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 Sorcerer: Interesting Times by BJohn
   Chapters 25 to end (Chapter 27)
   bjohn36@verizon.net
   Chapter 26
   BOB (Sunday 2/25)
   The social secretaries had decided to have Eileen's Meet the New Friends
party at OTL so they could combine it with showing off their new home
expansion.  It was fine by me; I could supervise Sean cooking instead of
doing it myself.  Grin.
   They'd invited all the new babies along, so we ended up with nine really
cute baby bodies ranging from a month to a couple of days old.  They were
all ones of us, of course, and well trained, so the boys had tiny demon
horns (dull, thank you very much) while the girls had tiny halos flickering
around.  Fitting, though I bet Sean and Mario those horns and halos would
do lots of switching around.
   Oh, boy!  Sean's son (the Cullen heir) was Cathal's son Conor from the
McDonnal house battle.  He'd taken the name Ronan this time around.  We
remarked that he'd gotten a head start on his Ceann's education.
   The girls were Eileen's ggggrandmother (now called Keelin) and Joan
(Seamus's grandmother Saraid).  Hmm, seems we were really getting
cross-related now.
   With nine baby bodies, I had a hard time telling them apart.  All
newborns look pretty much alike, right?  To help us out, each had a little
hologram sign with their name, prior name and relationship.  Good thing,
because I stopped counting at 2,000 visitors over the morning.
   For sure, and Clann McDonnal stopped by.  Cian and Meadbh were really
happy to meet up with their brother again; we had to break out a rope to
pull Ronan away from them!
   Father and I hung around the grill with the guys and helped with the
manly charring of assorted animal flesh.  Since this was a barbeque, most
of us stuck with the Irish beer -- I seemed to prefer Killian's Red.
   Mario, Father and I took a quick tour of their new digs; gotta do
quality control, right?  Despite ferocious Geeser attacks on the ankles, we
got through everything.  Father and I decided that Mother had done a decent
job so we didn't have to rag her about it.  As if.
   Ronan and Aideen appeared to spend a lot of time with each other between
goochy-goos from visitors.  I spotted a couple really nice flares from
them. Now that would be an interesting relationship.  Maggie and George
managed, why not them?
   ------
   (Monday 2/26)
   With all the goodies the expedition brought back, SW had something to
occupy themselves besides their continuous Butterfly Games.  Heh.
   With almost a billion spirits to draw on, there was no dearth of able
technician volunteers to do Dusting and Cleaning; each volunteer had gotten
a fifteen minute hatting (read it, drill it then do it) on what to do, and
they'd gone to work.
   Yeh, with huge (at least relatively) Libraries, there was a lot to do.
On the other hand, even the largest Library from System Echo was mostly
space for users and their terminals.  We didn't have to bring it up, just
locate the central and required peripheral systems.
   We'd found a lot (several hundred) memory cubes from the debris in
several systems; probably from when a ship went up.  They were similar
enough they could be plugged into a smaller system setup almost right away
to see what they had.  Add a couple network nodes here and there so each
could be isolated, and the AIs were happy.
   Rhonda told us, "We're going to be looking at both the hardware and the
software.  We'll find the most recent and reliable and use those specs to
produce a working set.  Somewhere we'll end up with a decent balance of
production ease, speed, power requirement, storage density, reliability and
maintenance.  We'll probably do a complete system rebuild for each of us,
but that can wait a while until we see if we can get some newer software."
   I told her, "Good.  This is one time you can have both a champagne taste
and a champagne budget.  Go ahead and work out what you need and want and
we'll get it done.  Information is gonna be the most valuable thing we'll
have."
   ------
   KATHLEEN (Wednesday 2/28)
   Having babies wasn't completely fun; for some reason, each wanted fed
every couple hours.  Picky, picky, picky.  With three mouths, obviously all
couldn't get going at once.  Mom told me, "You'll produce as much milk as
needed.  You could stagger their times, do them all pretty much together or
whatever you work out.  Your body will adjust if you tell it."
   The three babies obviously had a great time Irishing each other about
whose turn it was, what a glutton the others were and so on.  They sorted
it out; on that I was simply the supply line.  Grin.
   Maggie and George spent a few minutes with them going over what they'd
learned about maintaining their own bodies.  For a while, they would have
little control over them so diapers, burping and that sort of stuff was the
deal of the day.  However, by the time they'd been around two days, they
were handling the diapers, dressing, bathing, night feedings and that
routine stuff themselves.
   Mom just shook her head.  "We're really spoiled this time around.  I
remember when Natalie was this size..." I got this involved story about how
she and my dad needed to grow their own cotton in the back yard so they
could weave cloth diapers.  Right.
   There was still plenty of stuff happening besides babies.  Probably in
the next couple of days, the three of them would be putting in a lot more
study time.  Brian (Seamus) was the only one with anything resembling a
modern education, and the Clanns had bumped that level up one hell of a
lot.
   There was Earth, Cel and now probably other science, arts and the like
to learn.  We had planets to colonize, a universe to explore and Irish
whiskey to make and drink!
   While Rome hadn't been built in a day, having 24/7 available made a lot
of difference.  The bodies (especially baby bodies) needed sleep, exercise
(They claimed baby-shrieking was exercise; at least they put somewhat of a
sound shield up.) and food.  We adults needed a lot of lovin' to survive,
too.  Heh.
   Alpha Centauri had two habitable planets and System Alpha had one.  All
had been tentatively cleared for physical habitation.  SW promptly
deposited outposts (ported from Earth) with accessories on each planet.
   The accessories included the full solar power and accumulator for the
outpost, attached storage, a couple vehicles and lots of food and the like.
Just in case, everything was able to be completely sealed.
   With a hundred thousand volunteers, "manpower" wasn't an issue.  SW
would install several virtual teams in shifts with a custom small AI unit
so they could run experiments (bacteria, viri-yi etc.) and check out the
weather and climate patterns.  The teams had lots of different skills and
plenty of backup.  SW medical hadn't given any of the planets a clean bill
of health yet.
   They dropped weather and other sensors around the planet, popped cameras
and sensors up in orbit and went to town.  The AI collected all the data
and stored it.  SW figured they'd build up an AI Real Soon Now to correlate
and evaluate the data so the environmentalists (not a dirty word in this
case) could draw their own conclusions.
   Any Mini-Mick could pop out sensors at an easy 100 per second, so that
was no big deal.  The facilities in the Asteroid Belt were especially busy,
since they were usually small to mid-sized.  We weren't planning on putting
facilities in any of the systems yet; we were waiting to see if we'd find
any faster, smaller, cheaper...
   ------
   BOB (Thursday 3/1)
   I met with SW and the War Council on the first set of data we had from
the expedition.  The consensus was we couldn't see a real threat right off,
and we'd wait to do anything really major until we had a chance to sort
through some of the Libraries and other memory blocks.
   In the meantime, though, Admiral Shelly ensured the Krle system had
sensors scattered all over.  While one couldn't actually walk from Krle to
AC on the sensors, there wasn't much space left uncovered.  With just a
mid-sized (by capability and production ease) sensor able to "look" at a
sphere three light years across, it didn't take long to get places covered.
   SW and the War Council were already planning on putting sensors around
the systems we'd already explored; we were just waiting a bit for more
Library data.
   ------
   (Friday 3/2)
   SW got some 90% of the D&C done.  During the run-through, the AIs and SW
had inspected and tested every different type of data block which appeared
-- several hundred.  The one they picked for a standard for right now was
from System Harry, the independent one.  It had about ten times the storage
density and was almost 100 times as fast as the best we'd found in the Krle
system.  Quite a difference.
   It still worked on the same quantum principles, though; the technique
was in how it was put together.  SW, Rhonda and Mick spent some time
checking out the technique, did quite a bit of reverse-engineering and some
math and came up with a prototype which had even better specs -- and was
easy to build and interface with.  Making it either volatile (looses
contents when power went off) or non-volatile (kept contents without power)
didn't really make any difference.
   Mick immediately pumped out a thousand at one per second.  After a
thorough test and evaluation, SW and the AIs agreed that's what they
wanted. After a half hour of gathering materials, Mick and several other
facilities produced about a hundred thousand units.
   Every original data block, including those in the "recovered" Libraries,
got six "image" backups.  Five went to storage folds in AC, System Alpha,
Krle and Mars.  The last went to either Mars or AC as a working module.
   They very carefully did the same with every data block on the robot
ship; they were being *very* careful with that entire assembly.  The ship
itself went into a fold in the farthest part of the farthest Oort Cloud in
Alpha C; we didn't want it hanging over our shoulders.  We had a shield
around it, a really tight one.
   As a system's "new" working data block became available, it went into a
prepared network, was brought up and tested.  Rhonda was in charge of all
the actual testing, while Alice kept track of everything like inventory,
staffing, scheduling and the like.
   Fred and Harry "felt" left out a bit.  I told them, "Feel lucky. 
Usually the women make *us* work.  Heard any good ones lately?"
   One other thing we started was to port every Earth-based facility,
outpost, etc.  to the planets in AC and System Alpha.  We were still a bit
amazed someone hadn't stumbled across them over the past thousands of
years. This got all that out of the way.
   ------
   KATHLEEN (Sunday 3/4)
   We settled into a routine.  Our three angels (Hah!) agreed to nurse if
they got cuddled a lot.  Grin.  Actually, it was tons of fun most of the
time.  My body didn't have to be awake to nurse; I could just prop it up
and a kid would latch onto each side.
   Bob, Mario, Sherry and I were slave drivers.  We told the kids, "If we
have to study, so do you." Right.  They bought that just as fast as they
bought some of Sean's pedestrian rights in the Bay Area.
   Our young-uns had run them through the study checksheet, the new-spirit
checksheet and had started them on the studies for the teleportation
checksheet.  Brian had been the only one who'd known enough physics to get
by, so he'd been "elected" to tutor the other two.
   The seven of us in the household agreed we should study while we had the
time.  While neither Bob nor anyone else we were aware of had much
prediction on what we'd find in the expedition data, we knew things would
probably get busier, not slower.  And we'd thought being in high school was
a bit demanding at times!
   ------
   Our AIs had gone right for the software data in the Libraries.  Alice
told us, "The Cel Libraries have pretty much the same stuff as we have here
in Selene City.  There's some advanced stuff, but not much.  The Library
from System Harry, though, is much better."
   They, SW and whoever else had a say in it decided on the "best"
language, operating system and hardware for an entire range of systems.  SW
tossed their most experienced programmers into the mix and they came up
with a specification for pretty much anything they could think of.
   Mick popped out a small system, and the AIs cloned a mini-Rhonda for it.
Rhondette (What else would you call her?) "knew" what she was for and went
to work.
