Chapter 2 – The Empress
Ronnie had configured The Empress (eleventh-dimension time travel membrane) to be a huge traveling warehouse, and huge it certainly was. It was over one hundred and fifteen meters long, and forty-two meters wide. The inventory control locker had a flat wood plank floor, and there was access to the under-floor area accessible by doors that Ronnie could lift up and swing open on huge brass hinges. eHHe only put items below the floor that were very heavy and required a hoist to lift and move, or things like metal ammunition lockers that Ronnie did not like to open unless absolutely necessary. The doors were located between the rows of shelving on the main level, so Ronnie could get easy access to the items stored below. When he swung the doors open, they rested against the metal shelving above.
Ronnie had carefully inventoried every item on the vessel and recorded the information on a massive computer system. The cross reference system for the inventory of The Empress was very large, and items could be located by typing in a name, description, part number, customer name, or invoice number from a previous sale.
He had also built a visual scanner, which would identify and located any item he could place in front of the scanner screen. Even if Ronnie did not stock the item scanned by the scanner, it would still tell him the items description and all the details about it. The computer could then find a vendor in the universal distribution system, along with the estimated delivery date, and the price in Galax.
The Galax is the universal monetary system used by almost every universe in the cosmos. One Galax is worth about ten-thousand Earth dollars. For small purchases, the Milli-Galax became the currency of choice for simplicity.
The Empress was equipped with anything and everything that might be required by any entity that Ronnie may visit. The vessel had an incredible array of goods to suit any entity that was in need, and the, register of goods, was over two hundred pages long if printed out in the language of humans, called Chitter. Ronnie was most fluent with this language and used it for all his computer programs. The register of goods was broken down into groups to help Ronnie quickly search for any item his customers might wish to purchase. By using the groups, Ronnie always had a starting point to identify the item so the computer program could begin to drill down into the program for the desired item. The following listing shows the groups along with a list of the general contents of each group:
Hardware: Nails, screws, bolts, hinges, tools, axes, shovels, rakes, saws, replacement blades, hand drills, and bits. All of the tools Ronnie had on board for sale were hand or pneumatic operated, since most planets, other than Earth, had no use for electricity. There were hundreds of different methods used in the cosmos for producing rotation and locomotion, but only Earth used electricity. Small ion generators or pneumatics of some form or another powered the tools Ronnie used to repair his vessel and sold to his customers. Ronnie had almost anything you could find in a hardware store on the planet Earth, in the year 20,950 AD.
Dry goods and haberdashery: Foot operated treadle sewing machines built on the planet Earth were incredibly popular and Ronnie tried to have ten or twelve on board every trip out. The Singer sewing machine company originally produced these treadle sewing machines on planet Earth. In the year 19,922 AD, another Earth based company purchased the patient rights and they renamed the machines, The Smith Family Treadles. The company was located in Smithtown, USA. Ronnie also had one or two heavy sewing machines for sewing leathers and other very heavy materials such as canvas. He usually sold out of sewing machines after a few stops and would have to hold a few machines with customer’s names on them so he would have some left for the customers at the end of his voyage. He also had sewing scissors, clothing patterns, along with tanned and dyed leather products of any type and thickness. Ronnie stocked every size of sewing needle ever made, along with pins, tape measures, spools of sewing threads for sewing all types of material. He also stocked hole punches used for making saddles and gun holsters. Snaps, buttons, zippers, elastic and anything else his customers asked Ronnie to stock. If it needed sewing, Ronnie probably had the items you needed.
He also had a huge inventory of cloth on bolts that he would allow his customers to sort through and pick just the right color and material for that very special dress or jacket they needed. Since factory made clothing was so very hard to come by these days, every household had someone who could make what they needed, right down to shoes and boots. Ronnie had over a thousand pair of shoelaces of all lengths and types aboard and was constantly increasing the inventory. The only clothing that Ronnie stocked heavily was the underwear and socks that were dried and compressed into tiny blocks that looked like a sponge. When you soaked them in water for a few minutes, the garment would absorb the water and become a wearable pair of underwear or socks; then you simply dried them and they were ready to wear.
