Chapter 7
Gagarin laid in space a few hundred meters from the crumpled mass of The Glorious Jeweled Lightning Bird. The shaft section bent just where the hostile alien shuttle had impaled itself, and the seal to hard vacuum had finally failed. The few lights that dotted it had failed. The ship was now quite dead.
The light of stars far distant contorted and twisted, lensed by anomalies in the underlying strata of space time itself. All of a sudden, a new vessel appeared, even more alien than the ones Gagarin had already encountered.
At the bottom it had a rounded metal hull. There was some kind of scientific device at the front of the section, a gleaming bit of mirrored metal, with a large flickering blue light at its center. At the sides of the metal hull were two large rails. They weren’t connected to the hull, except through crackles of light, similar in shape to a thunder strike. These too had large blue facets set at the front of them, and long, throbbing dots of lights that ran all the way back. It felt like they did the same job as the particle accelerator rings perched carefully on Gagarin’s sides.
But the most impressive part of the newly appeared vessel was the disc section. The disc sat on top of the smaller scientific hull. It was long and smooth and constructed with no obvious seams. On top of the disk there was a city. Large skyscrapers reached out of the disk into the space. Shops, apartment buildings, civic centers, and even a couple of large park complexes, complete with modest wooded areas sat in the open air on top of the disc.The city section had no dome, no obvious technology protecting it from the vacuum of space. If you looked into the city section the area behind it had a bright blue sky when viewed from behind.
Chairman Kafando stared at an image of the ship on the computer in his office. Was this thing for real? Whoever built it must have necessarily been thousands of years more advanced than mankind. He zoomed in and scanned his view over the city section. He zoomed in close enough to see a group of children playing some kind of ball game in one of the parks.
He bolted up to his feet and charged into the command center.
As he stepped out of his office door Batbayar raised his hand. “Chairman, the alien ship is sending wireless signals. It’s like they’re probing our network,” he said.
“Albert, what’s going on?” said Kafando.
“I believe they’re trying to understand the method by which we format our wireless network data,” said the computer.
“Engineering: Launch a dictionary buoy,” said Kafando, “Albert, If they try to inject code into you then kill your wireless.”
The little buoy shot out of the starboard engineering section and placed itself perfectly between the two ships.
“The aliens, they’re sending, it looks like a video call request,” said Batbayar.
“Uh, accept I guess,” said Kafando.
An image appeared on the comms monitor. It looked like a photo of a luxury hotel lobby from old Earth. The walls were paneled in marble, fixtures in gleaming chrome, the floor carpeted. Displays sat in mid air in front of walls that scrolled incomprehensible data; technical data, maps of the ship, that sort of thing. Aliens tapped away on the displays directly. In the front center of the chamber sat a very comfortable looking recliner and a couch.
The aliens seemed to mostly be from the same species, looking roughly human, but with slightly wrong foreheads, noses and cheekbones. One of them, an alien working on something that appeared to be an engineering console, was the same species as the aliens Gagarin was hosting, and another alien had bright orange skin mottled with sickly yellow freckles. But the aliens sitting on the couch and recliner were from the same species as the rest of them.
All the aliens wore variations on the same outfit, a full length black jumpsuit that looked if anything sprayed on, except with tapered bell bottoms at the bottom of the pant legs. There were geometric patterns in various colors, similar to how the departments on Gagarin had their own division colors that ran in a vertical line just offset from the center on the left.
The alien on the couch was a statuesque woman. She appeared to be about forty and seemed to be extraordinarily tall and well muscled. Her hair shimmered in a deep blue color and cascaded down around her shoulders. Her eyes were a stunning shade of amber. The accent color on her uniform was a gleaming red, although the geometric patterns were highlighted with gold. A sparkling necklace with many chains hung around her neck.
“Greetings,” she said, in perfect English, “My name is Captain Ferandia Kriss, and this vessel is the starship Venture. We are on a mission of peaceful exploration and diplomacy from the Union of Sovereign Planets, a government that spans a huge swath of the galaxy.”
