I just realised that in the hectic of my relocation from one end of the world to the other one I completely forgot to post an update and a new chapter.
Well, we have been working hard to make progress on the translation of HelgeK's book "Farnhams Legende", which provided the framework and plotline for XbtF.
By now we have all chapters translated, 16 rewritten by SteveMill, and 15 with at least one run of corrections, mostly up to three.
The other news is, Koch may be interested in publishing the book in English. So now we are trying to finish it as soon as yesterday
Thanks all who participate(d)!!
Here now chapter 6:
The optimist believes that this is the best of all possible worlds.
The pessimist fears that is true.
Robert Oppenheimer
The shipyard was an enormous scaffold-like construction and immediately reminded Nopileos of a Nitsu-trap poised to snap shut at any moment. Nitsu were small, stupid, but tremendously nimble rodent-lizards, which ate the algae from Teladi scales. Every family had one. Nopileos imagined a giant Nitsu, so big that it could only just fit into the shipyard. "One full wash with undercarriage protection", it would presumably say, then chewing a couple of spars and support beams while idly watching the engineers fleeing, panicked by the horror, in all directions.
"Tsh-sh-sh!" It was an older Teladi with bloodshot eyes, strapped to the acceleration table in front of him. He looked at Nopileos for a moment, confused, before returning, fascinated, to examining his colourful squawk cube, which he turned like an expensive jewel between two claws. It was a filigreed masterpiece and definitely of Boron, not Teladi, manufacture. Every young Teladi would receive a squawk cube on the Tazura in which he hatched and he would keep it until the end of his Tazuras – it was one of the very few sentimental things to which this race of profit-oriented lizards attached value. Nopileos was no different from his co-lizards and could still clearly remember the Ta-zuras, as a tiny little hatchling, when his squawk cube seemed gigantic to him. Now the familiar little piece of jewellery lay warm and close in the small polymer pouch that he always carried on his person.
Nopileos looked out of the window again. The ferry had almost arrived at its destination and was already decelerating. The Boron spiral, he thought, that belonged to him and Sissandras now was not much smaller than this shipyard. His scales tingled at the thought, not many Teladi could call something as large and valuable as that their own. It was almost his own anyway, it didn’t actually belong to him and his egg-brother at the moment, but to the Xenon – or something even more terrible. Sooner or later he would go back there and find out.
The green position lights blinked silently beyond the windows and the docking tunnel quickly swallowed the ferry. Moments later the docking clamps engaged with a distinct click and a tiny jolt pulling the small space vehicle into an empty docking bay. All around Nopileos, Teladi unfastened themselves from their sitting-tables and got up. Only a few had baggage with them since most were workers or heads of department in the shipyard, back for a few Tazura or Nazura on the Platinum Ball and whose posses-sions were kept in their quarters aboard this station.
Disembarkation was usually a disciplined affair with the Teladi, unlike the Argon who Nopileos had once seen jostling and shoving to form a queue. Naturally that was not very efficient. No Teladi, of course, would behave in such a completely pointless and counter-productive fashion and so he was all the more surprised when he noticed a small tailback had formed in the walkway ahead and some of the passengers were making indignant snorting noises. There appeared to be some problem with the narrow docking tunnel just outside the ferry. As Nopileos shuffled closer to the airlock, he gleaned from the comments of the travellers standing further forward that there was someone standing outside the tunnel, blocking the way and forcing the passengers to squeeze past. He found it was actually two shipyard-members in company uniforms, standing pressed against the walls of the tunnel facing one another, while the hissing passengers jostled past them. Teladi did not suffer from claustrophobia, but this was, he thought, too much! What were these two creatures doing there?
The Teladi in front of Nopileos squeezed himself past the lizard in the brown uniform, still clutching his squawk cubes. Nopileos tried to do the same but the uniformed Teladi, silent until now, stopped him and spoke.
"Isemados Sibasomos Nopileos IV?"
"Shh...? Yes?" answered Nopileos, completely taken aback. ‘What in the name of the egg had he done wrong this time?’ he wondered but nothing sprang to mind.
"Welcome aboard the Seizewell shipyard, colleague-son of the shipyard director and grandson of Chairman Ceo!" intoned the second uniformed Teladi with genuine enthu-siasm. "We are very pleased to be able to welcome you to our modest company, and wish you great profit from it!"
Son of the director of the shipyard? Nopileos spread a claw to indicate his lack of un-derstanding, stretching the webbing.
"Can we get moving sometime soon in front?" called an angry traveller from behind.
