The Rise Of The Three Crater Alliance

"All right... This will be tedious, but a useful exercise. Make 1000 copies."

Silver made a virtual blackboard appear. I gathered that she had figured out how to use magic to replicate something that I had done with technology... which re-enforced my belief that Silver was an inventive, powerful wizard. Either we were very, very lucky or Silver was such a powerful wizard that she could create new spells that worked the first time. I was hoping that it was a combination of the both of them, but I suspected that the latter was the case.

Silver made some changed to the symbols on the blackboard and the device awoke. The lights strobed and then she looked at me expectantly. I took the globe on the left pad and put it back in its place in my Pocket. I said, "Eject all 1000 of those globes..." I looked around, then pointed behind us. "outside the tent."

Suddenly there were globes all over the place, laying every whichaway on the ground looking like hail stones had fallen from the sky. I had my Pocket scoop them up. A short time later, I ejected twenty pallets with a 48"X40"X48" cube of plastic on each of them behind us on the ground. "Please take those pallets into the first items box. We will need that material and its components in a bit." The pallets disappeared.

I ejected a newly created rectangular kilogram bar of rubidium-87 onto the left pad and asked, "How many copies of this can you make?" The bar was enclosed in a skin-tight plastic bag to insured no contamination and no degradation from the atmosphere.

Her virtual blackboard changed and she gasped. Looking a bit shocked, she said, "500673 copies."

"Make 1673 copies."

Again the device went to work. When it was done, I said, "Eject all of them outside." The bars fell everywhere outside the tent behind us like brick from a fallen wall. I took all of them into my Pocket and then took the one on the left pad as well.

In a short while, I set a pallet with 1000 kilogram plastic covered bars of rubidium-87 on the left pad. The pallet was tightly wrapped with thick plastic sheets to maintain stability. "I just rearranged those. Can you make 499 copies of this pallet?"

Instead of answering, she just made the copies... I took the pallet back into my Pocket from the left pad and replaced it with the globe with the one gram of rubidium in it. "Please make as many copies of this as you can." She did that. I took the globe back into my Pocket and again put it in its assigned slot as an original.

I let Q work for a while... For a wonder, Silver did not interrupt. Finally, I ejected three rows of ten cabinets behind us outside the tent, each with seven drawers. Silver sauntered over and opened one of the drawers at random and pulled out a yellow spell chrystal. She closed her eyes and communed with the crystal for a while then sighed. "Back home, this number and quality of spell chrystals would be worth so much that... Words escape me. Why are giving me this much wealth?"

"Silver, logistics is everything. You think that you could not possibly use this many spell chrystals... I disagree. If I have to stop and make more right when we are creating our steading, I am not sure that we will complete the project... Now drop these cabinets in the correct items box along with the other cabinet of spell chrystals and we will move on.

"Just so you know. Once I have enough ingredients, I will create ten times the number of mana stones as you now have spell chrystals."

For some reason she put her hands over her mouth to hide her shock. "Now, let us move on..." I withdrew a kilogram bar of rubidium-85 from my Pocket and placed on the left pan. "How many of these can you create using the first items box as source?"

She put the cabinets away in the appropriate items box and then she walked quickly back to the device. She started it up and reading from the virtual blackboard, she said, "I can make 1287231 copies of this bar."

"Okay. Make 1231 copies."

The device strobed for a short while. When it was done, I took the original bar back into my Pocket and put it in its slot. "Now eject all the bars onto the ground outside." She did.

I took all of the plastic enclosed bars of rubidium into my Pocket, rearranged them, then set a pallet of 1000 bars tightly wrapped in plastic sheets on the left pad. "Make 1286 copies." When those copies were safely stowed in the second items box, I took away the pallet on the left pad and put it in my Pocket. Then I repeated the process of making the gram quantities of the rubidium-85 and storing the gram quantities of it in the second items box, because I did not need anymore in my Pocket. I mean, I now had kilograms of the stuff... God alone knew what I would do with all that rubidium. I surely did not.

I had her label the pallets as rubidium-85 and rubidium-87, so that we could discuss them, if we ever had to. I also had her label the iron isotopes.

We went through beryllium, boron, carbon, magnesium, aluminium, silicon, scandium, titanium, vanadium, chromium, manganese, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, gallium, germanium, arsenic and selenium and all their isotopes before we broke for dinner. I had purposely skipped some elements because I was not sure that a thin layer of plastic enclosing a bar of the material would be enough to protect their purity or keep them from harming Silver.

I had also skipped gas and liquid elements. I was going to have to think about how to handle elements that were gases and liquids.

Over dinner of some excellent roast muskox that I had picked up in Yellow Knife in Canada, Silver asked a question that I had worried that she would ask. "Why are we doing this? I mean, I understand that we are refining all these... things, but what I do not understand is why."

