Generating consistent new worlds is a tedious problem. I had to work out the math behind the orbital dynamics for this one with a simulator to check my initial estimate. It actually works...
Nice, shiny comments. So nice!
"bs..."
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"...Holy shit..."
"..." Nabiki gaped, turning in a complete circle, then looking up. Ranma and Kasumi watched her with amusement, as did Uthryyl, who had been waiting for them. Eventually she lowered her gaze to her sister and brother-in-law, wearing the widest grin they'd ever seen. "Wow." Kasumi giggled as the brunette went back to gaping, eventually having to gently urge her in the direction of Uthryyl, who smiled at her.
"Welcome to my home, Nabiki. May your stay here be a memorable one." He was speaking the trade language, which Ranma had insisted they use whenever possible during the trip, to improve her fluency in it. She knew a fair amount of it now after about two and a half months of study but he felt she needed some immersion in the language to make it second nature, which she agreed with, knowing it was a good method.
The middle sister nodded slowly, still staring around. "I think it already is," she mumbled in the same tongue.
In front of her was a cityscape, but one quite different from anything she'd seen before. All the buildings were quite recognisably buildings, some fairly large, although nothing like as big as some of the ones in Tokyo, lights beginning to come on as they appeared to have arrived at the equivalent of later afternoon or early evening. The site the portal had deposited them in was some distance up the side of a small mountain or perhaps a large hill, on the outskirts of a wooded area that stretched out of sight. As a result the view out over the alien city was superb. The sun, low on the horizon, was noticeably redder that the one she was familiar with, and slightly dimmer, enough that she could look at it with a little squinting, while a few degrees off to the side and slightly higher in the sky was a brilliant blue-white pinpoint of light.
The overall effect was light that was more or less the same colour as she expected, casting shadows that had two distinct edges, very close together, one somewhat blue and one slightly red. She inspected the ground and her shadow, waving her hand around, then looked back to the setting sun. Or was it suns? Ranma noticed her experimenting and laughed. "The main sun is a red giant, this world is much further away from it that we are from our sun. The little blue one is a white dwarf, orbiting around it. The planet orbits around both of them."
"Weird." Nabiki thought back to some of the science programs she'd seen in the past and science fiction she'd read. "Is that stable? I'd have though it would be a kind of complicated orbital path." Some of the words she used she picked carefully, as her vocabulary wasn't enormous yet. Jun made a very good dictionary though. It helped her understand most of what was said as well, although speaking it was more of a problem which only practice would solve.
Uthryyl nodded, looking impressed. "Very good. Yes, it is stable. We're far enough away from them both that we orbit the common centre of mass in a fairly circular path, more circular than your home planet does. The year is considerably longer as a result. About twenty-one times as long, in fact. The day length is a little more than thirty Earth hours long, though, so not too far off what you're used to." She nodded, listening with interest. "The common centre of mass is roughly half-way between the two stars. Even though the red one is much larger than the little blue one the masses are nearly the same. The extreme long term stability isn't ideal, but by the time something goes wrong enough to be a worry we'll probably have left anyway. It's something my species has been aware of for a very long time. That's going to be a hell of a long way in the future, though, we're not too worried. Far past the lifespans of anyone around now by millions of years."
"OK. So, do you have very long winters and summers?"
"Well, technically, yes, but the variance is much smaller than your world has, only a few degrees. The axial tilt isn't as much either, so the temperature is fairly similar and constant around most of the planet except right at the poles. This is about as warm as it gets, ten or so years from now by your system it will get a few degrees cooler. You probably wouldn't notice since it happens so slowly." Nodding again, the middle Tendo went back to looking around. The foliage was in some ways similar to the sorts of things she was familiar with, but in many ways not at all. There were lots of strange smells in the air, odd noises that seemed to be caused by things similar to insects and birds, but which looked nothing like the ones she knew, and a distant sound that was the sum total of the noises of the city some ten or fifteen kilometres away, further down the mountain, clearly built along a fairly impressive river.
The colour of the plants was a much larger range than she was used to, green ones that wouldn't have looked out of place in her sisters garden mixed with deep red ones, bright yellow-orange ones, and even some that looked a dark blue-black. Staring at some very attractive bushes a few metres away, which had glossy red leaves and green flowers, she thought for some reason they looked vaguely familiar. Kasumi noticed the direction of her gaze and giggled.
"If you're thinking you've seen that one before, you have. I have a small one in one corner of the garden. It smells a bit like strawberries when it's in bloom." Nabiki nodded, realising that she had indeed seen the plant in question. It was an amusing thought, a plant from a completely alien world was quietly growing on the roof of her sister's building. "It's not poisonous, but the chemistry of it is different enough you couldn't eat it, or rather, you could but you wouldn't enjoy the taste at all. Insects leave it alone as well for the same reason. But it's very pretty. Quannyr gave it to me a couple of years ago. Surprisingly it seems fine with the climate back home."
The trees beyond the smaller bushes, which were laid out in what was clearly a garden, followed the same variant colour schemes, looking more like a deciduous forest back home in the autumn than anything else. A grass-like plant covered the ground, rather more mossy than real grass, a distinctly pink colour although rather deep in colour. It looked a little like cotton candy. Bending down she felt it, finding it was soft and springy, like a very well manicured lawn. Smiling, she straightened up with a shake of her head. "Amazing. This is much more like a real alien world than that dead one. Aside from the sky that could have been any desert on earth. This..." She looked around with a smile. "This is wonderful."
"We like it," Uthryyl said with a grin. "Come on, let's go inside." He led them to the large house that they were obviously standing in the garden of. It was perhaps three times the size of the Tendo Dojo and house combined, with grounds that were fairly extensive. A stone wall surrounded the entire place, disappearing into the woods on two sides, presumably joining up somewhere inside. The house itself was also largely constructed of stone with parts made of an almost black, yet clearly not painted, wood that glistened in the fading light like it was wet. When Nabiki touched the nearest piece curiously she found it felt like it was varnished, although she had a suspicion that wasn't the case.
