Star Traders

Jayne and Eric traveled from planet to planet in the Sol system in all ten congruent universes for several weeks. They found the only similarity between the solar systems was the Earth and the moon itself. Some of the solar systems had more planets than E-1 and some had less. The identity stopped with the planet Earth. On the various earth-like planets there were only small differences. The continents appeared to be identical, even to the deposits of minerals. Differences appeared in some of the wildlife and in some of the flora. As the continent of Australia spawned marsupials to fill the evolutionary niches occupied on other continents by mammals so the niches on some of the continents on these new earths were filled by these small differences also. The fact that there was a direct connection every twelve hours between some of the continents gave rise to almost identical flora and fauna, the continents not directly connected to the adjacent earths for thousands of years had small differences.

Eric the Elder explained it this way:

“There has been a theory knocking around society for some time that there existed an infinite number of universes. Every time a decision is made, there exists two universes; one where the decision was made one way, and another when the decision was made the other way. I don’t know about the accuracy there or if that is the only reason there are so many universes. I do know, however, that other universes exist, and that we have been in at least ten of them. It seems reasonable that if an infinite number of universes exist, there exists an exactness of conditions in some of them that coincides with the physical conditions in another. It appears that, when that occurs, a portal opens coinciding to the exact physical condition that exists between them. Thus we are allowed to travel between them at that point. I carried that one step further and created that exactness artificially. Thus we are able to go between the universes at will. That, in itself, has a price tag. Almost 100% of the time, we get somewhat ill doing so. So we use that in emergencies only. Traveling faster than the speed of light, however, will bring illness that will be violent and will last for about 2 days.”

Jayne and Eric tried out the direct anytime access to the other earth-like planets in the nine other universes discovered by Eric the Elder. While that saved a lot of time, Eric the Younger became ill for an hour after every crossing. It didn’t affect Jayne at all, and they questioned Eric the Elder about it.

“You are quite fortunate, Jayne,” Eric the Elder said with a smile as they all sat around the huge fireplace in the lodge. “Only a small percentage of Earthmen have the natural immunity to that transition that you possess. It has something to do with the inner ear and the folding of space that allows us to traverse a small part of the distance to the adjacent worlds through what I call Hyperlink. Dran himself discovered a way to communicate with a method that was faster than light. The way he did it was to convert distance into a sine curve, with rate of speed and time taking their same definition.

“You see, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. When we drop into Hyperlink we are able to convert that straight line into a sine curve. You have probably seen such a curve as a sine wave when dealing with sound waves. Every first year science class has had such a device since the 1930’s. As sounds get louder the peaks between the maximums and minimums will get farther apart and as the sounds get lower or higher the distance between the waves will get longer or shorter. Speed and rate convert into period and strength of signal when we drop into Hyperlink. Thus the formula D=RT is still true in Hyperlink. Only their definitions have changed. The higher the sound, the closer together the wave tops and bottoms will get, and over the period, or distance in this case, the tops and bottoms will get closer together. If you consider the distance between point A and B as a line, we create a condition that will turn that line into a sine wave. We shorten the distance between the tops and bottoms of the wave and insert our vessel into Hyperlink at that point. We then travel along the tops or bottoms of the sine wave, thereby shortening the distance between point A and point B by bypassing the distance between those tops or bottoms. The reason we get sick in the process is that to travel through the tops or bottoms of the curve it is necessary that we go in and out of Hyperlink rapidly; perhaps thousands of times per second. It takes our bodies 48 hours or so to get assimilated to the rapid traverse between real time and Hyperlink. Thus, the great majority of us are extremely sick for that time. Very few people can handle it. We think it’s because of the mass…..”

“Whoa, Dad!” Eric the Younger raised his hand. “We can barely follow your explanation as it is! Let’s not bring in any more technicalities!”

“Speak for yourself, Eric. Hell, I stopped following his explanation a long time ago! How do you know where you are going?” she asked Eric the Elder.

“Great question,” Eric the Elder said with a smile. “Son, you will do well to latch onto this woman! If you don’t, I will!

