By the end of the 21st century, most of mankind had retired the idea of a god to the shelf of quaint old ideas that no one really needed anymore. It is ironic, therefore, that the physicists and mathematicians of the early 22nd century were the ones to announce His Second Coming. The Crawdads and the Cacks, among others, revealed an impenetrable mathematical proof of a Supreme Being's existence in the very heart of quantum mechanics. It seemed that to prevent the universe from dissolving into an expanding waveform of probabilities, and to avoid self-referential nonsense, there must be an outside awareness to collapse the wave function-continually creating the universe we know. 

As Thomas Aquinas might have said, an unobserved observer. We were, after all, merely ideas in the mind of God.

While one might think the various established religions would have embraced this unexpected support from science, the majority approached it with great caution. The math said almost nothing about the nature of this observer, so the religious authorities waited suspiciously to see if this new belief system would become a friend or a foe.

The resurrection of God was only one of a number of surprises following mankind's first encounter with an alien species. After the shooting stopped, cultural translation experts came like Jesuit missionaries to our world seeking to build a common basis for trade. This seemed to involve a lot of remedial math. It was this same math that allowed the oracles to predict the future interactions of particles by their quantum signatures.

"You should have asked whether or not to make the trip, not how best to go!" Only the deep vertical furrows in Dr. Powers' forehead prevented his bushy white eyebrows from touching. He had been my professor and academic advisor and all around mentor at the New Athens Academy on Mars, and I had learned to fear that expression whenever I declared a philosophical conclusion that I couldn't back up with solid reasoning.

I dialed back the resolution on my corneal displays and shrank down in my seat, trying to speak low enough that the shuttle's air recyclers would prevent my fellow passengers from hearing me. "But I only had one-."

"I know, I know." Dr. Powers waved away my excuses. We had already circled around this argument. "At this point, it doesn't matter. You've asked the oracle's advice and now you must follow it."

Until I had consulted the oracle, my future, like Schrödinger's cat, had existed in any of several states. Once the oracle observed that future, it became as solid and nailed down as a frog in a dissection tray. "It would seem so," I muttered.

"I don't like the sound of some of those projections, though. Win every battle, but lose the war...betrayal by friends, unexpected allies..."

"I know, I know, but this isn't just any alien trading fleet. This is the Cack ruler's brother. The trade possibilities are enormous. Trans-Luminal Systems could be the first company to move out system!"

Dr. Powers just gave me a dark look.

"I'm still examining the profile," I said. "I may yet find a way through this."

"The oracles are typically more precise with simple yes or no questions."

I held my tongue and nodded, ignoring the jab.

Dr. Powers sighed and shook his head. "Unfortunately, you don't have the time to fully analyze the profile. Your friend will be leaving soon with or without you." His expression softened. "I suppose you're as well equipped for this sort of adventure as anyone."

"Thanks to your teaching." 

Dr. Powers gave a short sharp laugh like a bark. "I didn't pour four years of education into you so you could waste them on becoming a politician. Go. Just be careful-and send me a message now and then on how you're doing."

"I will."

Dr. Powers ended the link. The IDNA logo and a constellation of control icons replaced his image. I sat up with a relieved sigh, determined to enjoy the rest of the trip to Tycho base. I had already responded to Phil's message of "Coming, Yes/No?" and left a recording for my father, leaving Dr. Powers--the most difficult task--for last. I flash messaged the crew at the TLS hanger to prep Argippos and instructed the ship to begin the pre-flight checklist. I tried to relax, but a growing restlessness forced me to slot the data crystal and review the profile the oracle had prepared. I had to know what future events might already be impinging on my personal quantum signature.

* * *

"All systems are ready," Argippos announced as I entered the ship. I slid onto the acceleration couch and brushed a hand across the glossy marble control surfaces. Shiny black displays lit up in a colorful array of numbers and graphs. I took a moment to enjoy the antique brass and wood accents which gave the cabin a baroque late 21st-century look and sniffed the air. It even had the fresh-out-of-the-wrapper smell.

A graduation gift from my father, the Argippos was still a prototype and the most advanced craft grown from the TLS nano-tanks at Lagrange Point Five. The ship's Cybernetic Awareness, its most complicated component and essential to its drive system, took years to mature. The Heisenberg drive's Quantum Wave Effect Generator allowed the ship to jump through space like a single quantum particle, but it was the CA that rematerialized the ship where they wanted it to be.

"Begin launch sequence," I said. I got up and stowed my gear while the CA communicated with launch control. The ship trundled out to the launch pad and I strapped myself down as the sequence finished. The reaction thrusters fired and Argippos quickly assumed a lunar orbit.

"Set a course for the transit station; maximum speed."

"Flight plan prepared and filed with the transit authority," the CA said.

"Proceed."

