Ranh Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  © Copyright, 2015. Ian Miller

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Author's note

  Ranh

  Ian J Miller

  © Copyright, 2015. Ian Miller

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for fair use, such as the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  This is a work of fiction, and all characters and organizations are quite fictional and bear no relationship to anyone. Even the planet is fictional, although it is in accord with my theory of planetary formation.

  Chapter 1

  Natasha Kotchetkova awoke to a strange sequence of clicking, low-pitched squawking sounds, mixed in with some quiet but almost shrieking sounds that she recognized as vowels, as if a giant parrot was in some degree of distress, and which she immediately recognized as, "Welcome to Ranh, or at least the Ranh system. Would you like some juice?"

  There before her was Katya, her Companion, a sentient machine that looked and behaved exactly like a person. She felt almost obliged to reply in the same language, which was somewhat of a mystery to her because she had never known anything like this before, so she said, "Yes, please." Then she paused, and continued by saying, "I don't know the word for 'orange'". She was quite surprised to find a similar sequence of strange noises coming from a small device on the bed in which she was lying, until it stopped, and she found herself vocalizing, 'orange'.

  "Good! The language teacher worked," Katya smiled. "To speak their language," she explained, "it is helpful to have a small vocalizing unit. It's made as a small pendant to hang from your neck, so you can take it down with you when you go. In the meantime, I shall get you your orange juice."

  "Katya?"

  "Yes?"

  "Why was it that I had no idea what the word for 'orange' was?"

  "Because they do not have that fruit," Katya smiled. "Of course they know of the colour orange, but you have been taught not to use words that could only have the wrong meaning."

  "I see," Natasha said slowly. She tried to get up, but she found herself to be rather weak, so she slumped back into her bed. She suddenly realized that her mouth was quite dry, so a drink would be welcome.

  "So we're there already?" Natasha asked when Katya returned, and she had had two mouthfuls. It seemed a rather pathetic thing to say, but she could not think of anything better.

  "Not quite," Katya informed her. "We are stepping down from relativistic speed, and we shall place ourselves in a reasonably distant orbit under directions of the Ranhyn Space Control centre. We have, of course, announced our arrival, and sought permission."

  "Suppose they hadn't given it?" Natasha asked with a frown.

  "It would be a grave breach of treaty obligations," Katya shrugged, then knowing that was not sufficient, she added, "In principle we would have had to continue on to somewhere else."

  "That would have been fun," Natasha said dryly.

  "For you, probably," Katya replied. "There's much of interest in the rest of the Universe."

  "So, when do we have to do something?"

  "You don't for quite some time," Katya explained. "We are under external direction, and the ship and I can carry out our manoeuvres far better than you could."

  'That's true,' Natasha acknowledged mentally. Katya might look like a rather ordinary small woman, but she was made of titanium, and with her automatic link to the ship's computers, she could carry out the most complicated mathematics while Natasha was looking for a pencil. She was also linked to Katya with an insert to her body, which allowed her to communicate through thoughts.

  'And you should not even contemplate doing such dreary complicated mathematics while you have me to do them,' Katya mentally prodded her.

  'I shouldn't be doing anything,' Natasha thought. 'I feel . . .'

  'Normal!' Katya informed her, 'at least normal for coming down from relativistic speed. It's why you were woken earlier than necessary, to give you time to recover all your abilities.'

  'I should have a bath. I sort of feel . . . but you know?'

  'Yes, and a bath is an excellent idea. I shall have it made to your desired depth and temperature.'

  'We have that much water?'

  'Yes. Of course it will all be recycled immediately following your bath.'

  'So, what's the program?'

  'Spend the next four hours or so recovering, have a look at the view, such as it is, then when we've lost sufficient velocity, you should meet with the others.'

  'Sounds good!' Natasha thought, then realized that was an odd thing to think, because nothing had been sounded.

  'It shouldn't take long to get used to this way of communicating,' Katya replied, 'and it is good you are getting practice.'

  'It occurs to me that this is a good means of communicating privately,' Natasha thought, 'but it also occurs to me that the Ranhynn could easily intercept the messages, as presumably they have this level of technology.'

  'Yes, they do, but they can only intercept the message if they lock onto your frequency. That would be a grave breach of manners, and of diplomatic protocol.'

  'They might still try it, though.'

  'They cannot do so without my being aware immediately they find your frequency. I would warn you, and require the other party to desist. With a little practice, you will also find that this is quite private. You can say something to Gaius without Lucilla knowing, and vice versa.'