Building Supplies: Ronnie would like to have had a small lumberyard aboard The Empress, but that was impossible. Instead, he stocked what he could and took orders to deliver anything he was missing on his next trip. However, if you needed bags of concrete mix, mortar mix, wheelbarrows, roofing shingles, or 122 by 244-centimeter sheets of outdoor siding, you were in luck. Ronnie had just about anything you might need to build or repair a small house or building.
He also stocked a good supply of electrical and plumbing supplies and that seemed to be the easiest, because the components used today were standardized and Ronnie only needed to stock one type of each item. As I said, there was very little call for electrical supplies, except for the planets of Earth and Quantum. There were no longer a hundred different styles and types of light switches or outlets; today there was only one, single pole switch, only one three-way switch, and the electrical conduit was PVC and simply glued together. They only made plastic plumbing pipe and fittings, and the fittings were standardized. Life was much simpler without all the choices in products that used to plague the cosmos.
Weaponry: Ronnie stocked many items that were used in warfare, like flame throwers and fuel cartridges. These items, while still used in warfare, also became standard items for sanitation of the dead, diseased and decomposing bodies often found on the surface of any planet Ronnie visited. None of the entities buried their dead any longer, but instead cremated all animal, human or entity bodies to prevent the further spread of disease in the cosmos.
Large caliber guns had long ago been banned by the IFTT. They no longer allowed the manufacture, purchase, ownership or transportation of these guns anywhere in the cosmos. The Federation did allow small caliber rifles for hunting and protection of one’s dwelling. Ronnie carried a rather large selection of these small caliber rifles along with a large quantity of ammunition for them. Ronnie also had a large selection of Louisville Slugger baseball bats; they found use in personal protection when someone tried to rob you on a shuttle.
Food Stuff’s: Ronnie had every kind of spice used on any planet he might visit. Some of the spices had different names on different planets, so Ronnie’s cross reference system contained notations about the different names. Ronnie chose to only stock food items that were special, like chocolate bars, beer, some liquor items, canned fruits, canned vegetables, canned potatoes, Spam of course, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, sealed packets of Tuna fish and salmon, spaghetti pasta and two kinds of sauce. He also carried a few things like pre-sweetened Kool-Aid to comfort a child, pre-packaged hot chocolate to comfort a woman, and 1.36-kilogram cans of coffee.
Electronics and tools: Ronnie stocked electronic items like parts for the Super 11 transceiver, repair components such as resistors, diodes, capacitors, and transistors for the older equipment that was still in service on the planets he visited. He also carried small tools to repair electronic equipment, like soldering irons powered by butane gas cartridges and batteries, electronic solder, small pliers, screwdrivers and the like.
He also stocked a battery powered digital test meter and he normally stocked about twenty of these. While on the subject of ba
tteries, let’s talk about them for a moment, because they are the source of power for most of the electronic equipment used today. Most all of the batteries presently used in the cosmos are rechargeable by solar powered battery chargers, which Ronnie always kept in stock. The Empress usually had fifty chargers on board at any given time; sometimes Ronnie stocked up, and had upwards of one-hundred on the shelves. Every planet that Ronnie visited had some source of sunlight or artificial light that would power the chargers.
Medical Supplies: Once again, Ronnie only stocked the essentials. Ex-lax tablets, Imodium A-D, aspirin, sterilized suture packs with needles, toothache medicine, tooth extraction pliers, isopropyl alcohol, all types of Band-Aids and sterile dressings. Ronnie also supplied the special drugs for diabetes and other chronic medical problems the doctors used in their medical practices.
The Empress had a large quantity of Penicillin and other drugs to ward off the diseases passed on when the silly folks forgot to purchase one of Ronnie’s hundred packs of condoms before the party began. Lubricated or not, ribbed or not, studded or not, reservoirs or not, used or not (just kidding).
Tobacco Products: Ronnie did not believe in smoking, but realized there was a huge market in tobacco products, so he provided the goods his customers wanted. He carried every brand of cigarette he could get his hands on, pouches of tobacco, rolling papers (lots of rolling papers), pipes, cigars, butane lighters, and wooden kitchen matches.