Kibi helped Ilika serve a seafood casserole from an ocean world, a vegetable salad from another planet’s moon, and nut milk from the fourth planet of yet another solar system.
Suddenly she smiled. “I know why I’m helping you in the galley all the time — it’s part of my job!”
“Yes, but after you learn it, you’ll only be in charge. You won’t have to do all the cooking. We’ll take turns.”
“So . . . can I start making shopping lists?”
“Please do. You know what’s in the marketplace. I’m sure everyone will help.”
Suddenly the main hatch vanished and a warning tone sounded.
“Well, well,” Ilika began, “let’s see what Manessa spotted.” He went to the steward’s station and touched several symbols. “The hatch is set to repel small creatures with a static electric field, and close when anything large approaches. Hmm . . . something about the size of a man. Let’s take a look.”
By this time Kibi was at his side and the other four were gathering around.
An image of the grassy area outside the hatch appeared on the console’s small display screen.
“I started the playback about a minute ago,” Ilika explained.
They waited. A moth could be seen flitting about in the grass. Suddenly a robed, hooded figure approached the hatch, then quickly ran away.
“A priest!” Boro gasped with wide eyes.
Ilika nodded. “There’s a symbol on his robe I’d like to see. Let’s try
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increasing the contrast.”
The scene played again, and this time they could clearly see the symbol, the same as on the high priest’s robe the day Ilika was almost arrested in the capital city.
Sata swallowed. “D-does that mean the ship’s in danger?”
“No, Sata, we’re in no danger, as long as we’re careful. We knew we were near a trail. Many kinds of missions require us to land in places where people or animals might threaten us. We must defend ourselves, but harm no one without need.”
Ilika and Kibi went back to serving lunch.
“I want everyone to take a pill after lunch,” Ilika announced.
“The same kind I took last night?” Kibi asked with a confused expression.
Ilika laughed. “No. These pills will place unique tracer molecules in your bodies that the ship’s sensors can locate.”
“Ah!” Rini breathed with sparkling eyes. “If someone got arrested in the city, we could find them!”
“Exactly. And we’d come and get them out, even if we had to put the whole city to sleep . . . which this ship is quite capable of doing.”
Boro grinned at the thought.
Ilika wrote names on the little pill containers as he handed them out.
“Each of these has a unique number, which I’ll put in your Nebador knowledge accounts. Everyone in my civilization has an account where both public and private information is stored.”
“Ilika, don’t you mean your planet?” Boro asked.
“No. My civilization includes tens of thousands of planets, and hundreds of star stations and other artificial spheres. I was born on a planet, but haven’t been back since I was eight. Today there’s no planet I call home, although there are some I love to visit whenever I can.”
“What goes in these . . . knowledge accounts?” Mati asked.
“Necessary information, like your name, your job, and the number of your tracer molecule. You can add anything you want.”
“Like what?” Rini asked.
“Writings, sound recordings, pictures, video, structured knowledge tables
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. . . anything that is information, and not substance.”
Sata looked puzzled. “Sound . . . recordings?”
“You could capture speech, music, or any other sound — the croaking of frogs if you want!”
She
snickered.
“What’s . . . video?” Kibi asked.
“Simultaneous multi-channel visual and sound recordings. You’ll see one this evening, an introduction to our civilization.”
After they swallowed their pills, Ilika led them to Rini’s station, made some selections, and a plan of the upper deck of the ship appeared. Six symbols could be seen gathered around the watch console.
“Those symbols are contractions of our names in the language of Nebador,” Ilika explained.
Rini dashed away. “I’m gonna hide somewhere!”
The rest watched as his symbol moved around the bridge and then seemed to merge with the engineer’s console.
Boro put his hands on his hips. “Rini, are you sitting on my panel?”
“No. I’m under it!”
Ilika smiled as Rini returned to the group. “Manessa’s hatch can recognize the tracers, and still protect the ship from anyone else.”
Kibi chuckled. “You mean . . . like priests?”
With all his students seated at the large table, Ilika went to a little cabinet on the wall in the entryway, touched the symbols in a certain order, and took something out. He returned to the table and set a dark metal bracelet, just like his, in the middle.
“Our mission bracelets can do many things, which you’ll learn slowly, as you need them and we practice them.
“Four of you are going into the city almost daily for the next five days. Two bracelet functions are important right now, and both can be activated by tapping a code onto the bracelet with your other hand. The first is a bright beam of light in case you’re caught by darkness.”