Overall she was somewhat surprised how normal everything looked. The style of the house was very different than the traditional Japanese one, or the common Western styles that were omnipresent back home, yet wasn't so far away it stood out as 'alien'. Just different, not to mention rather attractive. The materials looked somewhat exotic yet still recognisable, even as the plants were clearly plants, just not earthly ones. Even the way the front door mechanism, some sort of lever arrangement, worked seemed sufficiently normal that she wasn't surprised to see Uthryyl operate it just like a standard doorknob, although he lifted rather than pushed down.
The effect, though, taken as a whole, was definitely something that made it clear she was a very long way from home. Even so, she found it warm and welcoming in a way she'd have been hard-pressed to explain. Standing to one side the demon waved them inside. "Come in. Please, make yourselves comfortable. My home is yours, as I believe the saying goes on your world." He touched a plate on the wall making lights come on down a hallway leading to the interior of the house. Nabiki inspected the nearest one, seeing it was some sort of transparent globe that seemed to be evenly glowing, not in the fashion of a filament light bulb, or even a fluorescent one, but more like it was filled with a luminescent mist. It reminded her of the power storage sphere that the portal weapons had been build around.
Curiously holding her hand a couple of centimetres from it she found she could feel the tell-tale sensation of low-powered magic in operation. Uthryyl saw what she was doing and chuckled. "Yes, it's powered by magic. A simple light spell, contained inside the sphere to make it stable long-term. Unlike the power batteries you'd probably seen these are made of a polymer, it's much tougher, but it can't handle the same power the synthetic crystal ones can. Cheaper, though."
"Weird. Magical light bulbs." She smiled at him.
"Basically. It's an old system, we've been using them for hundreds of Earth years. They last a long time, twenty or so of your years at least, but not forever. It depends how brightly you run them, of course. Brighter makes them burn out faster, more energy causes more wear."
"That's possibly the first logical thing I've ever seen magic do," the brunette said with a giggle. He shrugged.
"Sometimes it does follow the same sort of rules as physics, sometimes it doesn't. Magic is very strange in many ways." Moving past them, he led them down the hall to the end, into a large room with a huge, flawless, one piece window overlooking the city in the valley below. "This is the heart of the house, really. We like to sit here in the evening and admire the view. The dining room is off that way, the kitchen past it, various workrooms and the like on the ground floor, then upstairs is the accommodation. We've got enough rooms for about a dozen or so guests plus the three of us. It's a large house and rather old, my grandfather built it when he was quite young. That was a long time ago. We've expanded it here and there over the years. My family is smaller than the previous generation was so we're sort of lost in it, but I'd never leave, there's too much history in the place."
Kasumi looked around with a smile. "I know what you mean. The Dojo is a bit like that. Not as old but it's been in the family for several generations." Walking over to the left wall she admired some paintings hanging there. "These are new." Uthryyl joined her, looking at them.
"Yes, my wife got them a few months ago. A friend of hers painted them as a gift for her birthday. She's very talented indeed, quite a lot of her paintings change hands for significant sums now." Nabiki moved over to have a look at them. While the colour was a little strange, to her eyes at least, the talent involved in what seemed to be some sort of watercolour technique was very evident. The results were close to photographic but with a slightly dreamy effect that was very attractive.
"I can see why. I suspect something like this would fetch a good price back home, just on it's own merits, although the provenance as a genuine demon-painted artwork would probably add to that." She grinned at Uthryyl who laughed.
"My wife would hang me with my own innards if I sold them." He looked thoughtfully at her for a moment. "But that's an interesting idea. I hadn't thought of art trading. Your world puts as high a value on it as mine does. Hmm. Might be worth looking into. Thank you for the idea." Nabiki giggled.
"I should probably ask for a commission."
"If it works we should be able to come to an arrangement." Uthryyl snickered at her surprised look. "I believe in rewarding good ideas, especially if I make a profit from them. That way you get more." Patting her on the shoulder with one scaled hand he turned, waving them to follow. "Come on, let me show you to your rooms." Nabiki watched his tail disappear around the doorway, staring in slightly shocked surprise, then shook herself and followed, a smile growing. Kasumi and Ranma brought up the rear grinning at her.
Climbing stairs that made her stumble for a moment, because the treads and risers were at slightly the wrong spacing for what she was used to, she followed the merchant to the top floor of the house. "Down that hall are the family rooms, the other way is the guest accommodation. This is your room, Nabiki. Ranma, Kasumi, you can have your usual room."
"Thanks, Uthryyl," the martial artist said, walking past with his wife to the next room along. Nabiki watched them for a moment then went into the room the demon indicated, looking around with interest. Again, it was surprisingly normal in most respects. The bed was obviously a bed, although when she prodded it the mattress appeared to be some sort of gel filling with a smooth cloth wrapped around it, a little like a cross between one of the memory foam beds she'd seen recently and a water-bed. Various items of furniture around the room were more or less recognisable for function as well. There were a couple of chairs which had odd looking backs, something she worked out were for people with tails, a thing that was some sort of chest of drawers, a mirror on the wall, pretty much all the items one would expect in a bedroom practically anywhere back home.
Inspecting the chest of drawers she looked puzzled, seeing it was only about ten centimetres deep, which seemed very shallow for useful storage. When she pulled out one of the drawers, though, it came out over half a metre, making her wonder if it was build into the wall. Uthryyl, who was watching her from the doorway, laughed slightly. "It uses a subspace storage method a bit like what the SI uses, but not as effective. Essentially about eighty percent of the space inside it is folded away so it doesn't take up a lot of real room. Very useful technique, that spell gets used all over the place. We have somewhat higher ambient magic here than your world does so spells of this sort and the lighting one are much more easily powered. In your world you'd probably need to be a good magic user to justify it, here anyone can buy an appliance using the method."
"Do you pipe magical energy around like electricity, then?" Nabiki asked curiously. He grinned.
"The method is quite different but the effect is similar. Raw energy is pulled from the environment by a collector system, which is the complicated part, then sent over an energy link to nearby consumers of it. Most houses or buildings have one. I did look into seeing whether it would be possible to sell them on your world, unfortunately the way they work isn't fully compatible with your universe. I don't know if it would be possible to redesign them, but if it was it would be a very complicated and expensive job, so I dropped it." He shrugged a little. "I might revisit it one day, if the demand was there. A mage can power any of this stuff themselves, of course, but even here most people aren't mages, in the same way in your world most people aren't mechanical engineers or computer programmers. Which we also have quite a lot of."
