Z2.odt





Note:

This story was born out of a challenge issued by Mark Ball of te Sci Fi Ideas web site. When he burst the Gas being bubble.(and boy did he... problem is there aren't any examples of a real gas being in SF literature (TV or Film) I could find. As all samples given were gaseous at best but not “gas ”

If we use the definition of established science and define gas as the one of the four classic states of matter. (Solid,Liquid, Gas and Plasma)

No such entity has made an appearance in any story I could find.

Now in the realm of fantasy or “Star Wars type Sci Fi” all I had to do is describe a fancy vapor made of handwavium and give it a personality and poff I have a gaseous sentient being, which is the desired core result of this little challenge.

I thought all I really had ton do is go into my universe and pick one of my species that reside there and do not have a solid body.

There are the Non corps of course, Dusty the Interstellar Dust cloud, There are the ghost like Antoo who are trapped between transspatial conditions, However none of them are made of gas. There are the Bellebee where gas is an important part of their physiology, but they too are not made of gas alone (it is just a medium they use to float.)

Then I realized there isn't a gas being in my entire universe.

So I spend the last two nights going through my library of Sci Fi ( Books, comics, films). A library I am building since 1982 btw.

Yet none of the gaseous beings and life forms I could find, were made of Gas.

The next night spening a considerable amount of time, searching the internet...and all I could find confirmed the results of my previous search....lots of gaseous, vapor like beings. But nothing that could be used in a Sci fi Story (with an emphasis on Sci as in science)



So by my own rules set forth as frame work for my “Galactic Chronicles Universe”, everything has to be at least based on a scientific plausible foundation. However thin that foundation is and whatever theory I base my stories and my worlds on, it has to be there.

Now in that sense classical gas is out, but luckily we had Einstein and Enrico Fermi. I remembered a paper I read a while back on “Fermi Gas” and that unexplainable spark hit that compells me to write. So here is my attempt and entry :

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">As with all my stories this one too takes place in the forementioned Universe. The year is 5069 Old Terran Time.

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<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">“I am Neon”

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">© Vanessa Ravencroft 2014

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<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Dediree was not a woman anyone would really notice. She was neither tall nor small; not beautiful but also not ugly. No she was like a gray sky over a foggy November meadow, simply dull and average.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Her parents were just like many billion other Union citizens proponents of the Natural growth movement. Meaning no prenatal gene adjustments, no post natal beauty grafts or procedures that produced perfectly proportioned and beautiful beings. No she was all human and born the old fashioned way and left with what the collective genes of her family endowed her with.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">But that dull average appearance was only skin deep. Dediree was only twenty nine but already a member of the Hive of Minds. The aloft and by invitation only society of the brightest minds of the entire Union. Dediree was a genius.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">For the most part she was lecturing at the University of New Cambridge and held a senior chair in its Xenobiology department, and did not venture very far from Univerity grounds. She hated travelling, as it meant to leave her compfortable cocoon of creature compforts that were so important to her. She liked all things to be orderly and well structured.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">That she was now aboard a fast super cruiser of the Union Navy and over 22,000 light years distant from New Cambridge was due to a call from Dr. Silvine. A former student of hers and a brilliant researcher and sicentist all on his own.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Dediree, with no family of her own always had sort of a motherly relationship with her students, especially the ones that made a name for themselves.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Not that there was anything really she could complain about.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Fleet went out of their way to accommodate her. She received very compfortable spaceous accomodations aboard a fast supercruiser and even was picked up at New Camridge. Not that t even was a Fleet affair but a Science Corps request to provide transportation to a scientist and specialist.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Of course the Science Corps,the acvtive branch of the Science Council had a sizeable fleet of explorers and science vessels, but no asset wasclose by and nothing the science corps had could match the speed of the super cruisers of the spatial navy, at least as far as she knew.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">There was no realy urgnecy,and no situation that required haste, but the idea to spend a nine month aboard a HALD explorer crossing what was technically still Freespace and penetrating deep into the mostly unexplored regions of the Downward sector was not very appealing/

