go directly to your mother Philippa,” said Andrea.

***

Patata sat with her mouth open after she was introduced to Ouma Chatzke.

Brecht met them in her praying mantis form, excused herself and then joined them at the table in her human form.

“Welcome Patata, I hope to meet many more of your people. I believe they fought heroically for the Emperor. Good shock troops are hard to come by.”

“We were greatly relieved to meet the Emperor again and rejoin the Empire and stop our war with the Zaos. That war was a catastrophic error. Those that met the Emperor were very impressed. He also has remarkable grandchildren who are honorary Admirals and Generals while still in junior school. Some of our greatest strategists competed against them in a tournament run on Earth. They were shocked to discover that they and their friends were top performers on a multiverse level,” said Patata.

“I know them well,” said Brecht,” they often visit here and compete in tournaments. I am fond of them. They love practicing to fly in bug form and play with the children on Philippa’s estate.”

Patata looked taken aback.

“If I may, I would like to change subjects. How is the Uzliumbax Queen?” Jason asked.

“The poison she was given severely damaged her body. We are giving her a rebuild. I invited medical teams from the allies to share in the technology and learn to do full body reconstructions and convert species from one to another. We must use our combined resources as so many Uzliumbax are damaged. The Uzliumbax can do the same once the doctors are rebuilt and we decontaminate the medical AIs. I know they could rebuild bodies when they visited us when I was a grub,” said Ouma Chatzke.

“How are the intelligence guys getting on?” Ooryphyon asked.

“We sent teams to do a preliminary assessments. We are taking the lead, but all the allies are supporting us. The Warriors have sent a team of medical investigators who specialize in poisons and did their investigations.

“We are towing a gate close to Ethora as activity between us and them will increase steadily. All the allies have interoperable gates and will be able to benefit from the new gate.

“Patata, dear I am sure I don’t need to tell you that none of this is to be spoken about with outsiders. Jason assures me you are of good stock and background and have had to keep secrets of your own,” said Brecht.

Patata nodded, then looked at Jason and frowned.

“The other Royals have been assessed. Four of them were also poisoned. The AIs brought the first ten thousand of the greatest doctors, scientists and academics to the Collective. We can deal with fifteen thousand every five days. We will treble that within three weeks. We will increase the activity exponentially over the next four months,” said Brecht.

“Once the doctors are functioning and have access to decontaminated AIs they can get going in the Empire,” said Jason. “Keep the scientists and academics here and let them work with you guys for three to six months.”

“That is good! We will be happy to have some input in our Universities from your people Jason,” replied Brecht.

“I will send AIs, people and guards back with your doctors and will coordinate it with Thomas. Our intelligence teams will be in place within a week. We are supplying bug marines, as are the dinosaurs and Gromelix to add to the patrols in the vaults. The newer AIs found that AI guards in the vaults had been hit with some device that shut them down. The surveillance was shut down by the perpetrators and the assassinations commenced. Some faces of the criminals were seen and are being identified,” said Brecht.

“Excellent,” said Ooryphyon clapping her hands. “I look forward to us catching some of the bastards. I hope in time we can catch the pirate group that kidnapped me and gave me to the Destroyers.”

Patata was listening intently to the conversation.

“Here comes the main course, help yourselves and pass the plates around,” said Brecht holding her grandson fondly.

They ate contentedly for a few minutes before Brecht resumed talking.

“The first people coming out of stasis include the military, the logistics, the building and infrastructure people and the farmers. There are also a few administrators and politicians. None of them will be in great shape for at least a month. I want to ensure the intellectual resources of the Uzliumbax are protected and speed up the process of getting them out of stasis as soon as we can. We will concentrate on Ethora first, clean it out and get the population out of stasis. Philippa, you can feed them if needed or we will all help. Lauren has a group of AIs on Earth from Ethora who are buying food to grow for the Emperor. She has provided them with the agricultural educational material and some of Jason’s family will go along to help get things going. In return, the Uzliumbax AIs are supplying Earth with Uzliumbax products; like the latest generation of Education Octagons, replicators and AIs for their Universities.

“There are sufficient AIs already on the planet to make Ethora self-sufficient very quickly. Thomas and his group are very happy with the progress we are making to protect the vaults and investigate the crimes.

“The Uzliumbax have always had prodigious manufacturing abilities, even now trade with them is beginning to boom. Even though all of us assured them that we are deeply indebted to the Emperor when they asked how we wished to be paid; they wish to trade for everything. We can see they are experienced traders and expect nothing for free.

