before Barrick replied.
“The Elder claim they have given the Elk faction the same general warning as us,” the telepath said. “That they are watching them, and if the Elk do anything the Elder deem ‘unworthy’ over the next few months or years, the Elder will return to wipe them out. Obviously that worthiness is open to interpretation, but according to the Elder, for the short term the Elk faction have promised to leave the wormhole open to us.”
“So all we have to go on is a promise,” Jonathan said.
Another gamma ray arrived from the vessel, and Barrick spoke again.
“The Elder want confirmation that you understand and agree to all of this,” the telepath said.
“Yes yes, we understand,” Jonathan said. “And I suppose we don’t have any choice.” At that point he would have agreed to almost anything to get his fleet home; he felt a mixture of both triumph and suspicion for having gotten off so relatively lightly. Still, the promise of destruction if humanity ever proved itself “unworthy” was more than a little unnerving. “Have Valor tell them we will launch the shuttle as soon as the Elder ship returns to the Slipstream.”
The Talon dispatched the gamma ray response. The communication arrived six and a half seconds later, and a minute later the Elder ship began moving away.
Watching it retreat on his tactical display, Jonathan slumped. He was suddenly very weary.
“Why do I feel like I’ve just run a marathon?” the captain said.
“Probably because you have,” Robert said. “Mentally, anyway. We all have.”
“I’ll be in my office,” Jonathan told him. Lying down.
eight
J onathan awakened, expecting to be greeted by the tight confines of his quarters, but instead finding himself in his office. He knew because of the steel desk that greeted his vision, rather than the nightstand. Other than the desk, and the couch, the two compartments were basically the same.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes. He only intended to nap a few minutes, but from the groggy way he felt, he knew he had been out for hours.
Forgot to set the alarm again.
He stared at the bulkhead beside him. The metal was bereft of any decorations or windows, and so close as to be claustrophobic. His gaze drifted to the steel desk; the only item on it, personal or otherwise, was an uncleaned tea cup. Behind the desk was a safe that contained a centuries-old bottle of Scotch, among other things. Atop the strongbox was a high speed convection kettle and a tin of green tea. Other than the couch and two chairs, there was nothing else in the cabin.
He shook his head slightly. It never ceased to amaze him how bare the compartment seemed when viewed without an aReal. Even the colors seemed muted.
He grabbed the spectacles from where they rested on the desk and slid them on. Immediately the hues became warmer as the lenses applied a chromatic filter to his vision. A virtual bookshelf had appeared, along with a sword-wielding Caravaggio on the far bulkhead. These were virtual adornments created by his aReal, existing solely within the cloud computing resources of the Callaway . These adornments would be shared with the aReals of any other person who visited the office so that they, too, would live the illusion.
In big cities on Earth or colony worlds, most of the streets were so cluttered with virtual overlays that Jonathan often had to turn off sharing, or at least selectively limit it—all of those embellishments interfered with his concentration. So many overlays turned reality into a video game of sorts. An unwelcome one at that, where every shop was trying to compete for his attention by constantly offering sales and points. Pop-ups and jump scares were banned on most worlds, but even so people still died due to improperly placed overlays, walking into traffic or off cliffs because a virtual augmentation obscured their vision.
Starships were a nice break from all that clutter, though occasionally Jonathan still
“The Elder claim they have given the Elk faction the same general warning as us,” the telepath said. “That they are watching them, and if the Elk do anything the Elder deem ‘unworthy’ over the next few months or years, the Elder will return to wipe them out. Obviously that worthiness is open to interpretation, but according to the Elder, for the short term the Elk faction have promised to leave the wormhole open to us.”
“So all we have to go on is a promise,” Jonathan said.
Another gamma ray arrived from the vessel, and Barrick spoke again.
“The Elder want confirmation that you understand and agree to all of this,” the telepath said.
“Yes yes, we understand,” Jonathan said. “And I suppose we don’t have any choice.” At that point he would have agreed to almost anything to get his fleet home; he felt a mixture of both triumph and suspicion for having gotten off so relatively lightly. Still, the promise of destruction if humanity ever proved itself “unworthy” was more than a little unnerving. “Have Valor tell them we will launch the shuttle as soon as the Elder ship returns to the Slipstream.”
The Talon dispatched the gamma ray response. The communication arrived six and a half seconds later, and a minute later the Elder ship began moving away.
Watching it retreat on his tactical display, Jonathan slumped. He was suddenly very weary.
“Why do I feel like I’ve just run a marathon?” the captain said.
“Probably because you have,” Robert said. “Mentally, anyway. We all have.”
“I’ll be in my office,” Jonathan told him. Lying down.
eight
J onathan awakened, expecting to be greeted by the tight confines of his quarters, but instead finding himself in his office. He knew because of the steel desk that greeted his vision, rather than the nightstand. Other than the desk, and the couch, the two compartments were basically the same.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes. He only intended to nap a few minutes, but from the groggy way he felt, he knew he had been out for hours.
Forgot to set the alarm again.
He stared at the bulkhead beside him. The metal was bereft of any decorations or windows, and so close as to be claustrophobic. His gaze drifted to the steel desk; the only item on it, personal or otherwise, was an uncleaned tea cup. Behind the desk was a safe that contained a centuries-old bottle of Scotch, among other things. Atop the strongbox was a high speed convection kettle and a tin of green tea. Other than the couch and two chairs, there was nothing else in the cabin.
He shook his head slightly. It never ceased to amaze him how bare the compartment seemed when viewed without an aReal. Even the colors seemed muted.
He grabbed the spectacles from where they rested on the desk and slid them on. Immediately the hues became warmer as the lenses applied a chromatic filter to his vision. A virtual bookshelf had appeared, along with a sword-wielding Caravaggio on the far bulkhead. These were virtual adornments created by his aReal, existing solely within the cloud computing resources of the Callaway . These adornments would be shared with the aReals of any other person who visited the office so that they, too, would live the illusion.
In big cities on Earth or colony worlds, most of the streets were so cluttered with virtual overlays that Jonathan often had to turn off sharing, or at least selectively limit it—all of those embellishments interfered with his concentration. So many overlays turned reality into a video game of sorts. An unwelcome one at that, where every shop was trying to compete for his attention by constantly offering sales and points. Pop-ups and jump scares were banned on most worlds, but even so people still died due to improperly placed overlays, walking into traffic or off cliffs because a virtual augmentation obscured their vision.
Starships were a nice break from all that clutter, though occasionally Jonathan still
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