Sample Chapter: Pax Humana, Book One; "A Millennium's Children"
The aft observation cabin on the generation ship was small, designed only for the twenty-five emissaries. Every now and then a petty officer would enter silently, deposit a tray of food or drink, and leave, but otherwise they were left to themselves. They sat together, elbows on the table, sipping nutrient-rich fluids and exchanging the quiet words of a meaningless conversation. The overall mood was one of subdued shock, like the immediate aftermath of a car wreck. They had been asleep for a thousand years.
82 Eridani d occupied a large portion of the monitor which comprised an entire wall of the room. It was impossible not to look at it. Blue and white, green and brown, it was Earth…only it wasn’t. Five great islands sprouted up from its oceans, each large enough to support an entire civilization, yet spaced so far apart around the globe that it was likely they had no contact with each other. What a fascinating prospect.
Of course, the crew would have answers to this and other questions. The ship had been parked in orbit around this planet for centuries, studying its life forms and geography. The emissaries had only been revived when everything was prepared for contact with the aliens.
Human contact, that is. For the original crew members had long since become something other than human. They called themselves “Lonyun” now, an amalgamation of the words long and human. Generations of inbreeding and biological engineering necessary to long-term space travel had produced genetic simulacra, capable of reproduction with each other but not with any other species. Not even with their closest cousins, people such as had once stood on a regaled stage in a group of two hundred, posing for a photograph to commemorate mankind’s embarking upon this great voyage. That photograph hung framed in a prominent place in the ship, gathering dust. The lonyun tried not to look at it.
They had been down to the planet, gathering specimens of flora and fauna, taking soil samples, conducting geological research and observing the natives directly. This was difficult, and they had been spotted a few times. Herders and farmers would now tell stories about these faceless men.
Around the table, the conversation had began to pick up purpose.
“What should we do?” It was Dr. Kazimierz, the astrophysicist from Poland. He looked around at the group, wonder in his eyes.
One by one they were snatching glances away at the planet. Anything was possible.
“Let’s stick to the plan,” said Dr. Namon. They all nodded knowingly, in consent. “Let’s get some more information about the world, its people.” He touched an icon on the table console. Presently a lonyun officer entered the room. He was tall, appeared to be middle-aged, and looked much like the other staff they had seen. Pale skin, dark brown eyes, and light hair now turning naturally to gray. His uniform was cream colored fabric with red and blue patches that signified his rank and service position. Namon addressed him respectfully.
“Hello. Lieutenant Commander, I believe?
The officer dipped his head in recognition. “Hello, Dr. Namon. Hello, everyone.” He surveyed the table of expectant faces. “My name is Enlir Anlon. I am your training officer. For the next two years, we will be working together to prepare you for contact with the aliens. First of all, I want to say that you are all in perfect physical condition. I know that you’ve heard this from the medical staff, but the stasis recovery was a success, and you are safe, and healthy. You have been responding to the recovery process as well as could be hoped. I know that the last thirty days have been hard, but the worst is over now. It looks like everyone is adapted to the higher gravity. Good. Your dietary regimen will end today You’ll be getting real food. Grown right here, on the ship, and a few extra things from the planet.”
“The planet,” said Professor Poledouris, reflexively.
The lonyun bowed a little. “Yes, sir. We have prepared a presentation which will explain everything we have learned about the planet in the two hundred years since our arrival. It will also show you in living detail the great multitude of cultures that exist here. Geshiah is a beautiful world.”
“Geshiah?” Namon leaned forward, interested. Others did as well. This was the first they had heard of this.
Anlon smiled. “That’s what the people of the most populous continent call it. It means “birth mother.” Geshiah has become the unofficial name of the planet to us. This is a brief introduction into the world. Today we will give you the whole tour, so to speak.” He activated a holo projector on the table console. It burst with light and the air became a video screen.
First there was space, a multitude of stars in the background, then one of them growing rapidly closer, becoming not a star but a planet. There was 82 Eridani d, the pristine, virginal view of contact that only the lonyun had been privy to. A long wary wait. Then, probes being sent down. Returning with data. Atmosphere, water, radiation. Another Earth. Any human could walk down there naked.
