“I used to have a polished galaxite rock my father gave me,” said Katy. “It was smooth and would heat up in your hand and stay warm for a time afterwards. It was a dark colored rock, but it looked like multi-colored stars in a tiny galaxy if you shined a light through it.”
Computer, thought Jolo, what is galaxite used for?
Currently, in Federation space, it is used by astral projectors who claim to forsee the future, though there is no scientific proof their prophesies are valid. Mostly the rock is used, in a highly polished form, as a trinket to carry in one’s pocket. Some believe the rock brings good luck. In old Earth time, the rock was used for fuel storage before the modern Federation fuel cells were created.
“So the BG killed most of a freighter crew to steal a box of pretty rocks?” said Koba.
“The rocks were used for fuel storage on old Earth,” said Jolo. “But that still doesn’t solve the riddle. What do listening stations have to do with galaxite?”
For the next hour the crew tossed around different ideas about what the BG might be up to, but the session ended with no revelations, so everyone decided to sleep on it. George concluded there simply wasn’t enough data.
Certain Things We Didn’t Want To Know
Duval
That night Jolo went to the library. Even though he could pull data from his own embedded computer, he liked using Marco’s large projection computer and surrounding himself with information. It was almost visceral, like he could touch it. He searched for data on listening stations. Each tower would pull in any electronic signal it could find within range, archive it, then send the data to a centralized computer in orbit for processing, the curated bits of were then sent on to the end user for analysis. Each tower then, could theoretically “hear” bad guys and potentially curtail pirate activity. Or that was the idea.
He tried to find instances where listening stations were placed closer than necessary, maybe for signal boost, but nothing. Then he searched for planets with large numbers of listening stations. Duval was not on the list, but would be soon, he figured. Most planets with a high number of towers were on the fringe: the Fed wanted to know if a threat was coming.
Jolo laid down on the floor next to the table, put his hands behind his head and stared up into the data. “Computer,” he said, “pull up the Fed planet with the most listening stations.”
Frixion IV on the outer edge had the most towers of any planet. It was a well-used jump point to the uncharted bits of the galaxy. He pulled up the planet and had the computer mark the listening stations. Each tower was separated by hundreds of kilometers. Why were Duval’s towers so close? He was just about to give up, then issued one final query. “Computer, are there any planets, Federation or not, that have more listening stations than Frixion?”
“There are no other existing planets that have more listening stations than Fixion,” came the computer’s reply.
“What do you mean existing?”
“To exist, verb, to have actual being; to be real; to have life; to live; to live at a minimal level. Do you want an example sentence?”
“No. What do you mean by no other existing planets?
“Query parameters include existing planets only.”
“Computer, are there any planets existing or not that have or had more listening stations that Frixion?”
“Yes. The extinct planet called Vellos.”
Jolo jumped up, hitting his head on the edge of the large, circular table that held the computer. “Show me!” he said, rubbing his forehead, heart pounding.
A 3-D image of the planet Vellos appeared and Jolo cleared the other data away. “Computer, pinpoint all locations of last known listening stations.” Small red dots began popping up all over the planet. There were thousands. “Computer, how far apart are these towers?” said Jolo.
“Tower separation is about 100 kilometers.”
“Why?”
“Please clarify.”
“Why position towers closer than necessary?”
“There is no data to support any valid theories. One could say redundancy, but the concentration is too high.”
Jolo ran out of the room and headed down to the deepest bay at Marco’s, the one where he used to hide the Argossy. Merthon had taken up residence there and had created, with the help of the old man and a few pirate trades, a makeshift lab to work in. Anytime Jolo found a bio-med box on a freighter he would grab it for Merthon, mainly to please Marco.
Jolo was still angry at Merthon, though he couldn’t exactly come up with the right words to describe his anger. He wanted to scream at him, but only stupid lines like: “Why did you save me?” came to mind. Lines that most would figure deserved thanks. Marco treated the old frog like royalty.
When Jolo finally made it down to the lower level, he found the tall, green humanoid throwing glass bottles across the room. The lab reminded him of the synth production facility on Montag, only smaller. There were three large tanks, each with the odd blue water that Jolo had seen before. Merthon even had a bot hovering over with a long tube stuck down into one of the tanks, an L-shaped thing growing inside.
“What’s that?” said Jolo.
Merthon stopped throwing bottles and took a deep breath. “An arm,” he said, like it was normal to grow an arm in a tank of blue water. “So you’ve decided to speak to me? Or have you come to take me out of my misery.” Jolo hadn’t said much to the Vellosian since Montag. Katy said to give it time and one day he’d be ready to talk. Maybe today was the
