“It’s pronounced ‘ah-nur stee-uh,’ and I don’t like people who
can’t pronounce my name!”

    “Well, that’s all fine and good, now isn’t it?  Why don’t you
look at a visitor before you reprimand him?”

    The Ghirond engineer looked up from her work to see a
four-legged man standing in the doorway to her office.  His arms
were crossed, and he stood on three of his four legs.  The man
raised the front hoof on the right in a traditional Owlasi gesture of
greeting.

    “Who are you?”

    “I’m Admiral Bulgan Sieron,” the man said, “And I don’t take
lightly to being hollered at by someone who probably hasn’t heard
of me.”

    “Does it matter who you are?”  Sta asked.

    “It matters to me.  But that’s not the point.  I’m wondering if
you could help me out a little.”

    “How could I?”

    “I noticed the engine design you’re working on.  May I come
in?”

    “Yes, you may,” Sta invited the Admiral in.  Owlasi never
intruded on personal space because centaurs did not like it when
they tripped over unexpected visitors.  Thus, it was customary to
voice the intent to come in, or ask for an invitation unless the
situation was an emergency.  Sieron walked across the room to
where the Ghirond engineer was working.  She flapped her batlike
wings and then folded them behind her back.

    “I hear that you are one of the top engineers in the Union.  May
I inspect your design?”

    “You mean this attempt at stringwarp?”  Sta said, making a
gesture at the holographic blueprint.  “I can’t get a single
stringwarp engine to keep working in any of my models.  The
closest thing I ever got to stringwarp was this prototype.”

    “May I make a suggestion?”

    “A suggestion?  What?”

    Sieron pointed at the diagram with his left hoof.  “There,” he
said.

    “Where?”

    “In the back of your ship.  You need the stringwarp accelerators
to be positioned in the rear of the ship.”

    “Who do you think you are, telling me where I should put the
engines of a starship.”

    “I think myself to be an informed source.”

    “An informed source of what?”

    “An informed source of classified data, which I think you would
be happy to have your hands on.”

    “I tried them there, but they never worked.  I had tried to hinge
them from a special framework, but no material in the Union is
strong enough to hold the engines in place once the ship goes to
hyperspace.  Stringwarp accelerators are too heavy, and they snap
off too easily, even when I use force fields to hold them to the hull
of the ship.”

    “How would you like to share your solutions to build a new
Union flagship?”

    “I can’t.  I don’t have the time right now.  My shipbuilding firm
is about to go under, unless I can find someone willing to give us a
grant.”

    “That’s pretty convenient, isn’t it?”  Sieron smiled
enigmatically.  “I know someone who could solve your engine
problem, but he’s not willing to let anyone else have the secret. 
And there are about five others along with him, who are working
on things that they can’t put together.”

    “Why can’t they finish their projects?”

    “Because they don’t know how to engineer the rest of the ship. 
When I said ‘share’ your solutions, I might have been picking the
wrong word.  Actually, I want you to work under the employment
of the Union of Planetary Republics to construct the flagship.”

    “And if I say no?”

    “Admirals don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

    “All right!  That’s it.  That’s enough for one day,” Sta sighed. 
“I’ve had it with your little game, and I’m not playing anymore. 
Either you tell me what I want to know or I don’t work for you.”

    “I could put through the paperwork to employ your firm in the
construction of stringwarp vessels, but the Union forbids me from
allowing you to have any technological solution which you did not
develop.  That means that I have to put you in the team of
engineers we want to employ.  I can’t let you have their solutions,
because otherwise, you’d have a monopoly on the technology. 
The Union would never let you have that.

    “But three of the engineers are willing to share information with
you, so long as you share also.  Then all of you work in your
specialty fields and build us a flagship.  Your shipworks stays in
business, under the new consolidated shipworks name until
suitable shipworks can catch up with your technology and use it
on new ships or retrofit it to older ships.”

    “Give me one reason why I ought to sign onto the deal,” Sta
demanded.  Bulgan Sieron answered her:

    “Neutronium.”

    “Neutronium is classified technology.”

    “Not any more, if you join in.”

    “Nobody has discovered a feasible way to machine it!  If I could
make engine parts out of neutronium, I’d have half of my problem
solved for me!”

    “That’s where Engineer Joseph Keller comes in.  He’s been
working at NeoTerra’s Brice Shipworks for the past four years
under Union contracts.  He’s come up with a way to extrude
neutronium from a transbreeder reactor and form it into
honeycombed parts.  I spoke with him last week, and he’s willing
to join the team.”

    “So Keller knows how to extrude neutronium,” Sta rubbed her
chin and folded her wings around her body like a cape.  “Didn’t
you say he didn’t want to give up his secret?”

    “The neutronium isn’t his secret.  What he can do with it once
it’s on the hull of a ship is his secret.  I hear that he’s developing a
neutronium-based shield that physicists say is impossible.  He’s
saying that he’s discovered how some of the Chai’mekha ships
worked when they attacked the Union in the twenty-two forties.”

    “So, who are the other two engineers you’ve talked to, and what
field is their specialization?”