“They will be able to help us move forward much more quickly than we expected, in education, manufacture, weapons and ship building. Thomas is a pleasure to deal with. He is so appreciative of everything we have done,” Brecht finished.

“I am delighted to hear all of this. So much happens so quickly I can barely keep up,” said Jason.

“Enough of business, Trackrof, you are looking very cheerful, tell us how your first week has been.” Brecht said, changing the subject.

“Brecht, while you were talking, I was thinking how Jason’s dual-hypothesis theory clearly still applies. We have a holiday, and all is quiet. We start at the War College and suddenly the black hole attracts trouble in spades. That is part one.

“Then Jason’s luck kicks in. The Uzliumbax were doubly poisoned and all is woe, but despite everything in the doldrums they are traders and in spite of only few Uzliumbax being out of stasis and recovered they are already trading and paying their own way. What will happen when trillions of them are raring to go and are moving along at full speed? That is part two.

“Sorry I am in error. Even during his holiday, he finds trouble. He saves the Teokraeus and his grandchildren and their friends sort out the Destroyers before breakfast. Even the Gods of Perneft could never achieve such feats of trouble attraction. We saw the recordings! They are beyond belief! They escaped from under miles and miles of ice using their powers to make a tunnel and some pretty big holes. We need to add a third part to the hypothesis. Whatever happens he finds another woman or two or a few million and another planet full of children!

“Now he can also make antimatter. Every day I ask what next?” replied Trackrof.

They all laughed except for Patata who looked even more perplexed.

“I remember the first week on campus in the Empire. I was drawn inexorably to Jason. It was so strange, I never knew why he drew my eye wherever he was,” said Razza.

“Razza, it was the same when he came here. No one had seen the Una for eons and suddenly they tell us they have someone important for us to treat. When the Una say it is someone important, you can be darn sure they are not joking. A strange cube ship arrives, and we take Jason out of stasis and commence treatment. We find he has another Una within him in a trans-dim pocket. Suddenly he is a great hit on the media and I have a new friend.

“I can feel this draw,” said Brecht smiling.

“I can feel the charisma and gravitas in you Brecht and Razza’s grandfather, Also in Cassius and Felix but very much less. It is a type of unique charisma and gravitas that some leaders have,” said Julia.

Patata was moving her head as the conversation moved almost as if she was watching tennis. She looked even more perplexed if that was possible.

“The first time I felt Jason he was a guest of Lynas. When he came closer, I recognized the feeling I had last felt millions of years ago and it meant hope,” said Ooryphyon. “For the first time in a long time my despair lifted. I hoped Lisirra had finally found the Emperor and he could save me.”

Jason looked acutely embarrassed.

Trackrof took over the narrative; “Now may I get back to your question Brecht? They began at the Uzliumbax War college much as they do elsewhere, assessing the applicants.

“There was nothing unusual in the assessment while they did the physical component. Their gym is even more sophisticated than the Azayal one. You’re not even conscious when you do your exercises. We went off for a run one day and a hike the other. The battle simulator does time condensation in a ratio of 25 to 1, so an hour in the simulator is about as much as anyone can tolerate doing battle simulations.

“In the academic assessment phase, one hour in the simulator is equivalent to fifteen to twenty five hours outside. The first day we looked at what we knew in the arts and in the areas of politics and anthropology. There was also a look at Xeno-biology. They moved on to the basic sciences and then electronics and engineering topics. They assessed our medical knowledge in some detail at the end. We were all too tired to do simulations in the afternoon.

“It is a very broad curriculum. We have yet to see how much depth they go into. The AI allocated to us tells us we go into some detail of the military specialties in the second year and then we select our final specialist area by the end of the second year. In the third year we work in our specialist area in a practical setting. All the teaching and organization we have encountered has been run by AIs. They are very pleasant, and it is quite unlike my first training in the Coven.

“The Azayal were surprisingly pleasant but had very high expectations. The educational input from the Azayal was very much basic science, engineering and war topics. On the other hand, at Mars we were assessed in considerable detail about how we understood leadership and the psychology of the people we were to lead. There was even a big chunk of philosophy and general psychology. I think it is going to be a very different type of course. I understand the Empire uses a similar approach, but we did not encounter it in the first year. What about the Collective? Trackrof asked.

