Chapter 15

“Jason, It is hard to believe we have been here for six months,” said Razza. “We are on vacation, a three weeks break, isn’t that fantastic. I am exhausted. Do you know this is the first time we have had a trimester we could work in relative peace and tranquility?

“Who is coming to visit and have you firmed your plans for the vacation?” Razza asked.

“Adhhan has invited all the Kings and Queens to join us in the palace. Lauren and family are coming along. They are visiting with us first then they are touring in this universe. They have some have business they want to conduct. Lauren is as business oriented as is Philippa. She gets restless if she takes a break for longer than a week.

“Philippa is joining us as will many of the children. Valsam is bringing some of the spiderlings as a special treat. The spiderlings found ten more Gazronnaas storage depots. I believe they also want to make a presentation to me. She says I will be surprised how much they have grown and how much more mature they are.” Jason replied.

“I haven’t seen any of them since our confrontation with the Gazronnaas,” said Razza. “What else?”

“I will spend some time with Yoyo. Several fleets will be here doing maneuvers with their counterparts in this universe and they are looking at mutual support and cooperation. Trade is speeding up between the universes. It is exciting. Hard magical portals are easy to set up and cost a tiny fraction of what our other portals cost to build. They hardly need any maintenance and they don’t need staff allocated to them. They have set up hundreds between this universe and different parts of the Empire. They were set up to capture any Gazronnaas consciousness that passes through. They tested the security with several captive Gazronnaas. They successfully removed the Gazronnaas consciousness.

“The people here are serious about getting involved with everything we do, so I am going to meet with several other groups from this universe who want to find a way to work with us.

“I have a delegation of Safion who are coming to visit. They haven’t sent me an agenda.

“I intend to visit Mars and Porquenta. I haven’t seen Claudette and Sheila for some time. They are frantically busy, helping the Safion effort. Sheila felt guilty about leaving here, but I would have done the same. We replaced several of the older poorly functioning Safion AIs with Uzliumbax ones. Our technical people brought fifteen planets up to full operation in record time. I want to see if there’s anything else I can do to help the general effort.

“The big surprise is for you Razza; the illustrious, Emperor, Dawood Char, your grandfather, will be visiting with your family. I have spoken to him weekly since the whole Safion thing happened. He is so busy it took some effort to persuade him to take a week of vacation. He told me prior to meeting me he never had any concept of a vacation and had never taken one before he met me.”

“Jason, the bugs never took a vacation before they encountered you. Now they are enthusiastic tourists everywhere,” said Razza. “It’s been great for business in Coven. We get a surprising number of tourists. The most influential adverts are the ones with my grandfather flying with Chuck, Chloe and some cousins from the Coven. Flying holidays are very popular. We have many flying games for adults and children and they are becoming popular in the Empire. They are starting several Empire wide leagues. They also come to the Coven in droves to learn how to fight like when the emperor was a cockroach,” said Razza.

“I am delighted to hear about the tourists. I love flying in the Coven and I fully agree, you have some great games. I do think fighting as a bug, cockroach or spider is more effective than in the humanoid form,” said Jason. “How are they doing with the Safion and the people from Norbut 19?”

“My mother told me the Coven are bringing fifty-million Safion a week, out of stasis, without slowing down the work they are doing helping rebuild the people from Norbut 19. They have increased their capacity by fifty percent and are still increasing. The slowest part of the entire process is the complicated nature of the full rebuild and the supervision and training of the doctors. The Coven and the Collective are supplying pods and doctors to this Universe and will exchange doctors from here to help them learn magical medicine. They are so busy in the Collective and Coven, the doctors are all going there rather than coming here. The doctors from here will learn with the Coven, Collective, the Uzliumbax, and all those who have the ability to do reconstructions and then will return here,” said Razza.

“Adhhan is building a huge new medical campus to train doctors in this universe using our medical methods. The guys from the mini-universe are the only civilization who have an excess of doctors. They will help us a lot once trained to speed up the process of awakening from stasis and full body construction.”