He taught them the code, and they all practiced turning the light on and off. Rini learned the hard way not to shine it into his own eyes.
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“The other function is putting people or animals to sleep. I’ve told you this before, but I’m going to say it again — this function can kill.”
He paused to let his words sink in deeply.
“Use
it
only when absolutely necessary, but neither is it okay to sacrifice yourselves. You are valuable. Your work is important. If you have no choice but to defend yourselves to fulfill your mission and return, then you must do that.
“If you get captured, I will come get you out, and many more people could get hurt that way. And I will be angry if you could have prevented it. In the Transport Service, we do not leave our people behind if there is any way to bring them home safely.”
Ilika looked around the room and made eye contact with each of his students.
“To qualify to use this bracelet function, you must show me you’re willing to use it, and you must experience it. That means you have to do it to one of your friends, and let them do it to you. You will be sitting down on the grass, so there’s no chance of serious injury. Who is willing to learn to use, but never misuse, this power?”
Boro’s hand slowly came up, followed by Kibi’s. Then Sata’s hand crept upward. Ilika picked up the bracelet and headed for the hatch.
They all followed, some more quickly than others.
“May I put you to sleep, Kibi?” Ilika asked.
“Yes you may, Ilika.”
She sat down, and Ilika pointed the bracelet and tapped the activation code. A high-pitched sound was heard, and Kibi melted sideways onto the grass.
Sata went to Kibi and tickled her. “She’s asleep!”
Ilika took the bracelet off and snapped it onto Sata’s arm.
“Good night!” Boro said, sat down, and smiled.
Ilika tapped the code onto Sata’s hand with his finger.
She aimed the bracelet at her friend with a shaking hand and tapped the same code onto the bracelet.
The bracelet whined and Boro flopped backwards onto the grass.
Sata frowned. “Oh . . . I hope he’s okay . . .”
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“I’m ready,” Rini announced. “I realized that if I can’t do this, then people can’t count on me.”
“That’s right. Who are you practicing with?”
Rini looked at Mati and raised his eyebrows.
“Is
all our training going to be this gut-wrenching?” she asked with a sour expression.
Ilika smiled kindly. “Some of it will be worse. But like using the lift, the first time is the hardest.”
She hobbled over to the thick grass and Ilika helped her sit down.
“Will you be here when I wake up, Rini?”
“Right beside you!”
“Okay. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
Ilika was happy to serve a tasty dinner to his five trainees, newly qualified for two mission bracelet functions. As soon as dishes were done, he rearranged the room and started the video on the large screen above Kibi’s station.
“You are about to see people and places you have never imagined, customs and practices far beyond anything in this kingdom, and technologies that might as well be magic. You will see art and architecture, and hear music, thousands of years beyond what you know. Just relax, enjoy the story, and get a sense of what the Nebador Services are all about.”
The lights dimmed and the video began.
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 181
Ilika sat off to the side so he could see both the screen and his students.
They experienced the story as if in the same room with the characters, leaning forward when the events were interesting, and almost hiding behind their seats when things got scary. Several of them moved to the music when it had a rhythmic beat, and wiped at tears during moments of sadness and loss.
When the story ended, most of them dashed for toilet rooms. Ilika had forgotten to mention he could pause the video.
“The furry bear guy . . . he’s like us, isn’t he?” Boro asked. “You know . . .
coming from a simple place and joining your . . . civilization.”
“The furry ursine is a girl. Yes, she’s very much like you.”
“But she’s different too . . .” Rini suggested.
“She’s one of those rare people who can understand things most of us can’t. Actually, quite a few people can see into other reality levels, but most of them suppress it, or else go insane. The girl in our video can see and understand other levels. In your kingdom, those people are called mystics.”
“Those dreams she was having . . .” Mati began, “where did they come from?”
“Those weren’t ordinary dreams. She was being prepared by those in the Nebador Services who help special people like her . . .”
“To get the heck out of there!” Sata nearly yelled.
“Yes. As you saw, she was barely ready to leave when her people turned on her.”
“Why do people hate anyone who’s different?” Rini asked with a twisted frown.
“Fear of the unknown is huge in most people. You guys may not understand, because you’re mostly free of fear. That’s one of the reasons I picked you.”
“The ship that picked her up . . . was that from the Transport Service?”
Kibi asked.