"Okay. Right now. This instant. You are the only real magic user I have ever met. You can do something that is by my standards impossible. What we are purifying are the basic building blocks of all compounds." She was not understanding. "Let me try again... When you make a potion using a spell, what you do is change the form of certain elements..." I paused. "I wanted to put this off, but I guess that you need some understanding of what we are doing.

"My people discovered that all compounds... be it salt or water or even air are made from the same basic ingredients. You scoffed when I said that I had all the basic ingredients of all the compounds that you could create. That changes nothing. I have a sample of all the basic ingredients. Your copying method allows us to store massive amounts of scarce resources."

The look she gave me made me feel like I had overstepped some line that she had drawn without my knowing it... Normal for females... She set down her fork and knife. Then summoned an unassuming box on the table from one of her items boxes and said, "In that box is the rarest etching tool in all my world. We call it dashkalo." She seemed quite pleased with herself, like she had proved that I did not know what I was talking about. "Only the strongest and wealthiest wizards of my world would even attempt to make a glass device to support a spell chrystal using this compound."

I set down my fork and knife and wiped my mouth with my napkin. I asked politely, "May I take it into my Pocket to examine?"

Imperiously, she said, "Of course, even if you destroy it, I would not care. Dashkalo is not really needed for projects in this world, because the glass you produce is so good that silver thread is more than adequate to etch glass." I decided not to point out that the heat of melting the silver etched the glass, not the silver itself.

I pulled the box into my Pocket. Q went to work... She immediately informed me what the stuff in the box was and how extremely dangerous it was. She went on and on about how she could not see how the woman could use it without killing herself. I said finally, "I could make as much of this as you could want, but we are not arguing about whether I can make it. The question is whether you could easily make it once you had the pure ingredients." I drew two hard plastic gas bottles from my Pocket and set them on the table along with the original box. I pointed to them and said, "I would expect that you have a way of testing whether you COULD copy a compound, if you wanted to. These two elements combine to make it... I cannot imagine how anyone could stumble across the stuff, experiment with it enough to recognize its worth and then finally make it available to such a small ruling elite." I gesture to the two gas bottles and said, "Go ahead. You should be able to tell whether you can make a copy of what is in that box with what is in each of these bottles... Uhhh... Please do not make the compound. My people found it to be extremely dangerous... If you made it, the meal would be spoiled."

I went back to eating... Silver pulled a book from somewhere and started reading furiously... After a bit, she did something and gasped. She muttered, "Impossible." Then went back to reading. She did something else and frowned. She read something else and tried that spell.

She sighed and went back to eating. After a being silent for a while, she said, "Please tell me... Whatever."

"All right. My people call the stuff in that box, xenon difluoride. At one time it was used in an etching process. The gas xenon is not supposed to create ANY compounds. Plus it is REALLY rare. Only with some really unlikely events could the stuff be created naturally. In addition exposure to light or moisture destroys it. Like I said, making a copy is MUCH easier than making an original." How was I supposed to explain noble gases, high pressure physics and exotic chemistry when I did not understand them myself?

She ate for a while, then asked, "If this xenon is so rare, how would we get any?"

I sighed and then said, "The way to do it is to create an items box the same size as each of the two we just made... sixteen cubic miles. Then we fill it with air..." I considered. Q gave them the answer. "We would get about fifty bottles of xenon from that much air. In short, not much. As for the fluorine gas, we would fill an items box with sea water and get thousands of bottles from it. Fluorine is relatively common in seawater.

"I keep saying that our magics complement each other. Just accept that for the moment and move on...

"Your original question was why are we creating all these pure ingredients. The answer is that, when we try to copy something, we can then determine how much of a given ingredient is missing and go find it... For instance, some of the ingredients for the energy source that powers my Pocket are VERY rare... Silver, a mountain of ingredients just fell into the first items box you created. We are in the process of getting all these ingredients in pure form. Once we do, then your device will let me know what I need to concentrate on acquiring... You will hear me say this a thousand times... Logistics is everything."

--- === ---

Eight days passed before we finished processing the mountain. Silver found it very strange that some elements had to be immersed in oils to avoid having them burst into flames.

Over the next month we processed four mountains, a delta plain which had high deposits of rare earths and a full items box each of sea water and air. Any spoil from the process was just dumped in the ocean.

What I found very, very strange was that we got a little over a kilogram of technetium-97 and NO technetium-99 from all that processing. On earth, technetium was not discovered until the 1930's, because there was only a trace of technetium-99 in nature caused by decay of uranium-238. That implied that the surface of this planet did not have that much uranium-238. I did not have any of the pure versions on hand of any of the very radioactive elements, even a gram in a plastic globe, because I feared that one of my handlers would discover this and send down a kill order. I kind of wondered how the technetium-97 originated on this planet, but decided that I did not care. What disturbed me most was that I could not remember WHY I had a gram each of technetium-97 and of technetium-99 encased in a plastic globe.

As this process of filling the second items box with vast quantities of elements from the periodic table progressed, the mapping of the continent and near islands moved forward. Along with that mapping came discoveries of more deposits of rare elements.