“How long will it take to train them?” Razza asked.

“We don’t know yet. We set up teams to create conversion programs for our doctors to learn magic and for Nefa people to learn how to use the pod technology. In parallel we are looking at a new generation of pods using Level III energy. There are several unique situations where an understanding of magic is vital. Adhhan wants me to briefly meet with several doctor representative groups. They are anxious about their future. I will reassure them they have a bright future,” said Jason. “They don’t need to fear being displaced by our technology.”

“You have a heavy schedule, will you have any time for a holiday?” Razza asked.

“Oh yes, Razza, I only have meetings scheduled for the first two days. The rest of the time is visiting with our friends, some social travel and whatever else comes up. I suspect the spiderlings have either found something important or they want to talk about what they propose to do next. Valsam told me a while ago they were wanting to dig deeper and they were talking with the scientists about using or making different kinds of sensors.”

“I am looking forward to some time without the pressure of studies. It’s a pity we can’t safely fly here. Those huge predator birds look dangerous and I wouldn’t want to take a chance,” said Razza.

“Jason, are you intending to travel for some of your meetings?”

“No, Razza, most of the people I want to speak to, will be here on holiday. They are the ones who make most of the essential decisions. The rest will come here, like Yoyo.”

“How do you think Adhhan feels about what is happening?” Razza asked. “I don’t know if she is happy or is under a lot of pressure and is putting on a brave face.”

“Adhhan is like a child who has been given a huge bag of toys. Every day she is excited about something new. She works harder than anyone I know other than Philippa, Lauren and Brecht. I guess your grandfather is also in the same category of people who work continuously and love it,” said Jason.

“Jason, despite anything you might say you are no slouch. You are thinking of the issues all the time and you make critical steering decisions. You work very hard at your studies and on your physical abilities.

“Is Cassius and Alana coming along?” asked Razza.

“Yes, and so are Alfred’s sisters,” Jason replied. “I hardly see them. We had dinner with them Cassius and Alana several times in the palace on Laomediae. They are pleasant company.”

“Yes, Jason, I remember them well, I am not losing my memory,” said Razza.

****

“How have the meetings gone?” Valsam asked several days later.

“The Safion wanted to thank me and to tell me they have plenty of planets and do not intend to settle on the AI planets where they have their bodies stored. I can keep the ones we settled. I offered to give them back, but they were insistent. They have started commissioning the hidden planets. They tell me they have fully developed planets they intend to use and have many spare sparsely populated planets. Within six months they will have enough of them available to manage without us. They have storage planets as do we and are refurbishing their ships. We gave them shipbuilding AIs and replicators to help them get going faster. There is a considerable amount of work ahead. Without our help they would have had a very slow start.”

“How are they feeling?” Valsam asked.

“They are optimistic but daunted by how much needs to be done. I offered any and all help we can give them; they only have to ask. They are staying on here to meet the kings and queens and have a short vacation. We are teaching them magic cycles so they can improve how they feel and can later give them a full magical education. I arranged training for all of them,” said Jason.

“Why were they away for so long?” Valsam asked.

“We were due to return together, so initially they waited for us and then tried to contact us in Norbut 19. They met up with their remaining people in Norbut 18 and agreed to return together. Time passes slowly in Norbut 18 so they didn’t realize how much time had passed. Norbut 18 is less unstable than Norbut 19. It is a bigger universe and less dangerous than ours. The Safion got back into the life there while they waited for us. They were dreading having to go through the stages necessary to return here, when my mother contacted them and offered a way to return more efficiently. They were shocked to find how much time had passed.”

“Had you ever encountered the group you met up with before?” Valsam asked.

“They all knew me from before and were very friendly. They said I was much more laid back and looked much healthier than I used to. I told them how the Destroyers poisoned us and gave them my presentations to bring them up to date with recent events.

“I am beginning to remember them. They were great friends and allies. They told me the Safion Empress will return with the last group,” said Jason.

