Part 57 (1/2)
”I do not have feelings, so I cannot take offense, Captain Odeon, but I thank you for the courtesy.”
”You're welcome,” Odeon replied automatically, before turning to DeLayne. ”Even the little bit I've experienced so far--this Sickbay and talking to your s.h.i.+p--is awesome. It makes me feel . . . I don't know. I'm competent enough in the Kingdom Systems, but it's pretty clear none of us are anything but total incompetents in your terms. I don't like that feeling.”
”Neither would I, in your place. But don't worry about it; as I told Colonel Cortin, we aren't monsters, and we don't force ourselves on anyone. If she does decide the Systems should join the Empire, we'll offer but not impose education about us and our science. Also whatever you need to bring yourselves to our level.”
”Like you offered to teach me?”
”Exactly. Ready to get started?”
”Definitely.” Odeon allowed himself a brief smile as he stood. ”Let's go see one of these 'teaching tapes' you mentioned. Are they anything like a book?”
”Nothing at all. They aren't really tapes, either; they just got called that, back when they were invented, and the name stuck. Let's go to my cabin, and I'll introduce you to them. Admiral Columbus, please have a reader and basic-language tape waiting in my fabricator.”
”Yes, Captain.”
”Fabricator?” Odeon asked as they left Sickbay, going deeper into the s.h.i.+p.
”Yes. Do you know anything about molecular physics?”
”No.” Odeon sighed. ”I'm really in over my head, aren't I?”
DeLayne chuckled. ”Not really; that's one of my degrees, is all, and I enjoy discussing it when I get the chance. Most people haven't the faintest idea how fabricators work; they just use them. We don't manufacture small items any more; once a prototype's developed, the pattern is scanned and recorded. When you want one of that item, you code it into your fabricator, and the fabricator constructs it, with any modifications you specify in the coding, from reconst.i.tuted raw materials. When you're done with it, you feed it back into the fabricator's raw material storage for re-use.”
Odeon whistled. ”That's incredible. Things like your uniform?”
”Among others, yes.”
”And I thought the plague and Families were causing a major social upheaval. What you're going to do to us . . . Maybe Colonel Cortin's right to be afraid of you after all, though not for the reason she thinks.”
”I can't deny there'll be stress,” DeLayne said soberly. ”You won't have to join, and you won't have to accept anything from us that you don't want--but just making open contact will cause changes, yes. It's a good thing for your Systems that Colonel Cortin was able to get Ranger Medart, too. Any Ranger would be good, but he's the Empire's best at anything involving cultural differences--which we don't try to destroy, as you probably already know. To quote a twentieth-century writer by the name of O'Sullivan, our aim is to 'preserve the unique viewpoints of different groups, but at the same time require that each group be tolerant of the others'. We see harmonious diversity as a good thing.”
”I'd gotten that impression, but not in so many words. The Sandemans and Traiti, from what I've studied, both maintain their own cultures within their Subsector and Sector.”
”And so do the cloudcats, on Ondrian. They're another race Ranger Medart managed to bring into the Empire peacefully--d.a.m.n good thing for us, since that's the only place miracle-weed produces usable rapid-heal.”
”I never heard of any of those.”
DeLayne chuckled. ”Learning from comm intercepts would tend to be fragmentary, especially when the ultrawave beams aren't aimed at you and you don't have the cultural background to understand a lot of what you do hear. That's what we're in the process of remedying. And here's my cabin.” He put his hand to a small plate beside the door, which promptly opened onto a small living area. ”Have a seat while I go get the tape and player--my fabricator's in the bedroom.”
Odeon obeyed, rubbing the back of his neck. He wasn't afraid of the Empire, and as he'd told Joanie months ago when he first started studying them, he already had some respect for them. DeLayne was adding to that, even as he was overwhelming Odeon with casually incomprehensible references. Fabricators, cloudcats, miracle-weed, rapid-heal . . . and teaching tapes. DeLayne was emerging from the bedroom carrying what looked like a small book and a thin box of matches, though Odeon was sure those had to be the reader and 'tape'
he'd mentioned.
”Here we go,” DeLayne said, pulling up a chair. He handed Odeon the reader, which turned out to be a screen with a row of words underneath--all of which, to Odeon's gratification, he was able to puzzle out--and showed him how to insert the tape, then explained the touch controls for tape direction and speed. ”The older models have electrodes that have to go on the temples,” he added, ”but the new ones don't need them. Some people have a mild reaction, disorientation or a touch of nausea; if you do, slowing the tape down usually gets rid of it. Whenever you're ready, just touch the ”Go” b.u.t.ton.”
”Okay.” Odeon did so--and promptly doubled over.
Alarmed, DeLayne grabbed the tape player and shut it off. ”What's wrong, Captain?”
”I thought you said . . . mild nausea and disorientation. Not stomach cramps and . . . the worst headache I've ever had.”