“You–” said Chairman Kafando, “You’re speaking English. Good English even, better English than me.”
“No,” said Captain Kriss, “I’m speaking New Amoranian. We have a device that translates languages for us. Our scans indicate this language is the one which will be most commonly understood on your vessel.”
Kafando stared stunned for a long moment.
“Chairman?” said Batbayar eventually.
“Right, sorry,” said the chairman, “I’m Chairman Thomas Kafando, and this is the United Societies of Sol Starship Gagarin. We too are on a mission of peaceful exploration and wish to make diplomatic contact with the societies of the greater galaxy.”
“It is gratifying to hear that,” said Captain Kriss, “We see that your ship has been damaged a bit, perhaps some other attempts at first contact have gone less than swimmingly?”
Second Chair Lei piped up, “Thank you, but we have the repairs well in hand. We assumed we would be out here for a long time very far from home, so we have gone to great lengths to make our ship self-sufficient.”
“You’re right about first contact, though. We came under attack from some kind of chitin ship, it appeared grown. It attacked another alien vessel, where the people inside were held in stasis. We did what we could to protect them, and once that was clear, I guess, the chitin ship aliens gave up and left.”
“Chitin ship?” said Captain Kriss, “Mmm, yes, the Ruk’Tanook, most likely. They are one of the more alien species in the galaxy. I bet they detected your presence, not too different from how we did, and then decided to test you. If they attacked you, and then when you fought back retreated, it is likely that they saw your actions as honorable.”
“It didn’t feel like that at the time,” said Kafando.
“Indeed. If they didn’t find you honorable they would have destroyed you,” said Captain Kriss. “It’s a tough galaxy out here. We are still about twenty lightyears from the borders of the USP.”
The alien sprawled out on the couch said, “Ferandia, don’t you think we should invite these aliens to a reception on the Venture?”
“Indeed, commander, how about in six hours?” said Captain Kriss. “Bring as many guests as you wish. And before that, chairman, was it? Hold out your hand.”
Chairman Kafando did as instructed. A sparkle of light appeared in his hand, and when it faded it was replaced with a tiny device.
Captain Kriss said, “It’s a version of our translator. We have also taken the liberty of teleporting two thousand additional ones into what appears to be your storage bay. They are in a gold colored crate. You simply put the device in your ear and it will translate on the fly. Our gift to you.”
Kafando slipped the little device in an ear.
“I could explain the science, but it’s rather technical and I’m not sure many of the concepts would translate correctly into your language. And, in fact, we have deactivated the translator on our end, so your crew should hear me speaking in New Amoranian.”
The rest of the workers in the command center seemed puzzled.
“They’re not my crew,” said the chairman, “We are comrades. I am merely serving in an administrative capacity.”
“Interesting,” said Captain Kriss.
“But regardless, we will gladly accept your invitation. We have to make preparations.”
Captain Kriss said, “Certainly. I will beam over to meet you in six hours and escort you back to the Venture.
The department chairs and Second Chair Lei sat around the conference table. The room was large enough to seat twice as many people, with a projector at the middle of the meeting table. The south door connected to the OIC, while the other exit led out into the halls leading toward the elevators. The walls were mostly bare, except for one.
Chairman Kafando stared at the massive painting of the Sputnik-1 rocket on the launch pad at Baikonur Site 1 with its engines just starting to fire, and the scaffolding pulling back as it began to rise.
“Who should we send to the reception?” said Kafando.
“Well, obviously you have to go,” said Lei, “Otherwise, I think it’s a difficult question. I’m going to assume all of us want to go to this, to meet aliens, to share a meal, it’s an incredible honor. But should we hoard this honor just for those of us who have made ourselves leaders?”
Medical Chair Lewis said, “That’s not fair. We were all elected from our departments. It’s a pain in the ass to do the admin work that is required to keep our departments operating. It’s labor. We deserve something for that.”
Second Chair Lei said, “Perhaps. I’m not so sure. I think it may be better to give the aliens a more diverse impression of our society. Let me be clear, I would love to meet the aliens, but it seems like an abuse of our power.”