"I am colleague Yayandas", said the first Teladi, "and this colleague Alindreos" – he pointed at his companion, who courteously tilted his head and blinked briefly at No-pileos. "Please follow us, valued colleague – before someone gets the idea of informing the union!" Nopileos did as he was asked and followed the two shipyard workers, while behind him the tailback cleared - finally – and the remaining passengers disembarked in an orderly fashion.
The young Teladi was disturbed and puzzled. First, this was all highly unusual, since even the main board members themselves would never be personally escorted when travelling on a scheduled flight. So why had they decided to meet him right in the airlock – in the most unsuitable place imaginable – instead of greeting him in the arrivals hall? Why had they greeted him personally at all? He was the grandson of the Ceo, true – but deference did not come with family membership in the Teladi Trading Company. And what was the reference to his being the son of the director of the shipyard about? Who would be interested in whose direct descendant he was? With the Teladi, care of the brood had always been the provenance of the next generation but one: the grandfather brought up his grandchildren, and between egg-parents and their issue there would be - at best – a comradely relationship.
It was all most peculiar! Nopileos came to the tentative conclusion that, possibly, someone could have found out about his major stock market coup and had therefore treated him like a respected and established personage. On the other hand, it could be known that he occasionally inclined towards unusual views and actions and that some-one wanted to keep a friendly claw on his shoulder. "Thank you, Isemados, you old egghead", mumbled Nopileos indignantly. His grandfather had wanted to be a rebel but took no risks.
"Colleague?" inquired the Teladi who had introduced himself as Yayandas. For a moment, Nopileos was tempted to reply that he had just verbally abused the Ceo, but the moment passed and he had second thoughts.
"A colossal construction, this shipyard", he said instead, looking pleasantly at Yay-andas.
"Oh, yes. It most certainly is!" Yayandas seemed pleased by Nopileos' interest. He was clearly proud of his workplace and began, without hesitation, to drown Nopileos in a flood of figures, facts, turnover predictions and comparisons that painfully reminded him of one of Instructor Wohalimis’ Profit Science classes. ‘Oh brother Sissandras,’ he thought, ‘you and this Yayandas would really have got on well with another!’
"Colleague..." he interrupted Yayandas, mid-word, after several agonising minutes "where are we actually going?"
Yayandas adeptly concealed his irritation at the interruption and showed Nopileos into a lift that he had summoned Sezuras earlier. "Well," he replied, "first we would like to show you the yacht – which is your main reason for being here, isn’t it? She’s a real beauty! Then we have a working lunch with Director Sibasomos planned. The director is happy for you to change the order of events if you prefer, but..."
"Oh, no, that’s fine. I’m actually very much looking forward to getting a closer look at the yacht!"
"That’s what we thought,” said Yayandas happily.
When the lift finally came to a stop and the door rose, Nopileos unconsciously held his breath for a moment. It had taken them straight to the highest balustrade of a gigantic assembly hall. The narrow, railed balcony encircled the entire hall and Nopileos could see down two, or even three, dozen metres into the depths. Beneath him on the floor of the hall, Teladi in white clothes were scurrying around, small as insects, efficient as robots. In the middle of the hall, however, something stretched so high that Nopileos’ brow-scales suddenly turned several shades paler.
The spaceship extended like a giant, egg-shaped monolith with a flattened base. It was over twenty metres in height; broad in the stern with four huge, rounded, swept back external thrusters, which merged into the hull. Towards the top, the main body of the ship tapered a little to a bow topped by a large hemispherical cockpit in the exact geometric centre of the vehicle as seen from above. The hull shone a delicate shade of forest green, but many details of the ship’s lines and some surfaces were delicately picked out in metallic silver. The ship appeared somewhat stocky, but also powerful and elegant – the shipwrights had created a masterpiece here, corresponding so precisely to the Teladi ideal of design that Nopileos allowed his gaze to slide covetously up and down the flanks of the ship for several Sezuras, completely forgetting his companions.
They gave him a few moments before Alindreos, who until now had been silent, fi-nally spoke to him.
"That’s how it is with most people the first time they see her." His scale-edges were raised in mild amusement, but his tone was one of good-natured camaraderie. "Colleague Alindreos here, is the leader of the Small Vehicle and Transporter unit," threw in Yayandas in explanation. Alindreos tilted his head for a moment.
"Brother... I mean Colleague... is that... I mean, that is... the Ceos yacht?"
Alindreos waggled his scale-crest slightly. "It is indeed."
"I am... impressed!"
