Ganic Pirate 12

Adventrues in the egg-Creetor Universe!

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> Out on the blue event horizon edge of
the Black Hole

called Infernos, the ship Arugula hovered somewhere
between now and eternity. Inside,

on the command deck surrounded by
his crew of mechanicle men, Captain Numo gaged dials

and measurments,
an endless stream of information feeding into his massive

brain
banks. For years he had lived by himslef and his mechmen creeping
slowly

towards some type of understanding with Infernos. Everyday as
he ate his hydroponec

meal of lettuce and tomatoes and tofu material,
he felt himself getting slowly closer

and closer to a breakthrough
that would allow him an understanding with the

phenonemom, and
through it, through the rent in the universe itself, peer inside

his
own brain, follow his own black hole and come out on the otherside,
his side,

the side, basically, of reality, and sanity. He’d been on
the event horizon for such

a long time that all recollection and
information regarding his whereabouts had long

been dropped from
textbooks, and even official documents. The last computer which

had
contained a listing of his position had not passed the Creetor
upgrade in

compuGanics, its files untranslatable now except possibly
for some young hacker type

with an intrest in some arcane knowledge.
However, no hacker had managed to take the

outdated computer out of
the trash, and the material had been crushed and

reconstituted into
plasatic playground play forms, and placed into a young Ganic

cluster
of type-12a’s for their amusement.

Thus it was only random chance, or
Profesor AKOTTs theory of optimal path which

brought the first
starcraft in uncounted years into contact with Professor Numo and

the
arugula.

As it was, Michigan 12, a music

type
from the ganic Cluster of Aptimum, had not expected to find a
scientific

starcraft of the old style hovering about the Black Hole
she had chosen as her relay

transmiter for her pirate Ganic Station.
In even older days, what Michigan 12 sought

to build would have been
termed a Pirate Radio staion. While the term Pirate waas

still in
use, radio had long since been replaced by the perfect

information
technology, the Ganic. Implanted preconcieving into the near

non
existene preborn, The Ganic device granted near instantaneous
creation and

transmission, and recievement of all types of sendings,
absolute regardless of

distance, in Terra measurments or light years.
Ranging from Mathematicla to emotive,

and all stratas in between and
exceeding. However, in the interving period during

which the Great
Egg Creetor ships had been launched to the outskirts of the

universe,
and their subsequent return, more Evolution back to mother Terra,

a
subgroup of TyGannical Zealots had succeded in gaining control of the
Network

Government and imposed a somewhat Fundementalist Viewpoint on
the parameters of Ganic

use. Michigan 12, having been shaped by
cluster of her and her Creetors, had a bent

towards more libertine
views, and, with many others, had flown ships to hidden locales

to
transmit their own viewpoints to counter the official Networks creeds
and

mottos. Later, these outposts would prove valuable in wresting
control from the

Fundamentalist Clusters to theRepublican
Confederation and Commune Grouping system

which, while brief, proved
adapt at the transition that would be engendered with the

retun of
the egg Creetor ships. But all that would be in the near future, and
now

Michigan 12 was wingin her way towards a suprised encounter with
capt Numo and his

pre-Terra Net stlye cruiser, the Arugula.

MIchigan

had had to make a series of
random moves until she felt herself safe from being

followed. Surely
the fact of her crafts removal from the Grouping would be

noticed.
However, the jumps she had made gave her confidence that it would

be
sometime befroe they were able to track her down. Now she had to slow
down

enough to scan for a suitable BlackHole to wrap her
transmissions about before sending

them back to Terra, the tight beam
guareentedd to break up the Gannic Network and

replace it with her
coded program of anti-ism. She knew others out there were dong

the
same thing. Some of the them were even close friends of hers, such as
Dodge44.

