by P F Walsh
“Absolutely.” Said the President, “I figured you would want some time. How about a week, will that do? I’ll get the Offer letter and my commitment note to you in a day or so. Now, what do you like for dessert?”
“A week is perfect, Sir. Did I hear mention of Banana Creme Pie?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Book One
After Sean finished his meeting with the President, he went back to his room and spent the rest of the day considering all the ramifications a position like this would mean, the politics, the power, and of course, the excitement. His new relationship with Nasht-Mer came into those considerations with high priority. If he were stationed on Hhearn, maintaining that relationship would certainly be easy to do, and he knew he wanted that not only to be near her, but to validate his acceptance of her offer for a Mate. With those thoughts, he knew he had made his decision to accept the offer.
At dinner that night, he told Nasht-Mer of the offer he had received and his intention of accepting it. Nasht-Mer was so pleased she jumped up and kissed him to the surprise of the waiter who had just arrived with their salads.
He told her of his plans to take the Seeker back to Hhearn within the week.
“So soon?” Nasht-Mer asked. “There are so many restaurants I have not yet tried” She chided him, and then said,
“Sean, I suspect there will be an endless line of travelers coming here from Hhearn. You could do well just to offer a shuttle service using Discovery between our two worlds. Once they have tasted Earth food and sampled your restaurants, there will be a stampede.” She lifted her wine glass in a toast to his future. Sean lifted his glass in concurrence, but had other plans he had not yet discussed with her.
The next day, as the President had promised, Sean received the Offer letter and Presidential note by courier. All was in order as discussed, he signed it, made a copy, and returned it to The White House. Included with his acceptance, he added a note informing them he would be hiring a security Officer as the first of several Field Office staff hiring. As for the rest of a small staff, he knew just who to have a selection discussion with. He informed the White House that the Seeker would be leaving at the end of the week, and any Earth representatives and Embassy staff had to be ready to go. Sean knew the President liked to get things done on a fast track basis, so he didn’t expect any complaint from him, although there might be some from the travelers. He notified Doris and Maja that he would like them to come to the ship for a dinner meeting.
Kevbit-Pak, Director General of Economic Development for the Council of Worlds had been working on Earth eighteen hours per solar, inundated with charts, graphs, and data for over a week. He had been trying to arrange with the representatives of the major Earth Banks, Investment Houses, and Treasury Department of Earth an equitable financial exchange rate. The Seeker had been providing translation services for him on all the printed and digital data he was being sent. It was clear to him, and the AI on the Seeker agreed, that all the financial information that was being provided was accurate and truthful.
With the arrival of trade freighters from Hhearn, and the pending return of the Seeker. Pressure was on him to agree to an exchange rate. Kevbit-Pak had brought with him, secured in steel trunks, one Billion ‘kalt’ and immediately arranged deposit accounts in four of the largest world banks divided evenly. This he hoped, would handle initial demands.
He knew such a deadline as the Seeker’s return plan was impossible to meet on a final basis, so he decided to use the host nation’s historically solid U.S. Dollar as a basis of equivalence to the Council of World’s ‘kalt’. One for one. This would hold for an interim term of one Earth Annual which was a few solars short of Hhearn’s at three hundred and eighty-seven solars for an annual. After that, he anticipated it would begin to float using the data from the first year to make adjustments.
He was impressed with the quality of the Earth financial managers he met and their depth of understanding on foreign exchange managing, so he felt comfortable that another meeting near the end of the first annual would bring them in concert with any adjustment needed. Kevbit-Pak had not originally intended to stay longer than a few weeks, but the food and accommodations were unsurpassed on any of the Council’s fifty worlds.
Despite the inconvenience of the translator unit, this was a pleasure he had not anticipated. His examination of the Investment houses and the opportunities he perceived for his personal pursuit of wealth building for retirement, he could not resist. He would stay to monitor the initial trade activities and personally invest.
He was a bachelor with no ties to Hhearn in that regard, so he sent Nasht-Mer the notice that he would stay for several lunars to ensure equitable administration, and included a report of his official determination of the exchange rate and initial term for the Council. She had met with him once in his deluxe rented townhouse in Georgetown and she was not in the least surprised that he would stay.
Sean, Doris, and Maja approached the cargo entrance to the ship and the Ship’s shields shutdown as the ramp began to come down so they could enter the Seeker. Once inside, Sean said,
“Allister, close it up, I am expecting no visitors tonight.” The ramp began to immediately close and the shields went back up.