"Cool," the middle sister said, closing the magical slightly-larger-on-the-inside than it was on the outside drawer again. Though as she thought about it she realised that description wasn't really accurate, it was just that a lot of it wasn't in the same reality she was at the moment. Which was ever weirder when you considered the idea. "To be honest, I suspect that right now, more traditional technology would be more saleable at home. Most of our world doesn't really know about or believe in magic."
"Yes, it's something I find interesting. Even the worlds I visit that are more or less completely tech based usually know magic exists, they just don't use it much or at all. Sometimes because the inhabitants simply can't, or because they don't want to for one reason or another. Most worlds use both in various proportions. Worlds like yours, tech based but with an almost separate magic culture that doesn't overlap all that much are unusual." He looked amused for a moment. "Although, I wouldn't be surprised if recent events may go a long way to making the walls between those two systems break down to one degree or another. Ranma has kept me updated on what happened with the portal bomb plot, something I'm very happy to see is now over, even though the fall-out will probably go on for some time."
Looking at her for a moment, he stepped inside the room and closed the door. She looked back, wondering what he was doing. "While I have a moment, Nabiki, can I ask how you're doing with all this?" He seemed concerned, an expression she found oddly easy to read from his quite inhuman face, his ears slightly back like a worried dog. The thought made her momentarily smile. "I know how you were upset back when you and your friends were destroying my firing range. From what I've been told of the end game of the portal plot, you were dropped in very deeply very quickly. That can't have been easy."
Sighing a little she sat on the bed, noticing absently how comfortable it was, making her almost feel she was floating. "It was... very hard. When we got back and I had a moment to let myself realise what had happened, I had a bit of a breakdown. Something I'm still embarrassed about even though the others didn't make anything of it. It kind of hit all at once, if that makes sense."
The demon nodded. "It does, more than you might realise." He paused for a moment, watching her, then sighed himself. "When I was very young, probably about your age or a little older in your terms, I was involved in a small war. Only a battle, according to the people who weren't there, but as far as we who were are concerned, it was bad enough. I won't go into the circumstances, it was a very long time ago and it's not relevant now, but I was fighting for a couple of weeks. Several friends and colleagues were injured, some badly, and a few died." He shook his head. "I had nothing like the power even you possess, never mind Ranma or the rest of your friends, but you don't need much power to kill. Only a weapon and the will to use it. We had that, to my great regret."
She watched and listened, unsure where he was going. "At the time we thought we were doing the right thing. It may even have been true. The main thing is that people died. I handled it pretty well, I thought, considering how young I was and the fact I'd never been involved in anything like that. I had quite a lot of training, the support of our small military, that sort of thing. But afterwards, when I had time to think about what I'd done, what I'd seen... it hit me very hard. I ended up requiring a form of therapy, I suppose you'd call it, for a couple of years to get over what I'd seen and done. Several other people I know needed more than that. And we were supposedly trained soldiers."
"You, despite the training you've had recently from probably the two most lethal warriors I've ever even heard of, have only been doing this for a few months, yet got dropped into a situation worse than the one I had my first time out. True, you weren't being shot at, but the deaths, the whole scenario, was horrific. I've seen the pictures. To be honest, being shot at would probably have been easier, it gives you some control over the situation, because you can shoot back. You were basically doing clean-up after a massacre. I am full of admiration for how well you handled it, and the fact that even when you were offered a chance to back out, you didn't take it. That takes a very special type of person. Very few people could do it, either your species or mine." Walking over to her he put his hand on her shoulder, looking down at her.
"I understand some of what you went through, and I fear will go through in the future. From what I know of you, you will handle it very well. But if you ever want to talk about it, to someone outside your group, come and visit."
After a long pause, she nodded slowly. "Thank you, Uthryyl. That means a lot." She grinned at him. "I see why Ranma and Kasumi like and trust you so much." The demon laughed, releasing her and stepping back.
"I like and trust them as well, more than most people I know. I know I can count on them in a tough situation, which is something you can't say about everyone you meet, not to mention how many times they've helped me just out of friendship. I'm a trader, I deal with more people than you'd believe, and one thing I've learned over the years is that you can't buy the sort of respect and relationship we have with each other, you have to earn it. They are very good people, as are Aiko and her girls, and you. Meeting 'Yori' years back was a very good thing."
Standing, Nabiki smiled a little. "It's been difficult coming to grips with how much my life has changed in the last year, I have to admit, but meeting people like you, Onkra, Quannyr, Aiko and the others... That's worth it all." After a moment she added, "And I owe you more thanks than I can really express for getting the comm units for us. Jun is one of the best things that ever happened to me in more ways than I can think."
#Thank you, Nabiki,# the SI commented quietly, with a pleased tone in its voice.
'I mean it, Jun. I'm very glad indeed that we ended up together.'
#As am I.# The machine fell silent again.
"I'm glad I could. They've made a big difference to our own lives as well. Their designers are remarkable people, as is their work."
"I'd like to meet them one day. Or at least talk to them." The merchant smiled.
"That can probably be arranged. I don't know if it's possible this trip, they are difficult to contact, I would imagine on purpose, but not impossibly so. I'll look into it. Right, let's finish showing you around and we can go get something to eat."
Quannyr and her daughter had been in the city, it turned out, the elder demon working and the younger one visiting friends. They arrived back a couple of hours after Nabiki and the others came through the portal, in a vehicle that looked somewhat like a car but seemed to be sitting about ten centimetres off the ground with nothing obvious holding it up. It was virtually silent. Looking out the window at it after they had greeted and been greeted by the other two people, Nabiki wondered out loud how it worked. Onkra came over and glanced out, then turned to her with a smile. "We used to use a levitation spell, but most ground vehicles nowadays use a type of gravity repulsion system that is pure tech. A company from one of the high-tech worlds imports the units to here and a few other worlds. Wheels like on the ground vehicles of your world haven't been used much for a long time, although they still are for some very large cargo vehicles because the energy cost is lower."
Nabiki shook her head in wonder. "Things are going full on science fiction again. That's one of the strangest thing about everything I've learned and seen in the last year, how something that everyone at home refers to in supernatural terms is more like some futuristic alien space-travel movie in some ways. Anti-gravity, levitating cars, travel between worlds, it's all amazing." The young female demon laughed.
