Valkyrie's Daughter (The Lunar Free State Book 3) Page 2

  “And neither am I, for that matter,” she admitted, “at least not for a few more years. I have this occasional daydream about it, mostly when I take some leave time and come out here. I have pretty much decided this is where I want to spend my retirement. I just haven’t figured out when that will happen, yet.

  “As for the longevity treatments, your generation will benefit from them a lot more than mine. I may live to be 150, but you may live two centuries or more because you started the treatments so much younger.”

  “Well, there you go.” Carla grinned at her. “You’ve still got what…110 years to go?”

  “Flattery will not score points with your mother, young lady, especially since you know better than that. I was fifty-five when I gave birth to you, and that was about three decades ago, in case you haven’t been counting birthdays.”

  “You still look more like forty-five, Mom, and a very good-looking forty-five at that. Back on Luna, everyone knows you, but I’ll bet if you went to one of those Caribbean resorts on Earth, you’d have to fend off the young men with a spear.”

  “I have little or no interest in young men, my dear, except when they show an interest in my daughter…especially if that interest appears to be reciprocal. Care to tell me about this young physicist from North American University in Arizona I’ve been hearing about?”

  Carla looked stunned.

  “Mom! How did you…” She shook her head in disgust. “Oh, never mind. I should have guessed. You’ve got half the LFS Intelligence Service keeping an eye on me.”

  “No, only a couple of agents—” Lorna gave her a wicked grin, “—plus some people from the Diplomatic Corps. You have been spending a good bit of time on Earth lately, and, to a lot of people—especially Charlie Bender—you are a precious natural resource of the LFS.”

  “Arrrrgghhh…not Uncle Charlie! By now, he probably knows what brand of toothpaste Bjorn uses. He probably knows more about him than I do, and that’s not fair! Did you have to drag him into this?”

  “No,” Lorna replied, “I didn’t. In fact, it was Charlie who brought it to my attention, which left me at a loss since you’d never mentioned your boyfriend to me. Carla, please understand, from Charlie’s point of view, you are a national resource. You have knowledge in your head that is top secret—refinements of our understanding of gravity that have led to major enhancements in our warship drive systems, to name just one item. I know you’re sworn to secrecy, and you wouldn’t violate your oath, but you should have realized Lunar Intelligence and SID would get a little concerned when you started getting intimate with someone who isn’t an LFS citizen.”

  “Intimate? Intimate?” Carla screamed. “Exactly how much interest has Admiral Bender shown in me? Are there cameras in the bedroom in my condo in Phoenix? Does he have a log of Bjorn’s comings and goings?”

  “No, Carla, he doesn’t,” Lorna insisted. “At least not that he’s shown me. Camera surveillance would be an unconstitutional violation of your privacy as a Lunar citizen, and Charlie respects the law. As much as you may revile him for it, he cares about you and has your best interests at heart.

  “I know what you’re feeling,” she added. “I felt the same way, with all of the security he wanted to put around me after those bastards tried to kill me during my term as CEO. That was before you were born, but Charlie’s always been there to watch my back when I needed it, and he’ll do the same for you. Besides, he approves of this Bjorn of yours—says he’s a nice young man and not much of a security risk. For Charlie, that’s as close to high praise as you’ll get. More importantly, it’s all I have to go on since you haven’t told me anything. If you’re serious about the guy, I’d really like to know more, but I’d like to hear it from you, not from Charlie.”

  “I’m not that serious about him,” Carla insisted, her anger softening in the face of Lorna’s calm, reasonable tone. “He’s just a nice guy, and we seem to get along really well. We enjoy each other’s company, and, just for the record, we rarely talk about our work. Truth is, we’re as far apart in our work as we can be, considering we both call ourselves physicists. I’m an astrophysicist, a cosmologist, way out there on the macro end of things. If it’s smaller than a planet, I’m not interested. I spend my time studying anomalies in gravity wells around supergiant stars. Bjorn’s a particle physicist, at the opposite end of the scale. If it’s bigger than a nanometer in size, he’s not interested. He deals in quantum energy transfers at subatomic levels.

  “I mean, we can understand each other.” She shrugged. “I know the basics of his field, and he knows the basics of mine, but our views of the universe are quite different. On the other hand, we share a common love of pizza and a dislike of pretentious sushi restaurants, and we both like a quiet evening with a glass of wine and soft music. Oh yeah, and since he’s never been off Earth, he seems fascinated by my tales of what it’s really like out here. I know he would have loved watching this sunset.”

  As she spoke, Carla’s voice grew wistful. Watching and listening to her, Lorna felt a pang of regret. My little girl’s grown up, she thought, then she realized Carla had grown up over a decade ago, when she’d first gotten her advanced degrees and set out to make her mark in the world of science. And now, it looks like she’ll be sharing her life with someone else. But you knew that would happen someday. Carla might have said her relationship was not that serious, but Lorna knew the signs. Her daughter was in love.

  “Well, honey—” she forced herself to smile, “—why don’t you invite him out here the next time both of you can squeeze in an extended vacation? You can certainly afford passage to Copper Hills Prime, and this place is as nice as any resort on the planet. Great food, romantic views…”

  “I’d like to, Mom, but you’re not here very often.”