"Tshh...hh!" the two shipyard-members looked at one another and hissed briefly. "And so you should be Colleague Nopileos. What you are looking at here is a minor marvel. This ship is not only fitted with the four most powerful Boron ion motors that have ever been used in a private vehicle, but it also features the almost impenetrable 125 MW shields exclusively used by the Argon military - until now that is. Then there’s the most ingenious on-board computer to be found this side of Xenon territory. And..." Alindreos gasped quickly for breath, "this yacht also possesses the most luxurious inte-rior that you have ever seen in a ship!"
"But..." Nopileos began a sentence, his head spinning, but it was doomed from the start as his mind was a blank and he had no idea what he meant to say next. Alindreos saved him from this, however, by immediately cutting in again. "We are about to cali-brate the newly-installed, super-responsive inertial damper. You will never again feel even the slightest shake, and never once be torn from your sleep, even if you are rammed head-on by a Xenon."
"Rrrr... do they do that?"
Alindreos spread his claws. "So one hears..."
"But don’t worry", butted in Yayandas. "Very few places are safer than this ship. Doesn’t it look like an egg?"
"Indeed it does, oh Brother Yayandas" replied Nopileos, still stunned. When Ceo Isemados had promised him his yacht on long term loan, Nopileos assumed it would be something on the scale of a small atmospheric shuttle - something similar to the tiny egg-nursery ferries, which the egg-pupils would occasionally use for their excursions.
"You will work your way to great profit with the yacht - and help bring us all great prosperity," said Yayandas with real conviction in his voice. "Certainly," replied No-pileos mechanically. "Can we have a look at it from the inside now?"
"With the greatest of pleasure", agreed Alindreos. "Over here."
He showed Nopileos and his colleague the way, leading them along the walkway. Beyond the first corner a small platform appeared, set into the floor. It led to the next balustrade down which was about half way between the floor and the ceiling of the gi-gantic assembly hall. The three Teladi made their way onto the spacious platform, which began to sink smoothly downwards.
Nopileos could not help noticing that Alindreos was watching him intently out of the corner of his eye. It was obvious: both shipyard-members were very proud of their re-spective areas of responsibility; Nopileos assumed that Alindreos expected his enthusi-astic agreement regarding the ship - and he was quite prepared to give him that satisfac-tion. In fact he was looking forward to being impressed by the much-vaunted "luxurious interior".
The platform floated to their destination and touched down gently. The balustrade on which they were now standing looked similar to the one above, except that all around the breadth of the hall there were illuminated glass panels set into the walls, giving a view into a number of offices. In addition Nopileos spotted an entrance tunnel, which stretched from the end wall of the hall like a small bridge between balustrade and yacht.
"The layout of this spacecraft", explained Alindreos in a tone of voice that could have come from an advertisement, "is intended to provide the largest possible usable interior space, with maximum comfort and the least possible wastage of space by ma-chinery. You will see that it has been an outstanding success!"
They stepped into the tunnel and through the open main airlock of the ship, giving them a clear view into a spherical room with a flat floor, which was lit subdued red. "This is the lift", explained Alindreos, not without pride. "The transport compartment is spherical and uses its own gravity generator. You will soon see why that is. Come!"
Nopileos went in. The warm, slow pulsing light of the spherical lift compartment was accompanied by a gentle throbbing hum; Nopileos immediately felt exhilarated and more cheerful. The door closed silently – and a split-Sezura later opened again. The lift must have undergone an enormous acceleration, but inside one couldn’t feel a thing.
"The command centre," said Alindreos simply. Nopileos stepped out and looked around. They were in a spacious circular room in the centre of which the tube of the lift-shaft continued upwards the height of two Teladi. Nopileos' glance flicked around and caught on the huge, hemispherical window that stretched across the entire room like a glass dome, the lowest edge almost a Teladi-height above the floor and rose sharply before curving round.
"Big..." he mumbled, astonished. He could imagine, vividly, what an amazing view of space one would have from here! He walked round the lift column with slow steps until he had made a complete circuit of the floating platform which hung invitingly a claw’s width above the floor and moved gently as if bobbing up and down on a slight sea swell. Nopileos did not wait for his companions’ invitation and went, without hesitation, onto the platform, which immediately started moving and carried him swiftly upwards. Alindreos and Yayandas stayed behind and watched him
On the top of the lift-shaft column was the heart of the yacht; here, exactly on the longitudinal axis of the ship, was the command chair, mounted in such a way that it could swivel freely in all three axes. Several important operational controls and indica-tors were situated on a desk, which rotated with the chair, and Nopileos surmised that the shipwrights had attached great importance to reducing the number of instruments to the absolute essential minimum. The experience of space flight was clearly the priority here - not the technology that made it possible. The large, crystal-clear window was almost within claw’s reach above him – space would never get any closer.