“Yep. That’s one of the things we do. And there was a twelve-year-old watch station trainee named Ilika on that ship.”
Rini smiled at his teacher and captain.
“So she’s real? It’s not a made-up story with players?” Mati asked.
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“She’s real. Her name is Ss’klexna Rrr’tak-fi. You’ll probably meet her someday.”
Boro rolled the name around in his mouth for a moment, but didn’t try saying it. “I have a hunch she’s a lot smarter than us.”
“She’s a lot smarter than just about everyone. She can tell you how our star drive works. I certainly can’t!”
“That beautiful place the ship went to . . . where was that?” Mati asked with longing in her voice.
“That’s a star station, the first place we’ll go when we leave your solar system, and where your knee will be fixed.”
Mati smiled dreamily.
“What about the scaly guys?” Boro asked. “They were . . . rough.”
“The quanasia seem rough with each other because their thick hides can take it. It’s just normal affection and play to them. Those in the Nebador Services are always gentle with us softies.”
Kibi smiled. “I didn’t see many . . . people . . . I mean . . . like us.”
“There aren’t many. Very few planets have sapient monkey mammals, so there are few in the Nebador Services.”
Sata frowned for a moment, but Rini chuckled.
Ilika served a cold, sweet, creamy dessert, and the questions kept coming from his new crew members. More than anything else, the variety of people they saw on the ships and star stations fascinated them, and at the same time, bothered them.
Ilika assured them that the other races, whether mammalian, bird-like, reptilian, or insectoid, would all treat them respectfully. No one, he emphasized, worked in the Nebador Services without careful selection, thorough testing, and serious training.
“So that means . . .” Rini proposed, “to be in the Transport Service, we have to get along with all of them, even if they are green stick-creatures with claws around their mouths!”
Ilika chuckled at Rini’s description of one of the insectoid races. “That’s right. And if you remember nothing else from this video, I’ll be very happy if you remember that one thing.”
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Deep Learning Notes
If you were a medieval priest who came upon a perfect golden sphere about eight yards (seven meters) across somewhere in the wilderness, and the hole in the side vanished when you approached, what would you think, and what would you tell the leaders of your religious order when you got home?
Devices to identify and track people have always been controversial because of the tendency of governments to abuse power. What device have people recently begun using that allows them to be tracked almost everywhere they go?
Some people seem to need a specific, physical “home” to be happy, a chunk of land they can get to know. Others do not, and make temporary “homes”
wherever they go in their work or travels. Could you be happy living out of a suitcase and hotel room, car, or ship, or do you need a piece of land to call home?
The ethics of the Transport Service, to use minimal interference but never sacrifice themselves, is rare in our world. The closest parallel might be scientists studying another culture. Can you think of any other professions with similar ethics?
The requirement to use a weapon on a friend, and have it used on you, is only possible, of course, with non-harmful weapons. This idea is part of most martial arts training, paint guns, etc. Any weapon you would not want used on yourself falls into a different category, with different ethics and rules of engagement. In what circumstances might Ilika’s bracelet fall into this last category?
This drawing, by the author, was done years ago, and is close but not exactly right. Can you spot the error?
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What makes us able to watch a movie, while sitting quietly in our seats, that vividly shows deadly dangers close enough to kill or injure us if they were real?
How would you feel if you lived your entire life thinking that humans were the only intelligent creatures, than suddenly saw a true story of a young female ursine (bear) who could think circles around you? Which of the three qualities (young, female, ursine) seems most at odds with her high intelligence?
There are many stories of people being prepared by dreams for some major, difficult task that later comes along. Often it is to escape a dangerous situation and go to another land, or some non-earthly place such as Fairyland.
At other times it is to engage in some spiritual task that requires great sacrifice. Such dreams are not the usual kind (which seem to be psychological healing processes), are very hard to study, and so many people deny they exist.
Why would Ilika have chosen crew members who were “mostly free of fear”?
How did you do at pronouncing Ss’klex’na Rrr’tak-fi? Apostrophes replace expected vowels, and so are very tight connections with no pause. Dashes are a slight pause between chunks of meaning (like in a hyphenated word). You will probably have the best luck with an unvoiced, rolled Spanish R. Neither the throaty French R nor the growled English R work very well in this name.
Remember that a double S is always an S sound, not a Z sound.
What were some of the crew members feeling, that caused frowns, when they learned that their own kind were few in the Nebador Services? How would that make you feel?