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Yes HALD meant Heavy armed long distance and the new HALD explorers were a far cry from the unarmed UES (Utility Explorer ships) of the previous century (and still used) but the Kermac had just been defeated and Freespace was far from safe. She was certain there was still enough marauders, pirates and similar space scum out there brave enough to consider an attack on a HALD, but she was almost certain none of these cut throats would dare to even be seen anywhere in the vicinity of a Fleet combat unit.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Not that she had much experience or knowledge about fleet things, but she was a Union Citizen and there were few things citizens loved more than their fleet and its sellar reputation.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">She got up from her work desk and decided to see if there was a possibility that engineering would rig her something like a tea kettle.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Of course her quarters had a Serve Matic prefectly capable producing a wide variety of tea flavors. However no Serve matic she knew was able to manufacture the same result as boiling water and real tea leaves.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Out on the corridor only every other light element was on and in dimmed state, but that was not suprising as it was 0266 Union Standard and very early in the morning,

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">As deserted the corridor appeared at first, she did run into a frightening looking Shiss, the tall lizard like being that belonged to a species that had been a declared enemy until not so long ago. The lizard wore Union fleet black and had the rank pins of a Commander, It was te XO of the USS Apalachia.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Good morning Dr. Bloch. You up early.”

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Technically I have not gone to bed yet. I am using the time to work on a paper I meant to finish ages ago.”

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Well, I am sure you will be glad to hear that we should arrive at the Goynah system by Sixteen hour tomorrow.”

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">“That is good to hear. Could you direct me towards engineering?” “Certainly, but may I ask what would cause you to go there?” “A kettle, I am sixteen weeks on this vessel and I simply can't stand another Serv Matic tea.”

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Of course, our Chief Engineer should be able to assist you with that. But you could order tea or coffee from the Boardwalk cafe, they brew fresh if I understand.”

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">“The Boardwalk Cafe?”

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Yes, Ma'am. I am certain you must have passed many times when you went to R deck.”

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">“R Deck?”

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Now the alien Shiss managed to look recognizeable surprised “Recreation Deck, Dr. Bloch were all the restaurants and rec facilites are.”

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">“I have not been anywhere else than my accommodations and the mess hall down that way,”

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">“By the dark throat of the All Black, I am terribly sorry that no one showed it to you. Is this your first time aboard a Union Fleet ship?” “It's my first time aboard a space ship. I am not fond of traveling and all trips I had to take before could be reached by Space train or TMT.”

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Please follow me then.”

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">–

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<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The Shiss had led her down the corridor and after a short IST ride, the doors of the Inter Ship Transport opened. Dr, Bloch blinked as she looked at an open blue sky, a beach and a sparkling ocean.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The IST they just exited looked like a flimsy hut made of bamboo. She stared with an open mouth. “Where are we, inside a Virtu?”

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Not exactly, even though some of what you see is simulated. The sand, the seaguls and the water is quite real. Infinity fields make it possible that you could never reach the horizon. Every ship has an R Deck like this, as it is important for the psyche of many beings to be able to relax and find recreation.”

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">She could only nod, not because of the technology, she was used to that, but the fact that she had suffered for nearly sixteen weeks and only became aware of this place a day before she reached her destination.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">So much for being a genius.

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<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">–

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The Union Fleet Supercruiser had dropped her and a few hundred tons of supplies of and was on its way to where ever it was going next.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">She had now arrived at planet Gyster, a Gardenworld in the Goynah system. It was far from any Union outpost or sytem and had been surveyed by one of the robotic drones of the Science Corps, that swarmed the galaxy by the millions. These survey bots cataloged and measured star after star and planet after planet. With the grand goal to have surveyed the entire galaxy star by star, an event that was still far in the future of course.

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