  “I don’t need to be, honey. Let the staff know you’re coming, and they’ll have everything ready. They keep the place in shape all year round. It’s their full-time occupation, whether I’m here or not.”

  Carla knew it was true. The staff her mother mentioned consisted of the entire village of Akara, which was located on the estate. The villagers cared for the property and worked the land for their own benefit. Under Akara social structure, they formed a sub-clan that owed their allegiance to Lorna, as their feudal lord—or lady, in her case. Nonetheless, Lorna paid them well for whatever work they did around the lodge, including grounds maintenance, cooking, cleaning, and such.

  They, in turn, provided her with anything she required in the way of farm produce. The reptilian Akara were pure carnivores, so most of the crops they grew were intended as feed for the meat animals they raised, including Terran cattle, but they also grew spices and tended a small garden of Terran and local vegetables specifically for Lorna’s table. They also gathered wild fruits and berries and hunted an assortment of wild game.

  In exchange for keeping her pantry stocked and performing whatever other services she required, Lorna allowed them to live rent-free on her land and keep whatever profits their labors brought them, without tax or tribute. They were fiercely loyal to her and considered themselves well-off compared to the subjects of other Akaran nobles, who would have taxed them for such privileges. It was understood that anyone among them who didn’t love and respect the Great Warrior Queen of the Humans was welcome to go live somewhere else.

  “Look, honey,” Lorna continued. “I really would like to meet this Bjorn of yours, but you’re an adult. You stopped needing my permission for anything a long time ago, and I want you to be happy. If bringing him up here will do that, don’t wait until you can work it into my schedule because you may be waiting a long time.

  “Or you might consider something shorter,” she suggested. “It’s less than an hour’s flight from Phoenix to Lunaport, and a couple of hours from there to TerraNova—especially for an important member of the Lunar Research Institute who’s entitled to hitch a ride on an express courier ship. If your guy has never been off Earth, you might want to show him Lu
na first. Since he is a physicist, you could introduce him to some people at the LRI, and you could time it for a period when I’m at home in TerraNova—which is a lot more often than I’m here. You can manage that kind of trip over a weekend, though a few extra days on Luna wouldn’t hurt.”

  “Mom!” Carla looked at her in amazement. “That’s a wonderful idea. I’m sure Bjorn will love it! I don’t know why I never thought of it.”

  “Love and war have a lot in common, daughter,” Lorna replied with a conspiratorial smile, “and I’m the best military strategist in this corner of the galaxy.”

  * * *

  “Most people who hunt near-dragons do so with a more potent weapon,” Heart of the Warriors remarked, “usually something that can blast one out of the sky at, say, two hundred meters or more.”

  As he spoke, the old Lizard war leader gave Lorna a chop-licking flicker of the tongue she had learned to interpret as an amused grin.

  She regarded him with a raised eyebrow. “I notice you are not one of those people.” She looked pointedly at the long assegai spear he was toting, along with the quiver of sling-launched javelins he wore over his shoulder.

  “Ah, yes, but then I’ve been doing this for a long time, whereas this is your first. When I saw what you brought to the hunt, I feared you had seriously underestimated the beasts, but it appears I was wrong.” He bent down and grasped one of the spiral horns of the fallen near-dragon. With an effort, he lifted its head, revealing the rows of wickedly curved teeth that filled its mouth.

  “It may be my first near-dragon,” Lorna told him, “but it’s not my first hunt, nor is it the first time I’ve put an arrow into a dangerous game animal.

  “I’ll admit,” she conceded, “the idea of hunting a predator that can fly did give me pause, but when I looked at the video you provided, I realized these creatures don’t fly so much as glide. They need a running start or a high cliff to take off from. They gain altitude slowly and spend most of their time riding wind currents, looking for prey on the ground. They brake almost to a hover when landing. Flight allows them to locate and get close to their prey, but they usually stalk and attack on the ground.”

  “Very observant.” The old Akara nodded, a gesture he had learned from his many dealings with humans. “But sometimes, a wounded near-dragon will charge its attacker. That’s the reason for this.” He brandished the assegai. “In case the javelin doesn’t do the job, and the near-dragon decides to make a meal of you.”

  “I considered that,” Lorna replied, “so I brought a backup weapon.” She showed him the antique pistol holstered on her hip—a Desert Eagle chambered in .50 Action Express. She had used it once back on Earth to take down a rogue male lion that had attacked her hunting party without warning.

  “Fortunately,” she observed, “neither your spear nor my gun was necessary this time.”

  “Indeed.” He favored her with another chop-licking grin. “I was impressed when I saw your arrow fly true, Warrior Queen, but even more so when I saw it go completely through the beast. I am compelled to inquire further about this unusual weapon of yours. The People developed the concept of a bow and arrow centuries ago, but when we developed firearms, bows fell out of use. I don’t think ours were ever as sophisticated as yours, and no Akara bow could propel an arrow with such speed and accuracy.”