   Mick popped out the hardware for a new facilities system; the AIs had
volunteered Fred again to be the pioneer.  Bob, Mario and Rocker
sympathized with him, but laughed anyway.
   Step by step, Rhondette loaded, programmed and tested the new operating
system.  That was just to run the hardware and software; the AI program
overlay was what they were most interested in.
   The five AIs and a bunch of programmers worked together on the AI
overlay; while the AIs didn't neglect their other duties, they put a lot of
computer cycles on it.  If it worked the way they wished, everyone would be
happy.
   It didn't take long for them to decide the hardware was working just
fine.  Harry told us, "It's already at least ten times as responsive, and
with the faster and larger memory and storage along with the standard
hardware and software interfaces, it'll be like wearing ten-league boots.
I've had a hard one for the last two days."
   Yeh.  We had a pretty good idea how he felt.  Anyway, since the first
system had proved out, the team produced and started testing the hardware
and operating systems for new Alice, Rhonda, Mick and Harry homes.  They
also set up two more large ones; we were planning on having a major system
for the Central Library or Encyclopedia and one for the navigation and
exploring we were planning.
   ------
   (Monday 3/5)
   We spent the afternoon and early evening with the OTL gang -- both gangs
now enhanced by three members.  Dinner in Puerto Rico was great; the babies
were models of decorum and got lots of admiration from everyone.
   After Clann Meeting (Bob telling us things were moving along), we
settled in at OTL.  The AIs put in "appearances," and we had a thoroughly
nice evening.  Four boobs and six baby mouths still didn't match up, but
each kid got a taste of new breast milk.  Dayum, they were soo wonderful!
   Both Eileen and I had slimmed down from the extra baby support
requirements and were feeling good.  With our blood filters, we could keep
up with the rest on the moonshine.  The babies demanded their share, but we
limited them to a couple drops each over the evening.
   Eileen and I agreed we were back to our normal horny selves, so we
joined in on the lovin'.  The kids stayed out of it; it wasn't as if they'd
never seen or done the deed themselves!
   It was great to be back in the tender loving again.  We made such
wonderful flares!
   ------
   BOB (Tuesday 3/6)
   The company Monday was wonderful and the lovin' later was even more so.
Yeh, I got "encouraged" to do the rounds.  Mario and Sean got drafted to do
the same, so I had partners in my misery.  Grin.
   Tuesday, Fred told us, "Back me up, Scottie!" so they did.  His new home
was tested as best they could with all the various modules, so they were
ready.
   Oh yeh, it did take them a solid six hours to bring him up.  There were
plenty of tests and plenty of fixes.  Finally everyone was satisfied and
Fred Two was up and running.  The original Fred told us, "I'm outta here!"
and shut down.
   Our new Fred showed up as completely human.  Since he had plenty of
capacity, he was designed to do a trillion simultaneous conversations.  Why
not?  He could talk in any available language plus looked and behaved with
the same ethnic as the people with whom he was talking.  To the NH gang, he
looked like a middle-aged Irish workman and spoke with a fairly broad Irish
accent -- and slang.
   He could sing, too!  Now we had at least one very happy camper.  He told
us, "Sure and I'm after feelin' so dayum good and peppy.  Now, where's the
coleens and usquebaugh?" Dayum Irishmen.  Grin.
   The team moved out the old Fred hardware, he shut down and powered down
the new system, and they moved it into place.  They kept the current
hardwired sensors, but rerouted quite a few of the fiber optic leads (with
our best cabling) and made provisions for another ten times as many.
   Why not?  The new hardware was only a quarter of the size of the old,
for one thing.
   Even with his special-purpose design for facilities, he was now a good
order of magnitude faster and more capable than Rhonda.  Since that was the
case, the other AIs put him to work as the tester.  Rhondette hung around,
though; they had plenty of work for her later.
   ------
   (Wednesday 3/7)
   Fred made several hundred corrections and tunes to both the operating
systems and the AI overlays.  Glad he was on our side.
   Finally, everyone was satisfied, even him.  That called for a little
celebration!  The new babies got a tiny drop of The Best.  Grin.
   With everything tested on Fred, SW and the rest started working on
finishing the hardware and software for the new Alice, Rhonda, Harry and
Mick, plus the new kids on the block, Ellie Encyclopedia and Ed Explorer.
   ------
   KATHLEEN (Friday 3/9)
   Our babies were doing just fine.  They'd lost the newborn wet and
wrinkled look and were beautiful!  Well, Rocker looked, em, strong.  They
spent probably half their time sleeping and growing their bodies and the
other half waving arms and legs around and exercising their
sound-generating apparatus.  We were using the new-baby checksheet, so a
couple times a day they'd run through the entire list and exercise
everything.  What wasn't available right then would be later.
   Anyway, SW came up with a good breakthrough.  While the Library
cross-referencing and indexing wasn't complete yet, they'd not found much
more on the presser/tractor theory and practice, so they'd worked on their
own.
   The technology now allowed us to use a set of three interlocked
presser/tractor points to generate a press or pull from a point up to a
sphere.  The wider-spaced the three parts of the set, the more accurate the
point.  The more robust the physical circuitry was, the more push or pull
it could do over a longer distance.  Of course, it required more power, but
at least it was close to linear.  Made sense.
   One practical application was we could now create a ship drive with as
much acceleration as we could design and power; the circuitry was inside
the generated field and wasn't subject to the acceleration.  That made
every drive we had obsolete.  Fortunately, it wasn't a big deal to upgrade
a current configuration, so we didn't have to scrap a ship and start over.
   We could also move things around much simpler.  Mick and Fred went to
work on upgrading all the pressers/tractors in all the facilities.
   The AI migration to their new homes was complete.  Ellie Encyclopedia
and Ed Explorer in Alpha Centauri were semi-clones of Rhonda and Harry.
   Dayum, we were having fun.  With the new presser/tractor technology, an
AI could actually create a hologram of a person which was touchable (felt
like skin) and looked like any other homo sap.  Yes!
   Alice had some cute boobs (Check 'em out some time?), Rhonda had a
really tidy arse and Ellie Encyclopedia was a gorgeous Black Irish witch.
Heh.  Betcha you can tell how my mind runs, right?  Now any of them (with a
piece of hardware the size of a golf ball) could sit in a chair in our den
and talk with us.  That was fun.
   Ellie and Ed were familiar but were already their "own people." Since
they'd cloned off Rhonda's and Harry's personality data, they knew us right
off.  Of course, they put in a few quirks of their own; Ellie sported a set
of half-lens reading glasses on the end of her (really-cute) nose.  Grin.
   It didn't hurt that they flirted unmercifully with either sex.  Ellie,
Alice and Rhonda flashed bush at Bob and Mario several times.  Hehe.
   ------
   (Sunday 3/11)
   The first major pass at the Library (and memory block) data
cross-referencing and indexing was done.  Ellie told us, "Among the seven
of us, we know everything." Grin.
   Rocker promptly had me ask, "Ellie, what are the origins of the Human
and Cel species."
   Ellie laughed and said, "I don't know.  Maybe Rhonda's the one to ask on
that one." We laughed for a while and had a blast.
   Since the babies couldn't talk (and their hearing wasn't quite tuned in
yet), they set up several handy sets of transducers.  They could now
converse with the AIs the same way the _Columbia_ had done when it had been
in the Cel home systems.  They weren't slowed down a bit, actually, since
while verbal communication was fun, it was by necessity quite slow.
   The babies didn't mind at all snuggling up to a Rhoda, Alice or Ellie
bosom, either.  Rocker and Brian would root around and ask, _"Got milk?"_
Sorry, not right now.  We weren't planning on doing the bottle and formula
route, or they would have done that quite handily.
   We older folk used transducers, too.  We got so we could talk verbally
and run an underlying data stream back and forth at the same time.  Dayum,
Bob and Sherry could run three streams at the same time while talking away
verbally or mentally.
   All the babies could do two streams, while Rocker could do four.  We
figured that was an individual talent, like Cynthia's ability to do several
probes and transcriptions at once.
   The main thing we used the data streams for was mind picking.  We'd all
done some transcribing of the lost technologies we remembered, but that was
really slow compared to a transducer data stream.
   Ellie or Rhonda or whoever could immediately cross-reference their known
data, ask questions and really dig in.  Sure.  The kids could do that, too.
After all, they were at least as spiritually old as we were.
   Ellie had *lots* of storage so that wasn't an issue.  Our Selene City
AIs had set up to do a trillion simultaneous conversations, while Ellie and
Ed could do about a thousand trillion.  Why not?  All it took was a touch
of memory, a new process and a touch of processing time.
   Even with the seven of us humans going at once, they were easily up to
the task; running a holo wasn't much extra work since the remote hardware
did most of the actual work.
   Any of them could produce a holo-clone in the blink of an eye -- they
looked very related with a touch of difference in personality -- so we
could have as many Ellies, Eds, Rhondas, etc.  around at the same time as
we or they wanted.  All it took was another remote, and we had fifty of
them scattered around the NH house.
   Sounds as if we didn't get out much?  Actually, we spent a good deal of
time zipping around to Mom's (gotta trade baby cuddles and gossip), the JRD
office, RRK office and the like.  Everyone wanted to give the babies a
cuddle.  We had cute-baby goo knee deep almost all the time.  Grin.
   We spent time with the OTL gang, too, at either place.  Neither Eileen
nor I had a lot of chance to get a long Journey in, but our time will come
again.
   ------
   BOB (Wednesday 3/14)
   SW had been doing a hell of a lot on folds.  They hadn't found much more
data on them in the Libraries or the Krle system stashed memory blocks. 
Ellie told them, "Unless it's called differently or done differently or has
an entirely different effect, what you see is what we've got." Actually, it
was a lot of help, because it left us on our own.  That seemed quite
familiar by now.
   Some blonde, redhead or brunette asked some dumb questions.  "If a fold
like the ones we found in the Krle system has no mass or no visibility, how
does it stay in place?  Why didn't the big transceiver and all those other
folds simple 'drift' away?  The solar system's moving all the time relative
to pretty much everything else."
   Well, the reverse-engineered math and technology showed a fold was
anchored to a gravity point.  If you locked it to a couple points, you
could keep it equidistant from the two.  The Oort Cloud matter transceiver
was locked to the Sun and to Jupiter, and the others were locked to a
planet.
   When the fold was created, if you didn't specify a gravity point, the
equations caused it to anchor to the largest one available.  That's why The
Selene City Distillery of Fine Irish Spirits could use them.
   Any of the AIs could do math.  With their help, an SW team could cruise
right along with the hard work (thinking up assumptions, bright ideas and
the like) while the AI could do the "solve fors," equation expansions, etc.
in less than an eye blink.  Try that manually with an equation having 5,000
terms.  Try solving several thousand simultaneous equations.  That's where
the AIs came in.