What next? But more probes. Thousands of them, scattered across the continents. Hidden in the shapes of trees, that grew old and died; birds, clever bio-mechanical devices developed by the lonyun; rocks, even plants and fish. Watching. Listening. Waiting. Learning languages, understanding numerical systems and mythology. Bearing indifferent godlike witness to decades of skirmishes amongst tribes and battles and wars and obscure farmers and empires built and overthrown and atrocities and natural disasters…until it seemed they had taken in the whole history of these people in those two centuries.
Here was Capothiga, an island the size of Australia, possessing every climate known to man, ruled by a variety of kings whose armies killed each other with weapons made of bronze.
Here Klek’tan, an equatorial desert continent broken up into ninety or so smaller islands, each with enough room for its own fiefdom.
Here Rnirok, nearest to the northern polar cap, home to a hardy folk who sang songs about violence and raided in ships around the coast and would have been at home in any Norse saga. Their eyes had long ago narrowed to slits from looking through the bone sunglasses that they wore for protection against the sunlight glaring off the glaciers. Their weapons were made of iron and they could have cut through the armies of Capothiga, but they had never met.
Close to the south pole there was Ba-Gaung Itlan, a nomadic tribal people whose lives revolved around their riding animals, with whom they developed close bonds. They shared the Rnir’s narrow eyes, though were not related to them, having descended from tribes that settled on the continent’s glacial southern coast. Bitter blood feuds extended back for generations among the tribes. They were a primitive race: barely out of the Neolithic.
And Murda, the smallest and most isolated, but still bearing some four hundred thousand inhabitants stuck firmly in the Paleolithic. Evolutionarily speaking they were physically modern, but technologically they were millennia behind the rest of the world. Their greatest achievement was the making of fire, and agriculture was beginning in some locations. They worshiped a giant stone god named Urktu whose arms dripped blood from the sacrifices.
“Aren’t we worried about being seen?” Asked Kazimierz. “How close are the aliens to developing telescopes?”
“This is of course a legitimate concern,” Anlon said with a nod. "We have been closely monitoring the technological development of the prosien species. The most advanced civilization exists on the continent of Capothiga. An average farmer has next to no chance of making such an instrument, but we watch them as we do others around the world. The vizier's academy in Omas would be the most likely place where such a thing would be made. We maintain robust surveillance of this place and their activities. They do not possess the necessary knowledge and skills to grind glass lenses and fit them appropriately to make a telescope. They are hundreds of years away from such a capability. Currently, all astronomy is conducted by visual means, using the naked eye.”
“How high are we orbiting?” Kazimierz was doing calculations in his head.
“Approximately twelve hundred kilometers above the planet.”
"So they can see us. We must appear to them as a star in the sky."
"Yes. The Enosi and our satellites seem to be strangely moving stars."
"Why haven't we used metamaterials in the hull, to mask our presence?"
"The amount of materials required would be prohibitive, counter-effective to our radiation shielding, and are not necessary. We knew that we would be making contact long before they developed telescopic instruments."
Dr. Bandopadhyay, M.D. spoke up, her voice full of concern. “Have we solved the problem of inter-species viral transmission?”
Anlon nodded. “Yes. We have been studying the native diseases for centuries. We have developed vaccines against them which are safe for human use, and you will all be vaccinated and treated for any communicable diseases in your own bodies. Most human diseases cannot be passed on to the native biology, and the same in reverse for yourselves, but what precautions are necessary, have and will be implemented.” This appeared to satisfy the doctor.
Namon leaned back and folded his arms, tucked his chin into a frown. “We will have military support. Overhead. Invisible.”
“That’s right.” Anlon said. He started another holo, showing a landing craft, five humans, an individual presumed to be a king closely surrounded by a proposed retinue of fifty; twenty thousand natives assembled in ranks, and the swarm of drones in the upper atmosphere bristling with armaments, monitoring the first contact between humans and aliens.
“We can take out an army that size?” Namon was concerned. The officer ran through a few defense scenarios, and he nodded, impressed.
Anlon slipped into a placating tone of command. “I understand you have many questions. We have answers. But the information needs to be presented in a certain order. Let me be the first to tell you, the circumstances of our mission have been altered by forces beyond our control. We’ve adapted, along the way, so just know that we are safe and the plan for contact will continue.”