"I know what you mean. I've watched quite a lot of movies on your world, it's something you do really very well indeed, such incredible imaginations, and it always amuses me how the makers of those things seem to split alien worlds into ones that are basically very low tech but with everything magical, or incredibly high tech with no magic at all. In reality almost everywhere is a mix between both of those. We use more magic in everyday life that most of your world does, but we also use a lot of technology, some of which you'd instantly recognise, some of which is more advanced." Glancing out at the levitating car she smiled a little. "We certainly didn't invent it all, though. A lot of both are bought in, which means we have access to things your world doesn't. Most worlds do that, they have done for a long time. It's quite rare to come across one that doesn't have a thriving interworld trade."
"I would think that your family is quite interested in changing that status with my home," the middle sister mused, turning away from the window.
Onkra nodded a little. "I think so. I know dad has been trading in luxury items for quite a while, but he's talked about expanding into other things at some point. One thing that has kept it down to a small amount of trade is how much more complicated it tends to be to create portals to your world outside the Minato area. No one seems to be able to work out why. Oh, you can do it, certainly, but the amount of energy needed makes it a nuisance. It depends on where you start from, as well. Starting a portal from your end is easier than from outside inwards."
Ranma had wandered over and was listening as Onkra spoke. "I've always wondered about that. I know that we didn't seem to have too much difficulty creating portals in the UK or Canada, but you could feel the difference." The demon girl nodded, sitting down next to where Nabiki was standing.
"Dad told me about your spell being weird. He seems to think it's a lot more efficient than the normal one, so in your case the difference is probably a lot less, but for most people, it's considerably simpler to aim for Minato or the surrounding area. If it wasn't for the way all those magical girls tend to jump anything coming through a portal on the spot we'd more than likely have looked into expanding the trade earlier." She grinned toothily at him. "You and Kasumi at least seem to have managed to make that much less of a problem."
Ranma grinned back and bowed, laughing. "You're entirely welcome." Straightening up, he added, "I know Uthryyl has certainly been expanding the chocolate trade a lot in the last year or so. When we met he was only coming about twice a year and was in and out in a day or so, so far this year he'd been about six times that I know."
"Seven," the merchant said, coming over followed by his wife and Kasumi who were deep in conversation. "The last time was for about a week. Your friend Yoshi is being very helpful, we half-filled his warehouse the last trip. We had to hire in half a dozen locals to help move the cargo through the portal. If I could spare the power to make the portal larger we could simply drive the trucks through, but that's a bit difficult at the moment. Even so, business is good."
"Leave some chocolate and coffee for the rest of us," Nabiki giggled. He snickered.
"Oddly enough, that could be a problem at some point. It's an expensive luxury item, of course, more so here than back in your world, but business is expanding so much I can foresee a time when we could take the entire output of the growers. That clearly isn't sustainable. I've been trying to think of some way around that, but the bottleneck is simply the fact that the plants don't grow acceptably anywhere else but your world."
"I've heard that the people who actually grow the coffee beans and cocoa plants get very little of the profit from them, which is enormous, they're often very poor and live in very deprived areas. That's where the plants grow best. There are groups back home who are trying to change that but it's an uphill struggle."
Uthryyl sighed a little. "I was told about that a while ago. It's not all that uncommon, actually, I know of other cases in different worlds where something similar happens. But I'm not sure how it can be changed. We're happy to buy the stuff, although I admit I'd be happier if everyone down the line got a decent profit from it. That's only fair."
Nabiki studied him with interest. The demon seemed genuinely sincere. "Perhaps it would be possible to set up a company that could grow coffee and chocolate specifically for you?" she mused. "If you paid the growers directly, you could most likely not only funnel more profit to them but get the stuff cheaper yourself, with less middlemen. The knock-on effects would in the long run probably improve the lot of everyone, except possibly a few wholesalers." Uthryyl looked at her with an odd expression.
"That... is a very interesting idea, Nabiki." He thought for a while. "A very interesting idea indeed. I'm not sure about the process of setting up a company on your world. The process is different everywhere, of course, but being from somewhere so... non-local... could be a problem. It bears investigating, though."
"Talk to Yoshi about it," Ranma suggested. "He's already running two businesses I know of, pretty successfully as well. He'd know about the process in Japan. I guess one method might be to set up a Japanese company to handle the import-export part, then use that company to buy or otherwise set up coffee and cocoa growing companies in the appropriate places." Uthryyl nodded thoughtfully.
"Not a bad idea. He's already my local buying agent. Involving him would be the obvious first step. Yes, that's something I'll look into. Thank you, Nabiki, that's two potentially profitable ideas in your first evening here. Keep them coming!" He grinned at the middle sister, who laughed.
"It's not like I've been trying to think of ways for you to make a profit, but thanks."
"You certainly have the instincts for it." The demon looked pleased. "Keep it up and I suspect we'll have to start paying you a retainer." She giggled, not sure if he was serious. Ranma smiled at her.
"Hold out for fifteen percent," he advised. Uthryyl looked shocked.
"Fifteen percent?! Do you think I'm made of money? Five is more than reasonable."
"Fourteen and a half," Ranma said with a grin.
"I could go to six and a half." Nabiki watched them both with a raised eyebrow. Kasumi looked at her and smiled, while beside her, Quannyr sighed a little.
"Six and a half! Are you mad! That's almost an insult, my friend. My client here would never consider less than thirteen." Ranma crossed his arms, appearing annoyed. Nabiki tried not to laugh, the inanity of the situation well recognised by her, especially considering their previous history with each other. Uthryyl cocked his ears forward and gasped in shock.
"Thirteen! Insanity." His daughter snickered, leaning against the wall and watching with amusement. "Seven. That's more than fair."
"Twelve."
"Nine!"
Ranma leaned forward, glaring at the merchant, who did the same back. "Ten. That's the lowest she can go." After a long staring contest during which the middle sister could see the edge of the martial artist's mouth was twitching with amusement, Uthryyl growled and nodded, sticking out his hand.
"Ten." They shook on it, then laughed. Nabiki chuckled.
"Idiots."