It had been hardest for her to leave him, but the Feeds they
were being Networked had

such an overpowering stench about them that
action had overwhelmed even their own

intedesires, and so they had
parted to join in the Resistance.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> Her Pregressive contacted her with a
message,

indicating a Black Hole presence. She aimed her way towards
the marker, and when she

was a few Kliks from the event horizon, that
was when she picked up the blip that was

the Arugula

“Pregressive, identify that

will
you?” Michigan instructed her central Biocom. No reply cme
forward, and

curiousity piqued Michigans inherant resistors. The
tygnnics would have registered on

her Biocom, so this could not be
one of theirs. She programmed a closer look. Her

screens showed an
odd structure, with a form vaguly familiar to the constructs she

had
grown up with. her sensors didn’t pick up anything of a dangermode,
so she

decided to see if she could contact it.

In the meantime, on the bridge of the
Arugula, it was some time before Numo realized

that the blinking
lights and lowlevel gonging reverberating over his ship was

not
another creation of his own mind, but was in fact the Comlink
registering an

incoming call. It had been near forever since an
incoming call had registered, that he

had forgotten the machinery
which existed to warn him about just such an event. His

mechmen stood
silently about him, waiting his orders to this break in

routine,
endless eventhorizon routine.

”

It’s a communiction..”
captain Numo mused, stroking his current beard. His mind

was
momentarily blank. A communication was not something he thought about
much. The

last signal he’d recieved had been a junkstyle relay
advertising for Nostalgia Rocket

Fuel. After that his longdistance
transmitter had simply stopped recieving. His mind

had been too
occupied to send on of his mechman to fix it. Now he mused he

should
have that done, but than the blinking light came back into focus and
he

recalled he had a message, and that someone was hailing him, and
he ought to

acknowledge. He pushed a button.

“Um, Numo

here.
Hello?…Hello..this is Numo..er, may I help you?”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> Back aboard her craft, Michigan 12
puzzled over the

reflection on her monitor. She’d never seen such a
face, except in the old VirtRoom

IconoBanks she’d pawed through with
her friends. A gaunt face, deep set eyes, and a

scrawny beard. Not
only that, but she wasn’t having luck Gannically connecting with

him.
Only the silence echoed in her recievers.

“Numo, Michigan 12 here. what is
your Cluster Code? Please reply.”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">Cluster Code? wondered Numo. whatever
was the girl talking

about. In some region of his mind he recalled
the IRU Council had awarded him some

code, or had that been a medal
for his research on Nutrinotechnology? Again, his

memory only gave up
a succesion of vague, bearded men white haired and old clapping

him
on his back. THere had been many of those. If he had chanced to
remember to

look in a mirror, he would have noticed that he too had
become one of these

men..

“Er, Michigan 12. This is Numo.
No

code, just Numo, of the Arugula, on, um, research. compling some
wave front densities,

all the way up into the Netherdimensions
Sparhauser postulated regarding contraction

of the Core. Rather
interesting. really, this last raytrack test put the lid on

Nedens
theory about the gestalt timing. “

It

suddenly occured to Numo he ought to
be a polite host and invite the newomer over for

some sort of
beverage, or food. Was that not the usual protocol? He’d had a

jolly
time the last time, how many terran years ago, when his old

friend
Spencercast, the Logitechno Philosopher had stopped by on an outbound
voyage

to test his hypotheseis on Autocatalytic Technological
Conversions and their

relationship to distance from the Universal
Core. Numo’s Mechmen had done a fine job

preparing old style
PaxAmericana dinner fare, and the distilled alchohol they’d drunk

had
led to llively conversations and the detachment of Spencercast’s
biomorphed

leg, the one he’d lost on the climbing trip on Sherpahn.

“Michigan 12, please to be invited
over here to the Arugula for fine dining. I,

um, look forward to your
company. Docking port 2 is available. My Mechmen will met you

and
direct you acordingly. Shall we say 1100 hrs?” Numo blinked,
and gave a smile.