   Besides, with the math they did have (Pretty much everything from Earth
was in the Encyclopedia by now, too.), they could come up with possible
substitutions simply by the similarity of terms.
   Anyway, the math showed one could anchor a fold to a coordinate instead
of a specific gravity point.  If you used the galactic coordinate system as
part of the fold equations you could specify a very exact point.
   The fun came in during the scaling.  For coordinates close by, there
wasn't an issue, but with all the relative motion, somewhere along the
line, the coordinates would drift.  You could toss in another couple long
equations to account for that over some time period.  The longer the time
period, though, the more corrections and possibly the worse the drift.
   SW didn't see much use for the coordinate anchors right off until
another dumb question came up, "The folding is a process just like origami.
Do one step, then the next and so on.  Do we have to unfold or collapse it
in exactly the reverse sequence?"
   That was good for several more long sessions.  It was a good thing the
AIs' memory and CPUs didn't wear out due to use.  What the math came up
with was a) Create a fold anchored to a convenient coordinate.  b) Go off
and make love for a while, tickle some baby feet or whatever.  c) Whenever
you wish, unfold it as fast as you wish, only change the coordinates before
you unfolded it.
   The hypothesis was we could create a fold on Krle, set the coordinates
to somewhere in System Cel Two and unfold it.  Whatever was in the fold at
Krle was now at System Cel Two.
   With a bit of testing, we found the same folding technology worked from
inside or outside the fold and it didn't care how complex the foldings
were. A piece of paper doesn't care if it takes one finger to fold it or
five people's hands, it just folded.
   Make a tiny computer and folding circuit together.  Toss in the solved
equations for the size, time duration inside (might as well keep it 1:1),
the initial and final coordinates and let it rip.  The result was a
transfer of whatever the fold enclosed with no "help" from a spirit.
   We thought that was fockin' aye cool!  Experiments with plants, mice,
etc.  and a couple volunteer bodies showed there was no effect on life; it
simply went along for the ride.  That's what we'd expected since the Cel
drive used a partial fold and took life right along with it.
   You could fold entirely from the outside and send anything from any
coordinate to another, too.  It was all in the math and the initial
calculations.
   We were pretty lucky for a while until someone folded a rock from Krle
into a rock in the Alpha Centauri Oort Cloud.  The coordinates were exact,
but there just happened to be a rock at the target.  Oops!
   We weren't back to square one, since we had exactly the same issue
during a teleport.  The solution which worked was send along a small sensor
package.  The folding and unfolding could take maybe a nanosecond or less
or it could be stretched out over pretty much as long as one wished.
   The sensor package could work through a partial fold.  Start the unfold,
wait a bit and check for mass, emissions, radiation (of any sort) or what
have you.  If the result was undesirable, close the fold and try again with
a slightly different set of target coordinates until you got a clear space
in which to unfold entirely.
   With the proper presser beam setup (either part of the sensor package ,
folding circuitry and computer complex or separately), you could push back
the stray mass like hydrogen atoms, dust, minor rocks, dead ships or what
have you as you unfolded.
   We now had the equivalent of a spirit teleport.  Attention on both ends
(coordinates), media buffers on both ends (pressers and tractors), do the
deed (fold and partially unfold and check for interference) then fully
unfold.  The sequence wasn't exactly the same, but it worked.
   We found if we folded from the inside, we couldn't leave a buffer at the
source to let the media collapse gracefully.  We decided for now that was
tough darts; just don't fold directly out of Harry's hangar bay without
outside help to handle the pop!
   There could well be an intrinsic velocity difference between the
relative motions of the source and destination.  We could handle that with
pressers/tractors inside the partial fold.  As a serendipity, SW found that
if they "de-tuned" a presser/tractor a little, it was more than willing to
push or pull the base -- just as easy and with less power requirement than
the Cel ship drive.  Then, we didn't even need a drive to do local
maneuvering.
   Depending on how cautious we wanted to be on a fold, it could take as
little as a nanosecond (Always do the matter check at the target; sensor
circuits don't take kindly to dust materializing inside it.) up to hours or
days.  A scout ship, for example, could sit inside a partial fold for as
long as desired to do the initial scans.  The more sensitive the scan
wanted, either active or passive, the longer it took and the more the fold
had to unfold.
   Then again, some nasty person somewhere suggested, "Put a full fold
around a chunk of matter from the interior of the Sun.  Set the target
coordinates to the interior of an enemy ship, installation, or planet and
let it unfold.  Bit of a nasty surprise, right?"
   Right.  We tried it with a bb-sized chunk from about halfway to the
center of the Sun and dumped it into a 100-kilometer diameter rock in
System Alpha.  It was, em, spectacular.
   That brought up all sorts of interesting issues: could we prevent an
enemy from doing the same to us?  Could we "shield" against an antagonist
unfolding in a given space?  Well, that was something to chew on; in the
meantime, we ended up with a workable technology for our use.
   Maggie told us, "If we printed the basic equations in book-sized type,
you'd have around 30 volumes each two inches thick.  There's maybe four of
us so far who actually understand them -- and I'm not one of them."
   ------
   KATHLEEN (Thursday 3/15)
   More goodies.  A thousand-spirit team worked on the robot destroyer. 
They had two major questions: a) What was the firewall we'd run into?  and
b) How did the power plant work?  It was maybe 200 cubic feet (Think a
six-foot cube.) but produced 1,500 gigawatts including all the mounting,
control and power connections.
   Well, the power plant was a fission/fusion reactor.  It could take heavy
atoms and break them into smaller ones (releasing energy) or fuse lighter
elements (releasing energy) into heavier ones then break them down.  The
technology around the entire thing converted the energy release directly
into useable power; in the case of the robot, it was five-phase AC.
   There were only a couple of mentions of that type of plant in the
Encyclopedia with no data on how it actually worked.  Again the AIs helped
out the math and physics folk with equation twiddling.
   Yaddah, yaddah, yaddah.  The end result was we could create a power
plant which could "eat" pretty much anything.  It could be as small as a
cubic foot (1,000 megawatts) up to, em, whatever.  SW thought they might be
able to jigger stuff around enough to enclose a small star.
   The power output was dependent on the physical size since it had to
contain a major plasma field.  How long the fuel would last varied greatly
on what one fed it and was proportional to the actual mass in the fuel. 
Think Einstein's e equals emm cee squared.  That's a lot of energy at a
calculated 80% efficiency.
   Attach an accumulator, warm it up (Form the initial containment field.)
then dump in the fuel.  That was pretty much it.  It took a lot of failed
experiments, but what the hell.
   So we now had quite a variety of power sources.  Accumulators were the
simplest and were rechargeable, but had the shortest power life and a power
limit.  On the other hand, they produced no known active emissions.
   A nuclear battery had a much longer life, but was limited in power (It
relied on temperature differences.) and was, em, radioactive.  It also
produced emissions; we could shield them with a spirit-shield, but they
were a pain in the arse.
   A fuel cell took hydrogen (under tremendous pressure), was limited in
power output and had a reasonable life.  They were cheap and simple enough
we could make them foolproof.  Not dayum-foolproof, but close.  They
required outside oxygen to operate and produced water as a "waste" product.
   A thermionic converter was simple in concept, but took a lot of room and
had a chunk of the Sun inside.  Yeh, the Encyclopedia had several thousand
instances of thermionic converters failing non-gracefully.
   The fusion reactors such as we had in Selene City were huge, could put
out a lot of power but required continuous, specially-refined fuel
(deuterium and tritium).  Not our first choice.
   The FF reactors produced one hell of a lot of power from pretty much any
matter, had easily-shielded emissions but had a minimum size.  One wouldn't
use one in a wrist watch.
   SW checked out (*extremely* carefully) the unusual firewall.  It turned
out to be the standard presser shield for dust.  When the power plant
component failed, it had cascade-failed several other circuits, including
the presser shield generator.  It had partially failed and had been running
on an accumulator (on its last few ergs of power) with only two of five
phases operational at a very out-of-specification rating.
   Again, the Encyclopedia had lots on the normal presser shield, but
nothing on the way that one had failed.  Conclusion?  "Fluke.  Don't count
on someone developing it.  On the other hand, it does exist and it worked,
so if we run into it again, we have to use our 'conventional' weapons. 
Plus, we'll play with it and use it to our own nefarious ends.  Hehehehe."
   ------
   BOB (Friday 3/16)
   Is all this rapid technology development sounding a bit far fetched? 
Well, remember, we had over 900 million free spirits more than willing to
help, and a good third of those were available at any one time (while the
body was getting its eight hours of shut-eye).  Add on to that the fact
that almost to the one, each was extremely bright, ethical and willing to
work.
   Add on the AIs to do the work they did best (repetitive manipulation of
lots of data very rapidly) to the spirits' intuition, SWAGs and pattern
recognition and you've got something which can work very fast with little
wasted effort.  Especially if they're running by The Book in spirit teams!
   With all this in mind, SW (mainly on request from the War Council) got
several major projects going.  One was to establish a full sensor network
around our known systems.  When we'd seeded the planets in the AC systems,
each sensor had been planted by a spirit.
   Now with the folding technology, we could jigger up an AI to do almost
the entire thing.  Thus was "born" the Sam Sensor AIs.  They would work
with a Mini-Mick to create the desired type of sensors (for space or a
planet), fold them to the desired locations and then monitor them.  A tuned
network node relayed the data and alarms to Ed Explorer, Ellie Encyclopedia
or Harry Hangar -- which of course gave access to the data to everyone
else.
   If a planet had life, any spirit could establish a major block of nodes.
With transducers on each end, the Sam Sensors and Ed Explorer could "talk"
without needing spiritual guidance.  Grin.  Actually, if a system didn't
have life, we could create a stand-alone canister with nodes and send it.
Sam Sensor could keep an eye on it, feed and water it then shout for
renewal if needed.
   That started a handling on the un-occupied systems and planets.  The War
Council (SW and NewTek each had several seats, so they were always
represented.) decided to put actual spirits on site in the explored
occupied systems.  They would do probes, transcripts and evaluations of the
beings and the civilizations.
   As a first pass, they decided to send small scout ships so the crews
could live on site and wouldn't have to telecommute.  Heh.
   They asked for volunteers and got 50 million within the first hour of
posting.  They were basically willing to "give up their day jobs" and go
full time.  Not a bad response.
   Okay.  Even sending out 50 at a time was a million ships; I didn't think
we were quite ready for that.  I made a WAG and decided to start with 50
ships as a pilot.
   Alice handled a drawing for 200 spirits to start; we figured if a winner
was in a relationship and the other or others wished to go too, that would
be fine.  It was over pretty quickly; we ended up with 49 teams which we
could put together ranging from four to fifteen to a ship.
