A Terran in the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire

24 T.S. Years Ago
30 Light Years from the Ban-Ctarl-Ctarl Border

Alan Chandrasekhar was 28 years old, still quite young in his mind—of course, given that his parents and grandparents, who were from good, bourgeois households in the capital of the Tenpa Empire, had lived to their centennials or farther, he thought he had eighty years before old age took him. Everything else would be much sooner.

He was sitting in the cargo bay of Kai Feng's new Outlaw freighter, the tritely-named Dangerous Game. The Space Forces had destroyed his old one around the time he had first met Kai Feng, and the outlaw liked to brag that the payment for this current mission was what made obtaining the new one possible.

Chandrasekhar had bigger things on his mind. In a few days, he'd be crossing the border between the Terran Frontier and the edge of the Ctarl-Ctarl's expansive empire, in a region not dissimilar to his own deployment during the war. Finally, the details of the operation were made available: he was going undercover, as he suspected, though not as a human. Instead, he was posing as a young Ctarl-Ctarl émigré returning to his homeworld after a year of house arrest in the U.S.S.A. To this effect, he'd been given a rather elaborate disguise: sharp false teeth, fake ears, and contact lenses. These were combined with his own hair, which he'd grown out longer than he'd ever had it and had permanently straightened, having what little facial hair he possessed treated chemically, and a week-long bath in synthetic Ctarl-Ctarl pheromones. The disgusting experience aside, he actually couldn't smell it afterwards, but was assured that it would be enough to ensure that his odor matched that of a Ctarl-Ctarl who'd lived among Terrans for a half-decade. The disguise actually seemed pretty convincing: Kai Feng's crew genuinely believed he was a Ctarl-Ctarl, and looking in the mirror, he actually liked a rather slight, if unusually tall, Ctarl-Ctarl youngster who'd experienced a few years of malnutrition recently.

"This could actually work." He peered at himself in his quarters, wearing his poncho—the Ctarl-Ctarl seemed to love ponchos, scarves, and cloaks—and saw a Ctarl-Ctarl with his face staring back. He would never pass as an Imperial soldier, but he didn't have to. And if he failed to convince the Ctarl-Ctarl Border Patrol, he expected they'd kill him immediately.

"Hey Captain! We're returning to normal space. You ready?"

"Of course I'm ready," he told Kai Feng, not bothering to hide the contempt in his voice.

"If you say so."

The Dangerous Game dropped out of Sub-Ether Space almost dead center of the NGC 6162 globular cluster, around RSC 8403-3694-1-0-44 1, better known as Steyr I, a dark indigo and violet frozen gas giant with only a few tiny moons. Chandrasekhar was stunned: even in his career, he'd never been this deep in a globular cluster, never seen such a dense concentration of stars in every direction. The binary Steyr system was as close as you could get to the system of fourteen stars orbiting around the small black hole in the center of the cluster, while still orbiting a planet. Otherwise, it was fairly typical of government border transit worlds: too hostile for indigenous life, but stable enough for easy space travel, and easy to monitor. It had never been held by a Terran power, but if it had, it would likely serve the same function: hosting a Munchausen Sub-Ether beacon and transit path.

He suspecting one could see the central cluster from the military space station with the naked eye, the border crossing and immigration office manned by the Ctarl-Ctarl Border Navy. The station looked similar to a Ctarl-Ctarl warship, albeit more symmetrical and with concentric sensor rings expanding out from it.

"They've broadcasted the frequency for the general channel, tune to it and be ready to send our credentials!"

"I know that Captain," he growled on the bridge.

"And stop calling me that!"

While Kai Feng hissed under his breath, a Ctarl-Ctarl voice from the nearest ship, a speedy transport vessel, broadcasted. "This is the Niburu Boribori out of the Heifong System."

A quick response from another voice in Ctarl-Ctarl, this one sounding distinctly more military. "Acknowledged. Take vector to dock nine."

