On the other hand, there are four dozen and nine different academic uniforms worn at the university, and each is available in six different degrees of price and quality. In addition, each of those comes in summer, winter, and spring and fall weights.
When they entered the store, Dol immediately announced that they were here at the request of Bronki. The clerk at the front desk instantly pressed a buzzer, calling Leko herself to the front. A distinguished-looking tailor came quickly out to greet them.
“Friends of Bronki’s? But of course! I will handle all of your needs personally! What would be your requirements?”
“Kren here needs a complete kit for a freshman at the College of Business.”
“Excellent! We can satisfy his every need. Come this way, please.”
She took them to a special room at the back of the store, which contained nothing but the absolute best, and most expensive, merchandise. Dealing with a friend of Bronki, she would charge them twelve per gross more than usual, and send Bronki a commission of twice that, which still left Leko with a very good profit.
In the course of the next hour, Kren found that he absolutely had to have two summer weight cloaks, two more for spring and fall, and two particularly expensive ones for winter.
There was a heavy winter over cloak, and two pairs of gloves, medium and heavy. Kren noted that the seamless leather gloves had been made from the stretched and tanned skin removed from the hands and forearms of adult Mitchegai. They were dyed black, nicely tooled around the cuffs, and quite attractive, he thought, with holes on the ends of the fingers to let his claws remain useful.
Then there were two pairs of shoes, something that he had never worn before, and a pair of heavy winter over boots. The over boots were of an insulated, waterproof synthetic fabric that extended well past the knees, but the shoes were much like the gloves, and made of the skin of the feet and calves of a deceased adult. They had reinforced soles and were decorated to match the gloves.
Lastly, Dol convinced him that he really needed four sets of long winter underwear, two of which were electrically heated.
Kren also bought a nicely appointed matching book bag that was to have his name embroidered on it, and would be delivered in two days.
A cold-blooded creature must be very careful about temperature control, but in fact, the store was simply making the bill as large as possible.
At least this time, there was no difficulty with getting a receipt, and the store promised to have it all delivered within the hour, except for the book bag.
It was getting dark when they finally got home.
“Dol, why was it that I needed two of everything?”
“So that you could be wearing one while I have the laundry servant washing and pressing the other. A guest of Bronki’s must always look his best, you know.”
“I see. Do you realize that I have spent more than six thousand Ke today?”
“That sounds about right, but you will be reimbursed. It would be more accurate to say that the College of Athletics spent all of that money. It will be amusing to present them with the bill, tomorrow.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Good Life
New Yugoslavia, 2207 a.d.
Things were progressing very well.
I now had twelve full ten-thousand-man divisions of Gurkha warriors. They were living with their families in their own valley, next to mine. Every man was equipped with a new mark XIX tank, and many of them had been issued a humanoid military drone. I only had been issued four CCCs to manage them with, but more were promised as soon as they were built, and we now had thirteen Gurkha generals trained, each with five colonels. They were time-sharing the CCCs we had.
I also had an almost full division of female Gurkha warriors, something that the male Gurkhas didn’t like at all. They had ostracized the ladies to the point that I had to put the girls up in my own valley, and keep them very separate from the Gurkha men. It was a bother, but those girls were good fighters, and army regulations wouldn’t have let me reject them on the basis of sex, anyway. I hoped that in time the problem would settle itself out.
Maybe once they had proved themselves in battle.
They had their own CCC, their own female general, and five female colonels. There were Gurkha men who were probably more qualified than they were, but until the men were willing to integrate their command, the girls would have to go it alone. They were certainly eager to prove their worth.
New Yugoslavia did vote for universal military service, on the same “join or don’t vote” system that New Kashubia used, and I had eighty-two divisions of New Yugoslavian troops, a number that was growing rapidly.
A sufficient number of transporters had been put in so that it was now possible to ship my entire army out in somewhere between one and nine days, depending on where we had to go. More were being installed as fast as they could be built. Receivers cost only three percent of what a transmitter does, and could operate four times faster than transmitters. We now had twelve times as many of them as transmitters. If it was us who needed help, we could get it in a hurry.
Research on the alien ship was making progress. It had been powered by a muon exchange fusion power supply technically very similar to the ones that we used, except that it was one-eighth the size of our usual unit, and produced twelve times the power. Our people were working at trying to duplicate it.
The ship was driven by an efficient but understandable ion engine. But there was nothing about that engine that could explain the incredible accelerations that we had seen.
Our scientists managed to get the ship’s primary weapon working. It made things disappear. We had no idea of how it did this, and we’d had no luck in duplicating it.
And our electronic people were absolutely in awe of the programs that were used in the simple computers aboard. They said that if we could duplicate them, we would quadruple the speed of our own computers, including themselves.
There were other machines on the ship that completely baffled us. We didn’t know what they did, or how.
* * *
The planet-wide underground MagLev Loway system had been completed and announced to the public, but it wasn’t seeing anything but military use. The factories were too busy with military production to make any civilian vehicles to use it. Someday, someday.
The associated planet-wide water, sewage, and power systems were getting good use, though. And they insured that we never were faced with drought or flooding conditions, or power blackouts, either.
My dairy farm was in production, and besides providing products for local consumption, we were shipping butter, yogurt, and forty varieties of cheeses all across Human Space. The beef cattle were growing, but we would be building the herds for many years yet.
Most of the apartments in my city had been sold, as had most of the business spaces. Veterans were setting up restaurants, bars, and every other sort of business imaginable. The schools were starting to fill up, too, at least the lower grades.
At the outer edges of Human Space, the exploratory probes had been upgraded with better sensors, better artificial intelligences, and major self-destruct mechanisms. New probes were being added as fast as they could be built, but the whole system wouldn’t be completed for fifty years. I kept on referring to it as our Maginot Line, but I couldn’t seem to get the name to catch on.
Planetary defenses were still minimal, something that bothered me considerably. Putting all of your trust in defensive lines, or spheres actually, is silly. Defensive systems have to be in depth! Military history has proved that again and again, but the powers that be won’t listen to me. It was very frustrating.
But the really important thing that happened was that my Kasia presented me with a baby boy! He came out red, wrinkled, squalling, and absolutely beautiful.
And equally important, my industrious wife is busily working on our second one.
Late last night, as she lay in my arms, she said, “You know, Mickolai, these are the good times. We must cherish them.”
And I do. She always was smarter than me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
FROM CAPTURED HISTORY TAPES,
FILE 1846583A ca. 1832 a.d.
BUT CONCERNING EVENTS OF UP TO
2000 YEARS EARLIER
Sword Slashes and Burning Memories
The next morning, Kren dressed himself carefully in a new summer-weight academic uniform, marveling at the feeling of smooth, strong quality in the cloth. It was vastly different from the heavy, rough warmth of his military cloak.
In part because he had been told that the director wanted to see him use a sword, but mostly because after wearing it all summer, he felt uncomfortable without it, he belted his sword on first, and put the cloak on over it. He was pleased to see in the mirror that it wasn’t noticable under the voluminous garment, and resolved to wear it regularly.