   SW, NewTek, Mike and Rhonda got them all together and designed a basic
scout ship.  The individual teams could customize theirs if they wished,
but the ship had to have a minimal configuration to do the job.
   With the scouts' input, they ended up with a basic ship with room for 25
bodies.  Four people would rattle around a little, but the team of fifteen
would still have plenty of room.  It would have a custom AI (Sarah Scout)
based on Freda Columbia, supplies for a year (easily replenished), a small
FF power plant with a nitrogen fuel load (inert, so it could fail
gracefully) and plenty of room for playing and exercising.  Of course it
had a transducer node to a Sam Sensor and to Ed Explorer who would collect,
correlate, analyze and send data and information to Harry Hangar.
   Tack a mini-Mini-Mick module onto Sarah to make the sensors or other
needed goodies, load 100 guided missiles, 5,000 rounds of buckshot and
assorted projectiles for the rail guns and leave room for some other
weapons as they were developed.  We wanted them to be able to fight as well
as run.
   Mick took customization orders from each of the teams.  They wanted a
variety of colors, easily-changeable sleeping spaces and several different
types of plants and pets.  Slightly different chairs, food and other
goodies filled them out.  A couple wanted virtual golf courses!
   Not a drop of sweat.  Mike and several Mini-Micks pumped them out then
set them up in Harry's hangar within ten hours.  We'd replaced all the
presser/tractors in Mick's supply and handling lines the week before so he
found transportation both easier and faster than before; we just had to
keep people bodies out of the way.
   The teams got to do their "things" on their own ships.  They ported in
what they needed and arranged the dishes and the kitchen curtains just like
they wished.  Grin.  Of course, they got to name them, too, within reason;
we did retain veto control on names like, "Fucking Fickle Finger of Fate."
We let them call it, "Finger of Fate." After all, they may go down in the
history books.  Grin.
   Now for training.  All of them had completed the full spirit
checksheets, all the technical bulletins (cleas etc.) and the teleportation
checksheet.  SW Security ran them through a checklist on security,
espionage (We *were* spying, after all.), fabrication, folding, surveying
(climate, geography and space sensor stuff, and they'd be ready.
   ------
   (Saturday 3/17)
   The scouts got a quick shakedown cruise to practice their weaponry and
folding.  From the _sounds_, they had a great time.  A lot of them had
grown up with video games, so this was right up their alley.
   There was plenty of study material in their Sarahs, so they could do a
lot of work on military strategy and tactics.  They'd hide, run and fight
in that preferred sequence.
   As they came back to the hangar after their shakedowns and topped off
their munitions and last-minute items (ice cream!), they used the new
presser/tractors to maneuver out to the lunar surface, then folded out to
their destinations.
   Each planet got several scouts depending on the population density. 
They'd find a comfortable place on the surface off the local traffic paths,
set the ship down and set up both a disguise halo and a transparency cleas.
Then they'd go to work with a Sam Sensor seeding the planet surface with
climate/geography sensors and the system with intrusion sensors.
   It sounded easy, but was an important task.  We had several planets with
low level civilizations which should have recovered a lot better after
208,000 years.  Why hadn't they?  Why so few Sleepers compared to Krle?
   We might not get the answers, but we'd sure have a better idea of what
had happened after the war.  A war there had been, for sure, to what
appeared to have been mutual destruction.
   ------
   KATHLEEN (Sunday 3/18)
   Now that we knew how to fold, SW put another project on line.  Harry had
updated his original maps with calculated coordinates which had been pretty
dayum accurate.  In every jump, the _Columbia_ had come out within 100
kilometers of the calculated position -- that was within our margin of
acceptable error, but Harry told us, "It should be right on the button.  I
could see maybe up to a kilometer, but not 100.  I'll bet the data on the
relative movements, orbits or several other things for a system was simply
incorrect or slightly off."
   We wanted to check out our neighbors.  Sure, we'd done a lot of bopping
around within 100 parsecs of Krle then out to the Cel systems, but the
other systems around were still unknown except for the old data we had.
   Sending a scouting expedition or thousand wouldn't really be feasible.
So, SW designed a mapping package.  Ellie Explorer would cast it to a
system on the map then retrieve it several days later.  Of course it was
stuffed with sensors, both active and passive, and had a transducer back to
Ellie.  They were real time.
   While the package was there, it would get an exact (within the
limitations of the instruments, usually around one kilometer) location
where it came out and compare it to the sun in the system.  It would record
any variations.
   It would map several stars around to lock in the locations further (and
for cross checks), do a long passive and active scan of the system and as
far out as it could sense.  It would send all the data back to Ellie as it
came it.  When its survey was done, it would request a fold back to a
random point in a large vacuum sphere near Ellie in AC.
   If it found something alarming in the scans, came under attack or
something else went outside its alarm parameters, it would send an alarm
over the transducer and start folding off message blocks to the returning
sphere.  Ellie would be keeping an "eye" on the sphere; if anything
appeared there, she'd snatch it up and see what was going on.  The original
package would stay unless it was destroyed, attempt to fold back if
attacked or retrieved at the end of the mission time.
   Since the packages were identical, Mick could mass-produce them.  He had
his Mini-Mick at the Ganymede facility start pumping them out.  As one came
off the line after the final test and canister installation, Mini-Mick
would fold it out to a reception area in AC so Ellie could put it where she
wanted it to go.
   Ellie would check the next system on the list and fold the package
there. Of course, she put it on the list to check if it hadn't completed
its work in its mission time or if the transducer connection stopped.
   With them coming off the fabrication line at ten a minute, in a couple
weeks Ellie could map one hell of a lot of systems -- unless we ran into
dragons or something else.
   ------
   BOB (Tuesday 3/20)
   The gang spent most of the day at JRD reviewing the business and the
companies.  It seemed every one which had one or more ones of us was
booming along.  For example, Technical Publications in Nevada was doing
production work in duro-plast.  Seemed lots of folk thought their words
were immortal and wanted them to last a long time.  Then again, put family
photographs on the stuff at 48,000 dpi and they'd last a long long time.
   Good.  This part of the world was running along just fine so none of us
worried about it.
   Siobhan and Madeleine were about four and a half months along and were
flaunting their bellies.  Sherry flaunted hers right back.  We passed the
babies around so the office can see what a good job their owners had done.
Grin.
   ------
   (Wednesday 3/21)
   We pulled all the shareholders up to RRK in Chicago and gave everything
a good going over.  Oh, yeh, Amanda and the crew were thrilled to have
babies around.  Add to that the fact that one was their original founder,
and well...
   They gave Rocker the entire tour.  While he wasn't yet completely up to
speed on Earth computers (but would be soon), he could appreciate the time
they saved and what a good tool they were.
   He was still a tough businessman and asked tough questions.  Some we
knew and some we didn't.  He told us, _"The era of the robber baron is
over. That doesn't mean we can't get even bigger and wealthier by very
moral and legal means._
   _"While we have a tremendous advantage with our AI friends and the
technologies we've found and developed, it's up to us to use them in the
most effective way possible.  I believe our Robert Ri can lead us properly
to a wonderful civilization."_
   I would have cheerfully strangled the kid and let him try again in a few
hundred years.  But, I restrained myself and let him live.  Grin.
   ------
   (Saturday 3/24)
   The first civilization scouting reports started coming back through the
analysis.  So far as the weather/geography sensors could tell, all the
planets were will within Human tolerance.  Whether or not they had nasty
germs or viruses was a different issue; we'd handle that in the next phase.
   There were several hundred thousand somewhat random light probe results.
Per their mission briefs, the scouts had started with pretty much anyone
and had tried to work up through any discovered leadership chain to the
local, regional and any planetary leaders.  Based on the civilization
levels the _Columbia_ had observed, we expected to find a region leader or
government probably only in the 1600 to 1800's level civilizations.
   Frank Duane and Ed Explorer went over the first week's reports with us
and the OTL gang.  Ed told us, "Mind you, this is only the first week's
probe results, and it was a short week, too.  What we've found is that the
folk on these planets are, em, quite a few cents short of a dollar. 
They're pretty dumb, to say it another way.
   "The highest IQ so far is about 95, and that one was the leader of a
large town.  We've found only a few specks of Potential anywhere.  So far,
there's no indication of much ongoing technology, either, so they're
existing by almost pure manual labor.  There's a few very primitive steam
engines; the probes we did on a couple engineers running them said they're
over 100 years old and that the engines, cars and railway beds have 'always
been built that way.'
   "This is from every planet we're on, which is every one the _Columbia_
found.  It's not local at all.  We've got a lot of research to do, and
we're just getting started.
   "From what computer records we've found, the most recent date on
anything is about 207,000 years old.  We've got a pretty good idea the Cel
home system was out and about in space when they sent out the recall, and
we have a good idea there was a major war right about then.
   "There was a widespread civilization decline or collapse in something
like a thousand years, and as far as we can tell, it hasn't come back very
far.  That's another good reason to get our mapping up at a reasonably good
rate; we might find a civilization which didn't decline.
   "The Why we've yet to find, even as a *really* Wild Assed Guess.  Maybe
there'll be more when we crack some of the languages."
   Chapter 27
   KATHLEEN (Sunday 3/25)
   So, it looked like we had a bunch of, em, Kathleen Airheads.  Dayum,
that's gotta be rough to survive.  I wouldn't wish that on everyone, for
sure.  A selected few, maybe, so they wouldn't spread their hate and
discontent around -- the djinn bottles came to mind.  Why were they that
way?  We were hoping to find out; we were just getting into some of the
archived records.
   Anyway, we talked Liam into a tour of The Selene City Distillery of Fine
Irish Spirits facilities.  While we didn't have a financial interest (that
Bob and I knew of), we were interested in what they were doing.
   They'd moved the production lines to a facility in Mars and were using
the Selene City location for prototypes and experiments.  Mick was still
involved every once in a while, but they had a couple Mini-Micks doing
almost all that type of work.
   They'd nailed down the aging process, so that was under control.  It
seemed that the water one used made a subtle difference in the product even
through the aging.  Scotch, for example, tended to use water from peat bogs
so the product had a "peaty" flavor.
   To get independent of Earth as much as possible (in the long run), Mick
could do a molecular-level analysis of any water and reproduce the
molecules needed.  Once they had that, they could produce pure water via a
filter then add the "flavor" molecules.  Toss in some vitamins and minerals
and you had a "healthy" water to make booze.  Grin.
   The grain was a different story.  For now, it all came from Earth,
though they had their eyes on the AC and System Alpha planets.  When SW
released a planet for occupancy, they'd look at harvesting/cultivating some
of the native grains there.  For now, no one was planning on introducing
Earth grains to another planet until it got a complete approval from the SW
environment team.
   They were still trying out different stills, mashes and techniques at
Selene City.  This was pure Research and Development.  Once it had gotten
semi-approval, they'd ship the formulation off to Mars for production.