“Ours is similarly broad and I expect comprehensive curricula is the norm amongst the allies. I will be interested to hear more of your experiences as you go along.” Brecht replied.

“Mum, how are things going in the Collective?” asked Philippa.

“Philippa, we are settling down after the war. There is continuing strong interest in the progress of Earth. My sister started a branch of her War College on Earth after Lauren invited her to start a new generation of War College. We already have millions of Earth’s young people at our Universities and in the military colleges. We have a quarter of a billion people from Earth here at present and the same number of our people there. This will be the fastest move forward of any planet in this Universe. Two billion Earth people are off planet scattered amongst the allies. Most planets want to go slow, Earth wanted the fastest pace possible. It is the first time ever a planet wanted to go full speed ahead. I think much of that was driven by the fear of a very sophisticated set of enemies.” Brecht replied.

“What are so many of our people doing on Earth?” Philippa asked.

“We are protecting the natural fauna and flora as we study it and stopping illegal poaching and intrusion into the natural areas. We are helping those areas grow back. We are burying cities below the ground. We are converting power supplies in the cities and then towns. We are building public transport and portals. We are upgrading manufacture. We are cleaning up food production and stopping the introduction of toxic substances into the environment. We are modernizing services, communications and AI infrastructure.

“We along with our allies are busy in every area. The Azayal will alter the orbit slightly to drop the temperatures back to normal while we clean up. Carbon dioxide levels are still going up, but every day the pace of increase slows. We have removed most nuclear weapons and are disassembling nuclear facilities as we place power generators in place. We will be cleaning the oceans for several years. We are assessing fish stocks and breading new fish to re-populate the oceans. We are creating a terraforming plan in consultation with Lauren and the Earth AI. That is a brief and not all-inclusive summary.” Brecht replied.

“Any news of the refugees?” Julia asked.

“There is a continuing steady stream of refugees into both Empires. Your uncle Cassius and Emperor Felix are very concerned. We agreed to share the refugees out amongst us all, but they are generally highly educated and they will make significant contributions to the adoptive societies.

“Chuck’s double or triple cloaking method fooled the Azloc, so our scouts are making progress probing the Azloc Galaxy. The scouts are following military and cargo ships to their destinations. There is very active war mobilization and intense industrial activity over a very wide area in the galaxy Pempha Nemu. We have counted two thousand four hundred Azloc ships, heavy cruiser and above but we suspect they have many more. The Azloc produce big heavily armed ships.

“Jason, Thomas offered to teach us multichannel telepathy if required. He has sent us a multichannel telepathic recorder to use on scout ships to see if they pick up anything on other channels and if so, the attached AI will learn the language and implant it in us. The scout ships have shown us the planets of the Azloc are very heavily fortified and defended. So far, we have not picked up any telepathic communications.

“We will soon start sending intelligence teams to the planets of the refugees. We have recruited many of the refugees to work with our intelligence services.” Becht concluded.

“Where are Gamma, Jonathan and Norbert?” Jason asked.

“They have joined Lauren’s team to help her get going on Earth. Jason, no matter how much we do on Earth, there are many day-to-day problems to solve and no restructure is complete in less than a few hundred years. Earth will move faster than most, but it has further to go to catch up. The education is fast, but attitudes take time to shift. A woman who has lived her life in an isolated frozen area, in a tribe of twenty people with all of them consuming intoxicating substances every night cannot be made into a General within a few years. The children change a lot, but it is the third generation that adapts more fully to the new world. We have found that spreading people out in the Collective helps attitude change as does time in the university and military. We try and put everyone back into some kind of education. Peer pressure helps change. We keep the most primitive communities together for a year or three until we see they are mixing better with more advanced peoples. We allocate an AI social worker to live with each family to help them shift perspective and cope with the new world.

“You will be surprised at how much will change in ten years. Some things just take time. Terraforming a planet and climate modification takes hundreds of years. I can talk about restructures for years, but let me move myself on before I get stuck on the theory and practice of planetary evolution.

“Razza how is your family?” Brecht Chatzke asked, changing the subject.

“They are settling in very well. The people are happy and are flourishing. We have a few hundred thousand from Earth who are at War College or at University. My grandfather has had many requests from our people to do some work on Earth and he is arranging for a few million to go to Earth largely to get our deep underground construction companies going, but also to install some of the compact power plants we make. Lauren likes them very much and is encouraging us to manufacture these plants on Earth. She wants the Coven to participate in university education as well. Now that the portals are operational, she visits Cassius and Alana, Ergol and us, once a month. She also goes to see Felix every few months. She told me she wants to get away from Earth over the weekends and expand her frontiers. Ergol returns to his childhood with Chuck and Chloe and he is rejuvenated and energetic.