“Ordinarily I hate going to a cultural reception, it’s just the worst, but meeting aliens. Meeting that one alien, Captain Kriss,” said Chairman Kafando, “I really want to go myself. I agree with second chair Lei, however. It feels like an abuse of power.”
“For good or for ill you are the face of the ship, ultimately,” said Science Chair Grekkel.
Acting Engineering Chair Galvin said, “I have to agree. There’s no option to avoid having Kafando out there. Climb out of your ass, man, and enjoy life a little. Frankly I would rather have all of us just go. I understand the crew represents the best from Earth and Mars but can we really be so sure a nineteen year old is psychologically prepared for the kind of diplomacy this will require?”
“My question,” Operations Chair Varma said, “is how many should we send ourselves? I think a good round number would be twenty, any more than that and we’ll be imposing on the aliens’ hospitality.”
“That takes seven of us, and we can still have thirteen crew selected by lottery, maybe separate it so you get somewhat equal representation from the departments,” said Science Chair Grekkel.
“I suspect we will have opportunities in the future for the crew to meet and interact with aliens, many in fact, if we make it through the full mission,” said Acting Safety Chair Aoki.
“I think,” said Lei, “We have two ideas of what we should do. Those in favor of sending ourselves and holding a lottery for additional rank and file crew to attend, say aye.”
Acting Engineering Chair Galvin, Science Chair Grekkel, Medical Chair Lewis and Acting Safety Chair Aoki said, “Aye!”
“That’s the majority. Albert, can you inform the crew they can enter a lottery to join the department heads on this away team?”
“Can do,” said the ship’s computer.
“Very well,” said Chairman Kafando, “We all have no shortage of work to get to. We should adjourn this meeting.”
Tadgan, Grainne and Maedoc had finally found something fun to do. They took the little probability squares and had retrofitted thumm for use with these six sided dice. You lose some of the nuances but it was better than nothing. Then that damn annoying alien with the picture cards came in.
It seemed very excited, bouncing around. It had a few small objects in its hand. It slid one into its ear.
“What the hell are you doing you goddamn nerd?” said Maedoc.
The annoying alien seemed incredibly pleased. It gestured vigorously. It spoke, gestured toward its ear, then again displayed the little objects in its hand.
Grainne stepped toward the alien.
“Don’t do it,” Maedoc said, “It’s some kind of mindgame.”
Grainne reached out his hand. The alien dropped one of the devices into it. He slipped the device into his ear.
“Do you understand me?” said the alien.
A shudder shot through Grainne. “I… do,” he said, “Why the Doubn’s didn’t you phallus heads lead with this?”
The alien said, “We got them from a different more advanced alien race, like ten minutes ago too. As soon as I got my hands on them I ran right here.”
“Of course you would.” Grainne turned to his friends, “They got translators. I think they made contact with the USP. I’m pretty sure these are those standard translators they always pass out,” he said.
Grainne grabbed the two left in the alien’s hand and threw them at his compatriots.
Maedoc let his fall to the floor. Tadgan snatched his out of the air and immediately put it in his ear.
“Say, I’m a little loser baby,” said Grainne.
“I’m a little loser baby,” said the alien.
“I’ll be entombed in the pits of Doubn’s,” said Tadgan, “Let’s go talk to that cool alien in the machine.”
Grainne and Tadgan stepped out of the room.
Maedoc watches his comrades leave the room, then as soon as they were gone he kneeled down and grabbed the translator, then slid it into his ear.
“All right, all right, do you know any probability cube games?” he said.
They all stood in the shuttle bay–the department heads, Chairman Kafando and Second Chair Lei, and thirteenrandomly selected comrades. Malex didn’t recognize anyone else here, except Conroy. She did her best to stay out of the way, as far from the crowd as possible. For some reason Conroy had a bag that was strapped around one shoulder.
“Emily, good to see you!” said Conroy.