   What the hell, even the "failures" were usually pretty decent.  They
usually produced a run of 20 or so liters; if it was any good at all, they
could sell it to one of Sean's enterprises as a "surprise" grab bag at a
decent discount.  None of the bars had returned anything, so even the R&D
was almost paying its own way.  Good on 'em!  Right by The Book.
   Monday, Aideen zipped over.  We cuddled her a little then she and Ronan
groped each other for several hours.  Grin.  Not much body control yet, but
they had some wonderful flares and rainbows.  I let the four young-uns
fight over who got a boob when needed.
   ------
   (Tuesday 3/27)
   Ed Explorer's mapping packages were working out just great.  He'd
started with a radius of about 1,000 parsecs on the ecliptic of the galaxy
with a "thickness" of about 300 parsecs to give a disk for exploration.
   With some 200 to 400 billion stars in the galaxy, he wouldn't run out of
systems to check out for a while.  Heh.  From the Encyclopedia and other
Earth sources, he and SW had SWAG'd that there were 1 in 73 systems (with
planets) inhabited with some sort of life, 4 in 12 of those were sentient,
and maybe 3 of 12 of those were advanced enough to have (or had at one
time) space travel.  Beyond that, it was WAG time.
   He left a special package at any habitable-planet system.  It would do
longer-term scans of the planets over whatever time period.  If the map
data he had indicated a system was special in some way, such as rich in raw
materials, a trade center, etc., he'd at least leave a sensor package there
set to alarm on any space traffic or other interesting happenings.
   He pretended to strut a little, "Sure and I'll not be after havin' any
problems with several billion sensors.  They're cheap, reliable so far, and
running that many is no problemo."
   Why not mix languages?  Everyone else does.
   Thursday we had a nice "orgy" evening at OTL.  Ronan and Aideen floated
around together while the rest of us cheered them on occasionally.  Dayum,
Eileen's were five weeks old and mine were six weeks old already.  Seemed
like yesterday.
   Then again, with some of them being ancestors already, we'd known of
them a long time.  So far, we hadn't had any serious friction, just lots of
Irish fun.  Put that many Irish old timers together, and you'll have lots
of fun repartee.
   Aideen and Margie especially hit it off; they old-ladied each other all
the time.  There was no protecting family, either; brothers and sisters
were still fair game for Irish wit -- at least that's what they called it.
   Myself, I figured they were nowhere near growed up, so they weren't even
up to half-wit.  Grin.  I didn't dare tell them that -- yet.
   ------
   BOB (Friday 3/30)
   Every time we were together with the OTL gang, it seemed more natural to
be together.  We're now sorta cross-related, too, which was interesting. 
Anyway, we definitely had a relationship going.  Mario and Sherry were just
as welcome at OTL as Kat and I were.  We were really the definitive "big,
happy family."
   So Sean and harem were retired, eh?  Well, I was sure Ceann Mor could
find something to do to keep them out of mischief.  Then again, I didn't
know of anyone who could keep Marge out of mischief.  Translating Irish
invectives to Phane gives a certain, em, flavor to people Irishing each
other -- though one should call it Phaning instead.  Grin.
   The AIs didn't help, either.  Since they were able to be in contact with
every one of us, they mined the languages for different profanities,
double-entendres and anything of that nature.  They were really enchanted
with the slang and different cultures and tried to work them out.
   With access to lots of other Libraries, they were springing new ideas
and phrases on us all the time.  We really had fun with it.
   To some extent they were already doomed to failure.  Even a Human with
perfect memory and data integration couldn't follow some of the logic
because often there was no logic.  Etymology could tell you where a word
came from, but lots of the slang simply sprang full-grown from someone's
imagination.  Of course, *I*'d never done anything like that myself.  Grin.
   Anyway, Ed was still putting out the sensors, leaving them or other
specialty packages where applicable and helping out the scouts.  Alice was
still in charge of where the scouts went since it was personnel scheduling,
but the two of them worked together just like one.
   SW had tuned up the fold detectors so they had about a light-year's
sphere of sensitivity.  If you needed, you could narrow down the range with
a "reflector" as a directional antenna and get up to 10 light years.  The
longer the range, the narrower the detection cone.
   Mick and Ed had no problemo in incorporating those into the sensor
packages.  As the routine sensors came back, they'd get overhauled to
include the detector and got sent back out.  It took maybe 15 minutes to do
the entire overhaul, including a complete system check out and accumulator
charging (actually, they simply swapped in a fully-charged accumulator) and
feeding the life package (usually a bacteria colony, moss or something).
   Packages which were on station got recalled and replaced with updated
and upgraded ones.  No sweat.
   SW and Ed snuck in some experiments, too.  While we were concentrating
on our 1,000 by 300 parsec volume, they snuck in some longer fold testing,
too.
   Ed put several packages out into the nearest part of the Sagittarius
Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy; that's 21,000 parsecs.  He told us, "Harry and
I've got little data on any other galaxy beyond the rough coordinates.  So,
these are really a hunt, poke and cuss.  One package we had to move twice
before we got it outside a sun.
   "That tells me, at least, that for now if we have a coordinate, we can
fold to or from it.  Now, you biological and spirit packages gotta come up
to speed Real Soon Now.  A 1,000 parsec teleport is pathetic."
   Yeh, yeh, yeh.  Go ahead and rub it in.  Sure and the AIs were better at
that than we were.  That was really okay, though.  They were on our side.
Grin.
   Ed had no problem putting packages at random all over our galaxy.  "It's
the coordinates which are off.  We're gonna be really careful on those long
ones."
   Since the AIs' remotes were hologram projectors, it wasn't at all
difficult for any of them (usually Ed or Harry) to pop up a 3D map of the
galaxy and zoom in as much as needed.  He could shade different areas so we
could immediately pick out the explored, unexplored but in Harry's maps, in
Harry's maps with suspect coordinates, in Harry's map on hearsay and lots
not in Harry's maps but which the Encyclopedia said were "around that
neighborhood." None of the areas were really marked as, "Here there be
dragons."
   The AIs still had lots of local languages to crack before they could
access a lot of the stored data.  Silvia and team were working night and
day (any time periods they wished) getting that line going smoothly.  They
were having some success; with the AIs' help, they could do a lot of
associations between languages from places hundreds or thousands of parsecs
apart.
   Even with the somewhat self-imposed constraint on the exploration area,
SW and Ed were sending packages to any system they could track down in
Ellie.  If it had a coordinate or they could SWAG at a set, Ed would pop
out one of his special packages.  Examples were systems a Library had said
was (had been) inhabited, had other Libraries, were major trade centers and
that sort of thing.
   The AIs were pretty good at chasing down rumors; they had tons of
patience and had a lot of probes.
   ------
   KATHLEEN (Sunday 4/1)
   We spent quite a while at Liam's pub.  OTL brought Carmel McLennan along
while we insisted Elizabeth and David show.  The McDonnal Passion Posse
took one look at David and Elizabeth and swarmed all over them.  Heh.
   Bob told his folks, "They specialize in popping spirits outside of their
bodies.  Permanently."
   I told the girls, "I've got 20 Euros on David and Elizabeth.  Betcha you
cry off first!"
   Well, they were young and foolish and took me up on it.  Fat chance of
them getting even close to winning.  The OTL and NH gangs laughed for a
while, too.  Liam started taking the bets off the rest of the people; while
they knew the Passion Posse pretty good, they saw David as an expert.  It
ran about even odds.
   We hung around and sampled some of the latest rejects from The Selene
City Distillery of Fine Irish Spirits.  All of it was still dayum good,
especially after the second glass.  Grin.
   Carmel had a nice visit with Maggie and the others.  She was definitely
the proud aunt!
   We left pretty late for Ireland.  No one had come in screaming that the
Passion Posse or their guests had suffered any casualties, so we figured
things were going well.  They knew their ways home.
   ------
   (Monday 4/2)
   Ed's packages had found 20 more habitable planets pretty much where
Harry's map said they were.  Not bad.  They got the full special package.
   Ten of them were supposed to have civilizations, so after the
preliminary package reports showed no or very little electronic or high
tech activity, SW sent a scout out to each one for an active _inspection_
like we'd done on the expedition.
   The results were drearily normal.  Yeh, there were live bodies running
around the planets, several million to a billion.  They were airheads to
the last one
   The highest civilization level was the early 1800s, and even then they
barely knew how to hook up a horse to a primitive wagon or cart.  There
were two planets with steam power and a fairly active steel/metal industry.
   Ed checked back on all the previous surveys and told us, "With all of
these civilizations, there's a tremendous infant mortality.  Even at the
'highest' civilization level, it's about 40% to age six.  The lower the
civilization, the higher the rate.  The lower ones run about 60%; one is
75%.  Those are dying out."
   Shit.  He also reported the Sleepers ranged from several hundred
thousand to several trillion per system.  In the case of the non-Krle
systems, we called any unaware spirit not in a body a Sleeper.  Some really
were catatonic and others were just wandering around or were stuck to some
object or following around a body or genetic line, just as we'd found here.
   Ellie spent a couple hours with us (partying of course).  In the course
of the evening, she told us all the AIs were keeping alert for any mention
of Krle.  The Cel systems' Libraries and their allies as well as the
independent system had it by that name.
   Other libraries probably wouldn't.  Ed's sensors had discovered five
more Libraries in the systems they'd mapped.  This time around, they didn't
bother folding the Libraries to Mars or AC; they simply went in situ and
copied the memory blocks.  Of course, they (Ed and Ellie) kept sharp eyes
out for new and improved OSs, memory and other hardware.
   They added the image backups to the ones already in place and integrated
the data into the Encyclopedia.  Ellie immediate started the cross
referencing and indexing.  She was getting a lot better at "guessing" the
proper keywords and index entries by now, so was getting better results
quicker.
   So far, the only mentions of Krle (or the system) by any known name
simply said it was a Cel mining colony and was producing a mass transceiver
for the transceiver network.
   ------
   BOB (Tuesday 4/3)
   We had almost all the scouts out now.  After they'd been out a week, Ed
and Mick surveyed the crew about the functionality, operations and
aesthetics of their ship.  With that in mind, they did some more design
tweaking (not a lot, though), and popped out five hundred more scout ships.
   Finding crews was not an issue.  It was both glamorous and hard, boring
(at times) work.  They started crewing up ships as fast as they could.
   They'd do the scout checksheet, get a ship, get it customized and shake
it down.  After a final set of tweaking and provisioning, Ed would help
them fold off to a hot system.  On the average, it took about three days
from start to finish to get a scout ship and crew operational.  Not shabby
at all.
   ------
   (Wednesday 4/4)
   Ed, Ellie and Frank Duane got us and OTL together for a briefing on the
exploration.  He popped up the 3D map and showed what they'd done so far.
