Chapter 96A

Mom used her hologram self and some probes to pretend she had the body we all had seen. I think she did this as much for me as for the children. She made bread in the oven like the kind we had on the tug at one time. I made coffee and prepared for the onslaught of hearty eaters that would soon come to the house. They were currently fishing from the boats or the shore but part of Mom was always looking out for them.

Secric, Amy and Star got up a bit early because their breasts were full. A moment later Kitten did too. I was given a very good, good morning kiss by each. The first three were very happy to be pregnant one more time. The children were now being fed and then Moesha, Kimberly, Clarice, and Michelle came down for a meal of their own. Sofia was right there to play with her best friends. The talk centred around all the funny people making up games while viewing the ship yesterday. Some imagined they were in the Alliance while others just tried all sorts of sneaky ways to find out more than what Mom wanted them to know.

One of the funniest I was told was John. He stumbled from one place to another in amazement but tried very hard to attribute this to other causes. His facade as a jaded socialite was thoroughly tested but nobody had burst his balloon for him. Carl did his best to show him most of the less known parts of the ship before everybody was kicked off the ship at three o'clock in the morning.

The noise expressed in sound and mentally, woke up the adults around the noon hour. Again I was greeted warmly but it had to be done quickly as I was still making a meal to feed everybody.

That afternoon I spent four hours with the children going for a hike and watching what nature presented. There was not too much animal life because the Donai seemed to ensure that everything stayed away. The skunks and porcupines tried too but were much too slow. Once one of the pups had a run in with one of the creatures the rest avoided similar opportunities. Mosquitoes and biting insects avoided us though because Mom used small probes to chase them away without the probes bothering us.

The Beaver was still in my hangar and the children filled the plane as I took them on a short trip. They seemed to be much more excited about being a kilometre in the air in the Beaver than flying to a neighbouring star system in a warship. The same thing happened when I used the minivan to drive up and down the highway. A stand beside the highway offered wild blueberries. The woman running this business was amazed to see the odd looking children but knew who we were from the news. Soon we both had fun watching the various children gorging themselves on the fruit and getting their faces and hands stained. I at least had the foresight to bring a small cleanser.

The wives did some of their own work relating to the systems they controlled. When some were finished their jobs, they took the children for a while so I could perform a few of my own duties.

I found that the Samutz had been pushed hard on two fronts by the Moldeg and our forces had been compelled to lend a hand, hopefully without the Samutz catching on as to what we were doing. One time it was only one of the Samutz ships being told to see something that was actually beyond their range. This led to an apparent ambush not happening as planned.

There was a lot of strange occurances happening in some of the areas we now protected. Ships were detected flying through the systems or in a fairly empty corridor that were not ours or anybody else we knew about. They didn't bother us so our forces didn't bother them. There was already much too much on our plates to start being the busybody or the policeman for a galaxy that was just now beginning to know peace.

The Kadork had a colony of Moldeg nipping at the fringes of the empire and the Kadork queens were all made aware of the situation. A joint force was dispatched to chastize the Moldeg in the strongest possible way. A large proportion of these crews were composed of the Kadork themselves. Their every move was transmitted to us and especially to the Kadork queens.

The Academy was given the job of working on Union Station to get the battleship up to specifications even if he would not be fighting. The students would have a bit more room but would still not know where they were.

Getting to and from the ship took some time because there was just one portal. The two AIs found that one could just throw many students through the large surface and the other would just catch them on the other side.

Empress Meslifzz of the Bintuu Empire was now seeing some of the first fruits of a combined effort to train their young. It was shown that my idea worked when the grubs and immature Bintuu were exposed to Tandra young and Tandra engineers. She now was not hesitant but wanted my full efforts to help her race. This was said as if she were still the one in charge. Mom was put to work thinking of a suitable way of reminding the forgetful Empress of the way things were really run.

The Tandra war fleet I had found was recovering fine with the assistance of the Alliance personnel. Improvements were being made as the systems were being brought on line. The surviving Tandra were slowly being brought out of stasis and informed of the new reality. Mom was able to get some substrate to this location and the ships now really knew who was boss. Even I knew that Mom now was so powerful that she could take over like so many Tandra had tried long ago. This time though the AI would be able to succeed if not for their loyalty to Mom and to me.

I was able to get a few hours sleep before regaining my position as father. This lasted till about ten P.M. local time when the wives invited me back into the bedroom.