“I am pleased to see a familiar face,” said Malex. “When Albert asked for volunteers for this duty it sounded interesting. I think applying was a mistake, however.”
“Ah, don’t say that, this is gonna be amazing,” said Conroy, “We’re gonna be some of the first humans ever to meet aliens in person. The first to break bread with them. Incredible!”
“We can not be certain the aliens will have a food that qualifies as ‘bread’ and we cannot be certain it is possible to break it. Their food will likely not be nutritional nor toothsome to humans,” she said.
“They have little earpiece translators, I think they will definitely be able to come up with a meal we can eat. You’re just nervous about a social situation. That’s completely normal. You’re a mechanical person, you think in terms of systems and machines. Stick close to me and let me do the talking and it will be a lovely experience,” said Conroy.
He patted her on the shoulder.
“Very well,” said Malex.
A flash of light appeared at the front of the crowd and it was accompanied by a twinkling sound. When it was done a huge woman stood in front of the assembled dignitaries from Gagarin. She was taller than any of the humans and had cascading blue hair. Malex was immediately intimidated by her.
“Ah, lovely!” the alien said, “You have assembled in the shuttle bay. That won’t be necessary. We have far more advanced transportation technology. Ah, right. Sorry. My name is Captain Kriss, I come from the Starship Venture.”
She raised her hand and snapped a finger. Malex was surrounded in a shroud of light, then the gravity was slightly different, a hair lighter. And she was in a different room. It was a large chamber, with a strange machine on the ceiling and a technician working at a console. She was surrounded by everyone from the shuttle bay.
Most of them were completely stunned, only Second Chair Lei and the chairman himself seemed to not be completely shocked.
“Huh,” said Kafando, “We teleported. That’s incredible.”
“Beyond the surprise I don’t really feel anything, no upset stomach, nothing,” said Lei.
“I must apologize,” said Captain Kriss, “But I do rather love springing teleportation on unsuspecting aliens. It’s really convenient, isn’t it?”
Kafando cracked a smile. Malex had never seen him do that, not even in pictures. All of the photos she ever saw of him were so serious.
Lei said, “I expect it’s rather expensive from a power standpoint.”
Captain Kriss walked to the door and said, “Follow me, my lovelies. You will be able to order anything you can think of. We have been in contact with, I believe he’s named Albert? Your machine intelligence. Very interesting. He has provided us with just about any human recipe you can think of.”
“He’s not our machine intelligence,” said Kafando, “He too is our comrade.”
The hallways in the Starship Venture were cavernous. Cyclopean. The ceilings were all tapered to a point about ten meters in the air. The walls were mostly some kind of faux brick style with shining gold fixtures that separated small sections off. It smelled sweetly perfumed. It was so comfortable and pleasant that Malex hated it to the core of her being.
Conroy pretty much always smiled, but at this moment his smile was so wide it struggled not to tear free from his face.
As Captain Kriss led them through the ship they walked past a few other aliens. Most of them were from the same species as Kriss, but a few seemed to have subtly different foreheads or noses. Finally, Captain Kriss stopped in front of one door.
“One last surprise,” she said, and she approached the door, which opened on its own.
The door led into a massive park illuminated by a bright blue day sky. They stepped through the door. The park was recessed into the ground. There was a large hill surrounding them on all sides. Trees were planted strategically around for aesthetic effect. Beyond the trees Malex saw very tall buildings, but the geometry of the hills obscured how close they were. They seemed to be quite far away indeed.
At the center of the little clearing was a large floating platform at about waist height. It curled around the space in an incomplete circle, allowing for chairs on both sides. The chairs also floated just a little below the levitating table. In front of each floating chair there was a perfectly circular golden plate.
Already about twenty of the aliens were standing around in the middle of the floating table. A few of them went over to introduce themselves to the department heads. Malex tried to retreat, but Conroy kept with her.
“How are you feeling?” he said.
“Anxious,” said Malex, “We are in the middle of a park on an alien ship. We have a clear view into the sky, and it’s like a normal afternoon on Earth with perfect weather. All those aliens are going to try and talk to us.”
