Far Travels, The Gracchian Adventures, Book One

Far Travels

  The Gracchian Adventures, Book One

  Copyright 2007 Kristi Seibert

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  Chapter 1

  Nigel Wooster's Basement

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  Like many geniuses, Nigel Wooster lived in his own little world, not paying a great deal of attention to events outside his own sphere of knowledge. Still, when an alien from a far planet made a sudden appearance in his basement one hot and steamy Nebraska night, even Nigel took notice.

  The basement was the coolest place in the old farmhouse, built long before the era of air conditioning and never modernized. Much of the basement was what used to be called a root cellar, lined with shelves to store apples, carrots and rutabagas over the dark winter, but there was also a roomy storage area with stairs that ascended to the back yard. This area was where Nigel had his chalkboards and massively powerful computer. The old-fashioned chalkboard next to an amazingly powerful computer might have seemed strange to some, but Nigel knew that the only truly important tool in that storage room was his own brain, and whatever helped it to function better, from the primitive to the modern, was what he would use.

  Nigel had moved back to his parents' house after the Blood War in Europe ended and he became just another unemployed physicist looking for work. His parents had died years ago and most of the farmland had been sold at the time, but no one wanted the house and so it sat, lonely, with only mice and spiders for company. Then Nigel moved back and brought his cat, Roger, who was happy to make the brief acquaintance of the mice. Neither Nigel nor Roger took much notice of the spiders.

  That portentous night, Nigel was, as usual, working at the maddening equations at his chalkboard. Before he had been laid off from his job as a researcher at the Advanced and Theoretical Projects Lab, Nigel had been involved in studying the behavior of quarks and neutrinos and other sub-atomic particles that didn't yet have names. Some of them behaved very strangely, seemingly outside the realm of what was possible. Just because he was no longer getting paid, Nigel saw no reason to stop doing his fascinating research.

  When he thought he had figured the current problem out, he could go to his computer, tap into the simulated Quark Bombardment programs at the weapons lab, and see if his most recent theory could be borne out through the simulations. Even though Nigel had not worked for the lab for months now, his password remained viable, and Nigel saw nothing wrong with continuing to use it; after all, this was science.

  The biggest problem with the equations, Nigel had come to realize, was that they implied that space could be folded like a linen sheet. Some of the particles behaved as if they could move from here to there without going through the space between: Instantaneous travel. Absurd, utterly absurd. And yet….Nigel stood lost in thought, his mind trying to wrap itself around a concept that all his training told him was impossible. Most mathematicians and physicists do their most important work when they're young; perhaps after a certain age, the mind simply isn't able to bend any more. Nigel was a young man.

  Then Nigel was broken out of his reverie of traveling quarks by footsteps coming down the cellar stairs. The door at the top of the stairs had been left open to catch any hope of a breeze, and the first thought that ran through Nigel's head was that one of the neighborhood children was out exploring. The footsteps were light; it certainly sounded like a child. The only problems with this theory were that the nearest neighbors were five miles away, and it was well after midnight. Nigel customarily worked until two or three in the morning, then had scrambled eggs and toast-- the extent of his cooking ability-- and went to bed for nine or ten hours. A vampire might be more likely than a visitor at this hour.

  When the person making the descent into Nigel's basement came into the circle of light, Nigel was astonished to see a small, otter-like character wearing a letter jacket from Nigel's old high school. The purple and white of the jacket made a nice contrast against the sleek dark fur. Unaware that his mouth was gaping open, Nigel simply stared as the creature waved a little hand, a paw really, and said in a squeaky voice, "Hello Nigel Wooster."

  Though not meaning any discourtesy, Nigel was unable to respond. The creature seemed to take this in stride. It walked to the chalkboard and studied the equations for a moment. The only thought running through Nigel's head was that otters didn't know higher mathematics or particle physics and that therefore he must be dreaming. In fact, as far as Nigel was aware, animals couldn't even do long division.