Namon was the first to guess it. “What has Earth been saying about all of this?” He swept his hand to indicate the display of videos.
“All that will be shown to you during the presentation. To begin, we will have a safety report on the current status of the ship and our relationship with Earth. Then, you will tour the research facility, where we have remarkable displays of native flora and fauna. Finally, you will tour the entire aft section of the ship, familiarizing yourselves with the most important modifications and improvements we’ve made over the years.
First, let me say that I appreciate the fact that it seems as if all of you went to sleep a month ago, in orbit around the Earth, with the fanfare of humanity ringing in your ears. That was a thousand years ago. Over the centuries, we have listened to the achievements, follies, and turmoil of our home planet. We watched the degradation of those countries and political systems you are psychologically and emotionally attached to. We just need you to understand, and really begin to process internally, that a vast amount of time has passed since you went into stasis. Things are not the same, and you need to be prepared for that.
About five hundred years ago, the main propulsion beam array shut off. That’s the one on Earth. This followed a progressive breakdown in communications. Received messages became more and more sporadic; our transmissions were rarely directly responded to. This is likely because of war. The information being given to us by NASA and its successors was clearly being filtered through military censorship, and we weren’t able to monitor all civilian media, but we’d pieced together enough information to make that assumption. Possibly some natural catastrophe. Wars had happened several times, of course; when has the human race gone a hundred years without trying to kill itself? Some were the kind of minor skirmishes that happen frequently. Others were larger, and more catastrophic. The worst that we know of was an international conflict over the possession and control of the first artificial general intelligence. That happened about one hundred years after we left. Luna Base and Mars Colony kept up both comms and their propulsion beams for a long time after Earth, but eventually they too went dark and we were left alone to drift in space with no wind in our sail. So, the bottom line here is, we’ve lost all communication with Earth.”
The lonyun officer waited patiently with his hands folded behind his back, watching and waiting for the group to deal with this devastating information. He had been trained in responses to all the reactions; shock, fear, despondency…and he saw them all playing out on the faces of the men and women before him. There were the expected questions.
“How do we get back?” Said Maxine Montgomery.
“The ship and crew are perfectly capable of return navigation to Earth without mutual communication.”
“Have we tried to fix it?” Asked Dr. Tikhonovna. An empty question, born of desperation. The officer nodded.
“We are doing everything we can to repair the original connection, improvise new ones, and anything else we can think of, and have been doing so dedicatedly for hundreds of years. Drone probes have been sent back, at first using a miniature light sail like the one on the ship, but we’ve made faster ones now. Some of these, surely, will eventually return to us here and show us what happened. But we are talking about timescales of centuries for travel. In the meantime, life continues. We still send regular reports back according to the mission directives.”
"I can't believe that we can't pick up any signals from Earth." Namon was refusing to accept this information. "What about radio broadcasts? Cellphones?"
"Most of Earth's communication and media transmission systems were converted to fiber-optic early in the twenty-first century. The military uses encrypted neutrino messaging. These are site-to-site methods of communication, not the type of wide-range radio and microwave broadcasts that were used in the twentieth century. At a certain distance cellphone traffic gets mixed up and the signals become indiscernible from each other. There are still radio sources, however, such as Citizen Band and amateur radio operators, but these are few and far between nowadays. We send back messages in this spectrum periodically, but of course the signal takes forty years round-trip. And we haven't heard anything significant in a very long time."
Several of the others, Namon among them, just sat there contemplating, staring inward, accepting this new situation. When he had decided that everyone had taken their moment, the officer continued.
“The loss of propulsion meant a great increase in the duration of our voyage. Without only the lasers from Earth, we would have lost decades. When Luna and Mars went black…we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We’d still be coasting on momentum. Thankfully, by that time in our voyage we had developed our technology to a sufficient level so as to be able to invent a new propulsion system and build it into the ship. The braking maneuver when we arrived at our destination was performed by this method, or we wouldn’t have been able to stop.
