The Human Equations

PRAISE FOR THE HUMAN EQUATIONS

"Marvel at the spaceships and alien worlds and advanced technology. Experience that sense of wonder which means you’ve glimpsed humanity’s tiny place within our infinite, awe-inspiring universe.

But as you read these stories, you’ll also find yourself rooting for their characters. You’ll find yourself believing the people here are as real as you and I.

-- Jason Sanford, from the Introduction

Good hard science fiction is in short supply these days. I recommend this book as a fast and entertaining read for the science fiction fan."

-- Jason Sizemore, editor, APEX MAGAZINE

THE HUMAN EQUATIONS

Dave Creek

Also by Dave Creek:

A GLIMPSE OF SPLENDOR

SOME DISTANT SHORE

THE SILENT SENTINELS

A CROWD OF STARS (The Great Human War #1)

THE FALLEN SUN (The Great Human War #2)

TRANQUILITY

TRAJECTORIES (editor)

THE UNMOVING STARS (The Great Human War #3)

CHANDA'S AWAKENING

MARS ABIDES: RAY BRADBURY'S JOURNEYS TO THE RED PLANET (non-fiction)

To Dr. Stanley Schmidt, former editor of Analog, for all his years of advice and encouragement.

THE HUMAN EQUATIONS 2nd Edition Copyright © 2019 by Dave Creek

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN:

Hydra Publications

Goshen, Kentucky 40026

hydrapublications.com

Contents

Introduction by Jason Sanford

A Note from the Author

Zheng He and the Dragon

The Loophole

The Human Equations

Unbound

The Day That Reveals

Infinity’s Friend

On the Welkin Shone the Starres Bright

Stealing Adriana

Midwife Crisis

Art for Splendor’s Sake

The Unfinished Man

Kutraya’s Skies

About the Author

Stay in Touch With Dave

Publishing History

Introduction by Jason Sanford

Dave Creek is one of the nicest authors in the science fiction genre.

This statement may cause you to think, So what? After all, people have been conditioned to believe authors stand apart from their creations. That the quality of a story has nothing to do with its author also being a good person.

Well rest assured, the stories you’re about to read are good. Hell, more than good. They’re excellent. Exciting science fiction stories which merge a classic Golden Age ethos and sense of wonder with the understandings and insight of our present age.

Dave’s stories are fun to read and a delightful kick in the pants, revealing humanity’s possible future in an infinite universe which is far more complex and wondrous than our imaginations could ever grasp.

That said, I still believe it matters what type of person an author is. That you can glimpse who an author is in the stories they write. Coincidentally, my reasons for believing this can be found in the title of Dave’s collection: The Human Equations.

There can be no fiction in our world without humanity. Even if a story doesn’t feature human characters, it is still filtered — still told, still read, still imagined — through human perspectives, expectations and beliefs.

These human equations apply even more so to science fiction stories. While SF frequently deals with technological innovations and challenges, with spaceships and robots and aliens worlds and future days, none of these stories can be told without people. If you remove the human condition from science fiction stories, all that’s left is a dry scientific report which few will care about.

Dave knows this. His stories are first and foremost about the people in them. No matter how far one of his stories travels across the universe or through time, his focus remains on the characters and their reactions to the world around them.

Another aspect of Dave’s stories I love is he sets them within a common universe, what he calls his future history. This term was originally used by Robert Heinlein to describe the shared background of many of his stories but has since been used by many other SF authors for the same purpose.

Stories in a future history can be read individually without knowing the shared background. But the shared settings and history also give interested readers a chance to do a deeper dive into the author’s universe.

The stories in The Human Equations cover a vast range of Dave’s unique future history. One story, Zheng He and the Dragon, is set hundreds of years in the past and features famed Chinese explorer Zheng He, who sailed a large portion of the world during the early Ming dynasty.

Other stories, such as the collection’s titular The Human Equations, are set later in this century and examine the issues and conditions currently being faced by humanity.