Dayum, that was quite an area.  There were lots of holes, but some of the
systems were almost a third of the way around the rim from us.
   With the sensor packages getting more sensorable (Grin.), and Ed and
Ellie getting better at analysis, the data was pretty solid.  They could
scope out a system pretty dayum good within a day.
   Put a scout ship into a system and they'd have a decent evaluation from
the spirit side in another day.
   Ed and Ellie had come up with an interesting find.  Ed told us, "We did
a much finer scan for zapper circuitry.  A 'standard' Cel ship zapper is a
pretty good-sized hunk of stuff taking a lot of power; it had to work over
several kilometers.  As you know, the _Columbia_ found quite a few remnants
floating around, but nothing on the scale we had on the Moon.
   "What the scouts did pick up was a pretty solid match to several small
zappers on each 'civilized' planet's surface.  The three Cel home systems
had several on each of the planets, all with the same circuitry and
configuration.
   "In each case, the zapper was in a small building on or very near the
planetary surface, even if it is now buried under 207,000 years of debris.
The building and zapper components from each system were so identical in
fabrication and metallurgy, we believe they were built off-planet and set
there.  Some were smashed from meteor strikes or the war, but in most cases
we found enough positive matches to SWAG they were the same as the others.
   "The building has a small but fairly powerful one-way firewall --
currently non-operational.  It looks to us like they were spirit motels --
a spirit could check in, but it couldn't check out."
   Frank's turn.  "Our SWAG is it was a spirit collection facility.  Put a
body plus spirit in the room, zap it real good to 'numb' the spirit then
use a moveable firewall to pull the Sleeper into the 'safe.' Dispose of the
body as needed.  Think of the ghost collection facility in Ghostbusters.
   "We stole one of the buildings and its zapper and disassembled them. 
From the erosion, repairs and condition of the building, our SWAG is that
it's well over a million years old.  Those buildings have been there a
*long* time.
   "Each of the other inhabited or previously-inhabited systems we've
mapped had one or more too.  So, it's not only a Cel phenomenon.
   "What they are doing there is obvious; they trap spirits.  The Why is
still elusive.  Ellie is doing one hell of a search, but it's going slow.
The Cel Libraries are in Sperk and Phane, the allies' Libraries are in a
closely-related and recognizable set of languages plus another she and
Silvia Conner are translating, but the older records from System Harry are
in yet another language.  Other planets' Libraries or similar records are
often in yet other languages.  They're looking for Rosetta Stones, but
haven't found many yet.
   "Fortunately, none we found were working.  It takes power to run the
shield and zapper; the system has an accumulator but it's charged with
solar panels.  Get the panel covered with crap over 200,000 years and the
accumulator runs down.
   "We're WAG'n now, not SWAG'n.  We think there's a direct relationship
between the presence of those zappers and buildings on planetary surfaces,
the present IQs of the inhabitants, the lack of Potential and their
civilization levels.  Each planet we've seen has a low civilization level,
low IQs -- which would give a low civilization level -- and zapper
buildings."
   ------
   (Thursday 4/5)
   We found a really big Library in a system about 10,000 parsecs
clockwise. We did the "usual" smash and grab of the memory blocks and set
Ellie to work.
   The system had two planets with traces of civilizations; 207,000 year
old traces.  The current civilizations were barely Stone Age with about a
million awake bodies and several trillion Sleepers.
   This Library was the furthest one we'd found so far.  Each one we found
usually had references to yet more systems Harry either didn't have on his
map or which had rumors or approximations.  Each one we found gave us
another stepping stone.
   ------
   BOB (Saturday 4/7)
   Kat, the kids and I zipped up to Redding to visit with Bill and Caitlin.
They'd been to the Meet the New Friends party, but we wanted some personal
time.
   Caitlin was preggers!  Now, how did that happen?  She must have slipped
in the rites on us, because *we* sure hadn't been invited.  Grin.
   Oh.  They'd done it while I'd been on expedition.  Oh well.  Caitlin
grinned at me and said, "However, I understand from Kat you have a special
method of ensuring the babies grow big and strong.  Do you have time
tonight to show me how that works?"
   Heh.  Kat leered at me and all the kids cackled away.  I was sure I
could give at least a sample demonstration.
   Anyway, she'd held herself down to twins.  Of course she and the kids
huddled off in a corner plotting interviews and invitations.  That was
okay, Bill and I had a chance to catch up.
   Clann Redding had a good 1,000 members and was creeping up a couple new
members a week.  While the pickings weren't slim, Caitlin was concentrating
on getting everyone fully trained and well-educated before we went on
another growth spurt.
   They were well aware of the happenings with the AIs and the current
discoveries.  Yeh, they weren't interested either in popping off to a new
colony just to say they did it.
   They'd done a round of visits with Mother and Father and her parents. 
Everyone was thrilled that she had leprechauns in the oven.  Grin.  Bill
and I practiced rolling our eyes at each other for a while as we did
quality control checks on the usquebaugh.
   Caitlin was wonderfully passionate.  She kept saying, "Yes!  Yes!  Make
them grow!  Yes!" I lost count after my poke spots went numb.  I think it
was about ten times.
   Our young-uns joined right in with their _touches_ and joined our
_blendings_.  We were all wonderful together!
   ------
   (Sunday 4/8)
   We spent the next morning cleaning out a very nice buffet in Michigan.
Kat and Caitlin glowed, the kids laid baby lovin' on us and anyone else who
came by and we guys played all knackered out.  Yeh, Kat told me later that
Bill had held up the Clann Redding honor extremely well.  Good on 'em all!
   We got the NH and OTL gangs together in Liam's pub for quite a while. 
We and the Clann McDonnal folk who were there discussed rehabbing a Cel or
other planet from a low civilization level.
   That was almost starting below Step One.  Not only was the civilization
level so low, but the intelligence level of the current population was
averaged maybe 75 to 80, according to the latest reports.  All the planets
we'd surveyed had plenty of Sleepers -- as yet not investigated -- so that
sure wasn't an issue.
   Marge and several of the Clann McDonnal folk had experience at rehabbing
Sleepers, and of course five of the six kids had gone that route.  One lady
said, "We know of the zappers on the Moon and all that.  How much that
contributed to the difficulty of recovering a Sleeper, we don't know for
sure.  So far, the reports haven't indicated the other planets had gone
through that sort of regime; at least they've found no indication of
installations or mobile platforms with the power we were subjected to."
   Our personal Sleepers (about 25 right there) couldn't help a lot in that
respect.  Meadbh (Sean's Clann McDonnal daughter) said, "Dunno if it would
make much difference.  We really have nothing to compare against yet. 
Rehabbing Sleepers on the planets is almost secondary so far, and we have
no idea what condition they're in.  For all we know, they're at the same
level of Talent and intelligence as the current awake population."
   We agreed that was probably so.  The scouts _inspection_ reports showed
only a trace of Talent here and there among the awake ones.  Sure and it
wasn't the 10% plus we'd found on Krle.
   The consensus among the local "experts" was that it took a couple day's
pretty hard work to waken a Sleeper, then however long -- a good week,
usually -- to get them trained up enough so they weren't drooling on
themselves.  It would be a long row to hoe unless SW or someone came up
with a decent breakthrough.
   BB suggested, "Perhaps we should find a way to do a survey sample on our
Krle Sleepers to get an idea of their Talent and intelligence.  Granted,
the awake spirits we have here among the mundanes might not have the amount
of Talent we consider needed to become free, but there's still one hell of
a lot of intelligence among them."
   Kate offered, "While we consider an IQ of 100 to be 'average', it might
really be at the low end of the scale of the actual intelligence we have.
Rhonda, any data on that?"
   Rhonda (as a sexy, almost nekkid faery) told us, "Well, here on Krle you
have the IQ tests.  While they're somewhat controversial due to possible
cultural bias, they've picked 100 to be the 'average.'
   "Actually, if you look at it as a 'normal' distribution, 100 is at the
top of the bell curve.  Even without the entire Krle population having been
tested, what data we do have is really skewed.  The left or low side is
really steep while the right side of 'above average' is very much like a
normal bell curve.
   "That says to me, at least, that the 'below average' simply don't
survive long enough to matter.  Even the little testing the scouts have
done shows the 'average' there is about 80; the curve seems to have shifted
to the left about 20 points."
   Maggie had almost the last word, "SW is working on wholesale Sleeper
rehabilitation.  Maybe we could find a way to invert the zapper to remove
the confusion and perhaps dig out the implanted commands enough that a
Sleeper could be handled more rapidly.
   "Then, even if we find Sleepers in other systems haven't been subjected
to a zapper, perhaps we could kick them enough to make a difference.  Heh.
We've got plenty of inventory here, maybe we could export a couple trillion
per planet; it sure wouldn't effect Krle very much, and it just might drag
up the average IQ quite a few points."
   Now that was interesting.  I wasn't about to climb on my Ceann Mor high
horse and tell SW what to do, but Maggie said she'd present the idea.
   Anyway, even with plenty of available, smart spirits willing to pick up
new bodies, we considered there'd still be at least a ten to fifteen-year
lag before the newborns could start affecting the civilization a whole lot.
That is, unless they pulled a George or Maggie!
   ------
   KATHLEEN (Monday 4/9)
   Ed rousted us pretty early Monday morning.  "I've got a survey package
reporting a ship moving in a system.  This is the first we've noticed; I've
sent a scout on scene to put on some spirit whammy."
   The scout team was experienced (a whole couple weeks!) and stayed in a
partial fold while they scoped out the scene.  Between the survey package
and the scout reports (we _linked_ with them at about 8,000 parsecs), we
had live action news.
   The ship was pretty good sized and appeared fully operational.  The team
told us, _"No one inside awake.  What we do have is about a hundred
Sleepers inside a hefty firewall.  There's zappers all around the firewall
continuously projecting inside.  We've got a mobile zapping station here,
folks."_
   Holy Jaysus shit!  The ship had only the usual presser fields for debris
and an IFF beacon sending continuously.  Harry Hangar piped up immediately,
"Standard signal, but it's a special ID.  I was programmed to give one of
these full access to the Krle system once it was verified."
   It was running at well below light speed and was on course to one of two
habitable planets.  The sensor and scouts told us, _"A real quick shot says
both planets are around the 1700s max with about twenty million population.
Maybe around five trillion Sleepers scattered around.  A 'normal' system
for what we've been finding."_
   The planets had three of the zapper buildings each; all non-operational.
It took the ship only an hour to end up in orbit above one.  The sensors
and the _inspections_ showed it "dipped" into the zapper building.  Fuck.
The immediate consensus was that it was collecting the zapped spirits from
the spirit motel.  Hot shit!