    “There’s an Antrithixian engineer named Zand’aar Iehan, and
he’s working on Janathax Moonbase.  He’s developing the
computer technology to make philotic capturetrons work ten times
faster than your computer works,” Sieron pointed to the computer
included in Sta’s holographic blueprint.

    “The last engineer I talked with is a Tal’adaar’aan.”  Sieron
stopped to scratch his head and think of who that engineer was.  “I
think her name was Gokh Oran.  But I do know that she’s working
in Ala’knaar’k to build the framework for a stringwarp ship.”

    “She’d better build it strong,” Sta said, “Because my engines
will have to be twenty times more powerful than before just to
shove a neutronium hull around at speeds nearly fast enough to get
to hyperspace.”

    “Oran is also trying to solve the problem of the ship’s life
support system.  It’s hard to design a gravity vectoring system
when you have a flexible ship’s hull.”

    “The Ghirond and the Owlasi figured it out,” Sta admitted.

    “The Tal’adaar’aans didn’t think ships like that were all that
attractive, and nobody thinks Oran’s design will work.  They think
she should’ve been a warrior, not an engineer, and they are saying
that she will dishonor her family.”

    “What’s her problem?”  Sta asked.

    “She does not want to be married, because that means she will
have to leave her work behind until she bears a child.  Her family
is pressuring her into a marriage arrangement, but she refuses to
meet her future husband.”

    “Why?”

    “Because, she figures, if she can choose when to start seeing
him, she can stay free long enough to get a good Union contract
that would keep her shipworks afloat and keep her from being
dishonored for putting the family in debt.”

    “She’s got a lot riding on her ship design doesn’t she.”

    “She can’t get it working, but she keeps filing proposals to see if
anyone in the Union is willing to contract her, even for research
grants.”

    “She’s kind of an outcast?”  Sta asked.

    “Very much the outcast,” Sieron answered, “it’s because
Tal’adaar’aans, especially the traditional families, don’t like
women to do what they call a man’s work.  They first didn’t want
them to be warriors, then they didn’t want them to be artisans. 
Then they didn’t want them to be engineers.”

    “What about Empress Liasha the Good?”  Sta asked Sieron.

    “Empress Liasha was born in 1588 in Terran years.  She was an
accident, produced because Emperor Tronaa, didn’t realize that his
hired assassin was caught before he could kill Liasha.  He had
wanted his son to assume power, but he hadn’t said that the man
was supposed to take power.  If he didn’t announce it he had to let
both children rule the people.  But then his son, who was a general
in the fleet, was killed in a battle.  So Tronaa tried to install a
cousin in power, but that called for the killing of the only living
heir:  Liasha.  Tronaa told the Captain of the Guard to kill Liasha,
but the Captain, knowing the attempted assassination had failed,
hid her away.  He lied to the Emperor and said that Liasha had
somehow escaped and could not be found, but he actually had her
in hiding somewhere in Ala’knaar’k.  A few days later, the
Emperor died, and the Tal’adaar’aan people became subjects of
Empress Liasha.

    “Empress Liasha and General Gokh Hargnaa are Gokh Oran’s
two sources of inspiration.  Both women had their statues installed
in the Hall of Warriors in Ala’knaar’k, the Tal’adaar’aan capital. 
Oran is striving to have the same honor conferred on her.”

    “She won’t have anything to show if she doesn’t get the ship
built, will she?”  Sta asked.

    “She will not have a chance at completing the hull.  But if she
can have the neutronium technology, she can strengthen parts of
the hull to the point that it will support stringwarp accelerators.”

    “Is that where I fit into the picture?”

    “It is.  Your design of the hyperdrives, and your design of the
stringwarp system will go on Oran’s hull.  Keller’s hull plates will
reinforce the hull, while Iehan’s computer runs the gravity vector
system that supports the entire ship and captures philote-strings to
get the ship into stringwarp.”

    “Are you sure our design will work properly.”

    “No.  But the Union needs your talent soon.”

    “Why do you want a neutronium ship?”

    “Because, none of the others survived the phenomenon.”

    “What ‘phenomenon?’  Is there something the Admiralty is
hiding from the Union?”

    “Not necessarily hiding, but not providing information.”

    “Then I think it’s time you stopped bothering me, Admiral
Bulgan Sieron.  I won’t work with you.”

    “I said that I could make you work with me.”

    “I said that I’d refuse.  You can tell me what to do, but you
cannot tell me to use my brain and do it.”

    “The Union could have you jailed for refusing orders.”

    “I’m not an officer, so orders can’t be given to me!  And I can
slap a restraining order on you if you threaten me one more time! 
Or did you think engineers like myself didn’t know the laws of the
Union?”

    “I’m not at a liberty to discuss what we need the ship for.”

    “Then kindly allow me to get back to work.  I’ll contact Keller
and Oran if I need components to build my ship, and we’ll see it
get done when I get around to it.”

    “I’m willing to pay you.”

    “Some countries used to hire mercenaries to fight for them. 
Sometimes those mercenaries didn’t realize what they were getting
into.  Just because you promise to give me the means to provide a
living for myself and my family doesn’t mean that I suddenly am
supposed to accept the offer.”

