TRAITOR - Book 1 Warlord and Multiverse Series

Chapter 10

Second Trap

Jason was aware that the rate of fertility in the Empire had plummeted in the last 3000 years. The population had declined at a slow rate largely because the average age at the same time had extended so dramatically. It however meant that a considerable number of women didn't fall pregnant and the men had become frailer and less fertile. Jason cursed the priests for what they had done to the people.

Jason thought the priests had been very clever. Many doctors were priests and their research had been 'unproductive', but they did speculate about a number of possible causes, most of which significantly inconvenienced the Empire and reduced its effectiveness by largely eliminating men from the Armed Forces and in particular from the Navy due to speed of travel restrictions. The priest cadre were largely involved with medical and information technology. They were responsible also for replicator manufacture and medical pods. He was sure that they ensured the pods wouldn't identify the poison. He would confirm this by asking the cyberwarfare people to look at the programming in the medical pods. to look at the programming in the medical pods.

It could be shown that women were fertile, but men produced very few, if any, healthy sperm and were frailer than they used to be. The priests had ensured that his trip back to the Empire was slow which helped them ambush the battleship as the ship had to exit from hyperspace to reorient itself. The trip to earth had taken two weeks, but the trip back would take close to three and a half months if they continued at the same slow speed.

The Marines had adjourned to attend lectures and further training, though they explained they were all going to join the round the clock search for at least a shift every day.

Jason spent time in the simulators and headed for his canteen to meet Janet and Phoebe for lunch. Jason's canteen looked like an olden day stateroom with paneled walls, extensive art on the walls, including beautiful paintings, shiny objects that must have been fittings from ships in the past, beautiful, light fittings, including floor lamps and hanging lights from the roof. It looked more like a high-end restaurant than a canteen. It was sad that none of it was real and Robert could change the decorations at will.

Before he left Earth, Robert had collected recipes from every cuisine he could, and brought along two million tons of food that he put into stasis for himself and the farmers, including those involved with aquaculture.

That didn't include the cattle, pigs, chickens, and sheep that were ready for resurrection from stasis at any time. There were literally thousands of tons of seed of every type. They even had trees in stasis. He had beer, soft drinks, coffee, tea, and a variety of condiments, herbs, and spices. He had brought multiple cooking utensils and his own stove, grills, and ovens. He had a microwave, slow cookers, sous vide cookers as well as any, and every dish cloth, knife, fork and spoon. He even had cooking chopsticks. In the hydroponic area of the ship, he had every type of vegetable, fruit, and nut that he liked growing and Earth food had become increasingly popular on the ship.

Jason heard Robert sit down at the table and greet his guests. He launched into his favorite topic.

"Replicator technology within the Empire has had an effect of simplifying foods into several standard popular tastes, much like the influence of the fast food industry on your planet Jason. They use any and every type of protein, carbohydrate and fat that's cheap and nasty as a basis for forming replicator food. They then add flavorings that disguise the utterly disgusting origin of the food. I'm not surprised that the priests used the replicators to distribute their poison. You are just adding poison to poison.

"I forgot to tell you, Jason. I mentioned your theories to the marines. They were asking me to tell them the story in more detail about what you had told them about the priests. One of them told me that the computer people were keen to begin work on the medical pods when I have time to do so.