Perplexed, Michigan lleaned back

in
her hammock. Should she accept? Could she trust this odd fellow on
the outskirts

of nowhere? Was his old vessel even stable enough? Why
couldn’t she connect with h im

ganecally? She could only postulate
that he’d launched Pre-ShiftPhase, and had missed

out on the whole
First revoution…It wasn’t to far a reach to suppose that. there

had
been lots of Pre-ShiftPhasers who’d jettisoned out to distant stars
only to be

found later, maintaining their isolated expeditions and
missions. OldTimers they

called them. Usually they had been searched
out and brought back to Terra and

updated. The NewsNetworks always
did a piece on them, the gruff old and aged

astrounauts of
yesteryear, grizzled travelers whop always registered suprise at

the
changes wrought on old Terra in their long absences…Scientists
mostly, and

Michigan decided she would accept the Oldtimers offer. As
she prepared to dock and

packed her bag, concealing in it the tiny
stungun Dodge44 had given her for protection

as they’d kissed
goodbye, she figured she would probably be able to set up her

relay
station anyhow. Old Numo might even be able to give her some help on
the

matter. The years of his Blackhole studies might have brought
forth unreported

information, allowing her better transmission
capabilites. Michigan smiled at the

thought of her superbeam smashing
the Networks Control to pieces, leaving an

untraceable missilemessage
imbedded solid to broadcast her, and the others, appeals to

the
entire TerraCluster, unable to be stoppped by the Fundamentalists.
Muffled

thuds announced her docking, and as the air settled and her
lock opened, Numo’s

Mechmen gave her a silent welcome to the solid
girders of the ancient ship

Argyle….

Thru thte long corriders of the

silent
ship the Mechmen of Numo lead Michigan. The servants of Numo

were
interesting to look at. Humanoid in shape and clad in odd, homespun
garments

they shuffled about with, to Michigan, a confused and
puzzled look upon their face.

this was probably due to the placemnt
of photoreceptor and datlinks in their head, an

effect Numo was of
course aiming for in an attempt to provide a semblance

of
companionship in his long, scientific isolation. to Michigan they
reembled the

momatrons in the kinderclusters, tall, gentle murmuring
robits that fed, warmed, and

swathed each newborn as the ganic relays
were activated, that startling brillant

moment of enfolding warmth
and welcome into a giagantic, human emotive network. simply

walking
next to these odd creations made Michigan smile as memory lapped at
her

consciousness.

The long corridors of the

ship
stretched on. Built at time when the style was steellike and girded.
Catwalks

and pipes, bioluminescent walls and glass elevators where
oddly empty. By its design,

the ship made Michigan exepcet to see a
crowded, moving mass of people, all moving

about, all excited and
caight up in the mutual purpose and excitment of

scientific
discovery. Instead there were only the silent Mechmen, machines
within a

machine. Her odd escort lead her on and on, deeper into the
bowels of the

ship.

Watching his mechmen set the

table,
Numo fussed a little. He reaaranged the red rose at the center of the
table,

and smoothed down the ruffles on his tuxeoded cumberbund. He
wondered if the style

might be appropriate, but this thought soon
passed from his mind as he wondered if the

core linage he’d used on
the probe relay he’d launcehd yesterday was appropriate for

the
QuaserLight test. His fingers absently fingerd the rose petals as his
mind went

blank, as it oftyen did, relaxing in some far corner from
the heavy weight of his

thpughts, his years and knowledge. When he
snapped out of it he found himself holdin a

fried cutred section of
sesame toasted tofu. He set it hurriedly down on a plate,

wiping his
hands on his pants, and decided he’s sit with his back to

the
starwindow, so his guest could look out on the swirling darkness

of
INferno.