    “You will find out at the end of your assignment, when the work
is complete.”

    “No I won’t, because if I find out that late, I’m not doing the
work.  I don’t build ships to have them blown up because I didn’t
know what they were being used for.”

    “We will tell you what the ship is supposed to endure, and you
will build parts which comply with those standards.”

    “Nope.  Get out before I catch stone-sickness and petrify!”

    “You are not a full golam, so you can’t petrify yourself just to
avoid me.”

    “I am half-golamha, which is enough to last me about a week
and a half if I’m put under enough stress.  If you keep pressuring
me to work for you without telling me for what, I can assure that I
will grow stone-sick and go into petrohibernation.”

    “Then I’ll have you taken to an infirmary to be resuscitated
before the process is complete.”

    “That’s one way to ensure that I won’t work for you!  Abuse my
body and violate my privacy!  It’s against a Doctor’s principles to
resuscitate any petrohibernated person without their informed
consent.  And I will not give my consent to you, Admiral.  Tell me
what I want to know, or as I said before, begone with you because
I will not work for you.”

    “Perhaps I could have a briefing on the phenomenon as soon as
you join the team.”

    “Perhaps I can let you brief them on it without me.  I want as
much time as possible to get my mind focused on the problem at
hand.  I could guarantee you one fully functional engine design if I
studied the problem for three weeks and then hibernated.”

    “Just a working engine?”

    “No engine at all.  But I can guarantee you that if I have the
sufficient information, I can ‘sleep’ on it, and come up with my
own basic idea of what I need and what I do not need in order to
keep the engines working.  Whatever phenomenon you want the
ship to explore must be very powerful, and I would need to know
just what kind of power it pits against a starship.  Given that
information, if I hibernate while thinking of it, I’ll have an
understanding of what I have to build for you, how I have to build
it, and where it fits in the picture of the ship.”

    “How can you guarantee that to me?”

    “It’s a genetic trait of the golamha.  They can induce themselves
into a state of hibernation, and meditate on a particular set of ideas
in their mind.  This design here took three hibernations to
produce,” Sta pointed at the holographic blueprint.  “Each time I
hibernate, I try out these designs in my head, and figure out what
improvements will work.”

    “That’s an odd way of working,” Sieron said.

    “It is my way of working.  If I don’t know what to work on, I
don’t dream of it when I hibernate.

    “Actually, I’m a poor engineer when it comes to being awake. 
All of my prototypes are designed in my mind, while I hibernate,
and not when I am awake.  All kinds of inventions were produced
when the inventor was asleep.”

    “Many more are produced when the inventor is awake,” Sieron
said.

    “But I am most productive asleep.  I do not work on anything
while I am awake, I just record it.  When I am asleep, I produce the
designs I need and put everything to the test.  When I am not
exposed to the strange sensory input of the outside world, I
become the most creative.”

    “Do you promise to do the work if I give you all of the
information?”

    “I promise only if you give me all the information I ask for. 
There are things which I do not need to know.  These things
interfere with my thought.  Do not give me pictures, just plain text,
equations, and do not give me graphs of anything.  Tell me exactly
where your research stops, and where you understand most of the
information.  I want to know what you know and what you do not
know.  From that, I can put together precisely what you need.”

    “I am risking my own career as an Admiral to give you this
information.”

    “I am risking breaking a promise if I cannot actually figure
anything out from your information.  But you want me to take a
chance, Admiral.  One that I am willing to take if what you say is
as urgent as you say it is.”

    “I assure you that it is urgent.  The sooner a working ship can be
built, the safer the Union will be.”

    “Then I will work my best, not because of your orders, but
because of your persistence and because of the Union’s safety.”

    “I will get you the information you need.”  Admiral Sieron left. 
He considered the risk he was involving himself with, but there
was no other way to work.  Sta had been adamant about her part of
the contract, and he had given in to her demands.  Besides, he
knew about the KobalThi threat that was rapidly growing in the
Union, as well as the other threat.

    That threat had moved all the way across the Old Owlasi
Homeworld, destroying everything in its path.  It had not been as
easy to resist as the KobalThi first were.  Those spacefareing
arthropod like life forms were nothing compared to the
phenomenon that destroyed Old Owlahuas several thousand years
ago.  It had been a miracle that any Owlasi survived.  They had
flown their ships through a gateway in the sky that took them far
off to the galactic west of Old Owlahuas.  They followed the
gateway to where they colonized and built a new home in the stars
at Owlahuas.  It was there that the Union of Planetary Republics
discovered them one century ago.

    But the phenomenon kept moving to the galactic west, and now
it threatened to push massive belts of asteroids and radiation
directly into Union space along a stormlike front as big as the
Union itself.  There would be no way to avoid something that
massive and powerful.  It would destroy everything in its path.  It
had been the cause of massive migrations of KobalThi into the
Union in the first place.  It had been what drove KobalThi toward
Old Owlahuas to herald its presence.  It wasn’t just ‘the
phenomenon,’ it was actually a group of acute phenomena which
the Owlasi recorded in their history.  They called the group of
strange phenomena the Belts.

    And they were headed directly into the Union...