  “We call it a compound bow,” she told him, “because the wheels around which the string runs multiply the mechanical advantage, like pulleys. This bow requires about twenty-seven kilos of force to draw back, but when the upper and lower cams roll over at the end of the draw, it only requires about five kilos to hold it in place. That makes it much easier to hold at full draw while I take aim.

  “Of course, the arrow is still subject to the force of gravity. The sight has a built-in laser rangefinder that determines the distance to the target and adjusts the aiming reticle to allow for arrow drop. When I first brought the bow from the Sol System, it was calibrated for Earth’s gravity. I had to make a small adjustment for the slightly lighter gravity here. Accuracy isn’t hard to achieve with a sighting system like this and a bit of practice.

  “The arrows are woven carbon fiber and fly true to about eighty meters. These broadhead points are razor sharp, and the arrow passes easily through most game animals. Near-dragons have tough skin, but it’s no tougher than that of some Earth animals I’ve hunted. Some arrowheads have expanding points that cause more internal injury, but these give better penetration.”

  The old Akara lowered the near-dragon’s head to the ground and stepped back to look at the whole beast—nearly four meters from snout to tail tip, with a nearly six-meter wingspan.

  “A fine kill,” he told her. “You’ve introduced something entirely new to the hunting sports of this world, Warrior Queen. I imagine someone could make a lucrative business of selling such bows to Akara hunters. That presumes, of course, they could be sized down to Akara dimensions, without losing significant power.”

  “I’m sure they can.” She looked thoughtful. “Akara are shorter than humans, which means you’d need a bow with a short riser and flat limb angle. Your people have long arms for their height, so draw length wouldn’t be an issue. You also have sufficient strength to pull the draw weights required for effective hunting—twenty to thirty kilos. It’s possible there are bows already available on Earth that would work quite well here. They’d have to be left-handed models, but those are available as well, since a significant number of human hunters are left-handed, like your people.”

  She shook herself out of her reverie. “Anyway, that’s something I need to mention to Carla. She’s the businesswoman in the family and is already worth a lot more money than I am, largely thanks to this device.” She pointed at the little electronic package clipped to the front of her hunting vest.

  “Ah, yes.” Heart nodded again. “The Gadget—without which we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I had forgotten my dear little Egg of the Queen was its inventor.”

  The Gadget, Carla’s original name for her creation, was officially known as the AHSI device, the Akara-Human Speech Interface device, and had started out as a project Carla—then just 15 years old—had built for a Lunar science competition. Prior to that, the only way the Akara and their human allies could converse was by using special sound equipment controlled by an artificial intelligence—or AI—to translate. It was assumed any other method of audio communication was impossible, since human vocal cords could not reproduce Akara speech, much of which was beyond the high frequency end of human hearing. In addition, the Akara could not speak or hear most of the low frequency sounds of human speech, though they could taste such sounds through their vibration sensitive tongues.

  For more than a dozen years after the Akara of the Copper Hills and the Lunar Free State joined forces, the LFS Fleet contingent at Copper Hills Prime had included a battlecruiser equipped with an AI that served as a communication hub for any humans on the planet who needed to talk directly to the Akara.

  Akara who visited Luna could avail themselves of Mike, the Lunar AI-in-residence, but those who wanted to go to Earth for business or diplomatic reasons had to equip themselves with a computer interface with a translation program that could convert the written Akara language into written English, and vice versa, and spend time writing notes to their human counterparts. Since the Akara written language was phonetic, such notes were easily translated into electronic format, but the process was still somewhat cumbersome. The best alternative was a sign language that heavily limited what could be conveyed. The same limitations applied to humans who ventured out of the Copper Hills capital, away from the communications network served by the battlecruiser’s AI.

  Over the years, attempts were made to create computer-based translation programs, but it was generally agreed that none of them did justice to either language. To communicate complex concepts or abstract thoughts and feelings accurately and efficiently, an AI was required.

  That was the accepted thinki
ng until precocious, teenage Carla dared to question the basic premise that humans and Akara could not speak each other’s languages. With the help of Mike, the only native speaker of the Akara language she could find, Carla determined the problem was simply a matter of sound frequency and range. She put together a simple electronic device that shifted the sounds of Akara speech down to a lower range that humans could hear and compressed them into a smaller range of frequencies that humans could reproduce. She dubbed the resulting output Low Akara and, with Mike’s help, taught herself how to understand and speak it.

  Then she added additional electronics that would shift Low Akara back up to the frequency and range of normal Akara speech. Based on Mike’s judgment that the results should be understandable to a native Akara speaker, she entered The Gadget into the science competition. There, she demonstrated to the judges that not only could a human learn to speak Low Akara, but that the Akara could also learn a high frequency form of English, which The Gadget could convert into understandable human speech.

  She won top honors in the competition, and the marketing people from Terra Corporation, the commercial arm of the Lunar Free State, immediately contacted her, wanting the rights to manufacture and sell the device. With advice from Uncle Mick O’Hara, CEO of the LFS, Carla formed a Lunar-chartered corporation to handle the business implications of her invention. She cut a deal that guaranteed she would not have to work for the rest of her life, but that was OK, because she intended to devote herself to scientific research anyway. Now, fifteen years later, she was doing just that, but her corporation was still in business, and royalties from The Gadget were still coming in.