“He told me he is determined to be an active participant in the alliance and wants to be involved with future developments. My father and mother are happily involved with gene research work, their greatest love. My grandparents are excited about all of the new educational material and are encouraging an upgrade of the educational systems on every planet. Thomas and all of Jason’s elite AIs visited briefly and spent some time with Nuswa. She is keen to migrate to an entirely new Uzliumbax AI which they are going to build for her over the next year. My grandfather had extensive discussions with the AIs in several areas of trade and in how to move our educational institutions forward quickly.

“There is a great sense of excitement in the Coven, there is so much to learn and do. There is a sense of purpose and direction, a feeling of being part of a greater whole. The Uzliumbax AIs said the Uzliumbax Universities are starting soon and will resume their normal activities within three months. They suggest our academics can attend, enjoy sabbaticals and update themselves. The Universities will be run by the AIs until the Academics fully recover and return. “Brecht, I understand many of your academics will also be attending. Bertha suggested our universities attach themselves as satellite universities until we all feel we have upgraded ourselves,” said Razza.

“That is a great idea,” said Brecht. “I will follow up on that idea and talk to Lauren and my sister about it. Perhaps Cassius and Felix would also be interested?”

“My father says there is great enthusiasm amongst the Coven academics. They knew of the Uzliumbax who they regarded as giants in the past. Patata, what is the feeling amongst the Ordreg?” Razza asked.

“We are preoccupied with our move and our bodies. Most have a bio-mechanical AI chassis while our bodies are being readied for us. It is anxiety provoking for most of us. Most of us are having our bodies shipped to Bekta Delta and they will change over when they are ready to do so. The Azayal will then transfer our planets to this Universe and transfer a similar mass of low value planets back to Bekta Delta.

“The Zaos are worse off as they all have to do a double transfer, first to a chassis and then to a new body as their own bodies cannot survive in their odd dimension and they cannot survive in their current form out of that dimension. I can understand how we as allies fought each other for so long, we were each as stupid as the other with as little common sense. We were fooled for so long by the Grork and the Zaos hid in a bizarre place. How such advanced societies can do as we did defies all rational belief.

“The Zaos have their own planets in this Universe which they have now found. Our people are excited about the move and being part of the Empire again, but we are worried about returning to such old bodies. We have sent teams here to investigate the process of body rebuild for those bodies that fail or for those who might no longer have a body,” said Patata.

“Porquenta tells me he is modifying the forty-million clone growing tanks to use the body rebuild technique of the Collective,” said Jason. “He used a similar process to build Sheila and Colette and has a new generation of systems for fully biological AIs that takes five days. He has a hundred thousand pods fully upgraded, he told me to tell you Brecht, that he can help with the Uzliumbax who need new bodies. He says the pod upgrade was a low priority task until now. He started the rebuilds after he heard about the Safion returning and knew he would need to do some total rebuilds as the bodies are very old. He thinks the old Uzliumbax bodies are going to be a big problem and more full body rebuilds are going to be needed.”

“I have my own suspicions about using the old bodies. I recall Porquenta asked to consult with us about pod upgrades. I saw a report which said that the tanks were Coven Pods which had been modified by them to work extraordinarily slowly. It makes no sense to the Coven doctors now. They needed relatively simple re-modifications but critically they need highly trained teams. I understand you have the technicians, but they need training and you need more medical AIs and doctors. I think you will have an excess of doctors from Earth and you need to retrain the whole lot of them as a priority. I will talk to Lauren and find out what is happening with them.

“I will also talk with Porquenta, since having two large rebuild facilities each concentrated in one location will be very useful to all of us. It could be a great way to go. We can have teams from the allies work together and train doctors to specialize in this area. Leave it with me. All the allies have underworked doctors when we are not at war. I might talk to Ergol and give him the project. It will give him an important task.” Brecht observed.

“Porquenta has also built a large hospital next to the facilities on Mars and on Porquenta,” said Jason. “They are able to do the rehabilitation of the output of the pods. I don’t know how he is managing the medical and technical expertise side of it,” said Jason. “I wonder if the ex Clone doctors and Destroyer doctors would be interested. They might already be involved for all I know.”

