look half bad. And when he stood absolutely still so that the uniform stopped its constant tailoring, it wasn't really uncomfortable. At least if he found himself starting to sweat at the Risen Emperor's party, the clever little machines would handle it. They could turn perspiration and urine into drinkable water, could recharge themselves from his movement or body heat, and in the unlikely event of total immersion, they would crowd into his mouth and form a water rebreather.
He wondered how the uniform would taste. Zai had never had the pleasure of eating live ants.
The lieutenant-commander placed a row of campaign ribbons on his chest, where they affixed automatically. He wasn't sure where to place his large new medal—the award that was focus of this party—but the uniform recognized it. Invisibly tiny hands tugged the decoration from his grasp and passed it to a position just above the bar of campaign ribbons.
Evidently, the small machines were as versed in protocol as they were in survival tactics. The very model of modern military microtechnology.
Zai supposed he was ready to go.
He made an interface gesture that felt distinctly wrong in the tight gloves, and said his driver's name out loud.
"Lieutenant-Commander," the response came instantly in his ear.
"Let's get this over with, Corporal," Zai commanded brusquely.
But he did stay at the mirror, regarding himself and keeping the corporal waiting for perhaps another twenty seconds.
When Zai saw the car, he touched his chin with the middle three fingers of his real hand, the Vadan equivalent of a long, low whistle.
In response, the car lifted from the ground silently. The pair of wheeled transport forks that had carried it here pulled away, scraping the streets like respectful footmen in low bows. The car's rear door raised before Zai, elegant and fragile as the flexing wing of some origami bird. He stepped into the passenger compartment, feeling too cumbersome and brutish to enter such a delicate vehicle.
The corporal's face turned back as Zai sank into the leather rear seat, a glaze in the man's eye. They looked at each other for a moment, their disbelief forming a bridge across rank.
"Now this," Zai said, "is lovely."
Scientifically speaking, the Larten Theory of Gravities was three decades outmoded, but it still served well enough for Navy textbooks. So, as far as Lieutenant-Commander Laurent Zai was concerned, there were four flavors of graviton: hard, easy, wicked, and lovely.
Hard gravity was also called real gravity, because it could only be created by good old mass, and it was the only species to occur naturally. Thus fell to it the dirty and universal work of organizing solar systems, creating black holes, and making planets sticky. The opposite of this workhorse was easy gravity, unrelated to mass save that easy gravity was hapless against a real gravity well. Hard gravitons ate easy ones for lunch. But in deep space, easy gravity was quite easy to make; only a fraction of a starship's energy was required to fill it with a single, easy gee. Easy gravity had a few problems, though. It was influenced by far-off bodies of mass in unpredictable ways, so even in the best starships the gee-field was riddled with microtides. That made it very hard to spin a coin in easy gee, and pendulum clocks, gyroscopes, and houses of cards were utterly untenable. Some humans found easy gee to be sickening, just as some couldn't stand even the largest ship on the calmest sea.
Wicked gravity took up little room in the Navy's manuals. It was as cheap as easy gee, and stronger, but couldn't be controlled. It was often called chaotic gravity, its particles known as entropons. In the Rix Incursion, the enemy had used wicked gee as a devastating but short-range starship weapons. Exactly how these weapons worked was unclear—the supporting evidence was really a lack of evidence. Any damage that followed no understood pattern was labeled "wicked."
The lovely particle
He wondered how the uniform would taste. Zai had never had the pleasure of eating live ants.
The lieutenant-commander placed a row of campaign ribbons on his chest, where they affixed automatically. He wasn't sure where to place his large new medal—the award that was focus of this party—but the uniform recognized it. Invisibly tiny hands tugged the decoration from his grasp and passed it to a position just above the bar of campaign ribbons.
Evidently, the small machines were as versed in protocol as they were in survival tactics. The very model of modern military microtechnology.
Zai supposed he was ready to go.
He made an interface gesture that felt distinctly wrong in the tight gloves, and said his driver's name out loud.
"Lieutenant-Commander," the response came instantly in his ear.
"Let's get this over with, Corporal," Zai commanded brusquely.
But he did stay at the mirror, regarding himself and keeping the corporal waiting for perhaps another twenty seconds.
When Zai saw the car, he touched his chin with the middle three fingers of his real hand, the Vadan equivalent of a long, low whistle.
In response, the car lifted from the ground silently. The pair of wheeled transport forks that had carried it here pulled away, scraping the streets like respectful footmen in low bows. The car's rear door raised before Zai, elegant and fragile as the flexing wing of some origami bird. He stepped into the passenger compartment, feeling too cumbersome and brutish to enter such a delicate vehicle.
The corporal's face turned back as Zai sank into the leather rear seat, a glaze in the man's eye. They looked at each other for a moment, their disbelief forming a bridge across rank.
"Now this," Zai said, "is lovely."
Scientifically speaking, the Larten Theory of Gravities was three decades outmoded, but it still served well enough for Navy textbooks. So, as far as Lieutenant-Commander Laurent Zai was concerned, there were four flavors of graviton: hard, easy, wicked, and lovely.
Hard gravity was also called real gravity, because it could only be created by good old mass, and it was the only species to occur naturally. Thus fell to it the dirty and universal work of organizing solar systems, creating black holes, and making planets sticky. The opposite of this workhorse was easy gravity, unrelated to mass save that easy gravity was hapless against a real gravity well. Hard gravitons ate easy ones for lunch. But in deep space, easy gravity was quite easy to make; only a fraction of a starship's energy was required to fill it with a single, easy gee. Easy gravity had a few problems, though. It was influenced by far-off bodies of mass in unpredictable ways, so even in the best starships the gee-field was riddled with microtides. That made it very hard to spin a coin in easy gee, and pendulum clocks, gyroscopes, and houses of cards were utterly untenable. Some humans found easy gee to be sickening, just as some couldn't stand even the largest ship on the calmest sea.
Wicked gravity took up little room in the Navy's manuals. It was as cheap as easy gee, and stronger, but couldn't be controlled. It was often called chaotic gravity, its particles known as entropons. In the Rix Incursion, the enemy had used wicked gee as a devastating but short-range starship weapons. Exactly how these weapons worked was unclear—the supporting evidence was really a lack of evidence. Any damage that followed no understood pattern was labeled "wicked."
The lovely particle
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