Convoy said, “You don’t think we’re the most advanced aliens in the galaxy, do you?”
“No, of course not.”
“I suggest you relax and enjoy the spectacle, and this is pretty spectacular. Reminds me of the more touristy bits of Tonariro Park back home,” said Conroy. “That’s something I miss more than I expected. Open spaces. The rec room is fine, but it’s not the same thing.”
Malex silently agreed the rec room isn’t the same thing as the outdoors, it’s much better.
One of the aliens came over to introduce himself. He was tall and skinny and, beyond his forehead and nose looking a little wrong, his eyes were the color of a ruby. He was the same species as the guests Gagarin had just picked up.
He stiffly nodded.
“I am lieutenant Rayl Carne,” he said, “I’m pleased to meet you.”
“You look pretty tense, buddy,” said Conroy.
“That’s because I am tense. I hate these diplomatic things. I’d rather be playing with the alcubierre engine,” said the alien.
“Emily Malex, pleased to meet you. You will find Conroy is quite perceptive about people’s emotions.”
“Ah, are you the ship’s counselor?” said the alien.
“Nah, I’m just a bartender,” said Conroy, “Maybe a bit of a distiller too, I guess.”
“Your ship would send a bartender to an important function like this?” said Tarryl. “Are you supposed to be here to serve us drinks?”
Conroy said, “What? No. No department is more or less important than any other. Gagarin needs spaces to socialize in and relax on our off hours. And you said you’re a lieutenant, I find that interesting. I kinda figured a society advanced enough to develop interstellar flight and teleportation wouldn’t bother with hierarchy so much anymore. Ha ha!”
“Fascinating,” said Carne. “I see that you have an interesting genetic abnormality.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Conroy.
“Well,” said Carne, “Bio-scans indicate all the other aliens of your species with us have a correlation between their genetics and their gender, however in your case this is reversed.”
Conroy thought for a moment then smiled.
“Right,” he said, “That’s rather invasive, isn’t it? You must have detected the implant I have here?” He pointed at the lower left side of his torso. “That manages my hormone levels. You see, when I was born I was assigned a feminine gender, but it didn’t really suit me. I had some work done and rather like the way I turned out.”
“Oh!” said Malex, “I hadn’t realized, sorry–”
“Emily my dear, you have nothing to apologize for. I don’t really advertise it, is it really that much of a big deal?”
Rayl Carne’s face remained blank as if he was trying to process the information he just had handed over to him.
At the center of the floating table Captain Kriss climbed on top of a chair and tapped on a vessel that resembled a wine flute, but not quite, with a tool that resembled a fork, but not quite.
Captain Kriss said, “Excuse me, everybody, we’re about to sit down. To the crew of the Gagarin, I welcome you here. Our people find it incredibly important to make a good first impression on the peoples we meet. Ask for a drink, anything you could think of or want. I would like to offer a ritual from my planet. We consecrate meetings with a shared drink.”
Malex asked for sparkling water, slightly cooled.
Conroy asked for an offensively peaty whisky.
Everyone, both crew of Gagarin and The Venture raised their glasses.
“We sanctify this meal in the spirit of friendship between the people of Earth and the peoples of the Union of Sovereign Planets,” said Captain Kriss, and she poured the entire contents of the champagne flute into her mouth and swallowed it.
“And Mars,” said Chairman Kafando, and he took a sip.
Everyone else followed suit.
Captain Kriss climbed down off the floating platform and sat on it. The crew of the Venture followed her lead, and the crew of Gagarin followed them, except for Conroy. He stepped by his comrades and made his way to Captain Kriss.
“Excuse me, cus,” said Conroy, “I have brought gifts from our planet.”
“What’s this about, Conroy?” said Kafando.
Conroy unzipped his bag and removed two bottles, one long and thin and black, and the other very basic and filled with clear liquid.
“This is absinthe, an alcoholic beverage with aromatics in suspension, and this is frixel, distilled by my own hands, or at least the closest you can get to that, I built the distiller myself.”