But, all of that makes the ship more self-sufficient. We’ve incorporated the new propulsion technology into the secondary craft, the portion of the ship designed to return home, should we feel our mission has been completed or in case of an emergency. This is where the stasis pods are located, as you know, and can be crewed by eighty of us to oversee the voyage. Separated from the main ship, it could make the trip back to Earth in approximately two hundred and thirty years. So, we can return home. We just don’t know what we’ll find when we get there.”
He gestured with his arms, indicating the walls of the room, the whole artificial world around them.
“In the meantime, the ship is completely safe. We could all live here comfortably for the rest of our lives; generations of us have been doing just that for centuries. We’d had to make repairs and modifications along the way, as I said, but once we were parked in orbit we began greatly expanding the ship’s physical structure. It is no longer just a big cylinder. The aft section remains mostly unaltered so that it can still function as an escape craft, but the forward half has grown into something more comparable to a space station, a completely autonomous little city. As we learned more about the planet, we built extra laboratories and specialized facilities for new areas of research. As we became more comfortable here, we added on pleasures and amenities that make life in orbit enjoyable. You’ll see most of this at the end of the presentation; ship’s schematics, interface manuals, and software tutorials are available on each of your consoles, as well as all the history of Earth we recorded after we left, and communication logs that have entries up until the last day we heard from home. You should all spend some time catching up on that history and acclimatizing yourselves to the present.”
They were escorted to a classroom setting, seats for each around a large holo projector. They dutifully sat and Anlon activated the projector, calling up a huge holo of 82 Eridani d, its mountain ranges and forests standing out in clear detail. It began to slowly revolve, giving each spectator a full view of oceans, deserts, polar caps. Anlon began to speak again.
“Approximately four billion years ago this planet formed around its star. Much like Earth, 82 Eridani d cooled and solidified for millions of years as gases coalesced and debris from countless cosmic collisions gathered together into a ball, attracted by mutual gravity. Its core is molten iron, which produces a magnetic field similar to Earth’s. And, it is primarily an ocean planet, salt water oceans, comprising over seventy percent of the planet’s surface. The deuterium content of seawater on Earth led us to believe that the oceans there were the result of comet impacts. We think that’s what happened here. We have been extracting deuterium from this planet’s oceans for production of fuel for our fusion reactors, and we have found it to be quite applicable to our requirements. This lends credit to the theory that comets spread water throughout the universe. During your day,” Anlon casually remarked, referring to events centuries in the past, “the exoplanet industry was all about finding planets with water. There were some, as you’ll remember, with geological features that allowed for inland seas, lakes, rivers. Localized pockets of vegetation. But look here. Magnificent fields of water. An ocean planet, originally, with a single landmass.”
The holo changed, to a primordial version of 82 Eridani d, when the planet was all ocean around a single huge continent.
“This is how it started, like Pangaea. We’ve named this one Eaena.” The holo slowly split the land apart into five pieces, representing hundreds of millions of years of geological history. They came back together, showing how they the coastlines of the continents fit each other. Klek’tan was the newest, arising some forty million years past, shifting and growing in form, being a series of volcanic islands.
“This is the natural formation of a planet. And life developed. Deep in the darkness of an alien sea, a delicate dance of chemicals gave birth to life as we know it. The same conditions as produced life on our planet. At first, when they crawled from the ocean to the land they became reptiles, and laid their eggs in the volcanic soil. For hundreds of millions of years reptiles were the dominant life form on the planet. Then offshoots grew fur. Small marsupial mice hurried in holes beneath the trampling feet of scaled monsters. Now, at this point in our evolution an asteroid hit the Earth, killing off the dinosaurs and clearing the way for mammals to have their chance. But on this world no such destruction happened or was necessary. Plate tectonics separated the single land mass into several continents, and the reptiles on some of them simply couldn’t survive. Arctic weather and a series of natural disasters killed them off. Due to the geological turmoil, such as entire climates changing, and the sparsity of food resources created by this upheaval, most large animals were caused to evolve into smaller creatures, the way some dinosaurs on Earth changed into birds. An evolutionary niche was opened up; the mammals on some of the new continents slowly rose to dominance, becoming completely separate species, comparable to the Neanderthals on Earth. Except for in this case, they didn’t share the same evolutionary ancestor. On the other continents, mammals died off or never evolved beyond the animal stage. When the proto sapiens colonized the places where their rivals in the food chain lived, they killed them off. There was no breeding out of the population like what probably helped humans extinguish Neanderthal, we know that because it’s genetically impossible. So the proto sapiens killed off every competitive predatory species, everywhere they went.” He paused another moment, to let this sink in. The natives they were going to contact were the descendants of the world’s most elite predators.