Turning to her, Ranma grinned menacingly. "Right, now we need to negotiate my commission." She gaped at him, as Kasumi broke down in fits of laughter. After a moment a cold smile crossed her face.
"Three percent."
"Fifteen..."
Sitting at the table Nabiki snickered at the look on the martial artists face. "Seven percent? How the hell did you get me to agree to seven percent?" Uthryyl clapped him on the shoulder, highly amused.
"My friend, both of us met our match today."
Ranma chuckled, while his wife smiled at him. "Apparently so."
Tucking into her g'rargh stew with enjoyment, the middle Tendo felt pleased with herself. It had been a fun few minutes. The alien meat was accompanied by a number of vegetables which were an odd mix of nearly familiar and almost totally unrecognisable, plus carrots. That had made her stare, but they really were carrots. Quannyr looked amused when she held up a three-tined fork analog with a piece of orange vegetable on the end and raised her eyebrow.
"That was one of the first things in recent years we imported from your world. Unlike cocoa and coffee plants, carrots grow here very well and are considered something of a delicacy."
"I made quite a lot from importing seeds for a while," Uthryyl chuckled. "Went into partnership with a few growers, took a percentage of the sales, that sort of thing. Generally, if you're the first to import something from another world you can get a limited duration monopoly on it, during which no one else is allowed to infringe on the sales. A bit like a patent, in terms you'd probably be familiar with. It lasts one of our years and can't be renewed. After that anyone who wants can jump in, assuming the people on the other end go along with it." He finished his plate as well, looking satisfied. "The trick is to persuade the people on the world you're trading with to trade with you exclusively, which means building up a trusted relationship. That's the only way to do it properly. With the carrots, they grow so well here we didn't need to import them for long before we were self-sufficient, which changes the equation a lot."
"So what's the situation with the coffee, chocolate, ice cream, that sort of thing, that you get from Tokyo? Were you the first there?" Nabiki was finding all this very interesting. He shook his head regretfully.
"I wish. No, we've been doing that for a long time. There are a few people who do it, from various worlds, but I pay well, set up local agents, a number of other business tricks that no one else seems to have tried, or possibly thought of. The end result is I have about eighty percent, maybe eighty-five, of the business through Minato to quite a number of worlds. It's very lucrative. Most of the other traders are more specialist, dealing in very specific markets for high prices, which makes up for the lower volume. It seems to work out pretty well."
"It sounds like plants are a very good source of trade goods," Kasumi said, also looking fascinated. Uthryyl nodded.
"They are. One of the best, actually. Biotechnology is very profitable for a number of reasons. Electronics, magitech, mechanical things, those can usually be made locally for less than importing them if you have the infrastructure, the materials, the knowledge, and so on. They're portable. For instance, those fusion generators you were asking about, Nabiki, could be made on your world. Not at the moment or in the near future, there are a lot of other technologies you don't have that are required first, but it's basically just an engineering problem. Plants, and a lot of animals, have normally evolved under very specific conditions and don't travel well or at all. Coffee and cocoa are two very good examples. They only grow properly in a few areas even on their native world, and badly anywhere else as far as anyone can tell. And trust me, people have tried for a long time. A few other plants produce the same compounds but in very small quantities and not very high purity, so they're not commonly cultivated."
He picked up an odd looking mug with a smile. "Jamaican blend, one of my favourites." Drinking from it, he nodded in satisfaction, then put it down again. "It would in theory be possible to synthesise both of them, but they're very complex mixtures of compounds where even tiny differences can make very obvious changes in taste. Despite the price it's cheaper to import them by a long way."
"The carrots were a lucky find, they are one of the fairly small number of plants from your world that do well here and a few other places." Quannyr poured her husband some more coffee, then looked around quizzically. Onkra held out her mug as did Ranma. Filling both, she put the pot back on the table. "There are a few plants from here that grow well on your world, like the Pitheer bush I gave Kasumi. It's only ornamental but it is pretty and has a lovely scent."
Nabiki thought for a while. "So, if one wanted to import things to our world, as an idle idea, one might well be able to pay for them in certain plant products?" She smiled a little. Uthryyl laughed.
"You have the right instincts, definitely. Yes, I would think there are many plant byproducts that would be anywhere from reasonably profitable to extremely lucrative from your world. It has a very large variety of life, more than many places, and surprisingly large numbers of compounds that people want for one reason or another. As I told you some while ago, I've been keeping an eye on your biotech and materials sciences, some of the things I've found out about that you're doing are fairly impressive. One or two are remarkable. There is likely to be some very good trading possibilities there soon. I'm one of, if not the, largest traders between your world and anywhere else, a status I'd like to keep. So far most of it has been outbound trade, mainly precious metals going the other way, but it might be time to try expanding."
"What sort of things would you be looking for?" Ranma asked. The trader thought for a moment.
"Hmm. OK, an example would be drugs of various types. There are some classes of chemical compound that are narcotics, or even poisons, to some species and valuable therapeutic medicines to others. For instance, a world I know has a species that is based on a triple helix DNA-equivalent, unlike the double-helix one both of our species uses. They have a very nasty disease that causes progressive neurological shut down over a period of years, something that so far has eluded a true cure, although they've been looking very hard. There is a drug that is quite effective at treating the symptoms for this disease, keeping it at bay for most of a normal life, but they find it very expensive to synthesise. Finding a plant that could produce it, or a close precursor, would be extremely valuable to them. That drug is a good example, actually, to a lot of species it's a remarkably potent narcotic with some very addictive properties. Quite unpleasant. Yet to them it is a valuable and sought-after medicine."
"I remember you said that there were regulations about transferring potential or actual narcotics or toxins between worlds," the middle sister said.
"There are, but it's still possible presuming there is a legitimate reason for it. Obviously, illegitimate trades take place as well, that sort of thing is impossible to stamp out completely anywhere I've ever been, but it's not a large problem generally. You can arrange a license to transfer otherwise banned substances or products if you can show a good cause for it. I've got quite a few exemptions like that between various worlds myself." He shrugged a little. "Mostly for drugs, a few specialist things that I found a buyer for and that I was comfortable with."