   There weren't any to pick up.  The ship cruised over the other stations
then did the same on the other planet.
   Ed didn't even need prompting; he and the scouts immediately folded a
transducer and network node over to the ship.  Yeh, there was an AI, but it
was very limited.  They simply hacked into the system and looked around.
   There wasn't a lot of information available.  Yes, it was collecting;
that was it's only mission.  It had a route to follow and that's all it
"knew."
   Well never let it be said we didn't have clever folk and AIs.  While the
ship's system were still active, Ed stole the entire programming and data,
copied it into a handy memory block and folded it over to Ellie.
   The route started and ended at a specific planet.  It was on our list as
a vague reference so we would have gotten to it eventually.  For right now,
Ellie, Ed and Harry translated the coordinates, and Ed started casting a
couple hundred sensor packages to their best SWAGs -- the coordinate system
didn't translate very well.
   ------
   BOB (Wednesday 4/11)
   We kept tuned to the breaking news while they searched for the target
system.  Wednesday afternoon, Ed told us, "Hot hit!  We've got the
suckers!"
   Ed and the rest had survey packages and scouts on the system like fleas
on a wild dog.  They were very cautious about "exposing" themselves, but it
didn't really appear to be necessary.
   This was a once-inhabited system with the normal (several trillion)
Sleepers scattered around and a couple million awake population.  What was
unusual was a fully operational facility on a moon producing and repairing
ships.  In fact, they were exactly the ships that we'd found collecting the
zapped Sleepers!
   There was a pretty hefty Library, too.  It was empty of living beings or
spirits but not shut down.
   Well, Ed and the rest had that drill down.  A handy network node and
transducer let them hack in with no problemo.  Yeh, there was a Rhonda-type
AI, but it wasn't very "smart." It was really on the level of a smart
search engine and didn't have any awareness like our friends had.
   The civilizations were maybe 1600s.  A quick inspection told us they
were dying out; there was a low birth rate, high mortality rate and they
were the proverbial bricks.  There'd probably be no challenges from them.
   Ed promptly subverted the AI and took over.  They copied the entire
Library off to Ellie who chortled and danced with glee.  "This is gonna be
fun!  This is gonna give us some real information!"
   Almost everything was in an unknown language.  Ellie and Rhonda told us,
"Seems a bit related to Sperk, but we'll find out.  We'll drain the entire
system dry if we need to."
   ------
   (Saturday 4/14)
   Jaysus Christ on a crutch with knee braces getting a BJ from Janey Mack!
That had been a tough one to crack; the languages even of the operating
system and programs was entirely unknown.  Ed had copied the memory blocks
verbatim; he didn't care what they contained.  He told us, "They're a very
old style.  Slow, not very compact at all, and sure they're after being so
dayum old they've had electron welding every so often.  The data's still
there, though, and all the checksums and other data integrity algorithm's
shows the data is valid.  The data itself might be entirely off the wall,
but we've got a 99.99% copy of what it is."
   The system was called Cablin.  The Library was tied into the ship
production/repair facility (which was much more primitive than in Selene
City) and helped the local AI (not even up to a Baby-Mick) do the
production and repair of more ships.  All the ships were the automatic
collector variety.
   The facility produced new collector ships to replace the ones beyond
easy repair (remember, this was an old facility which could barely recycle
some of the elements).  One ship it produced was a very large collector,
easily two kilometers long.  This one didn't go around collecting, it
simply gathered the "collected" spirits from the cruising ships.
   When it reached a trillion Sleepers or had few other collection ships
due in soon, it took off on its own route.  A lot of the problems Ed and
Harry were running into was the coordinates and routes were "hillbilly."
They were on the order of, "Go towards the sun 'till you see the oak tree
with a broken branch hitting the ground.  Hang a left on the next trail
that has a bloomin' lilac bush..." Real "first star to the right and on
'til morning" stuff.
   Yeh.  Real explicit.  There was one of the large collectors there. 
Harry told us, "The IIF beacon is similar to the collection ships.  I've
had programming to give it free access and to 'extend every hospitality'
for repairs and power rejuvenation."
   Hot shit here!  Ed immediately send the scout team to follow the
"instructions" at about 100,000 times the speed.  They knew they'd be
hampered by the oddness and changing conditions; that star which had gone
nova might now be a black dwarf or small black hole.
   In the meantime, the AIs and SW were sweating quarks and blood over the
Library data.
   ------
   KATHLEEN (Tuesday 4/17)
   Okay, Frank Duane requested us to round up the usual suspects (the OTL
gang) for a briefing.  They'd gotten some results.
   We gathered at OTL this time and hung around the den while our visitors
arrived (Ed, Harry and Ellie as remotes, Frank and Thelma in person). 
Ellie started us off, "We managed to crack the majority of the language. 
Silvia was a great help in spotting stuff and ensured we had a good
translation.
   "Anyway, the entire system was devoted to producing and maintaining the
collection and larger transport ships.  The Library had stuff everywhere
about what was going on.  Silvia said we had an accurate translation, so
this is what's going on."
   Frank picked up the thread, "You know the idea running around every once
in a while that 'We'd be a lot better off if that guy just disappeared.'
Well, that's what they were doing.
   "In fact, the entire galaxy appeared to be in on it.  The 'technology'
or knowledge that bodies are driven by spirits isn't new at all; our own
memories of several trillion years back that up.
   "About 67 million years ago, this system -- Cablin -- discovered how to
zap a spirit and keep them in the collection 'motel.' Any manager who made
waves, an artist who was really controversial, a political opponent, an
iconoclast, someone who was too bright in business -- take heed, Ronan --
they'd toss in the building and let the zapper stun and capture them. 
They'd destroy the body; that wasn't difficult at all.  It sure got rid of
the opposition and all those 'different folk.'
   "They spread the word to other systems on the executive gossip line. 
For a modest fee, they'd set up a spirit motel or several on a planet, and
the planet executives had a way of making their enemies and other
troublemakers just disappear.  Then again, some of the same executives
disappeared, too.  Heh.  That went full bore for a couple million years. 
There's no 'size' issue to a spirit; they just packed them in.
   "Only trouble was, if a motel broke down or something, they'd be loose
again.  Even heavily zapped and implanted, they could be trouble.  Well,
they found a solution.
   "There was a pretty widespread, loosely-connected civilization or
thousand scattered around the galaxy.  As best as even rabid enemies could,
they looked for a solution.
   "They were looking in our neck of the woods and found the Krle system.
Krle itself had been hit by a stray meteor a short time before and was
devoid of much life at all, much less sentient life with bodies who could
make mischief.
   "So they came up with a solution.  Make Krle a gulag, a Siberia, a
Botany Bay.  Every once in a while, empty out the local spirit motels and
dump them on Krle.  A couple ships with large zappers --e like on the Moon
-- would zap the planet every couple years after dropping their load."
   Ed got his shot.  "It worked quite well for a long time.  A planet would
sign up for the 'service,' get several spirit motels and pickups every
couple years and they were happy.
   "Krle got an initial dump of about a quadrillion Sleepers.  Lots of
trouble-makers and criminals, you betcha!  There was a drawback, though. 
The transport ship took at least a thousand years to get to Krle from
various parts of the galaxy, especially from the other side.
   "That time put it out of service for twice that time, since it had to
get back 'home' after dropping its load of comatose Sleeper 'convicts.'
Cablin looked around for a way of handling that.
   "The ideal dumping planet would have a pretty large satellite in
synchronous rotation -- one face always facing the planet -- so they could
mount a couple good-sized zappers and cover the entire planet easily.  If
it were pretty remote, too, the chance of the convicts escaping was pretty
slim.
   "Most satellites actually are in synchronous rotation due to tidal lock.
Large ones were much rarer.  Again the clandestine executive network looked
around.  They found suitable planets in three other locations in the
galaxy."
   Thelma told us, "Divide the galaxy into thirds, then put a circle around
the dense star collection in the middle.  You've got four sections with an
approximately equal number of systems.  Find a planet with the right
satellite, put a service facility in each section to maintain the
collection and transport ships and to make the spirit motels, and you're
off and running.
   "So, that's what we've had for the last 65 million or so years.  A
million years plus ago, a civilization discovered or invented the mass
transceiver and the civilizations cooperated enough to start a network of
them.  Yeh, lots of them were at war a lot, so it did slow things down.
   "Krle is in an excellent location for a transceiver node, so it was
'elected.' Put in a fairly, em, low-class set of people to do the building
and keep an eye on the prison, and you've got something which worked.
   "Krle's Moon got the zapper installations fairly lively.  With a local
set of rednecks whose ethnics didn't like free spirits to keep an eye on
things but who weren't too curious and who could build the transceiver at
the same time and they were in fat city.
   "They built Selene City and started the transceiver construction. 
Harry, the other AIs and you know the rest."
   Harry had his turn, "Once I knew what to look for, the pattern in the
logs was obvious.  On an average of every two years, a transport ship would
come into the Krle system with its special IFF beacon.  Under instruction,
I'd let it in without raising an alert since it wasn't an 'attack.'
   "It would usually go straight to Krle, dump its load and stop by for a
tune up.  Mick and I would go over the ship, do any maintenance and it went
on its way -- back to home base for another load.  They were completely
unmanned, so there was no real gossip or curiosity among the local
populace.
   "The math is fairly straightforward.  At an average of two years per
'visit' and a span of a million years, that's 500,000 drops.  Who knows how
many they dropped at a time.  Our SWAG is that's how we got our three
quadrillion Sleepers; the six trillion awake population is trivial compared
to the total number."
   To say we were pissed was to say the Inquisition loved to torture
heretics.  We didn't take turns, we cursed in unison.  To be in jail,
purgatory or deported was one thing if we deserved it, but to be dumped for
shooting off our mouths, speaking out of turn, being different, too good or
simply getting on the wrong side of a power-that-was was really annoying.
   We did settle down a little after a half hour.  Sherry asked, "I know
Kat, Eileen and I have our memories of Earth going back that 65 million
years or so.  Before that, they jump to an entirely different place.  How
about the rest of you?"
   Well, among the eighteen of us, we all were the same.  As best as we
could measure, our Krle memories went back to a range of 65 to 64.5 million
years.  Mario said, "Probably we were in the initial dumps.  Our 10% with
Potential could well be in the same range.
   "Note that ones of us are almost uniformly intelligent.  Who raises the
most worrisome opposition to something?  Not the fundamental religionists
who can't see beyond their beliefs but the knowledgeable, fluent being. 
Exactly the ones who the 'Establishment' would like to see disappear.
   "Betcha a lot of criminals visited the motels, too.  My WAG is that's
why we need the djinn bottles.  Another WAG is that our 10% plus is from
the earlier years' dumps.  After that, the ones who got introduced to the
motels were less vocal or active, but still thorns in the sides."