The officer manipulated the display. “The proto-sapien species,” he said, zooming in on a particular continent, “or prosien, as we’ve come to call them, originated on Capothiga. He brought the holo in further, to show a valley surrounded by trees and a savannah. “Here, in what they call Omana valley. At least, that is where we have found the oldest fossils. After they had evolved into upright walking, simian-like creatures, and after tens of thousands of years of learning, they built boats and explored their world, cross populating the continents.”
The graphic zoomed out again, highlighting paths marked with timelines: sixty thousand years, forty-two thousand, twenty; honing in on especially large areas of settlement.
“What is remarkable is that, after exploring the world in outrigger canoes, they then lost all communication with the others. Civilizations grew and forgot about each other, and now stories and myths provide the people here with their only knowledge of their greater world. This isn’t surprising; it is only remarkable in that it is again comparable to Earth. Civilizations were separated there for thousands of years, and had no idea the others existed. They developed separately, and warred when they found each other again. We happened to arrive at this world at a time before that genocidal global expansion has taken place. That is a very important piece of information to take into account here, people. We are not only charged with the monumental task of contacting the first alien intelligence known to humankind, but we are making contact at a time in the development of the species when they aren’t aware of the other civilizations in the world. That’s an extra burden for us; we are greatly changing, greatly accelerating the course of history for these people. How long would it have been before they discovered each other on their own? We’ve projected from three to eight hundred years, given our analysis of the capabilities of each country. Capothiga would probably lead the way, they are the most technologically advanced. Then, the inevitable wars and colonizations. Capothiga could even have been defeated, or its resources so depleted as to have been societally stunted for centuries, thus wiping out the most scientifically advanced civilization in the world. All these things we weigh in our decisions.”
He turned the holo off. “You’ll have plenty of time to learn more about this, trust me. For now, let’s keep moving.”
The group followed him like a tour guide along a series of passages until they came to a small door. He paused, then touched the panel and it opened into an arboretum. Fresh, sweetly scented air washed out into the hallway. Intrigued, they followed him in, pointing and grinning. A large room, its walls impossible to see behind hundreds of trees of many different varieties. Smaller flora like ferns and even flowers filled in the scene, with real soil soft underfoot; a patch of nature on a spaceship.
Their guide sealed the door behind them, turned, and resumed his speech.
"You are breathing oxygen produced by the planet's flora right now." This was startling, for some reason, and they all shifted around a bit, sniffing the air as if they could catch a whiff of alien flowers through the ship's purification machinery. It was sterile, but they each imagined something there.
"The ship generates an excess of oxygen. Some of this is compressed and stored for emergency in tanks which we keep warehoused in our cargo holds. We have several very effective methods of collecting resources and raw materials, what we would ever need from the planet, but all the flora growing in various networked systems well exceeds the requirement for every person on this ship many times over. We are not taking any chances on running out of air. This ship is self-sufficient as if under siege for a thousand years."
The group was still exploring the arboretum, fingering leaves, sniffing petals.
"In the one hundred and thirtieth year after our arrival at this planet, we felt confident enough with the amount of research we had compiled, and began integrating the native plants with our own. Certain plants. Ferns, for instance. Ferns are primeval and ubiquitous throughout the universe, we believe. Giant trees that live for hundreds of years, each one worth the air equivalent of ten human lifetimes. Well cultivated. Merging with earthen soil. At this moment, we are using the dirt of an alien world to grow carrots in our ship and we are breathing the air from a tree that was alive before we arrived at this planet. We have become the inheritors of an entirely new atmosphere." He paused, then slyly smiled as if this were a joke.
He went on. "This really is a new atmosphere. A hybrid of alien and Earth air. Imagine that. Two planets that will never meet, born far away from each other across the spiral arm of their galaxy, and their atmospheres mixing together. What impossible odds of that happening. What a novel embrace." The group was nearly exhausted from wonder, hanging on his every word.