When she entered, Numo was for

a
moment stunned, more shocked and jolted than he’d been by any of the
recent

scientfic breakthroughs which had occured on his long watch.
Michigan 12 was

exquiste, sharply carved features and eyes which held
a color green that was only

found on old Terra. Yet her beauty went
beyond that, out from her youthful stance and

energy, out from her
and deep into Numo. It struck at memories untouched since,

since
there was no way to measure. Yet a resonance struck, and Numos face
must have

reflected this, as it registered wide open, uncluttered
emotion, for Michigan 12

looked exactly like Numo’s daughter, and
when NUmo reaslized this, rushing up at him

like a toprpedo from the
depths to sink his floating ship, his memory told him again,

breaking
its silence of many years and layers and shelvings, the important
fact

that NUmo did indeed have a daughter.

“Ilsa!” he

gasped, passing
out into his bowl of udon style noodles, the memories a floodgate

to
a tidal wave of emotions.

Puzzled by the

Old Tiimers behavior,
even more disturbed by not being able to intercept the broad

range of
emotives she was used to translating, Michigan 12 could only lift the
mans

head dripping miso soup base from his whiskers out of the bowl
and deftly dabbing at

the withered face. He’d obviously undrgone a
type of reponse in the recordant

parameters, faint but powerful
fluctions hinted at and picked up only by her most

sensitive ganic
translatoers. With a sigh she resigned herself to

fullload
vocalizing.

“Numo, Captain? you

allright
there?” she asked, shakling him, as the mechmen buzzed worriedly
about,

setting, and resetting dishs and plates of food.

Breaking from his dream of his
daughter floating amongst chives and miso, Numo

sputtered back to the
world.

“Forgive an old

man his
memories..” he told Michigan as he halfheartedly wiped dry his
beard, “But

you remind me of my daughter, long ago..”

“Really?”

Michigan asked,
settling herself into a chair, giving the steaming food a sniff

befor
ehelping herself. “What was her Ident? Maybe she was one of my
mothers…”

She began shovelling the food into her mouth. The
rice noodles and soy tasted

deliciouse. It had been a few years since
she’d tasted such fare. The TyGannics had

fostered a diet heavily
reliant upon meat and cheeses. Often as not, she and Dodge44

and
others from her Cluster had engaged in Gardening, a clandestine
operation

involving stealthsuites and the raiding of the Party
officials Gardens, utilizing the

latest in Enter and Hack
technologies that youth was constantly engendering. Once, a

very
close call with Minister Pickerdillys electrohounds had yielded

them
nonetheless with a pair of juicy, organic tomatoes.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> “I guess in my day there was
usually only one Mother.

The Event Horizon, time slows here, I keep
forgetting. What year might it be on old

Terra?”

Noodles lifted to her face,

Michigan
paused. She tried to guess what year Numo had left from, and on

which
calendar. The Official Calendar calibrations had changed twice, and
Michigan

could never recall the Conversion formulas.

”

I was born when they launched
the great Creetor ships..” she offered, recalling the

biggest
event which had reverberated throughout her childhood, apart from

the
current governemntal takeover. Numo simply shook his head. These
events had no

meaning, only his work, only the physical existence of
Inferno was important, and, of

course, what lie inside, if it was
‘inside’ He was still waiting for the return of

Drone 2525, whose
callibrated instruments would hopefully yield the proof of

taiko’s
Interteller theory, or once again prove Lord Tennebrae’s

formulas
correct.

Watching Michigan eat,

noticing the
added on techogadgets( the infared contacts, the fingerllinks

and
various sense enhancers) of a world which had passed him by, Numo
recalled

his last conversation with the Arugulas Main Computer, the
last one befor she switched

off the voice program forever. They, (the
computer had been called WillyGibb, spoke with a

cold, Canuk like
accent.)

“Oh sure, Numo,

why not just hang
ut over thar in the Event Horizon, no contact with Terra.

Information
gonna past you by, eh?”

Now Willy

Gib, I’m working on a set
project. The Groundwork is already complete. what more

information do
I need but what comes out of Inferno? Information from others

will
simply corrupt. With a standard set of technologies, with the
parameters

already in place, technology has plateaued, you know the
autocatalytic limit is

approaching, your own make up is part of
that.”

After that, the silence became slowly eternal.