“The only other meeting of interest to you would be the one with the scientists. They are testing new generations of sensors designed and built here. They can detect Gazronnaas masking but not yet at a distance. We will be able to detect soldiers but unless close to them we cannot see their ships. They work well in a solar system. Yoyo’s people managed to shoot down fourteen Gazronnaas gunships heading for Porquenta or Mars in the last month. They managed to detect one of the bigger ships because of its mass, but it disappeared seconds later. He is inordinately frustrated with the lack of progress. He has hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground, but they can’t find their targets. The Gazronnaas managed to hit one of the biggest research laboratories on Mars and a weapons development facility on Porquenta and escaped with AIs filled with plans and lots of secret stuff.”

“Yoyo would not have been happy about that!” Valsam remarked.

Jason nodded and smiled wanly.

“They cannot detect Gazronnaas bases or tunnels. As you know the spiderlings found several tunnels for them by drilling into them and collected the devices that blocked the sensors. Our scientists are studying the devices but can’t understand how they do what they do. The technology is beyond the scientists in Nefa. The Norbut 19 people are still familiarizing themselves with our universe and how things operate.”

“The scientists are battling to find a way see through the cloaking devices and detect cloaking from a distance,” said Jason.

He looked at Valsam and smiled.

“The only successful group are the spiderlings who are attacking the problem by brute force, much as my mother suggested. Valsam we will have an extensive tunnel system under our campus. We will be able to use the tunnels for exercise, for underground warfare simulations and for storage,” said Jason grinning. “The Gazronnaas make excellent tunnels.”

“How are you going, Jason?”

“I am learning so much here and feel fulfilled. I don’t feel restless as I have been since I first got on the battleship on Earth. At the same time, I am frustrated as time is running out and we are not solving the Gazronnaas problems despite all the resources we are employing. Ben has learned some new cyberwarfare stuff. He wants to try to find the Gazronnaas and block them. Kalalal wants to hunt Gazronnaas and trial many sensor types to find them. The Azloc are working hard and making a huge effort,” said Jason. “What I am saying is we have a lot of motivated people but are banging our heads against solid rock.”

Valsam kissed him on the cheek and hugged him tenderly.

“Valsam please tell me when you are ready to bring in the spiderlings to make their presentation,” said Jason. “I am sure they will bring something useful to the table.”

“They will be ready in half an hour. They will set up in the small conference facility. They asked Yoyo to make himself available,” said Valsam. “He is happy to do it, as he says they are the most effective group he has working with him. They love the attention and the kudos of working with him and you.”

****

Yoyo sat at the table with the spiderlings and had brought Chuck and Chloe along. The spiderlings were delighted to meet Chuck and Chloe and kissed and hugged them. They were the size of a ten-year-old child but sounded more mature.

Valsam nodded at the spiderlings.

The young queen switched on the hologram on the table.

“Queen Valsam accepted the request of the syndicate of spiderlings to research and develop a new generation of methods of finding the Gazronnaas,” said the young queen formally.

“We were required to demonstrate skills equivalent to building a gunship. We decided to create sophisticated vehicles with as many features as a gunship rather than build a gunship as we wanted to contribute directly to the war effort. We had a year to complete our task. We are not permitted to engage the Gazronnaas but our vehicles must be able to defend themselves if we encountered them by accident.

“The following presentation is our interim report and summarizes our findings and results over the last six months.

“We had prepared preliminary concept plans before we tabled our request to find the Gazronnaas. We chose to build a high speed armed drill. Our first prototype drill took us a month to build.”

The young queens showed a picture of the drill crewed by forty spiderlings.

“The drill bit can be shielded and it has portals through which cannon will fire if we are threatened. The cannon are standard gunship and tank cannon. We have twice the firepower of a gunship. Let me demonstrate the portals on the drill bit opening and firing on a target.”

“That is stupendous!” Chuck remarked. “It is a fantastic idea. I have never seen drills that can fire frontwards. Do you have cannon on the sides and back?”