"Of course, mostly this is to adapt you to the alien environment as much as possible before you go down there. It's harmless; merely breathing the air. But knowing that it's perfectly compatible with your lungs makes you feel more confidant the first time you take off your helmet, trust me."
One of the emissaries spoke up. "You've been down there?"
"Many times." Anlon stared at the woman, not impressed with her amazement. He remembered his first time on 82 Eridani d. The lonyun had veritably colonized that planet, and by that time he was just one among teams of workers tasking on a side project of the overall mission. His race had diligently upheld their part in the plan, serving the eventual advent of human administration. They were handing over a world which they could easily have ruled.
"It is a life-changing experience, of course," the officer said reassuringly, feeling the guilty compulsion to indulge her childlike curiosity. "But you get used to it."
He stood for a moment and addressed them all.
“So. Trees. History. Geology. Who wants to see an alien?”
Some of the emissaries actually raised their hands, jumping and exclaiming random sounds of excitement. Some of the others merely crossed their arms and looked impatient. Namon just started walking past Anlon down the hallway, making him catch up. Others followed in a surge of bodies.
They started with an exhibit very much like a museum of natural history, with the preserved bodies of animals stuffed and positioned in various poses surrounded by scenes of their natural environments. The group gaped as they shuffled along, bumping into each other as some paused to examine a particular creature, others anxious to see the next one. Full skeletons were suspended in cases beside each, with some basic information about its native region, diet, and behavior.
Here a small, gray-furred, monkey-like creature hung by one arm from a tree branch, frozen in the act of plucking a piece of fruit from a vine.
Here, a large shaggy beast with thick, twisting horns was in the throes of falling to a pack of canine predators, slavering jaws fixed around an ankle, slashing claws laying open its throat, the look of terror captured in its eye.
A monster serpent, some evolutionary oddity with a strip of white fur running back from its head and tiny, obviously useless forelegs was coiled up with a human mannequin standing next to it for perspective. The heads were level with each other; the serpent’s body averaged two feet thick.
Giant cats, proud lions of the savannah and sleek panthers of the jungle and huge, saber-toothed tigers camouflaged yellow and black to blend in with the trees and grasses of their native land.
A swamp, with a flat, roundish body six feet across protruding up from the muck, two little black eyes hidden among a sprout of whiskers that looked like the reeds growing around it.
Insects, gorgeously colored nectar drinkers; minuscule parasites that could cause deadly illnesses, large harmless tree-crawlers and dangerous looking carnivores.
Birds, small ones presiding over nests of blue eggs that would have looked at home in anyone’s backyard on Earth. Big, beautifully-plumaged ones peacefully nipping at leaves amidst the foliage of a lush rain forest. And terrible ones, leftovers from the dinosaur age. Wing spans four feet across, leathery skin stretched over muscles and bones, just beginning to develop feathers. Long, sharp beaks serrated on the inside like a fine-toothed saw. These were to be found only on Murda, some noted, the paleolithic continent.
“All of these animals are modern species; you’ll find them living down there on the planet. There is an extensive archaeo zoological record in the ship’s library. We have just about covered the entire evolutionary process here, so there is an abundance of fascinating material available to anyone who is interested.” He paused. “At this point it’s important for me to say that all of these animals were collected humanely. Death by natural causes, by an accident such as falling off a cliff, methane gas bubbles in a swamp…we didn’t hurt any of the specimens during collection. That applies to the living specimens, as well.”
Several heads jerked up.
“Living specimens?” Asked Dr. Odunayo.
“That’s right. What you are about to see amounts to an alien zoo. There are some of the animals you’ve just seen, and many others. We show you the exhibits first, because in their natural environments most animals don’t just present themselves for spectators. Lizards hide under rocks, cats in caves, snakes in trees. But we have over one hundred species here, each with its own specialized habitat. Some of these are actually rescues from places like tar pits and bogs. But the zoology team has always taken great care when extracting these animals from the wild.”