As a side-effect, we ended up with tons of gold, silver and platinum.

--- === ---

Dawn was coming, I was atop of yet another mountain where I had shaved off the peak to provide a safe area for us to rest. I was sitting in a comfy chair on the front porch sipping from a glass of fresh orange juice, awaiting the coming of sunrise. Eight weeks had passed since I appeared on this planet.

Silver came out the door dressed in a beautiful robe that defied description. All that I could say was that it hid everything while hinting at a great deal. She stood there sipping her own drink. Sunrise occurred. She asked, "What had you planned for today?" I was not sure that she really cared.

I sighed. "Today... I suppose that we have to get on with it." I arose and led her inside. We had breakfast in silence, while I thought about what needed to be done.

When we finished the meal, I led her outside. The air was nippy. The sun was a white dot in the sky. I ejected the large awning already setting on its poles and ropes pulling it tight. I walked under the awning and said, "Please summon the copying device and set it here." She did. "Prepare the device for use, except that this time, place the second items box on the origination pad." I pointed to the top pad at the upper right on the copy device. She reached into her left sleeve and pulled out the real component of the second items box that now had the pure elements that we had harvested. She set it on the origination pad. "Now put the items box with all cabinets with the mana stones in it on the receiving pad." She took the real component of the items box from her right sleeve and set it on the receiving pad in the lower right hand corner of the device. "Now summon the cabinet with the large mana stones and set it on the left pad." She blinked in surprise. When she recovered her composure, the

cabinet was setting there. "How many copies can you make?"

Silver pulled up her virtual blackboard. After messing with it for a while, very confused and then frustrated. She pulled a book from somewhere and scanned through it. Then she tried this and that to no avail. Finally, she said, "The device cannot make a copy of this because the amount of mana needed is just too much. In short, the charged mana stones require not just ingredients, but also a huge amount of mana... which is not available here."

She looked at something else on her virtual blackboard. "The copying of the translation devices used some of the mana from the device's mana stone. The mana stone..." She pointed to the one on the device. "is large and still filled with a staggering amount of mana, but not enough to charge mana stones the same size as itself."

I smiled and said chuckling, "Thank God. I was beginning to think that you were infallible. I was also beginning to think that this world worked on principles that I could never understand."

"What do you mean?" she asked with an edge.

"We have a principle in my world called, 'Conservation of Energy'. I was worried that it did not apply here... It does... Something to remember... Now we move on. Please take that cabinet back into your items box." She did. I ejected a cabinet exactly the same as the one that had been there before. "NOW... how many copies of this one can you make?"

She fiddled with the virtual blackboard, then said with something close to disgust, "1981717 copies. Rock, what would I do with that many mana stones?" Laughing, she asked, "How would I ever have enough time to charge them all?"

"Make ten copies of the cabinet." She did. I took the cabinet back into my Pocket. I ejected a freshly made cabinet with the medium sized mana stones onto the left pad. "Make 100 copies of that one." She looked at me for a moment, then thought about. Finally, she made the 100 copies and stowed them in her items box. I took away the cabinet with medium sized mana stones and replaced it with a freshly made cabinet that contained the small stones. "Make a thousand copies of that one."

This time she balked. Silver said heatedly, "You are insane. There is just no way that I could ever charge that many mana stones."

"Silver, you are not the only magic user in the universe. Soon you will have apprentices. These mana stones and spell chrystals will be incentives for them to accept your guidance... Silver you just said that these crystals and stones are worth a fortune... Bribing someone to do your will is much better than forcing them... Lest we forget. We have tons and tons of gold, silver and platinum. We can now bribe ANYONE if we want... In just a minute, I am going to show you something REALLY interesting... For now, please make the thousand copies." She did. I took the cabinet back into my Pocket.

I ejected a cabinet the same size as the one containing the large mana stones onto the left pad. Silver said, "I can make 3451619 copies of this with what is in the second items box."

I smiled and said, "Make a thousand copies." She did.

"Okay. What is in the cabinet?" she asked, now somewhat intrigued.

I took the cabinet back into my Pocket, then ejected it behind us. I motioned for her to check it out. She walked over and opened a random drawer. She took out an uncut bright red diamond about two fists big. She communed with the stone, then looked at me and asked, "These are diamonds, not rubies?"

"Yep. That cabinet has seven drawers containing diamonds that have the colors of the rainbow. All of them are uncut. We can easily trade with the locals for... well, anything." I took the cabinet back into my Pocket.

I had her make 1000 copies of cabinets with alexandrites, aquamarines, emeralds, opals, pearls, rubies, sapphires, spinels and topaz in various sizes... all uncut. Then I repeated the sequence for cabinets with stones of various sizes cut in various designs.

Silver fell silent, then said, "Okay. You have now bought my cooperation for the foreseeable future." After all the copies were going into HER items boxes, not mine. I was giving her untolled wealth by her standards.