And then there are the stories set in the more distant future and on other worlds, such as Stealing Adriana and The Unfinished Man. These stories show that even as people travel across space and time, the essence of what makes us human both changes and stays relatively the same.

One reason I love future histories like these is it’s another way in which our shared humanity reveals itself through fiction.

In a way, we all live within a future history. We know some of humanity’s shared history. We know a little bit about our place within this current universe. But we lack the ability to step back and see the larger stories around us. We have no way to know which parts of history are wrong, or lies, or ignored altogether. We have only a limited ability to see life through the eyes of the billions of other people who are living beside us right now on this planet.

By creating such a detailed future history in his stories, Dave enables his readers to see the entire mosaic of his created universe. And after reading these stories, perhaps you’ll be tempted to take that same insight and see our current world as another shared future history whose outcome has yet to be determined. To look beyond the constraints of our extremely limited lives.

That’s something accomplished by only the best science fiction.

So again, let me state that Dave is one of the nicest authors in science fiction. The reason this matters is because Dave is also a great observer of humanity. He likes people and tries to understand people, and this insight comes through in his stories.

So enjoy reading these exciting stories in Dave’s future history. Marvel at the spaceships and alien worlds and advanced technology. Experience that sense of wonder which means you’ve glimpsed humanity’s tiny place within our infinite, awe-inspiring universe.

But as you read these stories, you’ll also find yourself rooting for their characters. You’ll find yourself believing the people here are as real as you and I.

The deep humanity at the heart of The Human Equations is why I love reading Dave Creek’s SF stories.

A Note from the Author

Most of the stories here in THE HUMAN EQUATIONS continue my fascination with the possibilities of SF to show us places, people, and cultures we’ve never seen before. Some of those places and cultures may seem utterly alien to us, and some of the people may not be shaped like Humans or think anything like them.

Other stories show how the culture of Humanity itself may change — or may cling stubbornly to old traditions while new ones arise all around.

All these stories take place within a shared future history — called such even though the first story in this volume, Zheng He and the Dragon, takes place centuries ago. Many of these stories feature continuing characters, but my rule is that I have to learn something new about those characters whenever they’re in a new story.

We have a long journey to make across these dozen stories — across several centuries and countless light-years — so let’s get started.

Zheng He and the Dragon

We start our own voyage six hundred years ago and on the opposite side of the world from where I’m writing.

I first learned of the great Chinese explorer Zheng He when I saw a Discovery Channel special, Emperor of the Seas. He led a naval armada consisting of as many as 300 ships and tens of thousands of crewmembers on seven voyages between 1405 and 1433.

His explorations took him across southeast Asia and even to Africa. One prominent popular historian has suggested Zheng He’s craft may even have discovered America seven decades before Columbus, but I’m not convinced of that.

Zheng He wasn’t just an explorer, though — he was tasked to make sure other nations understood the extent of Chinese power and to make sure trade routes remained open.

Zheng He’s career came to fascinate me, especially since I had a hard time finding much more about him. When the emperor who had ordered the voyages of the treasure ships died, his successor cancelled those voyages and ordered all of Zheng He’s ships destroyed, along with most of the records of his journeys.

Given such a colorful backdrop along with frequent gaps in the historical record, I decided that perhaps Zheng He could even have made First Contact with an alien race without that fact making it into the history books!

By the way, all the non-SF names and events in this story are real; I don’t consider this an alternate history story, and in fact I consider it part of the same fictional background as the rest of the stories in this volume. I worked hard to place Zheng He’s encounter next to or intertwined with incidents that really happened.

____________________

Zheng He's exploits numbered so many! I, Ma Huan, served as his translator during his later voyages and, years after, as the chronicler of his travels in the Western Ocean. By the emperor's command, the admiral headed up the treasure fleet which included as many as 62 nine-masted treasure ships, each as large as a sizable village, and nearly 200 smaller vessels -- supply ships, troop transports, water tankers. His crews amounted to nearly 28,000 men.