"This drug you were talking about, do you have any information on it?" Kasumi asked curiously. "I know a fair amount about pharmacology, it's one of the subjects I've found very interesting doing my medical training. Perhaps I could look it up when we go home, you never know, it might be one we already know about. There are a very large number of plant-derived medicines in the books."
Uthryyl nodded, looking interested. "Yes, I've got a selection of data on it and a few others I know are potentially profitable. I was planning on looking up an honest and open-minded biochemist on your world at some point in the next couple of years, so I started researching things that might be worth a look. Here, I'll sent you the data." Moments later all three of them got a file of information. Nabiki opened it and had a quick scan through the contents, finding a large amount of chemical information including molecular diagrams, notes on which species the various drugs were useful on and which they were dangerous too, and a lot more, most of which was beyond her comprehension. Kasumi nodded thoughtfully, with the expression that everyone with an SI recognised as someone communing with one.
"Very interesting." She fell silent for a moment, then looked somewhat surprised. "Very interesting." Uthryyl stared at her.
"That tone of voice intrigues me," he commented with a look of interest.
"I recognise one of these compounds, or something very like it. The second one. Come to think of it, the fourth one is vaguely familiar as well." The trader exchanged glances with his wife, his ears cocked forward.
"Do you now. That is interesting. Is it something you know is produced on your world?"
"Yes. The second one, definitely, it's an opiate. Hang on a moment, let me..." She nodded after a moment. "Nao has the reference for it. It's called Thebaine, it's derived from a type of poppy." Kasumi saw the three demons looked blank. "A flower. There are a lot of different types, most of them produce at least small amounts of alkaloids like this, some produce very large amounts. They're grown commercially for the production of a number of compounds, most of which are used as analgesics or anaesthetics. Or, as you said, very potent and addictive narcotics. That particular compound isn't used directly but is a precursor to a few drugs."
She went back to reading the file. "I'm sure the fourth one is also a plant alkaloid. I think it's something closely related to a compound called Nepaline, a very lethal poison derived from a plant called Aconitum. There are a number of different species that produce various amounts of it, all of them are extremely toxic. It's not Nepaline, but it's close. I'd think one could be converted into the other fairly easily. The rest I don't recognise and Nao doesn't have any information on them, but I'll check when I go back."
Uthryyl was looking ecstatic. "Kasumi, that is very interesting indeed. If you're right about even those two compounds, that is an extremely profitable trading opportunity right there. We'll need to look into it as soon as possible. If it turns out that they are the right chemicals and can be supplied in reasonable quantities, I could arrange import and export licenses and start negotiations with the end users."
The eldest Tendo raised a cautioning hand. "Don't immediately rush into it. Thebaine is a strictly controlled drug all over our world, there would be a lot of negotiating required to buy it, assuming it's possible in the first place. The main producer of it is Australia, I know a lot of poppies are grown commercially in Tasmania, an island off the south coast of the country, but I'm not sure how we'd look into being allowed to purchase it. I suppose it would pay to talk to that nice Officer Graham at the ASIO, he'd probably be able to put us in touch with the right people."
The trader was nodding, clearly taking mental notes. "And the other one?"
"Well, that's not actually regulated, as far as I know, there's no large scale use for it since it's so remarkably poisonous. I seem to recall some traditional Chinese medicines use Aconitum, but only in very small amounts. I'd have to look it up. The plant is grown as an ornamental one, I have some in the garden, but you really don't want anyone to eat it, or ideally, even touch it. But it is very pretty."
"I should have talked to you about this a long time ago," Uthryyl said slowly, looking at his wife again. "You clearly know more about biochemistry than I realised."
"We are both very practised healers and training in medicine," Kasumi said, giggling slightly. "You tend to pick up a lot of biochemical knowledge like that, even if you're not actively studying it. It's not my primary field but I've taken a number of courses in the last few years that covered quite a lot of this sort of thing. Ranma has as well, from a slightly different viewpoint."
"We can get data on an awful lot of drugs and compounds through the university computer system, including some new and experimental ones, then send it to you, if that would help," Ranma suggested. "You could see which ones are something you'd be interested in. I would imagine it should be possible to arrange commercial contacts for the most part, especially if the companies are in Japan."
"That would be... very generous and helpful," the merchant replied, looking slightly overwhelmed. Ranma waved a hand.
"Don't worry about it. We've been friends for quite a while, we help each other out, this is just more of the same. You've done as much for us."
"Even so, thank you very much. If this all works out the way it sounds like it could, I'm quite serious about cutting you all in on it. The profit would be more than enough to go around." He grinned after a moment. "I should have talked to you about business like this some time ago. You've only been here a few hours and we've had several potentially lucrative ideas. In three weeks, we could end up owning the planet." Everyone laughed at that. "Oh, yes, Nabiki, on that subject, I researched the fusion reactors we were talking about." She looked at him with interest.
"And?"
"Well, the first thing to realise is that there are several types of reactor design I can get. Some aren't really suitable, either they require exotic fuels that are hard to source outside their own worlds, have by-products that are a pain to deal with without the infrastructure, or are simply too big to go through a portal. In the end, the small design those railguns use seems like the best bet. They're a somewhat old design on their originating world, but as a result the technology is stable, reliable, and well-understood. The downside is that they use a fusion fuel, an isotope of helium, that is in very short supply on your planet. The upside is that the waste is very clean."
Nabiki nodded, listening carefully. "My research showed that your own people are aware of the possibility of this particular fuel cycle, but also know how difficult it is to obtain, not to mention how hard it is to design the hardware to use it. From what I can find out your people are probably about fifty to seventy years from being able to duplicate this method of power generation natively. But, it is something you know about and would eventually get to, which means the paperwork about exporting it to you is much easier. It's not introducing something completely new, just jump-starting the process. An entirely new alien technology would be more complicated to export to you, although not impossible for the most part."
"What about the SI units?" Kasumi asked with interest. "They're clearly a very long way past any of our own world's technology."
"Personal imports of small amounts of high tech is fine, generally. Especially to people of your reputation." She looked slightly embarrassed, causing him to grin. "You'd be absolutely amazed what you could get if you needed it. Selling them on the open market would possibly be a problem, but it wouldn't arise as we couldn't get the things in the first place. Their makers only sell to very specific people, as you know." He shrugged a little. "Other worlds have different rules, so you could quite possibly get even things that we ban through someone else, but you'd have to go some way off the beaten track. The trading treaty worlds like this one have a fairly unified set of rules. Personally, I prefer it that way, it's much more civilised."