“Oh yes, we placed cannon high and low on the sides and back. I will show you our field of fire as it would be in a cave or any large space.”

The drill fired from the sides, back and front simultaneously, and blew up several broken tanks.

Yoyo clapped appreciatively.

“You are the first to produce a drill that can fire out the front. We would love to see your drill and look at licensing your design.”

The spiderlings danced a jig. They looked thrilled.

“Come on, get on with the presentation,” said Valsam frowning. “Celebrate afterwards and in private. This group’s time is precious.”

Jason smiled and waved at the young queen to continue.

Chuck and Chloe were fully engaged and concentrating intently.

“We were happy with its operation and built two more and began planning our search pattern. We fitted the drills with every type of sensor known to us that would help us to find tunnels.

“None of the sensors worked. We drilled into several tunnels and tracked along them. We found a storage depot. None of the sensors helped us until we were a yard or two from a tunnel or a space. We alerted the Gazronnaas to our incursion the first time, so we built an automatic stop if we detect a tunnel or cavern or other space and then we use a mini drill to drill into the space and we use a probe to look around. We did find several more depots. We began to drill at a lower level. We tried many more sensors but we didn’t do any better. Drilling was the only successful strategy.

“This is what we saw three days ago. We could feel the activity five yards before we got there. We used a tiny silent rock drill and a microprobe. Both are our designs,” said the young king.

He showed pictures of a cavern filled with buildings, equipment, drills and thousands of troops working out on a parade ground.

“That is great work guys,” said Chuck. “You are geniuses. I am so impressed. You are truly worthy relatives of ours.”

“Sonar,” said Chuck.

“Yoyo, do you guys use sonar systems?” Chloe asked.

“No, Chloe, they have not been used for a long time. They are too slow and primitive,” said Yoyo.

Chloe turned and looked at the spiderlings and raised her eyebrows.

“No said the king, we are not aware of such systems. We Azloc, have never used sound to locate anything.”

“We think, it is worth exploring sonar. Miners use sonar to find ore bodies. Doctors on Earth use sonar diagnostically. Your other stuff is not working you need to try other things. You need something so unsophisticated they would never expect you to use it,” said Chloe. “Chuck and I were talking about this on the way here. Sometimes simple is good. I would even send drills down to various levels with microphones using our primitive electricity. It is cheap and simple.”

“How does sonar work?” the spiderling queen asked.

Chuck and Chloe launched into an explanation beginning with fish generating sounds, submarines and their detection systems, listening devices on the floor of oceans, then went on to talk about ultrasound in diagnostics, and how miners used sound to find ore bodies and mapped underground rock density.

By the end Yoyo was clearly interested. The spiderlings were hopping from foot to foot, Valsam was grinning and Jason was smiling proudly.

“OK guys, we will pursue that avenue further. Now let’s talk about a plan to assault that place. I don’t want Chuck to create a small black hole in there, or one of Chloe’s extravaganzas or even Jason’s antimatter. I want to kill the Gazronnaas and capture the equipment.

“We must explore more of their equipment to understand them better. As soon as we capture equipment they move to a new generation of stuff. We confirmed this with Adhhan’s people.”

The discussion continued until dinner and they planned to meet for a few hours afterward.

Chuck, Chloe, and the spiderlings sat together and talked chemically at the table. They related well from what Jason could see.

“Jason, your grandchildren and spiderling children are truly impressive. Chuck told me as we were walking here, he has been working on the sonar idea with Porquenta for a month. He said Chloe had the same idea after they watched something called TV and saw dolphins working with navy divers. They independently researched the possibilities and the mining applications. Chuck volunteered to work on it with Porquenta as Chloe was at something called a soccer camp,” said Yoyo laughing. “Children’s priorities are so strange!”