Through Zheng He's accounts and others' I heard of his earlier voyages -- tales of silver and silk, tea and wine, oils and candles offered for trade. Of diplomacy that led to the sacred gilin, once thought a myth, becoming a gift for the emperor. Of pirate ships burning and their commanders executed.

I'd heard or witnessed all the stories, or so I believed.

But it seemed Admiral Zheng kept one story untold. It remained the stuff of rumors during his voyages, and I believe in times to come even those rumors will fade.

Once Zheng He captured a dragon.

Zheng He kept the story of the dragon to himself for many years.

We shared many exploits during his later voyages. I watched as the sultan of Aden bartered pearls, gems, amber, and rose water for our gold, silver, porcelain, and pepper. On a trading and diplomatic mission to Siam, I heard the faint ringing of bells as men strode past, the sound emanating from tiny beads implanted in their scrotums. I stood in witness as Zheng He snubbed the rebel leader Sekanda, so that when he became enraged and attacked us, the admiral possessed a reason to capture him and take him to the emperor for execution.

Finally, he called me to him during his seventh voyage, which would constitute his final one, and said, I must tell you this most fantastic tale. You may even write it down, though it may never enter your chronicles of my voyages.

Eager to hear any story Zheng He might describe as most fantastic, given the many wonders he had experienced, I readily agreed.

It happened during the first voyage of the treasure fleet, in the fifth year of Emperor Yongle's rule, which the westerners know as 1407. Zheng He visited the kingdom of Champa to trade porcelains and silks for a rare wood that yielded an expensive and prized incense. His great ships demonstrated the might of Chinese sea power by their mere presence off the countries of Aru and Semudera and Landri, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. And in Calicut, which I have have referred to in other writings as the Great Country of the Western Ocean, he established stable prices for our goods.

Then Admiral Zheng's countless ships set sail for home. He could stand at the square stern of his flagship's observation deck and look back at the wakes of his nearly three hundred vessels and consider himself safe in the knowledge that in springtime, the strong winds and rains of the monsoons traveled to the southwest.

So imagine his astonishment one clear afternoon as he heard a gigantic roll of thunder, long and loud. In the instant before he looked skyward, his anger flared -- he and his crew had scrupulously offered prayers and incense to the Celestial Consort, Tianfei, to protect the fleet from such sudden storms.

But as Zheng He gazed past the flagship's red bamboo sails, he saw a dragon half the size of his ship leaving a trail of smoke and descending directly into the center of his fleet.

Years later, Zheng He told me he would never forget the smallest detail of the dragon's approach -- it must have ceased breathing flame the instant he looked up, he insisted, because its smoke trailed behind in such a way that it gave the illusion of discharging from the beast's dark blue belly. And he wondered why the dragon's wings, also blue, remained spread wide, without flapping even once. He perceived one more detail -- the dragon's snout seemed altogether too blunt. He wondered if the dragon had somehow suffered an injury to its face, because Zheng He looked in vain for evidence of its pointed ears or even of its eyes.

But somehow the dragon realized its course bore down upon one of the fleet's water tankers, because at the last instant it swerved in midair, still without a single flap of wing, before splashing into the waters of the Western Ocean. A great plume of water rose into the air, and the ocean churned as Admiral Zheng ordered the fleet to halt -- a complex process involving flags and banners, drums and gongs.

Zheng He's flagship circled the area where the dragon had fallen into the sea. Mists lingered in the air, but try as he might, Zheng He failed to sniff out any odor unique to a dragon.

But Zheng He's vision ranked among the best and, leaning over the bow, he quickly spotted movement beneath the ocean. The dragon rising from the ocean's depths?

No -- the dragon's wings spanned at least half the length of Admiral Zheng's flagship. Whatever object or creature rose toward the surface, it had no wings, and its span amounted only to about two zhang -- about the same as four tall men lying in a straight line.