  'But I didn't really pick you out for this conversation.'

  'Yes, you did. You mentally selected me, even though you almost certainly did not do it consciously.'

  'There's nobody else here,' Natasha pointed out.

  'But when you thought you wished to communicate with me, you selected me. You'll find out how easy it is with more practice. Now, your bath calls.'

  'You haven't run it yet,' Natasha pointed out.

  'Oh yes I have,' Katya replied. 'Through the ship, I control every valve. Now, time to get out of bed.'

  Natasha struggled at first, but was a little surprised to find her strength slowly return.

  'You are correct,' Katya explained. 'The inertial equivalence field is reactivating your muscles. While you were asleep it was convenie
nt that they be fully relaxed, and under ship control. It stops blood clotting, and so on. But now you need your legs, so functionality must return.'

  'This takes a little getting used to,' Natasha thought.

  'You'll be surprised how soon this becomes quite taken for granted,' Katya replied.

  * * *

  "Feeling better?"

  "Yes, you were right. I am starting to feel normal."

  "Excellent," Katya said. "Now, before you go over to see the others, you know why you are here?"

  "To get a peace treaty signed between Earth and Ranh, surely?"

  "Yes, but there is a little more to it. As you have been told, there appears to have been temporal interference from our future. Sometime in the not too distant future, on what will have now become another timeline, humanity, apart from a few on a temporal satellite, was essentially exterminated. Gaius was given a prophecy from someone in the future called Pallas Athene-"

  "Who had apparently been a bit naughty and had inserted her name as a Goddess into our literature," Natasha said with a smile. "One has to admire her cheek, if not –"

  "Yes, and at first Gaius probably thought he was sent on a mission by the Gods."

  "Which, apart from the God part, he was."

  "Exactly. Now this temporal interference proceeded by sending a messenger to get help, and thanks to relativity, that message had to start from the first century, which is why we have two Romans here and now."

  "And he did not get enough help," Natasha remarked. "There is no guarantee this extermination can be avoided."

  "No, and as you know, there is a very good reason why he could not, however, that is not our current issue. What we know is that Ranh is almost certainly the cause of the extermination, and so the peace treaty is the best way of dealing with this problem."

  "If they sign," Natasha warned.

  "Yes, but there is reason to believe they will. The message from the future was clear that you should be part of this mission, and, well . . ."

  "What you are trying to say," Natasha remarked wryly, "is that the solution is either political or military, and if it has to be military, there is no reason for my being here."

  "I wouldn't quite put it like that, since you alone can pilot the third battleship. However, you are correct in that without your presence, there is no hope of the treaty being signed, because you alone have the required status. Unfortunately, we don't actually know that the political approach will work, but that is for the future. There is one more immediate problem."

  "Gaius?"

  "Yes. The prophecy promised that there would be only two women in Gaius' life, and you are the second –"

  "And I am not going to be some –" Natasha started to protest.

  "No, you are not, and unless you've been lazy, you know I am not suggesting that," Katya said. "Marcellus and Antonia . . ," the other two machine companions, "and Lucilla all agree you have the total right to choose your own future."

  "Then why are we discussing this?"

  "To explain from Gaius' point of view, because you two have to be able to work together. He knows that Athene is simply a young woman in the future who happens to be able to speak fluently the Latin and Greek of his time. Nevertheless, deep within him there is this unfortunate streak of superstition. He argues that so much of the prophecy has come true, so must the rest, hence his problem with women."

  "He still has free will," Natasha replied.

  "Of course he does, and we must also recognize the purpose of this prophecy. It was to save humanity, and he was the chosen tool, so to speak. The most likely reason he would fail is that he would fall in love with someone who would divert him from the mission, so in this sense, the prophecy was probably not a statement of what could be, but rather what was required to achieve the goal."

  "Self-fulfilling, I guess," Natasha nodded agreement.

  "Yes, except that once he got underway, apart from when he returned to Earth, there were no opportunities. Now, the point I am getting to is this. Once down there it is important that there is no tension between you two."

  "I promise, there will be no problem from me," Natasha said. "I shall be as professional as I can in my dealings. I just hope, though, that somehow we can shake him out of this –"

  "That is something we have to deal with after we solve this more important problem. Remember, there won't be any opportunities to do anything about it on Ranh, because quite simply there are only raptors down there, at least as far as we know."

  "That won't make it any easier for me, I guess."