“Jason everyone makes life so easy for you. Your AIs are busy and you don’t even have to do very much, and everything just happens around you,” said Razza laughing.

“The Destroyer women are formidable according to all accounts,” said Brecht. “I hear you made many of them pregnant in both groups.” Brecht laughed and shook her head. “Oh! Thank you for the damaged ships you sent us. They have everything needed for self-repair. It is extraordinary. We are learning an enormous amount. Now before I blather on, it is time for you to head to Nobatia. You are all looking tired. I am coming to Nobatia tomorrow for dinner with you all. Jason you and I will meet here in the morning to talk over breakfast. We have your intelligence people and mine. Andrea, Felicia, Linda and Andrea will be here as well as Zafa and her teams.”

***

“Jason you are looking even more tired this morning than last night! It serves you right acquiring so many women,” said Brecht over breakfast the next morning.

“I have grave responsibilities with regard to all of them. Philippa, Linda and Andrea are ready to have more children and they feel responsible to satisfy the needs of the Destroyers for children.”

“No doubt then none of your sperm goes to waste!” Brecht laughed. “I cannot believe how many children you are going to have.”

“Yes, I can no longer even keep count. I suspect it is the people who went with me returning. The Uzliumbax looked at the genes of the clone babies and that is their theory. That is why I feel so responsible. It is a serious duty!” Jason grinned broadly.

Brecht laughed again and clapped him on the shoulder as several insects in humanoid form and humans walked through the door.

“Here they are Jason and you know them all, Gen. Megadeth Pardue head of fleet intelligence, Adm. Osgood Grunwald my advisor and head of Intelligence, the rest are yours. We will have breakfast and then we will be joined by some of the assistants to us all.”

Jason hugged his three people. Gen. Karen Dupree, Gen. Matilda MacArthur, Col. Constance Ross and finally Gen. Sinefu Zarbanu, Intelligence; of the Destroyers. They chatted over a light breakfast and talked about old times, recent events and children.

The assistants joined them at the table after breakfast.

“Osgood, please proceed; we will use first names and keep it all informal,” said Brecht.

Jason, ladies and gentlemen; “We received the transcript of your conversation with your new generation AIs and the subsequent discussion you had with Brecht and later conversations you had with Porquenta. We contacted Thomas directly, to discuss the situation on the ground at Ethora. We then convened a preliminary team of twenty people to reconnoiter, followed immediately by a group of eight thousand investigators. I contacted and spoke to my colleagues from the allies and on the basis of our discussions we assembled teams of investigators to join us and look into every government department. The investigators are accompanied by armed and armored troops as Thomas advised us to exercise caution.

“Following your instructions, we have taken brain dumps of all of your Kings and Queens. None of their brains were protected. The findings were disturbing. Separate teams have been sent into the vaults which are now under very tight security. Before we went in, we set traps in twenty-five vaults for possible poisoners. We captured four. They have a device which is of Destroyer design and manufacture. It is a remarkable device. We are attempting to analyze how it functions. It freezes the older generation of Uzliumbax AIs. They do not return to function until the device reverses the process.

“We have interrogated the poisoners. They were recruited by the Destroyers a very long time ago. They were activated ten years ago and have worked to slowly poison individuals of importance to the Uzliumbax. We are following up their network. With your permission we will systematically do the same on your other planets.

“The AIs in every location have been extremely helpful and supportive and we have had the opportunity to commence access into departmental AIs. Philippa sent thousands of forensic accountants and AIs to undertake a detailed financial inventory of the financial status of your Empire. Your Imperial codes which you currently use permit full access into all aspects of the banking system including the central bank. Philippa requested her forensic investigators form part of the Imperial investigation into the activities of the Uzliumbax. As a result of our preliminary analyses we have been given access to a planetary level forensic accounting AI provided to us by Thomas. I thought we have built powerful AIs but they have a long way to go to catch up to yours, Jason!” Osgood concluded.

“Thank you very much Osgood, that is wonderful work, I would very much appreciate you doing as you suggest. If in doubt do brain dumps. Do you have enough people?“ Jason asked.

“Jason we are using a specialized but a tiny part of our resources. It keeps my people on their toes doing meaningful work. Matilda directed and analyzed the brain dumps of your Royal Group. We preferred to distance ourselves from the area.” Osgood replied.

“Thank you very much Osgood. That was a very sensitive approach to take. Matilda what did you find?” Jason asked.