"It’s... fantastic!" he said loudly and stepped onto the parapet surrounding the com-mand platform. From here he had a good overview over the rest of the room. The large viewing window stretched far below and went just over a Teladi-height upwards in the gently sloping wall. Here there were more controls, switches and displays – but it still managed to avoid the impression of being overloaded, unlike the unpleasant, technical places, which pass for command centres in other space ships. In one spot there was even a small table with comfortable, woven sitting-tables firmly anchored to the floor and with further seating all around.
"Oh yes... and its construction brought us a not-inconsiderable profit!" explained Yayandas proudly. "Just wait until you... have seen the rest!" Nopileos felt a desire to get straight into the pilot’s chair, but he resisted the urge and took the floating platform back down.
Alindreos looked at him expectantly; he seemed to have something else up his sleeve and to be very pleased with Nopileos’ reaction. The three Teladi stepped back into the soft red glow of the lift compartment, which had waited patiently for them. The door closed again and almost immediately re-opened, without Nopileos being aware that the lift had moved at all. The other two Teladi made no move to step out of the compart-ment, so Nopileos took the first step - and abruptly stopped.
That was impossible. It simply couldn’t be! He was standing in a large room, which was circular just like the command centre – except that the curvature didn’t go around him; instead the floor curved up in front of him and soared upwards. There was no ceiling – the floor came back down behind him and made a perfect loop! The walls were absolutely straight, not sloping as the shape of the ship would have lead one to expect; the column of the lift-shaft ran up one wall and lead into a tube that ran over his head between the opposite walls in the exact centre of the circular room.
Both shipyard-members had also now stepped out of the lift shaft behind him. "So?" asked Alindreos. There was only one explanation for this phenomenon. "The floor of this room is the outer skin of the ship”, Nopileos thought out loud, but in an uncertain voice. Alindreos hissed vociferously and waggled his ears. "Indeed it is! The yacht has three different gravity generators – four if you include the lift!"
Nopileos was truly amazed. There followed another two floors, similarly constructed but differently divided up, in which the gravity generator was oriented towards the outer skin. Then Alindreos and Yayandas took Nopileos into the cargo hold.
It was immense and, in contrast to the previous rooms, the curvature ran around No-pileos exactly like in the command centre, and as it would in an ordinary circular room! Far above his head Nopileos noticed a huge, iris-shaped construction that he immedi-ately recognised as an airlock like those often found in large transporters.
"The freight hatch", commented Alindreos dryly. "The gravity here is oriented to-wards the bow."
Nopileos’ head spun, full of impressions and questions. "So the lift ensures that one doesn’t notice the changes in gravity direction, right?"
Alindreos and Yayandas waggled their ears in unison.
"That’s magnificent... ingenious!"
"Tss..shh! Absolutely right! And it is a Teladi invention, the licensing of which will bring our company great profit!"
"The problem is, Colleague Alindreos", Yayandas interjected, "that only a few pri-vate individuals can afford it – for freight and fighter craft this is a superfluous luxury. What ship has more than one gravity generator?"
Alindreos blinked. "Right, right..." he mumbled. "But we will change that, given half a chance!" Yayandas tilted his head courteously for a moment then turned his attention back to Nopileos.
"Ceo Isemados has so far not yet found the time to come and have a look at this spacecraft himself. He asks you, valued Colleague Nopileos, to give the ship a name of your choice and to register it. He would also like you to demonstrate the ship for him when the appropriate occasion arises. That is a great honour – the Ceo seems very taken with you."
"Tshmm... indeed, oh Colleague Yayandas" replied Nopileos, who was completely confused. His grandfather had mentioned that the yacht was being overhauled in the shipyard. Now it turned out, however, that he had not even seen it yet let alone flown in it. It was newly hatched! And it must be worth an absolute fortune! The Ceo had shown himself to be surprisingly unconventional; but he would not have been the Ceo without an ulterior motive for making such a costly "loan". So what was the old capitalist thinking? To what extent was he hoping to profit – either financial or moral – from whatever Nopileos wanted to use the yacht for?
"If you have no further questions, the director of the shipyard will be ready to receive you now oh esteemed Colleague Isemados Sibasomos Nopileos IV", said Alindreos, once again stiff and formal as though asking something of a "respectable" Teladi.