While the crew glanced around cryptically at the sound of the language, he put on an old-fashion headset. "This is the Dangerous Game out of the Suffolk System. Requesting docking instructions."

He hit the switch. "Transmit our credentials! Now!"

"Fine, fine…" Kai Feng mumbled as Ctarl-Ctarl script appeared in a window on his main display.

"Now we see if these credentials are worth the taxes we pay," another outlaw mumbled.

Finally a reponse. "Acknowledged. Terran transport, take a vector to dock eleven."

"Thank you," he replied in Ctarl-Ctarl.

The docking was painless enough. Even though the Dangerous Game was only transiting through the Empire to deliver one passenger, they still had to submit to a contraband check by the Imperial Border Navy while Alan was interviewed—maybe the last interview he'd ever live to do.

"Name?"

"Alan Rok Sheko-Sheko," he said, trying to like a genuine Ctarl-Ctarl in front of a coat-wearing military bureaucrat with thick glasses. Thankfully, she seemed to have zero interest in talking to him any more than she was obligated to.

"Your papers say you're immigrating back to Home, in the Empire."

"Correct, ma'am," he said, sounding a little too military. He had to dial that back. "I…I was under house arrest during the and after the War by the U.S.S.A. government in New Suffolk."

"What did you do there?"

"I was a teacher in a private religious academy for privileged Terran children."

She went through his documentation, all manufactured on Earth by the Space Forces Ministry's Special Operations Office. "How long are you staying here?"

"F-Forever, I hope. I don't care to return to Terran space."

"I can see why," she snorted. "Do you have family on Home?"

"I'm…not sure, ma'am." Incredibly, this was actually what he'd been coached to say.

"Where is your family in the Empire?"

"There's a Sheko-Sheko Horse Ranch on the edges of the Nochi-Nochi, on Stello Carinos."

She looked up. "They're not Travelers, are they?"

"Kata-Kata? No, absolutely not!" he insisted. He knew that the Kata-Kata Travelers were political outcasts, pariahs in the eyes of Ctarl-Ctarl society. Beyond that, he didn't know much.

"Of course," she mumbled, dragging her finger over her data screen. "Everything looks in order, though you'll need to update your passport as soon as you arrive on Home."

"I understand."

"Where's your luggage?"

They had him dump the contents of his small suitcase on an inspection table. They were appropriately meager:

About 40,000 Wong in Tenpa Empire gold coins—gold was valuable to the Ctarl-Ctarl for the same reason as it was to Terrans: it resisted corrosion, and could be used for electronics and jewelry. In that regard, it was actually more portable than dragonite, if not nearly as widely accepted.

A number of low-class Terran clothes, baggier than what a Ctarl-Ctarl would probably wear under a coat.

Some pretty typical Terran literature—Prefect's Space Summed Up, a three-piece Taoism primer, the first large volume of Marx's Capital, a Torah. There was also a blank notebook and pen set.

Various toiletries that were basically the same for Ctarl-Ctarl, though made of stainless steel instead of plastic.

A handheld electronic gaming device, with one cartridge: a Tenpa dating simulator game. He didn't play video games, but he was told you could use things like this to bribe young Ctarl-Ctarl, who loved imported video games.

Three bags of high-quality, very strong coffee from Brandenburg in the Einhorn Reich. This could also be used for bribes, though Alan expected the first thing he'd miss was Terran coffee.

A framed picture of the fictional Sheko-Sheko family.

After running everything under scanners, the immigration officer looked convinced. "You'll have to declare the coffee," she said, sniffing the coffee bags deeply. She clearly liked the smell—Alan wondered if he would already need to give out his first bribe. Instead she just pointed at the nearby display.

"Oh, of course," he said, tapping the screen. "Anything else?"

Holding a bag of coffee in her hand, she took a deep whiff and smiled. She then set it down, approached him, and sniffed. "You should buy some cologne. You still smell a lot like Terran, no offense."