I didn't bother watching the external cameras. Unlike the vids, the stars don't blur across the screen. At an equivalent speed of twelve times the speed of light, the stars don't move at all, and since the H-drive doesn't move the ship through physical space, I wouldn't even see any red shift to add interest to an otherwise static display.  

The transit station circled Sol between the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud. At a   distance of 100AU, it took the light from Sol nearly fourteen hours to reach the gate. The Argippos made it in about seventy-five minutes. On the way I scanned all the highest rated discussions on the converse about Shines Like the Sun, the Cack ruler's brother whom I was about to meet. Those Who Dwell Within, or as they're more commonly known, the Cacks, had been big news ever since their first attempt to forcibly include us in their economic sphere. We surprised them with our fierce determination to fight regardless of the cost. Then we dismayed them when we invited ourselves into their economic sphere anyway. They couldn't decide if it was an act of surrender on our part or a demand for surrender on theirs. Either way, they recognized us as the first species they'd encountered who understood the economics of warfare and the warfare of economics.

I queried terabytes of information, but could find little more than fluff pieces on the "charismatic" Shines Like the Sun, his family, and his procession through human space. I did, however, manage to dig up some passing references to Sunshine's conflict with his former friend Bright Fortune. It was widely thought that Bright Fortune had accused Sunshine of plotting to overthrow his own brother Righteous Ruler. Sunshine, with the help of his mother, narrowly escaped a death sentence and then proceeded to take his revenge by seizing hundreds of systems once ruled by Bright Fortune. There was little discussion of their conflict's background and that little mostly consisted of speculation from outside observers.

An hour and fifteen minutes later, the H-drive switched off and the acceleration warning chimed. The matter/antimatter engines fired and I felt something like gravity for the first time on my trip.

"The transit station has requested navigational control," Argippos said.

"Acknowledge and comply." I watched the station grow from the size of a small washer until only a few degrees of its arc filled my monitor as the station slotted me behind an outbound freighter returning to the Oort cloud to haul more ice. 

Only a faint distortion rippled along the inside of the ring. Otherwise, there were no indications that the stars shining through the ring were hundreds of light-years distant. They appeared to merely be waiting on the other side which, in a way, I guess they were.

Never having traveled through a transit gate before, and only knowing how the drama-vids portrayed the experience, I braced myself for any of a dozen mind-altering, sensory numbing or nausea inducing experiences. The transit station cut the reaction drive as Argippos neared the gate and we drifted slowly through the massive ring, emerging hundreds of light-years away as smoothly as if she had drifted into a space dock. The moment of transition passed so quickly and so unremarkably that I hadn't noticed it. I determined that on the next passage I would identify the exact moment when I existed half in one solar system and half--hundreds of light-years away--in another.

The reaction engines cut in again as the station moved Argippos out of the path of incoming traffic. An obligatory "Welcome to Sardis Colony" message, complete with local history, customs and laws, arrived in my incoming message queue.

"Set a course for Sardis IV and locate Phil's ship, the Torchbearer."

"Flight plan prepared and filed," the CA replied.

"Proceed."

The reaction engines cut off and weightlessness returned as the H-drive switched on and we raced toward an alien star.

I punched up Sardis IV's traffic control's data stream and marveled at the armada of ships in orbit. Most were Solarian, the majority bearing Pentaminc Corp's logo, a circle of five "M"s. One large alien ship, looking somewhat like a knobby jelly fish, stood out from the rest. It was a Cack warship.

"I've located the Torchbearer," Argippos announced.

"Request a docking and proceed the moment you have clearance."

Almost immediately, the Argippos accelerated toward one of the ships, uncomfortably faster than I or any human pilot would have preferred, but the Argippos and the Torchbearer's CAs smoothly inserted my ship into a docking cradle in the hanger deck. The docking port had attached itself to the side of my ship before I could unlatch myself and get my gear.

I drifted through the hanger, with a push against the plastic tube connecting our ships. Phil appeared at the lock as I cycled through. He was a long skinny guy with short black hair. His bony face broke into a grin as he spied me through the airlock's window. We had met in flight school where he had been my instructor and, though he was ten years my senior, we just sort of hit it off. 

Even after the colonial war broke out and he got promoted to fleet, he kept in touch and I'm certain he had a hand in my promotion to O4 toward the end of the war. (Well, that and a colonial freighter named W. Ashbless and a one-manned fast attack craft which was all I had to stopp an Earth battle ship from seizing the freighter. It was the only combat action I saw in the whole war.) Phil and I only lost touch after the war when he immigrated to the colonies in pursuit of fame and fortune.

The lock opened. "Permission to come aboard?" I asked.

"Hey Zoomer!" Using my old call-sign, Phil swept me up in a one-armed hug, hanging onto an anchor point with his other hand. "Glad you could come!"