“Interesting,” said Captain Kriss, “I would like a taste of this frixel. It’s a pure distillate?”
“That’s the hope,” said Conroy.
He uncapped the austere bottle and poured a shot or so into her champagne flute.
She sniffed it.
“It smells quite strong,” said Captain Kriss.
“That’s because it is quite strong,” said Conroy.
Captain Kriss slammed back the shot. Her face twisted into a knot.
“Very impressive,” she croaked. She took a moment to compose herself again.
The ship’s lounge was more packed than it had been at any point in the voyage. Pretty much everybody who was off duty was packed in, and a few more who were on duty. The line for drinks snaked around the lounge in a great loop. The air was thick with sweat and hotter than it should have been–too many people for the heat management system to cool the chamber down.
Deimos and Serpen had managed to get an early seat, and thus were packed in by the invisisteel window, and looked out toward The Venture.
“Look at that abomination of a thing,” said Serpen, “So ostentatious. There’s no need for the friggin city on the saucer.”
“Shut up and take it in,” said Deimos, “This thing is a marvel. Just let yourself relax. That civilization must have been in space for centuries. Maybe if mankind continues on our path we can produce marvels like that.”
“I guess it’s better than the fingernail ship we fought a few days back,” said Serpen, “It’s just not a city to me. A city is a hole in the ground, you know?”
Captain Kriss said, “You can order anything you can think of. For the crew of Gagarin I’m serious about that, we have obtained very in depth culinary files from your ship’s machine intelligence. Case in point, I wish to have Lobster Thermidor.”
The plate in front of her flashed with light a carefully bisected lobster with the exposed flesh covered in gently browned cheese appeared in front of her, along with small pieces of toast, also covered in browned cheese and a little bowl of black gooey balls.
Chairman Kafando said, “I’m not sure what to order. I would like something from your culture. What’s a special delicacy?”
Captain Kriss took a bite of her lobster. “Delicious,” she said, “Try Roast Ul’Ondo with fungus and antham bulbs.”
“All right,” said the chairman, “Give me that.”
In a flash of light some lightly cooked pile of blue meat appeared in front of him, smothered in fried mushroom caps and thin slivers of some aromatic vegetable. He grimaced.
“What’s wrong?” said Captain Kriss.
“That’s meat,” said Kafando.
“It’s not really meat,” said Captain Kriss, “It’s been a long time since our society used animals as a source of food. It is molecularly scanned, mathematically extrapolated to the processes needed to prepare it, and printed out for your delectation.”
“I’ve had fish a few times. It still feels strange. I’ve never eaten any meat.”
Captain Kriss said, “You can order something else, if that makes you uncomfortable.”
“No,” said Kafando, “I want to explore your culture. This is something people ate in the past on your world?”
“Indeed,” said Captain Kriss.
Kafando sank a blade into the meat. It oozed lightly blue liquid. He brought it up closer to his face. It did smell very hearty. He placed it in his mouth. The texture was incredibly strange, somehow both soft and dense at the same time. It released juice as he chewed it. It tasted terrible.
“Oh, you’re suffering, dear,” said Captain Kriss, “Order something else. How about some palmancer?”
“I–it’s very rich, you understand. My planet, we have to maintain a certain level of temperance. My ancestors caused terrible damage to our planet and used exorbitant amounts of resources for just a few people. That blue meat is just too much for me.”
“Give him palmancer,” she said, sharply.
The blue steak vanished in a flash of light and was replaced with a bowl of grain, splattered with little chunks of protein and a brown sauce, some flecks of it completely dried out into little flavor chips. Kafando sank a spoon into the bowl, extracted a small measure of grain and sauce, and tasted it.
“Mmm,” he said, “This I can handle much more readily. Reminds me of a dish called biryani on Earth, quite nice.”
“I am finding your customs very interesting,” said Captain Kriss, “Tell me about your planet.”
“Well, it’s about ten lightyears away from here, a mostly ocean world with about twenty-five percent rocky land.”