None taken. "It might be my clothes. It'll never come out."

"No real loss," she said, eyeing him. A low-ranking officer with slicked-back hair and a work coat appeared in the room.

"Lady Versina, the outlaw ship looks clear. Nothing out of the order."

She took out his passport chip and tossed it into his hand. "Next time, save up for a ticket with a regular travel company."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And work on your accent."

"I...will."

Once he returned to ship and the hatch was closed behind him, he exhaled deeply. "Okay. Next stop, the Ctarl-Ctarl Homeworld."

Kai Feng was staring out at the densely-packed stars before him. "You know, this is your chance."

"Chance for what?"

"You could go wherever you want, you know? Make a new life for yourself. Now, I wouldn't have picked the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire of all places, but you could do it."

'Alan Sheko-Sheko' glanced at him, twitching his ears up and down, a common Ctarl-Ctarl expression of body language. "Unlike you, Captain, I have some faith in things greater than me. I don't just shirk my responsibilities when I've taken them on."

He felt the Dangerous Game rock free from the docking clamps and begin accelerating out of the planet's area of influence. "No one made me take this assignment."

He and Kai Feng didn't exchange many words until they completed their Sub-Ether jump to the Ctarl-Ctarl Homeworld.

Like any good Space Forces officer, Alan made an unconscious effort to memorize certain details of an unfamiliar planet upon the first time seeing it. Ctarl-Ctarl Prime, or Home as they called it, was described in considerable depth in practical every astronomy manual used by U.S.F. since Terrans first learned of the Ctarl-Ctarl centuries ago. Now a Terran could easily, if expensively, travel to HD 170397 7 (its Terran name) and remain there for a length of time, it was not really a mystery.

But it was new to Alan: a few parsecs from the violent, ancient pulsar located in the middle of the Nochi-Nochi Globular Cluster, Home was truly an alien world, even unusual in his experience. Returning to normal space, he could see a temperate terra, as Earth-like terrestrial worlds were called, that was much larger than Earth. It had a thick atmosphere, white cloud-cover, blue oceans with a greenish hue, and massive continents filled with hundreds of oddly-shaped lakes snaking around the equator. Orbiting around it, in the corner of his field of vision, was its moon: another life-sustaining world, albeit in miniature in a stable orbit around Home. A practically miraculous rarity in the universe. The other twelve planets orbiting the star ranged from water worlds to deserts to frozen gas giants, with hundreds of moons between them and no shortage of visible comets.

While he was staring, there was a buzzing on the general channel and a voice spoke.

"This is Counter Admiral Dawid Clan-Clan, of the Royal Home Fleet Battleship Orta Gono Gono, wishing a good morning to all ships in orbit of the Homeworld. Welcome to Hashiyo-Hashiyo Prime, the capital of our great Empire and the cradle of all Ctarl-Ctarl across the universe. Processing of all ships will resume on full shifts for the rest of the day."

"They must be set to capital time…" Alan mumbled.

"What the hell did they just say?" some crewman yelled as he ignored him.

Despite the warm message, the Ctarl-Ctarl approached arrivals with military efficiency: Alan barely had time to shake Kai Feng's hand before he scrambled through the dock as a number of sailors yelled at the ship to undock from the transport platform. He turned just in time to see the green bulkhead door shut followed by the docking tunnel hatch closing. Taking a short breath, he decided to turn around and see if he was going to die soon.

No biomedical devices.

No Taoist empaths.

Not even body X-ray scanners.

Nothing that could easily discern that he was no Ctarl-Ctarl, but a Terran imposter.

Alan stood in his poncho and Nehru shirt, luggage in hand, as a sailor noticed him and promptly pushed him in the right direction, where he found himself in a very short line. When came to the desk, the immigration officer stared at him as he silently handed over his data chip.

"Do you have anything to declare?"

Doing his best to hide his Terran accent, he exhaled.

"Just three bags of coffee."