  The creature in the letter jacket picked up a piece of chalk, sniffed it and took a little taste. Then it dragged a chair over to the board and began writing in the universal language of mathematics, and the scales fell from Nigel's eyes, and now the only thought running through his head was a great shout, "OF COURSE!" The corrections that the furry one made upon the board removed the logjam in Nigel's brain, and the cascade that followed drowned out all other considerations, including the astounding oddness of his unexpected visitor.

  At the end of an hour, Nigel knew that the small creature had given him the key to space travel, that space itself could indeed be folded. Nigel was the first Human to ever lay eyes on a Gracchus (for that was the alien visitor's species), but he considered this to be of little importance next to the mathematical revelation that the Gracchus had uncovered.

  And the letter jacket? The Gracchus, named Quirinal, later explained that it was meant to reassure Nigel that the alien was a friendly emissary, just like some old friend from high school. Besides, the Gracchus thought that Earth clothing was fun.

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  There were limitations to space travel as it was now understood by Humans. For any practical use, a Gate had to be constructed, and the Gate had to have the setpoint destination, or galactic address, programmed into it. Obviously, the Gracchus could travel without benefit of a Gate since Quirinal had arrived on the Wooster family farm without one, but it was hugely expensive in terms of energy usage, and even then a destination had to be pre-set. As Quirinal explained it, traveling across the galaxy without a Gate was like spending a hundred dollars to mail a piece of gum; it was impractical for any appreciable number of people or goods (and shipping was still expensive, even with a Gate). Plus, there was the problem of a setpoint. If the user didn't know the destination beforehand, trying to get anywhere by chance was like trying to shoot a housefly on the far side of the Grand Canyon. There was far more empty space than there were targets.

  The Gracchus claimed that the Gate technology could extend to the limits of the Milky Way Galaxy, but not beyond, and the Human mathematicians who understood the concepts backed this up. However, within the galaxy, the distance involved was irrelevant. The home planet of the Gracchus, Gracchia, was about 50,000 light years away from Earth, as measured around the perimeter of the galaxy, but through an open Gate, goods and people could be moved in an instant. Naturally, all the inhabited planets were located in the spiral arms of the galaxy rather than in the core. The center of the Milky Way had too much deadly radiation for life to survive there.

  There were yet more limitations. Out of the 256 planets that had been 'seeded' with the potential for intelligent life, Quirinal explained, only six, including Earth and Gracchia, had achieved the advanced level necessary for Gate technology, so the choice of destinations was small. Quirinal added that the Elihu race had an unfortunate habit of greeting uninvited visitors with laser fire, so be very careful how you set those Gate coordinates, and even most of the interaction among the friendlier species was confined to Gracchia.

  The Gracchus would not
give the addresses of any of the planets which had not yet achieved Gate-level technology; they believed that all societies should be able to develop without outside interference. Yet Quirinal said that once a civilization was on the brink of Gate ability, the Gracchus always helped out because a wrong step could easily annihilate half a planet. "And the one commodity that's in the shortest supply is always brainpower. We can't afford to lose any," Quirinal explained. Some people realized that Earth must have been under some sort of surveillance for the Gracchus to know so precisely when to step in. This made some Humans very suspicious of the Gracchus, but as the years passed and no alien invasion occurred, all but the truly paranoid relaxed. And even the paranoid were happier, knowing that some of their suspicions had been correct all along.

  Only a handful of Humans were capable of understanding how the Gate worked, but then again, most Humans weren't clear on how electricity got to their homes, so the mystery didn't bother them. After the initial uproar and publicity over alien contact, most people on Earth eventually absorbed the fact and got on with their lives relatively unchanged. The Gracchus were greatly interested in trading with the people of Earth but seemed otherwise disinclined to interfere. Like the Europeans of centuries ago trading for spices, silk and porcelain from the Far East, trade with other alien peoples enriched the lives of Humans, but the essential day-to-day existence went largely unchanged for most of them.

  Yet for Tom and Abby Ellsworth, the meeting of Humans and Gracchus was to set the course of their lives.

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