As it neared the surface, the object revealed itself as a sphere of the same dark blue shade as the dragon. It propelled itself upward with such force that it popped completely out of the water, only to splash down again and bob on the surface.

Those who served under Zheng He learned then why Emperor Yongle had chosen him for such an important command despite his lack of naval experience. Certainly a eunuch had never received such a large responsibility. The emperor's decision came after counsel he received from a court official who spoke well of Zheng He's rough skin and sparkling eyes, who compared his eyebrows to swords and his forehead to a tiger's.

Now the emperor's wisdom displayed itself for all to see as Admiral Zheng's eyes sparkled anew and his forehead wrinkled with determination. Break out the nets! Bring that dragon's egg aboard, he commanded, and as he watched as several of his men gathered giant nets suspended from a wooden frame and tossed it into the ocean. More than one exclaimed his admiration at Zheng He's insight that the sea, having swallowed a dragon, had coughed up one of her eggs. They scooped it up as fishermen would their catch and Zheng He watched as his men strained to lift the egg to the deck.

Within moments, the dripping egg stood on the wooden deck of Zheng He's flagship, its two-zhang height towering over him and his crew. Excellent, Zheng He told his men, and strode forward to examine the sphere -- for this egg truly manifested itself as such, not the expected oval shape. Zheng He ran his fingers across the smooth surface of the blue egg. He told me these many years later that it did not feel proper, having none of the slightly bumpy texture of a hen's egg, for instance, but rather the utter smoothness of one of his flagship's bronze cannons.

As Admiral Zheng's examination of the egg continued, several of his men eased forward, their own curiosity overriding lingering fear.

But then! The dragon's egg began to rumble, a low sound that insinuated itself through the ship's deck. The crewmen who had drawn close exclaimed in fear and many tripped over each others' feet in their desperation to escape.

Zheng He, as befitted his position and courage, stepped back in a more leisurely fashion. He stared impassively at the egg as it began to rock back and forth. He could easily imagine the baby dragon inside, frightened or enraged, determined to crack open his shell and strike out against those around him.

Archers, Zheng He ordered, and the word passed quickly through the ship and the bowmen arrived within mere heartbeats. They took up position to one side of the egg, bows drawn, awaiting the order to fire should the baby dragon burst forth.

But the egg's rocking motion halted, and its rumblings from within subsided. Even Zheng He later admitted to me what happened next left him without speech for a time.

At first he perceived a vertical line of some sort drawing itself down the side of the egg. Then realization came -- not a line, but a seam.

The seam etched itself down nearly half the egg's circumference. Then it created a right angle and traversed the egg horizontally. Another right angle formed, and another, until a square chunk of the egg moved to one side, as if animated on its own. It halted, still somehow attached to the side of the egg.

Then Zheng He caught his first glimpse of the baby dragon, as its blue, lightly-scaled hands grasped the edge of the opening. Crewmen raised a great alarm and scrambled across the flagship's deck in confusion. Zheng He concentrated on the dragon's face as it left the shadows of the egg's interior. Its snout appeared much less pronounced than Zheng He expected, and its eyes stared outward through narrow lids. He did not see the pointed ears he expected, indeed saw no evidence of ears at all. Even the light scales of the dragon's upper body faded out as they approached its face. Zheng He hoped to perceive the dragon's personality and intentions with his examination of its features, but he could not just yet.

Admiral Zheng's men quieted as the dragon stared out at them, but when it raised a foot and began to climb out of the egg, they began to shout again. Several of the archers grew noticeably nervous, and a couple of them drew back their bows even more, clearly ready to loose their arrows.

But Zheng He commanded, Hold! The archers eased the tension on their bows. For Zheng He noticed what no one else did:

The dragon wore boots.