My vacation lasted five more days then I had to get back to the things I did best. The last night was the most tiring but the most gratifying too. The next day the children left with the adults but now went to some of the different systems to find out about the people there.

The three newly pregnant wives were the most hesitant to leave me but the rest of the wives gave their support to make the parting a bit easier. They were anxious themselves because their burdens would soon leave them too.

I was able to catch up on some lost sleep and then I began on the backlog of ships that had to have their computers moved a bit back into the maze. Most of these were new examples of the relative class ship.

The small ships were sent off with a dozen communicators each in every direction. They were to initiate communications with both Tandra ships and installations. The idea was that it would take a great deal of time to link all of these groups through the maze. This was a stopgap method but would last for at least the fourteen months calculated before the entire galaxy could be linked. This hinged on me raising the intelligence of a great many more AIs. The ships presently had to go over twenty thousand lights to find the first of the Tandra colonies not on our net. Many I knew would normally take centuries to find because they would be in a dormant state.

Mom and Bennechi got a slightly improved hull with six of the relative class nestled into the stern to give us a bit of extra push. This time the compensator and the framework could take the additional push. At the moment she was back at the recent hot area close to the Canis Major Galaxy. If events got interesting again I could walk the maze to be there when needed.

Horus and Isis, the two AIs that now lived in the newer type of destroyer came to mind when I wanted to do more research into crystalline structure. The hull was only a bit over a kilometre in length but well suited to this job. This type of work required that I leave the family so I could continue my research. I gave my regrets to those in the Sofaas system and by hologram to the rest. It was not too much of a hardship because I was only a call away and they could view me while I was at work.

The AI family now began cutting the scrap crystals from Epsilon Eridani into larger portions and fusing them together roughly. This procedure would not work for a processor but I found that I could complete the interface much quicker with this assistance. The final step of moving the last atoms of doping material and then forming the minute crystalline structure was still my job alone.

The scientists on Defren were soon given a dozen crystals tuned to the furthest focal point. This time the crystals were put together as pairs except for the first and the last. It was hoped that a person stepping into the first crystal would be propelled instantaneously through six jumps of 3,623 lights each. With a bit of tweaking we would be trying to get 22,000 lights on minimal power and twice that at full power. The results though would take a few weeks to compile.

More of the large crystals had to be made to unite all the nearby Samutz empires we had taken over. They were all within the 3,623 lights and minimal power would be used to transport people. If this worked out then as little as 2,000 stations could cover all of our galaxy but a person would have to travel through almost thirty stations to transverse the entire width.

Horus and Isis had been sent to the dead area close to where we had originally found the ship. This not only gave me a bit of privacy, it also gave me some room to work. Mom would be transmitting my image but if the situation got interesting she would fill in for me as she had done so many times before.

When I got to the destroyer I found it much more repaired. The long hole through the longitudinal axis of the chip had been capped. The rooms had been cleaned of Moldeg and Samutz bodies because the ship had participated in the rescue of the remaining children from the matter transmitter around the Tandra home planet. Before I arrived, the caps at the ends had been removed and a hard vacuum was now in the central core.

Horus and Isis had taken their cue from Mom and both appeared as holograms when I emerged from the small hull used to get here.

They did not bow but did nod their heads as a sign of respect. I had to chuckle a bit because they took on the images of Egyptians even to some of their dress. At least Horus did not have the ankh, flail or crook in his hand while talking.

"My Emperor, the crystals have arrived."

"Thanks Horus, that will speed things up a bit. Transport me to the computer room please."

Immediately I was on the corridor in front of the room with the hatch already wide open. In seconds after using my eye to visualize the five dimensions I stepped to the back wall of the computer and then into the maze.

In the course of four days many experiments were undertaken. Some were done on the destroyer by me but many others had the actual assessments done by various groups in the three dimensional realm we usually lived in. Most of the smaller experiments had to do with manufacturing the dark crystals used by the Misto and Fassoot. None of my efforts in this area seemed to work.

"Mom, where is the closest source of raw crystals?"

"That would still be the second planet of the Epsilon Eridani system."

"I think I am going to have to give that site an inspection. Maybe I can find something out there."

The matter transmitter far outside the Epsilon Eridani system was arrived at through the maze. Sandra, the specially modified surveillance ship, met me there for the short trip to the system itself.