The alien zoo was the wonder of wonders, to the emissaries so far, and they spent a long time walking past the enclosures, seeing for the first time real, living and breathing alien life up close. Some of the creatures were hidden away in the safety of some shady rock or den, but there were many stamping beasts splashing in pools and long-necked herbivores grazing peacefully, oblivious to their fascinated observers. Families of critters playing amongst the branches of trees, aquarium tanks where hideous predators roved for their next meal; even vast aviaries where flocks of birds flew freely under an artificial sky.
Their heads were still swimming, and some were stealing last glances behind, as they were led into a small room. In its center was a low rectangular table. Anlon stood and waited for them to assemble, to quiet down and realize the gravity of the moment.
“Of course,” he said, solemnly, “the main attraction is the sentient aliens themselves. The proto-sapien species. We keep a specimen on hand, for research purposes; anatomy students, virology research, and the like. But again. I am reiterating the fact that we do not harm life forms when we collect them. We’ve been studying this planet for two hundred years, but we’ve been doing it mostly remotely. There are teams that go down, for sample collection, and there have been incidents of them being observed–momentarily–by the natives. But what we are not doing is going down there and abducting people. Understood?”
They all nodded, yes, we understand. Now show us the alien.
The officer appeared to be satisfied. He stepped forward to the table and activated a console, tapping a command. A panel opened to reveal a six foot cavity where a body lay attached to a metal examination table. The group of emissaries crowded around as the table rose out of the cavity to a workable position. There was utter silence in the room.
The body on the table was about four and a half feet tall, white skinned, lean and muscular. Male, with recognizable genitalia. Each of its hands had a thick thumb and three long fingers, and four toes on the feet, they saw. The man’s face was flatter than a human’s; features barely protruded and the head rounded in the back, providing space for a brain large enough to house intelligence, apparently. The man had died with a full head of black hair; it was long and clean and fastened in a ponytail behind his neck. His eyes were closed. Namon found himself wondering what color the man’s eye’s were.
They all stared at the body. It was so…human. Arms and legs in all the right places, a pretty normal head and face, familiar reproductive organs. Comments began issuing from the group, obvious observations, random thoughts, the kinds of thing a person would say when seeing an alien for the first time.
“This man came from Murda.” Anlon had let them have their moment of astonishment, taken over his presentation. “He was traveling with his tribe along a narrow mountain path, slipped, fell ninety feet. The impact broke his neck, death was nearly instantaneous, and the rest of his body was almost perfectly preserved. Due to the conditions of the terrain, the rest of his tribe could not reach him, to give him a proper burial. We retrieved the body before scavenger animals got to it.”
“Prosien anatomy is quite similar to humans,” he continued, calling up a holo from the console, “in that they have a cardiovascular system with a heart at its center, a respiratory center with two lungs,” he was scrolling through graphics with a patient pause on each, “stomach with attendant waste-processing and filtration organs, digestive system, skeletal, muscular, even a male-female reproductive process. This is nothing unexpected. For a life form to live so prominently on this planet, it has certain prerequisites of biology. It needs oxygen. It needs water. Just like us.” He blanked the projection. “For those of you who wish to delve deeper into prosien anatomy, the information is available. Let’s move on, now I want you to see natives from other continents.”
He fiddled with the console again and the body slid back down into the cavity, moved away under the machinery, and after a moment was replaced with another. Identical in form, this one was female, black skinned, clearly elderly.
“This one died alone of exposure in Klek’ Tan, after being cast out of her tribe.” They took in the features; the similarities, the differences. Next was a native of Ba-Gaung Itlan, the off-colored, almost gray skin, the squat posture of a lifelong rider’s body. They noticed that the man had narrow eyes; the southern coast of Ba-Gaung Itlan was close to antarctic pole of the planet, its lands glacial and tundrous. This physical characteristic was the effect of genetic adaptation to wearing bone sunglasses for thousands of years, a feature shared by the arctic Rnir people.
The group emerged from the examination room in a daze. Anlon gave them a moment to collect their thoughts before addressing them again.
"Each of you will train, for the next two years, on the subjects of this world's history, politics, religions, philosophies, and mythology. This will be a general course in addition to your specific studies. During this time the gravity of the section of the ship you are living on will be gradually increased to simulate the planet's gravity. You won't notice the effect.