He looked back to Nabiki. "The fuel is something I can get in significant quantities. Several very high-tech worlds mine and refine it from gas giants, they use it themselves in huge amounts. It's not vastly expensive in those terms. So, that part is easy enough, and of course an ongoing commercial possibility. The reactors are quite efficient, even the small one that was running the railgun you played with had a continuously rated output of around ten megawatts. It's intrinsically fail-safe, and small enough you could pick it up and walk off with it." He looked at her for a moment, then around at Kasumi and Ranma. Grinning, he added, "Not the best choice of words in your case, you lot could probably pick up this house and walk off with it." Ranma chuckled. "But it's not big. About so high," he held a hand approximately a meter off the floor, "And about the same across. I left it in the bunker when we installed it, it was easier, but it only took two of my people to get it inside and connected."
'Jun, what does that power output mean in terms I'd be familiar with?' Nabiki asked the SI. She certainly wasn't technologically inept by a long way but she wasn't an engineer.
#A typical household in your home country would use approximately three to ten kilowatts continuously depending on number of inhabitants. A reactor of the power output specified would provide enough energy to run over one thousand such households. Based on information I downloaded from your internet it would take approximately seventy thousand such reactors to provide the entirety of the electricity usage of Japan. Obviously, larger output versions would require proportionately fewer installations.#
'Thanks.'
"The largest one we could easily fit through a portal, disassembled into it's main components, would be one with an output of about eight gigawatts. From what I could find out to replace all the electricity requirements in your country with these reactors would need less than a hundred that size. That includes all the energy you generate domestically and also import." Uthryyl looked at her, smiling. "The SI units are very good at finding out these things." She laughed and nodded. "So it's possible, and even fairly simple with large units, to replace all your energy requirements. The fuel required would be around ten metric tons a year, which isn't very much. The world I'd use to supply it from produces thousands of times that much every year, they sell it all over the place."
"It definitely sounds possible," Kasumi said, sipping her coffee. Uthryyl nodded.
"Most certainly. I would have to arrange some import and export licenses, talk to the manufacturers, things like that, but it could be set up in a few months, perhaps a year worst case. The bigger difficulty would be at your end. As I said when you first raised the thought, there are some very large and powerful entities in your world that seem quite happy with the way things are at the moment as they make enormous profits from it. You might have an uphill struggle with them, I'm afraid. I've seen it before, the issue isn't uncommon. A new, disruptive technology causes friction between the new companies and the old, entrenched ones. It's something to be aware of."
Nodding slowly, Nabiki thought about his words. They certainly seemed plausible, from what she knew of the politics of energy. Oil, coal, nuclear, issues with unstable countries in the Middle East, much of it made the news almost every day. Still, the more she thought about it the more it seemed like something that could genuinely help people on a scale being a magical girl probably couldn't, and quite directly as well. Cheap clean energy was the cure to a large number of the world's problems from what she could work out.
"It's a bit overwhelming, to be honest," she said in the end. "Having a potential world-changing thing like this just sitting there. I think we would need to get some advice from people back home." Looking at Ranma she smiled as he nodded.
"I would have to agree. But, now that Nabiki has raised the possibility, I also agree it's probably a good idea in the long term. There are some very worrying things being found out about pollution from our existing energy sources back home, I can see it getting bad in a few years or decades. This might be a fix. I'll talk to a few people I know when we get back, see if they can suggest the best way to go about it."
"Fine. I'll continue with the paperwork, it's fiddly but doesn't cost much, so as and when you want to proceed we're ready." Quannyr looked at him for a moment.
"Who will continue with the paperwork, husband?" Uthryyl glanced at her and grinned.
"I meant to say, my beautiful and intelligent wife without whom I would be nothing, will continue with the paperwork..." The demoness laughed, nodding to her husband.
"Nice save." Kasumi giggled, exchanging glances with Ranma, who was grinning. Nabiki watched with amusement, thinking how normal all of this was despite the alien environment. The people of this world were indeed just basically people, even if they looked a bit weird. Something that she had to force herself to even notice these days, she was surprised and amused to note.
"The big question is how to pay for all of this," the brunette said, looking around the table.
"Well, if Kasumi is right and the plant compounds she recognised are indeed available in commercial quantities, that wouldn't be a problem. They're very valuable, more so than a lot of fusion reactors and helium-three. In fact, one of the worlds that produces the fuel has a number of requirements for some fairly exotic chemical compounds, if your world could supply them you'd have the perfect relationship right there. I don't think it would be a massive problem." The merchant picked up the coffee-pot and looked inside with disappointment as it was empty. Quannyr smiled and took it from him, going to get some more.
"Do a lot of worlds have some form of space travel?" Nabiki asked, "You mentioned mining gas giants. I'm familiar with the concept, it's something I've read in any number of science fiction books, but I'd think it needs quite a major infrastructure."
"Worlds that use magic in significant amounts often don't bother with space travel as portal travel is a lot easier, and fills many of the same requirements." Uthryyl accepted a refill from his wife as she returned, looking at her gratefully. She filled everyone's mug before retaking her place beside him. "On the other hand, some of the high-tech, non-magical worlds are pretty good at it. You remember I said portals can only be generated through magic?" Nabiki nodded. "Some worlds don't have any mages, or ones powerful enough to do a portal spell, which is very high level, so that option isn't available. That often leads to developing some form of space travel. Resources on any given planet are limited and high-tech worlds for some reason often have larger populations than magic based ones, so the problem is even more serious. Energy is normally the most immediate shortage, which space-based industries can solve, in several ways. It generally grows from there."
"Do any of them have faster than light travel?" she asked, a question raised from watching a lot of TV programs as a child.
"It's possible, although not easy. Even your own people are aware of at least one theoretical method though they currently have no idea how to build a machine to do it. It requires a certain amount of negative mass, something very complicated to arrange." Jun popped a graphic up without being asked, about something called the Alcubierre drive, a theoretical method proposed a few years ago by a Mexican theoretical physicist.