"Hello Sandra, it has been a while since I saw you last."

"It has been 20,536,743 seconds my Emperor. I am very glad to see you again too."

In a two hours we arrived at the giant of the Epsilon Eridani system. This time we had to obey the Mardaf Limit. Luckily the planet we wanted was not far within this area. The planet itself was similar to Jupiter. This one though was ten percent larger than Jupiter's 142,800 kilometre diameter and composed of much denser matter. A small base was hidden deep within its crust. It was doubtful if anybody could find this because of the tectonic activity when moving large quantities of the material that the crystals were composed of.

The base I found had a very competent computer. Strangely it was not on our net at this time. When I entered the computer, I found out why. It was very massive and used some strange equipment. Apparently the large amount of crystal activity in this planet interfered with the operation of the computer itself. This necessitated a completely new method of making a computer.

I went into the back of the computer room and pushed into the maze. Like the Thonas I had to search out to find Mom and push through some walls to find our own familiar section. My sense of direction was not very strong but it usually gave me a vague feeling of being right. In an hour I was able to find one of the corridors of substrate and then the coils of substrate waiting for me.

The trip back was quicker but I had to return a few times for more coils. The computer and AI on the planet were instructed to assist but only if they had nothing else to do. I still had a great many experiments to complete and the list was growing all the time.

Tractors reached down a tube with a diameter of fourteen metres. The tube was held in place by a very heavy duty screen. The bottom end was nine hundred kilometres deeper into the planet itself. All along the length more tractors were used to pass up the molten material from the bottom most manipulators. The lowest tractors would dip a small crystal into the bath of material and then extract it to partially cool. This happened many times with the material growing progressively larger each time. Other machinery worked on the rough crystal to remove impurities in the newest layer applied before it was re-immersed in the bath.

The gravitational attraction at the surface of the planet made my weight almost seven tonnes. This was beyond what a combat suit could counter but there was a small ship that was built to take this and still work within the small confines of the tube.

When the last of the material had been brought up the tube I entered a small maintenance ship and descended toward the bottom. The trip took close to a half hour to travel the paltry 900 klicks. My mind was actively scanning the walls and equipment as we passed it but the crystals beyond were not seen unless I used my special eye.

The bottom of the shaft expanded to almost four hundred metres in diameter. The framework here was considerably stronger to take the extreme pressure of almost a thousand kilometres of magma on a very high gravity planet. Platforms above the bubbling pool held the apparatus for manufacturing the crystals. I could see some crystals now descending into the caldron to gain a fractional amount more of material to their surface. The atmospheric pressure here was just over 26000 bar and that seemed to be a low figure.

The tiny ship landed on a small platform. Though the inside of the ship was comfortable, it felt very hot when I looked out on what was around me. The dimensions here were much easier to distinguish because of the shear power generated by the material of the planet. I just sat there for a few minutes trying to not think of all the forces that were exerted on this small ship and concentrated instead on the white hot magma only ten metres below me. It was mostly molten rock but this rested in a matrix of the liquid crystal material.

Deep within the cauldron I detected a more solid portion of crystal. My PK went out and tried to coax it to the surface. As it got closer to the surface below me the smaller it became. When it finally broke the surface it was only a kilogram, if that. Rather than trying again I cast my senses out and worked to evenly distribute the natural doping in the crystal. Though it was easier here because the crystal seemed to be in its natural environment. When this was done I tried to get the crystalline structure to form the way I wanted. This proved to be very difficult for the same reason the purification had been easy.

The crystal did go back into the maelstrom of its birth for a few moments before emerging once again. Again it was purified but nothing else was done. In four hour I had the one kilogram seed grown to twelve metres in diameter and as large as the shaft above could take because of the tractors sticking out into the shaft. The tractors above the pool had been used to supplement my abilities. My mind could not manipulate such a great weight. Other tractors pushed the mass of white-hot material far overhead as I went back to making more crystals.

More fishing was done but this time I pulled my catch up much more slowly. The portion was equal to perhaps a hundred and thirty kilos on Earth but here the weight was many tonnes more. In a bit less than four hours the crystal grew to the same proportions as the one far above and just emerging from the shaft.

The second crystal started its assent while I went back to see what I could find within the depths. Smaller crystals were fished from the roiling surface and after purification were handed to the various stations around the base of the shaft to function as very pure seed material.