Captain Kriss said, “There are survey missions sent out to monitor civilizations in the nearby star systems. I believe we have surveyed your planet in years past. It is the third one orbiting Sol, and there’s a limited colony on the fourth planet, is that correct?”
The chairman said, “That’s right.”
“The last time we surveyed the planet it suffered from terrible ecological damage. A runaway greenhouse effect was causing extreme weather and your culture was wracked with civil unrest,” said Captain Kriss.
“That must have been before I was born,” said Kafando. “The ecological damage, it was indeed extensive. The unrest was likely the source of the great push for egalitarianism. A hundred years ago a small number of humans owned all the infrastructure necessary to operate society, and they’re the ones who caused all that ecological damage. By necessity, when we created a new egalitarian order we had to be more austere. To raise animals to eat, you would have to feed them for their entire lives. But also like, animals are sapient, at least to a degree. My ancestors took great pleasure in meat. I cannot.”
Conroy stared in disbelief. It actually worked.
Malex’s face tightened. “What is that horrible stench?” she said.
“Muttonbird,” said Conroy. “It was, like, never a common menu item, rare in the best of times. Never grown in industrial quantities, Europeans never liked it. My ancestors on the Maori side enjoyed it from time to time. Still eaten for special occasions. I’ve actually had it a couple times.”
He had roasted bird meat of some type in front of him, on top of a bed of fern shoots and watercress. He slid his blade into it and cut a piece free.
“My god,” said Conroy, “This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”
“I will take your word for that,” said Malex.
She slid a spoon into her soup, grabbed a couple pieces of tofu and sucked it in.
“I must admit,” said Malex, “That is impeccable. How does this marvel of technology work?”
Carne said, “We have a molecular constructor that uses microscopic machines and reserves of generic elements to molecularly construct items, atom by atom, then we teleport it to your plate.”
“That sounds unreasonably energy intensive,” said Malex.
“Our engines produce a lot more power than we strictly need for travel, life support, and defense,” said Carne, “Might as well use that power for something. How do you guys support so many lives on your ship?”
Malex said, “We have bioreactors. These are immense machines that contain genetically engineered microorganisms. They recycle organic material from the ship and transform it back into complex organic compounds. Textiles, food, whatever is needed.”
Carne said, “All you eat is fungus? That’s got to get old.”
“There’s different types of protein and starches produced,” said Conroy, “All approximating proteins and starches humans eat on Earth. It’s not the real thing, it’s not even really that close to the real thing, but it’s fine. We have chemical processes to play with the texture and flavor. We also have a hydroponics deck, which helps a lot.”
“Fascinating,” said Carne. “Emily, do you mind if I taste your soup? I’m not gonna ask you, Conroy, because that muttonbird smells like a rotting animal carcass.”
“Malex, please call me Malex. And certainly.”
Carne plunged a spoon into Malex’s soup, grabbed a piece of tofu and some broth, and sucked it down. He looked puzzled.
“Not to your liking?” said Malex.
“It’s got no flavor, it doesn’t even have any texture,” said Carne.
“Indeed, no distractions, just nutrition. The fungus false tofu we grow on Gagarin is much too firm,” said Malex. “This is the first decent soup I’ve had in months.”
#
By now Captain Kriss was on her third glass of sparkling wine, and had taken two more shots of frixel. Chairman Kafando had allowed himself a glass of small beer and Kriss talked him into a shot of frixel, nasty stuff.
He had to go through the story of the Battle of The Citadel, his role in it and how everybody sees his role in it. He followed it up with the story of how he defended the labor leaders of Mars. She seemed to think this was very amusing.
“So,” said Captain Kriss, “We’ve done some scans of your ship. Nothing unusual, our sensors are very sensitive. We’ve noticed you have three aliens on board your ship, presumably from the little ruin of a ship nearby.”
Kafando, “Yeah. They were on that ship in suspended animation when it came under attack by other aliens. The ship’s power system was damaged and we couldn’t leave them there. Unfortunately their power systems were more complicated than our engineers initially assumed and they went into wakeup mode.”