"Well Powers tried to stop me, but I never let good advice get in my way." I laughed.

Phil beckoned to a Spacer 1st Class. "Take his bag to the shuttle." Then he turned to me. "Sorry for the short notice, but we're on a tight schedule."

"Are we going somewhere? I just got here."

"We're shipping out on the Flower of Dirt."

"What?" I snatched at an anchor point as I started to drift away.

Phil smirked back at me and palmed a neighboring hatch lock. Beyond it lay a small transport shuttle in a nearby docking cradle. "It seems many races' name for their home world translates to something like dirt. I suppose Flower of Earth would be just as accurate, though somewhat confusing."

"We're jumping with the Cacks?"

Phil pulled himself down the plastic tube to the transport. "It's Cack tradition for all nobility--meaning officers--to ship together, apart from the commoners. But then you're the Cack expert, you should know that."

"I took a xenology minor, but-"

"I hoped you packed warm-weather gear."

"Why?"

"They keep their ships near thirty-eight degrees Celsius." Phil entered the shuttle and returned the salute of a S1C attendant waiting at the hatch. "Tell the pilot to launch as soon as he's ready," he told the spacer. Phil secured himself in an acceleration couch and I followed his example.

"At least I got you your own stateroom in executive row. You'll have some control over environmental there."

"How did you manage that?" I asked.

"Simple." Phil smirked. "You're my new XO."

I would have jumped off the acceleration couch if I hadn't been strapped on. "I'm just an observer on this mission. I can't be employed by your company! Do you have any idea what the political ramifications would be? Does your HR know?"

Phil laughed. "Don't worry. You're a sub-contractor through a dummy corp. Everything's going through AP. We'll get the paperwork to you later."

I took a deep breath. "If the business 'zines heard about this, the stock traders would go crazy."

Phil made a skeptical sound. "Everyone knows you Fortune 100 types engage in all kinds of speculative little adventures."

"Not with the Cacks though!" The docking clamps clanked open as they released the shuttle and we drifted silently toward the shuttle bay opening. It was too late to turn back. "What about my ship?"

"Don't worry. The techs on Torchbearer will keep it safe." Phil chuckled. "I've even detailed a couple of S1Cs to clean it for you on a regular basis. Besides, I don't think you want the Cacks getting their hands--or whatever--on it. A high-tech piece of equipment like that, isn't it classified or something?"

I grimaced. "Sort of. It's privately owned but no one outside TLS personnel is really supposed to touch it."

Phil leaned toward me, and in a low conspiratorial voice asked, "So, what's its relative C? The 'zines are guessing eight to ten."

"Twelve."

He whistled. "Twelve times the speed of light. Nice. That's even better than military hardware."

We both fell silent as the shuttle pulled away from the Torchbearer and headed toward the Flower of Dirt. The shuttle had actual windows--some sort of shatter-proof, self-repairing, harder-than-diamond carbon laminate--and we watched the alien warship grow larger and even more alien as we neared.

After a moment, Phil said, "I hope you don't mind me using you as my strategy officer as well?"

I checked him for any sign he might be joking or had gone mad. "You realize I'm a pilot-officer, right? A Strat-O--a fleet strategic officer--is an O7 position."

"O6 or O7. I put you in as an O6."

"That's a two-step jump."

"Not unheard of."

"In war-time!

"Look, Ken, I've seen your command school scores. You're more than capable of doing the job. You just lack a little confidence."

"And seniority. What will your senior officers say? That the rich and politically connected kid bought his commission?"

"That would pretty much be SOP if it were true--which it isn't. In fact, you'll be one of only a handful with any combat experience at all."

"How is that possible? With the colonial wars ended, I would have thought there would be tons of experienced officers available."

Phil shook his head as he stared out the window and watched the pilot bring the shuttle around to the back of the Cack warship. We slid in among its strange rearward projections like a fish asking to be caught in a jellyfish' tentacles. "All the veterans either went into business or homesteaded a colony. Anyone spacing with a mercenary force these days is a neo."

Our shuttle slid into the gaping maw of the Cack shuttle bay. A sick feeling swept over me as it swallowed us up. "Are you saying that we're about to boost into a hot zone with a bunch of vac-suckers?"

Phil laughed. "No, I'm just talking about the fleet officers who think they can make their fame and fortunes in space. The ship's commanders and their crew are all real-time."

"That still doesn't make me feel any better."

"Don't worry. Sunshine's officers will be in charge of operations in-system. Our fleet officers will mostly just stand around giving media interviews. Besides, it's not as if this were a major conflict. We're just going to show up, rattle a few sabers, and interdict local traffic through the gate. Worst case scenario: we'll hit a few planetary targets from space. After the initial fuss, it'll actually be a bore. You'll see."