  "It means you have to make the effort to be even more professional," Katya said. "Of course I shall be there to help, and Marcellus has agreed to try to divert Gaius."

  "As if this were not difficult enough already," Natasha said as she shook her head.

  Chapter 2

  "Greetings! How do you feel?"

  "I've certainly felt better," Natasha replied, "but I'm much better now than when I woke up. My mouth was so dry." She paused, and suddenly realized she was speaking fluent Latin with an accent she did not recognize.

  "You get used to this sort of thing," Lucilla offered. "Not that we do it all that often."

  "Anyway, come and eat," Gaius offered, as he pointed to the triclinium. "Get comfortable, because we have a lot to cover." He glided onto the central couch, and pointed to the one on the right. "This time, take plenty of room," he advised, "and get into a good position to watch the screen. It's time for Marcellus to show us the natural history of Ranh." He paused, and added with a wryful smile, "I'm sorry that this is going to be a bit on the tedious side, but we need some idea of what we're up against."

  As they adjusted their positions, Marcellus stepped to the front, turned on the giant screen, and began to outline the nature of the planet.

  Part of the structure of Ranhyn life was due to the planetary system itself. The star itself was quite a common star. It was a yellow dwarf, a little under 90% the mass of the sun, and it gave off a little over a third the heat, although being a young star, its UV output and its stellar winds were still somewhat above the sun's output. It had a Jupiter equivalent on a rather eccentric orbit, seemingly because it had ejected the Saturn equivalent from the system. It also had one very large gas giant or brown dwarf at a considerable distance, which, while unexpected, was not considered to be particularly significant, other than that it was probably responsible for cleaning out the remaining giants. However, bodies inside two astronomical units were essentially unperturbed by the outer planets and were in near circular orbits.

  It was the inner planetary system that was very unusual. First, being a young stellar system, the volcanoes still belched out extremely toxic and unpleasant gases. In addition to the hydrogen sulphide, there was still ammonia, methane and hydrogen cyanide amongst the cocktail of undesirable emissions. The land within 50 km of a volcano had to be considered out of bounds. The boundaries would be easily seen: all animals venturing into these toxic zones died, while the few plants that had tried to adapt were stunted, and took on strange colourations. The drinking of water in the Ranhyn wilderness required care. If there were Earth-like fish in the water, or if other wildlife was drinking, it was probably all right, however a small testing kit would be issued to anyone who ventured onto the planet. In the normal course of events, all food and water in the cities would be quite safe.

  Assuming they descended to the planet, they would land at the capital, Tukhranh, which was the city where aliens were permitted to visit.

  "You mean, we are not allowed to go anywhere else?" Natasha asked.

  "The Ranhynn would answer no," Gaius replied. "Strictly speaking, the treaty with Ulse permits me to go where I like, and take any Ulsian representative with me. The problem is, none of us are Ulsian, and I only qualify because of my military rank. Right now, I think we should try to provide as few problems to the Ranhynn as possible and we shall stay within the city limits of Tukhranh. Later on, we may have to revisit that. Now, let's
hear Marcellus continue."

  There were three planets that could and did harbour life. Ranh itself was a little further from the star than planetary theory predicted, but not exceptionally so, and this could be simply as a consequence of chance as to where accretion was initiated. It was an Earth-like planet with four major continents and two polar continents that supported significant ice caps. Its carbon dioxide levels were a little above those of Earth, but because the star was cooler, the temperatures and climate were similar to those on Earth.

  The Venus equivalent was significantly further away from the star than expected, but its orbit was stable. More unusually still, it had a reasonable complement of continental crust, and was quite volcanically active. It had only slightly less ocean than Ranh, and it had fixed most of its carbon dioxide such that the temperatures on this planet were significantly warmer than on Earth, but not excessively so. On the other hand, the shapes of the landmasses were such that most got plenty of rain, and the greater cloud cover meant that much of the increased heat expected was radiated into space. Rather than being the greenhouse hell that Venus was, this was more a hothouse planet, with jungle-like vegetation, high humidity, very high rainfall in places, and a paradise for mosquito-like insects. It was not recommended that they visit this planet. The Ranhynn did visit from time to time, and dinosaur hunting was quite a sport, but the Ranhyn skin was somewhat thicker than that of humans and their feathers seemed to hold some sort of insect repellent so the insects were less of a problem. The hazard to navigation was the main reason to avoid it. It was quite difficult to find clear firm ground to land on, and while the Ranhynn had built privately owned landing sites, the use of these without a specific invitation could lead the user to serious trouble.