"I’d be delighted, oh Brother Alindreos", replied Nopileos, whose brow-scales itched slightly from this strange, abrupt change in fortune.
The head of department looked at him for a Sezura or so, as though he wanted to say something, but changed his mind at the last moment and kept quiet. "Follow me."
*
The director was as similar to Nopileos as one egg is to another. He spoke with the same voice as his offspring, used almost the same facial expressions and gestures, and his brow-scales raised, by way of emphasis, almost exactly as frequently as Nopileos’. The colour of his eyes was still a youthful shade of yellow, his scales a healthy shade of mid-green and his claws sharp. He was the perfect double of his egg-offspring – but of course neither he nor Nopileos were surprised. The egg-parent and their direct descen-dant carried almost identical genes and so their being – at least in external appearance – almost perfect copies of one another, was a normal state of affairs. It was also one of the fundamental reasons why the next generation but one brought up their descendants. The only surprising thing was that, despite Nopileos looking so similar to the director exter-nally, internally they were fundamentally different. Nopileos was adventurous, playful and of a humorous disposition, and generally only attached secondary importance to the accumulation of credits. The Director Sibasomos was profit-oriented and calculating through and through.
"So, you should know", said the director, as he used his spork to neatly cut off a slice of the salmon-green Ngusi-Salamander, which sat steaming in the middle of the table between him and his offspring, "that the value of the yacht is well over six hundred million credits." Nopileos was tempted to say something with the words "small change" in the sentence, but wisely stopped himself. "He who does not honour the credit does not deserve the profit." It was an old Teladi saying and Nopileos knew all too well that the director would make every effort to prevent him from having the yacht if he came to the conclusion that Nopileos did not deserve the profit. And Nopileos wanted more than anything else to climb aboard this fantastic spaceship, and to be able to fly all over the place, wherever he wanted!
"A colossal number of credits", he said instead, and likewise cut himself a juicy slice of the Salamander.
"And only a little in comparison to a certain even larger sum which recently flowed into a Boron orphanage fund," Director Sibasomos replied.
The piece of Salamander almost stuck in Nopileos’ throat. The director had laid the spork to one side to look his offspring straight in the eye. His brow-scales were slightly raised giving his gaze an additional mocking look. The Sezuras passed by slowly while Nopileos, his brow-scales very pale, chewed at the salamander, which suddenly no longer tasted so good.
"So", said Director Sibasomos after a while, when Nopileos had still not answered, "the reputation of the Teladi race with the Boron has improved immensely as a result of this transaction. And you in particular" - he pointed at Nopileos with the spork - "are the acknowledged hero of the Boron."
Nopileos still had no idea whatsoever where this was all going. From the moment the two shipyard-members had intercepted him in the ferry he’d had a peculiar feeling. Something strange was going on.
The director continued. "An official invitation has been presented by the Kingdom of Boron – you must appreciate that you will be received with the highest honour. The Ceo and I would like you to accept this invitation."
A sense of foreboding crept over Nopileos. "And I have to get the credits back... shh..shh", he croaked in a husky voice. The director looked him, completely motionless, for a while, before taking a firm hold of his drink-club and swallowing a long gulp.
"You are one of the most intelligent Teladi that has ever lived, young Nopileos. Your grandfather, Ceo Ssuphandros Mikimades Isemados, is of the opinion that high intelli-gence will always be tempered by a certain deviation from the norm. The more intelli-gent, the more so." Director Sibasomos wiped his lips thoughtfully with a white servi-ette and stood up. "I don’t entirely agree with him. Where our opinions do agree, how-ever, is that only you can get the credits back without bringing loss of face with the Bo-ron to the Teladi race in its entirety."
"May I take the Ngusi with me?" asked Nopileos after a moment’s oppressive silence and pointed at the hardly-touched salamander.
He was in their hands. Oh, of course he had a choice. If he refused the task he would presumably have to spend the rest of his life on this shipyard as a worker, contributing to the effort to increase the company’s bottom line. No yacht, no freedom, no adventure. On the other hand there was no guarantee he would be able to get the money back from his Boron friends. But it was a dead certainty that, if not the "Teladi race in its entirety" then at least he himself, would irreparably lose face with the Boron.
"Tshh..shh..." Director Sibasomos hissed in amusement. He didn’t even bother to ask whether Nopileos would take on the task or not. He knew that the young Teladi would not refuse. "But of course, help yourself. I will have it wrapped up for you."
"Thank you so much, oh generous Director Mikimades Isemados Sibasomos IX."
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