#This method is one know to my database, Nabiki. The mathematics are not quite complete but the theory proposed by the physicist Miguel Alcubierre is indeed practical. There are currently nine species listed as using a variant on it for a space drive.# She looked at the diagram and read the text with interest, then dismissed the graphic, with a mental note to look into it again at some point. It sounded interesting.
"Amazing. I can't believe how many things that were just stories suddenly seem to be real," she said, looking around. "I mean, I'm having dinner in an alien house on an alien world! That's just bizarre."
Onkra, beside her, laughed. "I've been to parties in alien houses several times," she said, glancing at the middle sister, who giggled. "They're weird, those aliens."
"I know. Very strange people." The two very different young woman grinned at each other.
When the meal was over they all sat and talked for a while, before Ranma looked at his wife and sister-in-law. "I suggest we should probably get an early night. It's going to take a little time to get used to the longer days here. I'd like to be up early tomorrow so we can show Nabiki around, then see what we should do next." He glanced at the trader. "You told me you have some interesting ideas?"
"Oh, yes, quite a few. I think you'll like them. A couple of days around here, there are a lot of places you haven't seen before and that I think Nabiki will find very interesting, then perhaps go and look in on some other worlds I know. There are a few friends I'd like to look up on the way, a couple of them you know, some you don't." He grinned, looking pleased. "I don't think you'll be disappointed."
"Sounds good. In that case, I'm off to bed. Kas? Coming?" His wife nodded, standing as he did, then they both left with a smile to the people left. Nabiki watched them go, before looking out the window again at the alien city in the distance. Onkra followed her gaze and laughed.
"You'll love it. It's a lot like Tokyo in some ways, and completely different in others. I'm looking forward to showing you around." Smiling in anticipation, the middle Tendo stood.
"He's got the right idea. I am a little tired. Thank you all for the meal, and the opportunity to see all this."
"It's not a problem, Nabiki," Quannyr assured her. "We've been looking forward to this for some time. Have a good night's sleep and we'll see you tomorrow." Nodding to her hosts, the brunette headed to her room, closing the door and looking around, before yawning. Puzzling out the bathroom operation took a few minutes, but soon she was in the strange bed, finding it amazingly comfortable, almost as if she wasn't on a real surface, but just floating in the air.
'I have to get one of these', she thought to herself with a grin, reaching for the activation plate beside the bed and turning off the lights in the ceiling in the way Uthryyl had demonstrated earlier. Lying in the dark, listening to the odd noises from outside of alien life wandering around in the bushes and muttering to itself, she could hardly believe where she was.
#Nabiki, since arrival on this world I have connected to the equivalent of your internet and downloaded up to date maps, topographical and terrain data, and other relevant information. I have also established a link to the location services available, consisting of a high-resolution timing based satellite service and a planetary space-time distortion mapping service. The combined accuracy of both these methods in conjunction with inertial measurement systems is approximately plus or minus one hundred micrometres in all three planes, with equivalent repeatability. Rotational accuracy and repeatability is approximately one half arc-second in all three planes. Is this acceptable?#
'More than acceptable, Jun. Thank you.' The middle sister idly studied a map of the area, zooming out to a few dozen kilometres around the house. She noticed that the information was at least as detailed as the GPS maps of Tokyo, showing down to individual street addresses, both in the written form of the trade language and Japanese. 'Very impressive, in fact.'
#Thank you, Nabiki. I have also taken the liberty of synchronising a clock to the local time and date system. Would you like me to display it in addition to the Tokyo time clock, or in place of it?#
'In addition, I think, Jun.' Another clock appeared below the normal one she kept running off to one side.
#The local time is based on decimal hours. There are ten hours to a day, each hour consisting of one hundred minutes of one hundred seconds. The resulting seconds are approximately nine percent longer than an Earth second. It is a very logical system." The voice of the SI was approving, making Nabiki giggle.
'Did you have much information on this world before we arrived?' she asked curiously.
#There is a considerable amount of data on many well-travelled worlds in my database, Nabiki. This world is one well know to my makers. The inhabitants of it have been utilising portal travel for a considerable time, several thousand years in your terms, both for trade and research. Their species has a somewhat longer written history than your own although the time they have been truly sentient is approximately the same. From what I have learned I suspect that the main reason their technological civilization is considerably older than your own is that they arrived at a common consensus of governance covering the entire planet much earlier in their history. Without constant wars, while progress was slower than it would otherwise have been, it was also not reset on a regular basis. In addition this world is less prone to the tectonic upheaval and other natural disasters that have curtailed some of the great civilizations of the past on your world.#
'So essentially, they learned to work together and didn't get washed away by tidal waves every now and then?' she asked.
#Precisely. There does not appear to be a vast difference in ability between your two species, despite appearances you are surprisingly similar mentally and in physical capability. More so than some species by a considerable margin. They are longer-lived on average and somewhat stronger physically, but in neither case outside the range members of your own species reach. As Uthryyl stated, the ambient magic level of this world is substantially higher than your own as well, which has led them to be more aware of magic and as a result utilise more of it in their civilisation. Your world, while well aware of magic in parts and capable of some extraordinary feats using it, has never embraced it to the level this one has. You chose a different path based on physical technology, as have many other worlds.#
Nabiki considered its words for a while. 'So, if you have all this information, do you have the plans for making the fusion reactors Uthryyl is talking about?'
#I do have constructional and theoretical data on a number of power systems, including one I believe is most likely the one Uthryyl has referred to. However, as he also stated, while it would in theory be possible for your world to produce such a device, in practice it would be extremely difficult at this point in time. There are a large number of other facilities required to complete the manufacture of this type of technology which your world does not yet possess. Leaving aside the issue of obtaining the helium-three isotope required for fuelling a reactor of this type, I would estimate it would take your home-world a minimum of thirty-five to forty years and enormous and costly effort to build the necessary infrastructure to manufacture it at a price low enough to be feasible as a practical power supply. Laboratory models could possibly be created in a mere twenty years, approximately, although this would be of little practical use to anyone other than research scientists. It would be far preferable, and very considerably cheaper in the long term, to purchase the units ready-made from an existing manufacturer.#
'Interesting. Thanks, that's useful information.' Thinking about what it had told her, she fell asleep.