“The Ruk’Tanook attack. Right. That’s interesting. The Ruk’Tanook do tend to have beef with the Tuariskeagn but I haven’t heard of any battles in more than a decade. Could be that the Ruk’Tanook haven’t been attacking, but maybe they’ve been destroying the vessels. It’s hard to say.”
“The Tuariskeagn?” said Kafando.
“Their name means ‘the Returned,’ in their native language,” said Kriss.
“The returned? What did they return to?”
Captain Kriss said, “It’s complicated. They’re one of the civilizations that has been around longer than anybody. For a long time they were just called The Exiles. There’s a lot of myth and rumor surrounding exactly how they came to be exiled. The Tuariskeagn have their own story, the Exiles that never returned to their home planet have a few different stories, the Ruk’Tanook have a story, the Santosians have a story. None of them really match. What we do know is that they lived on ragtag fleets of scavenged ships that seemed to have come from many sources. They would travel from civilization to civilization, but no matter where they went nobody wanted them there. Perpetual space refugees. They had some kind of prophecy that told them where their true home was, but whenever they nested enough to start looking for it their old enemies would come looking for them.”
“The Ruk’Tanook?”
Captain Kriss said, “Among others. They attracted a lot of bad blood in their journeys. But the important thing is that they finally found the special planet that fit all the details in the prophecy. It was called Santosia, at the time. The Union of Sovereign Planets brokered a peace deal to allow the Exiles to live in peace with the existing Santosians. Unfortunately, Santosian supremacists didn’t like the deal.”
“We found a colony nearby that was destroyed with nuclear weapons,” said Kafando. “Do you think these Santosians might be responsible for that?”
“I doubt it. Nuclear weapons are difficult to produce and require a certain level of technological sophistication, which the Tuariskeagn would never allow. More likely that would be the Dissidents of Utopia,” said Captain Kriss.
“Dissidents of Utopia?”
Captain Kriss said, “The USP has a policy of non-interference with other cultures. We go out of our way to not interfere with the development of less advanced species, such things have led to terrible crimes in my planet’s history, and the history of the USP in general. We do not interfere in the affairs of other interstellar civilizations. We will defend ourselves if a war comes to us, but we will try to avoid it as best we can. This leads to some dilemmas. Sometimes a primitive civilization has a problem and if we solved it this would interfere with their natural development.”
“Can you be more specific than this?” said Kafando.
“Your planet, Earth,” said Captain Kriss, “A hundred and fifty years ago your atmosphere was filled with carbon dioxide, this caused serious ecological damage to your world. The problem is that if we showed up, broke the carbon dioxide down and sequestered it back in the Earth what would happen?”
“New religions would spawn to worship you. The oppressed nations of my world would have never stood up and toppled the corrupt system that kept us in bondage,” said Kafando, “We would have never dealt with our problems. I think I understand.”
“So, the political situation between the Tuariskeagn and the Santosian Supremacists is very contentious,” said Captain Kriss, “The Santosian Supremacists think their land was stolen. They feel disrespected. They produce a lot of propaganda about the violence that happens to their people because of the arrival of the Exiles.”
“There have been many situations similar to this in the history of my planet,” said Kafando, “That always led to a difficult problem to untangle.”
“It took the USP a while to come to our policy of non-interference, and it was because of situations such as our aid efforts for the Exiles, to help them to return to Kwegaigh. We send a lot of aid to Kwegaigh even now, which the Tuariskeagn help to distribute to the Santosians. The Dissidents think this whole situation is very unjust. They want to undo the harms that the USP has committed in the rare instances where we did interfere in a society.”
“So undo harm with fission bombs?” said Kafando.
“It’s very difficult to accurately report exactly what they’re really up to. All we have to work on most of the time is myth and misinformation.”
“So myth and misinformation dropped an atomic bomb on a colony planet?” said Kafando.
“It will be extraordinarily hard to prove one way or the other,” said Captain Kriss and she smiled.