Zheng He felt that the dragon seemed weak and listless. It proved difficult for the creature to pull itself out of its egg, and the admiral said the prospect of helping the dragon emerge tempted him. But concern for his safety overcame even him, and he stood and watched as the dragon strained to pull itself up and out of the egg. As more the dragon's body became visible, Zheng He saw that it wore a long tunic of some sort that came down past its knees. The light blue garment contrasted with the dragon's dark blue skin. It featured no belt or pockets or any adornments.

But two vertical slits in back allowed the dragon's wings to move freely -- or would have, if the dragon could have mustered enough energy to move them. Instead, they fell limply on either side of the dragon's body. They extended from just above its shoulders to just below its waist, but seemed strangely thin. Zheng He wondered how such feeble-looking wings could lift this creature which, if it ever got to its feet, would stand twice as tall as a man.

A baby dragon would not emerge from its egg fully clothed and dry, Admiral Zheng realized. And the closer he looked at the egg, the more it resembled something made, not a natural phenomenon.

Yet the large dragon had clearly tumbled from the sky, releasing this one into the ocean. A mystery, Zheng He thought. Perhaps a dangerous one.

The dragon tumbled onto the deck and landed with a heavy, meaty sound. It raised its head to try to take in its surroundings. Many of Zheng He's men remained frightened even of this weakened creature, and told him the archers should fire immediately, that they would find no better moment to destroy the dragon before it took flight and breathed fire and destroyed them all.

You disappoint me, he told them. We serve the Emperor, who sits on the Dragon Throne. We know dragons represent goodness and intelligence. He pointed at several crewmembers in turn, and commanded them, Take the dragon below. Four of the archers will accompany you. To one of his commanders, he said, Summon doctors. Send them down, as well.

Even the most loyal of men may have taken another look at the dragon and hesitated to obey such an order -- except from Zheng He. Even so, a couple of men failed to step forward in a lively manner, only to have their superiors beat them bloody, so they would fear them more than the dragon.

It took considerable effort, but eventually the men managed alternately to carry or drag the dragon down into the hold. They cleared a space among the porcelain and gems and the many gifts for barbarian leaders and placed the dragon among them. They tried to place it sitting up at first, then gave up that goal and allowed the dragon to lie upon its left side, careful not to let it crush those thin wings with its own weight.

Admiral Zheng told the men who had brought the dragon that they had served well and could leave. He positioned the archers in shadowed areas around the hold, so they would not unnecessarily frighten the dragon.

At that moment, the doctors arrived, and upon seeing their patient, stopped abruptly, eyes wide, mouths agape. Zheng He told them, You represent my wisest medical men. I give you the challenge of your lifetimes -- heal this dragon.

The doctors looked at the limp form of the large creature before them, then at one another, and their silence broke apart into half a dozen overlapping conversations, each doctor proposing a course of action to his colleagues, each contradicting all the others.

Finally Zheng He had heard enough: Silence! He pointed at one of the doctors immediately before him, an elderly man with grizzled whiskers, but whose eyes remained keen. Tell me how you would treat the dragon.

Typically I would conduct an interview, the old doctor said. I would ask the patient about his sleep habits, what he has eaten, whether he has a stressful life. But I can do none of these things with this patient.

Zheng He indicated the doctor standing next to the old man -- a younger fellow with an unlined face and a demeanor suggesting an inordinate curiosity. He said, I would try to find one of the six pulses in the wrist. But the arrangement of this dragon's wrist must surely differ from yours or mine. How can I find such a pulse?

The third doctor Zheng He bade speak suggested, I would examine the tongue, if this creature has a tongue. I would check for the red tongue that would tell me of an inflammation. Or the white tongue which would show that the dragon lacks energy. But a dragon -- surely to make such an inspection involves risking the dangers of its fiery breath.

Then the dragon began to stir, and it uttered low moans that began deep within its chest and rumbled outward to rattle boxes and barrels next to it in the hold. Even Zheng He felt suddenly aware of the creature's size as it struggled to rise up on its arms. Once it sat upright, it appeared strangely human in its