“I called Porquenta. He has built several prototypes of sonic generators, receivers and processing equipment. He also told us Cassius has more sophisticated sensors he uses in his underwater craft. Porquenta is trying to adapt the sensors to use them in rock. Cassius is very interested in the idea of using sonar to find the tunnels. I found out Chuck spoke to him before coming here. I spoke to Cassius briefly before dinner. He offered to send some of his technicians to help us. Cassius also knows of some mining mapping systems which he is chasing up for Chuck. Felix was also there and he says they have many sophisticated sonar based mining applications. I will ask them to join us this evening to help with the rest of the discussion. They believe they have something important to offer, though both were despondent this morning.

“Both told me they have even more to catch up on now they have seen level III energy in action.” Jason told him. “That is their biggest problem, always catching up then the objective jumps even further ahead. They have millions of our people in both their Empires and I am sending many of our Norbut 19 people and even some Safion their way. Both empires can do rebuilds and have our latest pods. We have given their doctors a considerable educational boost this year. I offered to expose billions of them to the more advanced societies for a year or two at a time much as we do with Earth and we will simultaneously send more of our people on sabbatical to them,” said Jason.

“I don’t know what else you could do,” said Yoyo.

“That was as much as I could offer, but Adhhan extended the offer to do the same in this universe,” said Jason.”

****

“I have asked Cassius and Felix to join us as both know of advanced sonar applications in mining in their empires. Porquenta has been doing some developmental work and has produced several prototypes of complete sonar systems with related AIs. We delayed the start of this meeting so to get all the information together. Who wants to begin?” Jason asked.

Cassius nodded to Felix who took out his slate and connected to the holo-projector. His presentation was from a mining services company that delivered mining exploration services to mining companies in the Jumo Empire.

“Thank you very much Felix, we will hold questions and discussion until after Cassius has presented,” said Jason.

Cassius had two similar presentations.

“I would be happy to bring in both sets of companies,” said Yoyo. “In the meantime, Porquenta will give you prototypes to make use of in your drillers. From what I have seen the essence of the approach is to use a sound generator and then analyze the pattern of echoes. We have multiple specialist groups that develop ways to interpret sensor returns. We’ll get them to work with you guys, so make sure you keep all the raw data on the returns. I think we should also consider a program of drilling as we have seen the miners do in order to augment our sites for sound generation and sensor returns. The concept is a variant of the way our active sensor systems work. In this case we are generating different waveforms.”

The spiderlings were struggling.

“How old are they Valsam?” Yoyo asked.

“Just under ten months,” said Valsam. “It is way past bedtime, I think if any other issues arise, we had better leave them till tomorrow.”

Jason laughed. “Valsam we have been struggling to find the Gazronnaas for so long a few hours delay is not of much consequence. Nearly everything that needs to be thought of is happening. I am proud of how well the spiderlings have done. This is exceptional work.”

Yoyo nodded sagely.

Valsam ushered the spiderlings out. They dragged behind her. Chloe and Chuck waved as they followed behind. “Grandpa we want to talk to you at breakfast,” said Chuck who turned back at the door.

Jason nodded. “I’ll be there.”

“I want to see how many of our troops can fit in their drills. I don’t want to expose children to a dangerous enemy like the Gazronnaas. I think the way they implemented the cannon is utterly brilliant. It converts the drill into an effective tank but with the firepower of a gunship,” said Yoyo.

“How many spiderlings do you have Jason?” Emperor Felix of the Jumo asked.

“Felix, I don’t have the vaguest idea. I know there are lots of them. The Queens lay thousands of eggs every week and that includes Jiskassa. They carefully take the eggs to nurseries. They hatch directly into spiderlings, and a few weeks later they start their education. They develop to full-size in two years,” said Jason. “They were only a few months old when they helped us defend the palace against the Gazronnaas. I am not sure we would have survived without them!”

Yoyo, Cassius and Felix nodded and smiled.

“Jason you will go down in history as the most prolific Emperor of all time. The quality of your progeny is outstanding, and they are making a great contribution to our Empire,” said Cassius grinning.

