The situation became much better once the Inertialess Field was developed, based on the technology of a race that they had conquered. This device put a field around almost the entire ship that temporarily canceled inertia. When the field was disconnected, inertia returned, and the ship proceeded on a vector identical to what it had had in the beginning.
Mitchegai ships were powered by their muon-exchange fusion reactors, very much like those used by humans, but smaller, more refined, and much more powerful. These converted hydrogen into helium and electrical power with almost perfect efficiency.
The Intertialess Field was used in conjuction with a pair of ion engines that each fired positive or negative ions, atoms with either more or less electrons in their outer shells than was normal. Sodium and flourine were the preferred elements for this purpose. These two beams of ions came out of the back of the ship at close to light speed. Once they recombined, there was quite a fireworks display behind the ship, but this was far enough behind to cause no damage, to the ship at least. It was however a formidable weapon.
The exhaust ports and drive coils of the ion engine were the only parts of the ship that were outside of the Inertialess Field. Their mass was typically less than one thousandth of the entire mass of the ship. The ship was therefore capable of accelerating to nearly light speed in less than a week, while the occupants felt no acceleration at all. The effects of time dilation were such that a long interstellar trip usually took place in only a few years of subjective time.
A valuable side effect of the Inertialess Field was that it also acted as a shield. Anything that the ship encountered while traveling at close to the speed of light became inertialess just before it collided with the ship. Particles, dust, and even fair-sized rocks caused the ship no harm. They became inertialess, lightly bounced off and eventually drifted out of the field.
At that point, their inertia returned, and they continued on their way, once the ship had passed. Sometimes, when the angles happened to be right, a single rock had been known to hit a ship a dozen times without causing harm.
Encountering a star, a planet, or even an asteroid was something else, of course. Even if the surface was inertialess, the mass farther out could cause a very deadly spray of radiation as it rammed the normal matter in front of it. Often the energy generated was on the order of an extremely large nuclear weapon.
Fortunately, such encounters were rare, and a ship’s watch officers could generally avoid such situations, usually by turning off the field, which immediately sent them on the low speed vector that they’d had when they started.
On reaching their destination, it was necessary to turn off the field, and run the drive in the proper direction for the required time to bring the ship to the same direction and speed as the planet they were going to. Much of the science of navigation revolved around doing this efficiently.
* * *
The Space and Planetary Mitchegai interacted constantly. Economically, socially, and culturally, they needed each other.
Economically, the Space Mitchegai, in any inhabited solar system, handled most of the heavy industry. They mined the asteroid belts for metals and other useful materials. They mined the outer planets and moons for water, ammonia, and carbon dioxide.
They used these things in efficient space-born factories, powered by their ubiquitous muon-exchange fusion generators. They didn’t have to worry about polluting their environment, or destroying their fragile planetary ecology. They produced most of the durable goods used both on the planets and in space.
They also provided several services to the planetbound. They built and repaired the communication satellites that augmented the fiber communication cables used on the planet. They made and serviced the huge lasers and telescopes that maintained contact with the nearer solar systems, and through them, with the rest of the Mitchegai civilization.
And they provided the security system that insured that planetary wars would not get out of hand. They created and commanded the neutron bombs that were in low orbit, ready to destroy any duchy that violated the Laws of War.
Limited wars with primitive weapons were good for the planetbound. High-tech wars were not, and for a fee, paid by the Planetary Council, they ensured that this system would continue.
Among the Space Mitchegai, the airless environment they lived in was sufficiently dangerous as to cause a regular depletion of those individuals who were not sufficiently intelligent as to be of benefit to the race. Wars were therefore not necessary, and were not tolerated.
However, they loved watching panetary wars on television, just as much as the planetbound did. The volume of gambling was often greater on the wars than it was on athletics.
They got most of their other entertainments from the local planet as well, and they felt that planets were great places to visit and vacation on, although they didn’t want to live there. Hunting expeditions on the grass covering the ancient oceans were particularly popular.
The Planetary Mitchegai made most of the food produced in the system, along with most of the textiles, paper, and other minor items. They sent it out, much of the food still alive, by way of the two planetary geosynchronous cables, that humans would call beanstalks. These were sufficiently long so that at the platforms at the ends, a full planetary gravity was felt. By releasing or capturing a ship or capsule at the right time and place along the cables, a cargo could be sent to, or received from, any point in the solar system with very little additional energy added.
Ships were faster, and more desirable for use with passengers, but even ships equipped with the inertialess field used the cables, so that when they arrived at their destination, they would have the right speed and direction to dock quickly.
To keep the cable system in dynamic balance, and to insure that the planet stayed in chemical balance, additional cargos of lighter elements were sent in to the planet to match those sent out as food, and cargoes of useless rock and dirt were sometimes sent out and into the sun, to match the mass of the durable goods brought in.
Other spinning cables throughout the system were used in a transportation system that efficiently distributed goods to all of the heavily populated regions.
In the long run, it was far less expensive than using cargo ships, and the Mitchegai always thought long term.
* * *
The Space Mitchegai had a vast array of weapons available to them. There were dozens of various sorts of lasers, and at least as many sorts of particle beam generators. There were chemical explosives, rockets and bombs. There were rail guns, accelerators, and even cannons in their extensive arsenals.
There were ships of all sizes, from seven-mile-long dreadnaughts to tiny kamikaze craft, piloted by surgically stunted pilots who were convinced that wonderful things would happen to them if only they could put their bomb-laden ship into the enemy.
Many of these weapons had originally been the property of races who had had the silly gall to try to defend themselves against the all-powerful Mitchegai.
And the Eleventh Invasion Fleet had the pleasant advantage of being one of the first to be equipped with the Disappearing Guns. These had been used by a race of blue crustaceans who had actually managed to delay one conquest for a dozen weeks or so.
They had improved on it, of course. It was now thousands of times more powerful, and had been linked in with each ship’s sensors such that if they happened to inadvertently be about to strike some massive object, the gun fired automatically. Calculations indicated that if they were about to strike a fair-sized planet while the ship was traveling at near light speed, the gun could actually cut a hole all the way through the planet, and let the ship pass through unharmed!
No one had actually put this ability to the test, yet, but time would tell.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
They Are Coming
New Yugoslavia, 2218 a.d.
My lands were now dotted with magnificent fountains.
Early on, we had installed simple, utilitarian drinking troughs for the cattle. Then, the AI people had discovered that the controls on the Disappearing Guns they had been issued were sufficiently fine to sculpture with. The beam width could be turned down to less than a millimeter, and the depth of cut could be controlled even finer.
And since we were cutting out all of these rooms in the granite anyway, they got to slicing out huge blocks of the stuff, and getting artistic with them.
Once the city started to have really too many statues, the electronic ladies hit on the idea of making fountains in their off hours, and putting them out here. I suppose that you’d have to call it a hobby.