You were chosen by the people and governments of your countries to represent both your patriotic identity and humanity as a whole. Your skill sets are in sociology, psychology, diplomacy. Some of you have a background in science; some of you have military experience. But yours is not a science mission. We've done that work for you. You are here to make contact with an alien race, and represent your species admirably.
To this end, we recommend that we all follow our plan for contact. We've thought it over and over again and worked out the logistics, and the implications, and the benefits of each move. Safety is a primary factor. So is integration with ruling parties and the average people you will interact with during the course of your missions.
We can't have all of you in one place, not so soon anyway. We want smaller groups to manage each region and develop relationships with the people there.
So, first we will conduct a selection process to match your skills and proclivities with the regions of the world that you will be working with. Then, you'll begin to specialize in those areas. You will learn a new language. You will learn to ride a turuk, the horse-creature of this world. You will be expected to know household and court customs of your designated region. We will work together periodically on a narrative which will allow you to explain our position and intentions here. You are free to use your spare time learning about whatever interests you may have about Geshiah, but you will be working in teams of five.
Our plan for contact is this. First, after your training is complete and we all feel confident in your knowledge, we will send down contact drones which will display a holographic greeting message featuring all of you, smiling and looking friendly. These will land close to the capitol cities, or equivalent thereof, in each country. Not in the courtyard of a castle, for instance; that might be taken as a threat. We've chosen locations for landing carefully.
We can all collaborate on the message. The team leader for that region will speak, in the native language. It will be a concise explanation of who we are and what we are doing here. Then, instructions will be given for a meeting place on a certain day at a certain time. We’ve also chosen these locations carefully, for their tactical quality and accessibility to the native population. Due to the level of civilization of each continent, the time we give them to meet us will be different for each. Capothiga has a good road system, for example; most of the others do not. It will take time for communication and travel. We've worked it out; it's three days for Capothiga, six days for Rnirok, eight for Klek' Tan, nine for Ba-Gaung Itlan and ten for Murda. So, if all goes according to plan, three days after we drop the drones, first contact will be made. And, after ten days, we will have made contact will all of the civilizations on this planet.
Before you ask it, let me say the big question. After that, what next? We’ve been holding back life-saving medicines, vaccines, geological and meteorological knowledge, and political and military influence for hundreds of years that could have changed the course of the history of this species. We need to start developing the protocols by which we will interact with the aliens and determine the amount of influence we exert over their evolution. These are real moral questions. We need to take time to think this through objectively, and come to a set of rules together.
So, after full contact, what next? Even allowing the leaders of the ruling nations to communicate with each other would vastly change the world dynamic. For peace, one would hope. Or maybe that would spark off a type of intercontinental war that this world has never seen. One which we would be responsible for, and responsible for aiding in. So you see how easily this can slip over into the worst case scenario, of us presiding over an alien genocide.
So we are taking the slow approach. Developing relationships. Establishing trust. Explaining in benevolent terms the other cultures they share the world with. Eventually, we are thinking that we should bring all the rulers together, for a meeting. Help them establish worldwide communication and understanding. Maybe on a neutral island somewhere in the ocean between continents…perhaps aboard the ship. Show them their planet from orbit. That has a way of unifying opposing ideologies. Our vision of the extended plan for contact has the leaders of each nation sitting around a table together, with translators, finding their similarities and appreciating their differences. We’ve done enough research on each culture to feel confident in acting as third party to this convention.
This is, of course, assuming full intervention. The complete sharing of knowledge between our two species. The overriding directive has always been to not teach the aliens how to create weapons of mass destruction, or improve their military power in any way, technically. This will be a careful distribution of power, and a conscientious attitude reflecting this critical aspect of our mission will be expected from all of you, at all times.”
He looked around at the assembled group. “This is a great responsibility. But this endeavor is intended to represent the best of the human race. Equality, reason, compassion, exploration. You represent the best of the human race. Scientists, teachers, academics and military officers. You may be the last scions of some of your disciplines. So, they do not die out with your ancestors on Earth. You will bring these skills and this knowledge, this wisdom and passion, to a new world and carry on a tradition in its most excellent sense.”