“Tomorrow we are all starting to have magic lessons. Chloe and Chuck will ask you at breakfast if they can join the group of children. Ask them to tell you the story,” said Felix. “Ask them what happened when they spoke to Grandmaster Cadon Fabini who was sitting at our table.”

****

Chuck and Chloe were eagerly waiting for Jason when he came down for breakfast after the gym.

“Grandpa, can I get you some orange juice?” Chloe asked.

“Why do I get the feeling someone is trying to do a sales job on me?” Jason growled but nodded.

Chloe went to the buffet table and poured Jason a glass of orange juice and put it in front of him. She and Chuck both smiled at Jason ingratiatingly.

Jason remained silent.

“Grandpa, we would like to join the magic class for children. We qualified to join even though we are the youngest. Grandmaster Cadon said we had to ask you,” said Chuck frowning.

“How did you qualify for the class?” Jason asked. “You guys are the youngest in the class, you shouldn’t have been able to qualify.”

Jason kept a stern straight face.

Both looked shaken and uncertain for a moment.

“We heard her talking to Uncle Cassius and Uncle Felix at our table with one of the other grandmasters. The other grandmaster is teaching all the Kings and Queens how to do magic over the next two days,” said Chloe. “We asked if there was a class for the children. Grandmaster Cadon said they were thinking of organizing a class for the older children and she was going to assess them after breakfast to see if they would be in her advanced class or in the junior class. We asked what she was going to do for her assessment. She said she was going to teach them meditation and how to see strands of power. Those who could see power would going to the advanced group and the others would go into the junior group. She also explained what the strands of power looked like when we asked her,” said Chuck.

“Chuck told her we don’t need to meditate to see strands of power, we have always seen them. He explained to her we could use them, but then we forgot. We started to remember all our stuff again this year,” said Chloe. “We are almost as powerful as we were.”

“Grandpa, she looked very surprised when we said that,” said Chuck. “She asked me if I could point out the strands of power in the room and tell her what colors they were. That was easy. I pointed out some of them and then Chloe pointed out some of the others. I then tied some of them into a knot, and Chloe pulled some of them towards her. She looked really worried when Chloe did that.

“I told her we have been playing with power since we were tiny children. I told her I could pull almost as much of it into me as Chloe could.

“Grandpa, she looked really strange. She opened her eyes real wide. Her ears even moved. She went white.” Chuck remarked. “Me, and Chloe saw this zombie movie one night when mum was out and dad was in the study. Those zombies were white. I first thought I made a mistake and made her into a zombie. Then I thought she was going to have a heart attack. Mum said you went all white when you were having yours.”

“We were both worried about her and asked her if she was all right. Chloe asked if she had any pain in her chest. She looked a bit better after a few minutes and sat there. It looked like she was thinking. She asked us what we did when we first remembered how to use the powers,” said Chloe. “We told her about the priestesses that gave us our powers early in a dream, and our adventures with the Destroyers.

“She did that eyes thing when we told her about the small black hole Chuck made and the things I did. I then told her how the priestesses took away our memory of how to do what we did, but she said we would learn properly later how to do it again. I told her we were beginning to remember again, but we didn’t have much opportunity to practice black holes, fusion bombs, and some of the other stuff we kids used to play around with.

“She was really nice and said we had marginally passed the threshold for qualification and she thought we could join the class if you permitted us to do it. She said we would have to work hard to keep up to the necessary standard. She said she had plenty of important things for us to learn and practice doing without having to go into space to blow up asteroids,” said Chloe.

“Grandpa, I told her that wasn’t a problem as we had our own shuttles and we could easily go to the asteroid belt if we needed to practice,” said Chuck.

“Grandpa, she looked at me real funny,” said Chuck. “I told her I wanted to test if a black hole worked the same here or not. Then I asked her if this solar system had any spare asteroids to practice with as we haven’t done our stuff for a while.

“Everyone at the table must’ve been listening because they all seem to find a lot of what we said pretty funny. I don’t know why grandpa, me and Chloe are real serious about learning magic proper,” said Chuck.