“When we arrived on E-6 and began to study the Larn civilization, we found the Dran had discovered a Faster than Light communication system that spanned the universe. It was somewhat like a phone system on earth. You dialed in a number, and the message was sent to that location. I used their technology to discover the FTL drive; they just hadn’t followed through far enough on that discovery. We did follow through and discovered the FTL drive, whereby we can send a physical ship along the same lines as the communications take. The phone number used is in four parts and is based on the co-ordinates of the Larn home world as a starting point. The first part is what might be termed a latitude line. The second part would be the longitude line. These two would identify the spatial plane of the original Dran world. The third co-ordinate places us in the third dimension; a solid. The fourth is a bit tricky. All matter in the universe is in motion. The fourth co-ordinate is time. It takes into consideration the movement of the destination point in space. We must go physically to the destination point before the number can be calculated with any degree of accuracy. The speed of the planetary system through space relative to the Larn base line is very important in that calculation, for one would not wish to arrive at a destination and then find the system passed through there last year. Computers, even those as primitive as those of the Dran, easily calculate the time co-ordinate of the destination planet and send the message on its way. In our case, we send the ship on its way with reasonable assurance it will arrive in the allotted time. Our own computers wouldn’t even groan with this problem. The theory is…….”

“Dad! Enough of the theory stuff! Neither of us would understand it anyway. So far, I think I can handle what you have said, but that’s because I have been listening to it for years! Have a heart! Let Jayne digest some of this!” Eric the Younger said laughingly.

“Oh, Oh!” Jayne exclaimed, setting her drink on an end table. “I think I followed that last pretty well! Now, that’s scary!”

“Well, Jayne,” Eric said. “The time has come to make your decision. Would you like to join us?”

“I think you know the answer to that, Eric. How can anyone refuse to participate in the greatest adventure in human history? The only question I have is this: Where can an author of fiction fit into your plans?”

Eric and his father grinned at one another. “You tell her, Dad,” Eric said.

“We don’t need your writing ability this time Jayne, that’s for sure. Your unique ability to maintain your physical well being when you pass into Hyperlink however, is invaluable to us. We have found only five other people who have it. They are all in space now, commanding ships headed for or coming from Larn planets we are now trading with. We are working on a way to cure that motion sickness in our people but have not been successful.

“We have begun to set up a trading business with Larn worlds. We trade goods with them and then re-trade those goods to E-1 or other Dran worlds. We need Gravity Wells and we don’t have enough personnel or expertise to get them ourselves. That is our main trade item from the Larn planets. I believe this is the destiny of Earthmen; to be the traders to the universe.

“We need you Jayne, not for your writing ability, but as one of our precious starship commanders.”

Jayne stood there open-mouthed. “Holy Shit!” she cried. “You expect me to command one of those monstrosities in orbit around E-6? No way, Hosay! No way!”

Eric the Elder gave a chuckle. “No Jayne. Not one of those. They are as obsolete as a horse and buggy now. We can reach as far as we want to go in the galaxy in months now, what with the FTL lines we have been able to trace. We take the same ships you’ve been piloting over the past weeks; the ones we take to go from world to world in the Sol system. We can carry sufficient equipment, food and air aboard those ships to last us years if we have to. We don’t need the cumbersome ships you saw in orbit around E-6, though we could use them if we ever need too. The FTL lines don’t seem to have a size limitation to them, just as long as they are an integral part of the whole.”

“Even that’s ridiculous!” Jayne cried. “I’m not qualified to command anything, let alone a damn spaceship. I don’t know the first thing about navigation or anything!” She threw up her hands.

They were in the main hall of Lodge 16. The method they took to get there was somewhat roundabout. Upon arriving on the platform in the Gulf, Jayne took the ship straight up in space at mach 3, then quickly arrived over Michigan’s Upper Peninsula at Mach 10, and then took the ship straight down. This was to confuse any radar operating in the area. The entire trip took less than 30 minutes.

Large picture windows showed the view across the massive lawn to the trees a quarter mile away. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the ship they had been using to explore the planets of E-2 over the past few days. She had set it squarely on the middle of the landing pad that was used for helicopters in the past. She loved the huge ship. It reminded her of the flying saucers she had read about on E-1. Come to think of it, maybe these things were the flying saucers! She thought. Naw! Those were in the 50’s. Well, maybe!

“Hey Eric,” she turned around.

They both said “What?”

Jayne pointed at Eric the Elder with a laugh. “That one,” she indicated. “Were you flying around E-1 in these things in the 50’s?”

Eric the Elder looked somewhat sheepish. “That was when we were ferrying a lot of people around the Gulf and through the gate to the other worlds. We had to do it in the daylight because that was the only time the gate opened. We still ferry them around, but we use helicopters, or our own planes made to look like conventional aircraft. Our platform is about 60 miles out in the Gulf and it’s made to look just like the rest of the oil platforms near New Orleans. We no longer scare hell out of the population. But yes, the chances are we helped give rise to the flying saucer thing of that time. Why?”

“Just wondering,” Jayne said. “I’m thinking about your offer. Can you give me more information? I’d like to know what your plans are. If I’m going to do this, it would be nice to know why.”