   We talked a while longer.  We were still outraged.  Eileen asked, "Dumb
question.  After WW II, a lot of Europe scientific talent came to the U.S.
because of conditions at home -- a brain drain.  We could offer more
freedom, more chances to excel and all that stuff.  The 'country IQ' would
drop because their best people bagged their arses outta there.
   "What's the probability that the best, brightest, most talented were
also the least likely to put up with a government's shit?  What would
happen to a civilization who continuously not only deported their real
criminals but also deported their brightest people?
   "Harry and the Library said the dumps have been going on for at least 65
million years here.  It takes ability, intelligence and sheer guts to make
a high-level civilization.  Granted, we could debate our civilization level
here for a long time, but it's still a hell of a lot higher than what we've
been finding.  We and the other three planets have been continually getting
the best of the best all that time.  Is it any wonder the civilization
levels we've found are so low?"
   The last round of wars must have been the final straw.  Who usually ends
up in the military and fights the battles?  Either those unlucky enough to
get drafted, or those who rose to the top by ability.  With the last of the
'bright ones' gone in the mutually-destructive wars, the civilizations went
down hill in one hell of a hurry.  The thousand years was a tribute to a
spirit's refusal to give up even if they were, em, short lots of working
cylinders in their engines.
   Well, that was the SWAG.  Yeh, we'd still be pissed off for a long time,
but we were here, and we were free.  We had the major advantage of having
(SWAG'd) the best of the galaxy at least.  We could kick some arse if it
came to it!
   ------
   BOB (Wednesday 4/18)
   Well, things *had* been getting too easy, right?  Now we had to decide
what we were going to do about it.  Doing nothing or just even being more
alert didn't get us very far for very long.
   There were civilizations dying out; our SWAG said it was probably
galaxy-wide.  The fact the collection ship they'd found had several hundred
captives told me there was at least one collection facility active
somewhere in our sector.  Ed said they were tracing the route as fast as
they could.
   We had the OTL gang over to our place Wednesday evening.  After a good
dinner in Virginia, we settled in the den with Harry lolling around.  Some
of The Best didn't hurt, but I figured we'd be pretty pissed for a long
time to come.
   Of course the main talk was about Siberia.  We weren't too concerned
about why each of us had been deported; the "responsible" civilization was
probably long gone by now.
   Sherry said, "We're still having the last laugh.  No matter who they
were, we've still probably outlived our enemies." Well said.
   There was no reason to hide anything from the rest of the ones of us; SW
Security had full permission to keep the global bulletin board up to date
on what was going on.  I passed the word for a War Council meeting on next
Wednesday; even if we decided to continue what we were doing at the same
pace, we'd be in agreement.
   I decided to wait that long to let the emotions settle upwards a bit and
to give the AIs and SW time to translate stuff, gather data and sort it
out.
   Okay.  On to more fun stuff.  Harry had some new jokes, so we made the
rounds for an hour or so.  The kids trotted out some of their old ones,
too, which were just as funny as they'd been several hundred years ago. 
Grin.
   We didn't get wasted, we just acted that way.  The AI holos could
"drink;" they just folded the stuff back to the bottle.  At least Harry
wasn't a mean drunk.
   Things got back more towards normal after the kids had their usual Irish
fest on who got fed next.  As the parents had suspected, the "older" ones
claimed first dibs most of the time.
   They were growing their bodies really well.  At nine and eight weeks
old, they could see pretty well and could sorta direct their hands and feet
around.  They weren't forcing things too fast; there wasn't a lot of reason
to do so until they got off the tit (their wording, not mine).
   We had a long, leisurely loving for a lot of the night.  Even if we were
in Siberia, we had enchanting _merges_ and rainbows.
   ------
   KATHLEEN (Friday 4/20)
   I guess you could say Bob and I were "retired" in the same sense as Sean
and harem were.  We didn't have specific schedules or a J O B or a place we
had to be every day.
   There was still plenty going on.  Mario and Sherry were working their
arses off at SW a lot of the time and were in on most of the owners'
meetings with JRD and RRK.
   We didn't have to hold anyone's hands, for sure.  Siobhan ran the JRD
office like a well-oiled Irishwoman.  The Global Manager handled the daily
routines, and the Regional Managers handled the companies.
   Carmel McLennan and Barbara were well underway in the projects of
getting in a common financial system for all the JRD companies.  Several of
the smaller ones were already done and were operating on a common General
Ledger account system.  Even I knew that was a real good thing.
   Bob was spending a considerable amount of time on Ceann Mor stuff.  Very
little was "political" though we did do a few visits to press the flesh
every so often.
   RRK was doing great, too.  Quite a few of the clannfolk from all over
were having them handle their investments, so its Assets Under Management
had increased a couple hundred million.
   That wasn't its main job, but every bit helps.  Maybe I could talk Bob
into getting himself a new pair of shoes.  Grin.
   With the change in risk orientation, RRK had increased its net worth by
about 10%.  That might not sound like much, but they'd been at that only
several months and 10% of 1.7 billion is still pretty decent.
   The OTL gang and we did the Pasadena Tavern on Friday night.  We showed
off the kids -- and they showed off -- while we got in a little bit of song
and dance time.  With a group that large, we did take up some room.
   The Cullen babies were all decked out in very small bowlers which stayed
on by magic and sported Cullen tartan blankets.  Ours didn't have the
bowlers, but we'd decided on a Clann tartan and our kids were in them. 
Cute.  Well, the rest were cute, but Rocker looked like he could kick
anyone's arse there.
   The Irishman's drunken hats made their appearances.  The Cullen kid
bowlers must have snuck in some whiskey somewhere because they were
energetically tormenting our kids!
   We spent the night at NH snuggling, cuddling and enjoying being free. 
Yeh, Sherry slipped one in on Sean and me.  Horny devil!  I told her, "That
counts for two of your monthly shaggings!"
   She Irished me pretty good for a Hispanic/whatever.  Aideen helped her
out; traitor!
   Sunday, we hit a beach real early.  It's pretty easy to find a warm one
in the right time zone somewhere in the world.  AC and System Alpha had
lots of nice beaches, but they weren't cleared for Human use yet.  Water
can carry some nasties, and SW medical was being pretty cautious.
   All the AIs joined us; they could swim pretty well.  Grin.  I don't
think their remotes floated, but they had other tricks.  All Alice, Rhonda
and Ellie had to do was shake their heads a little and their hair was dry.
We Human women grinned at each other and tried it ourselves.  Worked pretty
dayum good!
   We had plenty of perky things for quite a while.  We didn't exactly
break out in an orgy, but Sherry, Harry, Fred, and Mick got pretty blurry
for an hour or so behind some sand dunes.  Heh.
   We didn't talk shop much.  Ellie and Ed told us, "We're moving along
with tracing the routes and finding out locations.  I'm tossing out
packages at about fifteen a minute; the hardest part is getting the life
containers put together fast enough without killing the internals.  I've
got several small Micks working on them."
   After a lazy day of surf and sun, we zipped over to Liam's pub to catch
up on the gossip and to let the women cuddle the kids.  The Passion Posse
was in full swing; they hadn't lined up another victim yet, so they
concentrated on letting the babies abuse them -- and try to milk their
boobs.  Heh.
   The McDonnal folk were well aware of what was going on.  They hadn't
been too happy themselves.  Among us there were lots of Irishwomen willing
to kick some alien arse if we found the right ones.
   The OTL gang joined us about an hour after we got there, so the Passion
Posse had three more babies to torment them.  Six babies and eight boobs
worked out pretty good, even if said boobs were dry.  It wasn't from lack
of trying by the babies.  Grin.
   Several of the AIs joined us.  Rhonda told us, "We're at about 3,000
different gatherings right now.  Here's a good one Harry just heard..."
   ------
   BOB (Wednesday 4/25)
   After Clann Reynolds meeting (we're getting close to a billion ones of
us; it just keeps creeping up), we had a joint War Council and Clanns
Council meeting.  Several hundred spirits in a team can go over and decide
one hell of a lot.
   Ed Explorer didn't have a lot more news.  "All the translations in the
Cablin Library seem to confirm the four gulag planets.  We're zeroing in on
the locations as we speak.  I will say there's a lot of places we know
they're not at right at the moment.
   "We did discover another hundred habitable planets.  About 80 of them
had a civilization at one time, and may 50 of them have sentient being
bodies right now."
   They had over a thousand collection stations marked.  We knew there was
at least one still in operation somewhere; Ed and crew were tracing back
the route of the first ship they'd found.
   We came up with several firm decisions.  Ed and the others would
continue their search for the other gulag systems.  In the Cablin system,
we'd subvert the AIs even more and shut down the ships as they came in. 
For a longer range plan, we'd attempt to track down the ships on the routes
they were on and take them over -- freeing or putting any captured spirits
in a reasonable location.
   Every collection station we'd found or would find, we'd put out of
service, release any spirits in the motel and fold the station itself off
to an appropriate system for recycling.  Sure didn't need them any more!
   If we did find a high-tech civilization, we'd take appropriate
precautions.  Then again, we were always suspicious when we came into a new
system, even with the survey packages.
   For the longer range, we'd continue building up colony infrastructures
in AC and System Alpha.  The rest of the expedition systems would continue
to get their surveys with the end idea being we'd colonize them, too!
   SW would "draft" some more volunteers and do even more research on
wakening Sleepers and perhaps moving at least some of the implanted
commands.  We'd work on the awake spirits too; 90% of Earth's population
was dramatizing the implants, too.
   So, when we found the other gulags, we'd do some serious thinking about
going in and taking over the place.  A lot would depend on what we found.
If one was in a similar situation as we'd found Selene City, we knew what
to do.
   If it had an active set of watchers, we'd spy, investigate and see what
we could do.  If the other gulag planets had the same number of Sleepers,
we were looking at another 12 quadrillion captive spirits.
   We'd continue mapping systems and civilizations.  Even the one (or
possibly more) system which had the working collection station might still
be at a very low civilization level.  We SWAG'd we had an entire galaxy to
rehabilitate.  Think that would be a big enough game to play?
   ------
   KATHLEEN (aturday 4/28)
   Well, there went our retirement.  Both the OTL and NH gang were betting
heavily that we'd be up over our hairlines in work.  Behind Bob's back, we
plotted about creating not just a Ri (King) but an Emperor.  Robert
Imperator sound okay to you?
   Bob kept offering to abdicate Ceann Mor, but no one would let him. 
Grin. RKR told us, _"I'm glad that's not a hereditary position.  Keeping
track of 300 billion systems wouldn't be that much fun to look forward to."
Grin._
   Well, we should have plenty of family to help.  Grin.
   *End of Sorcerer: Interesting Times* 
  
Sorcerer Interesting Times Ch 26-end