“Welcome back to the ship Captain, have you had dinner or shall I have the synthesizers begin preparing some food?”
“That sounds good Allister, thank you. We will freshen up first and then all meet in the small dining room.”
They each went to their rooms to clean up and went to the dining room, all in about twenty minutes. The food was not yet set out by the service drones, so they each went to the bar and made themselves a drink and then dragged some comfort chairs together near a small table to talk.
“First, let me tell you what has just happened with me. I have been hired by Earth to be an Ambassador at Large with a significant budget, and autonomous status. That means I will be filling the role of high interface between Earth, and the Council of Worlds.
Earth will open an Embassy at Hhearn with an on-site Ambassador who is British, but I will have a separate office and remain available to oversee proper relations between Earth and the Council as well as any other planet that comes along. I will be the Senior Field Officer so the local Ambassador will report to me. That means I will be based on Hhearn but have carte blanche to seek, meet, and negotiate with any other planet.”
“As the Senior Field Officer, I will need a Security Officer. Doris, would you like to be hired at more money than you were making, and go to strange planets trying to keep me alive? Keep in mind we may not be back on Earth for many months, perhaps a year.”
“Sean, that’s a dream come true. Count me in. When do we leave?”
“We will be leaving at the end of the week with a bunch of passengers of unknown behaviors who are all going to Hhearn for diplomatic and trade purposes. We will be staying on Hhearn according to estimate by Allister at least a month until I am relieved of command by Allister, who will have received installation of his resolution code and can safely begin several trips back and forth to Earth. Then, I have some plans which are not fully formed yet, but will involve more travel.”
Maja spoke up,
“Captain, if there is any room for me to join you on whatever it is you have planned, I am pretty sure I can get assigned permanently to your security team.”
Sean thought about that for a bit and said,
“Let’s see what your superiors think of that before I make any commitment Maja. There are political questions of being under the command of another planet’s representative.”
Allister announced that dinner was all set out and they each walked over to the buffet and began serving themselves another hearty Earth meal ala synthesizer.
As the week drew near to an end, more and more passengers came aboard. Allister identified each one carefully using an approved travel list provided by the FBI. The outside of the ship was constantly surrounded by onlookers, many with the
ir children for a chance to get up close to an actual starship.
There were a few instances of unauthorized persons trying to board but those were stopped by the shield across the cargo entrance. If a boarder was on the approved list, they could pass through the shield. If not, the shield would feel solid and prevent entry. Those attempts were augmented by the military security team which stood by to maintain unfettered access for those who were authorized, and to remove those who were not.
CW Freighters (Council of Worlds) were beginning to arrive in high orbit bearing traders and speculative goods they hope to sell. One of these traders was wise enough to bring two pallets of six thousand translators that had been updated with English from the Seeker’s database while on Hhearn. When that Trader had landed his shuttle on the newly arranged, but temporary spaceport at Joint Base Andrews, it was all optioned off within hours.
Each of the permanent Security Council Member countries were scrambling to establish their own spaceports with immigration, customs, and security services. China and Russia finally signed the charter and now could participate in trade so they were building ports as well following the overall design approach set by the United States.
All of them agreed not to use a commercial airport since everything about a spaceport was different than an airport. The President’s earlier instructions to forge ahead under the assumption that Sean would be successful resulted in the United States having those facilities, however rudimentary, already in place so initial landings and trading was beginning already.
At the temporary spaceport, rules were set up and being enforced. Under these new spaceport rules, all pilots must remain with their shuttles. Traders and representatives after disembarking were to immediately register in the Reception center, a large temporary building painted all white with a wide, green stripe running horizontally across its side That building contained dozens of interview rooms where Security and customs agents determined what each trader was there for, and who he would be directed to meet with.
Racks full of promotional brochures for lodging and restaurants sprang into being almost immediately. Service counters offered bookings for lodging, restaurant reservations, and rental cars.
Thirty-day travel passes, a substitute for a passport which the Council of Worlds did not have, were issued to allow traders and diplomats to leave the port compound and have Earth accepted ID cards. The backside of the pass had a notice that Council of World’s kalt were an equal exchange for dollars and could be accepted as such. Under the notice was the seal of the US Treasury. Other rooms in the registration center contained Earth business representatives, and three governmental agents to deal with, governmental, military or weapons traders. It was becoming a very busy place.
About a mile away, construction had begun on permanent buildings to separate the categories even more. But those would not be ready for at least several months. Unnoticed among the shuttle traffic one of those shuttles from the CW Freighter Wuckim-Bik landed and disgorged a single passenger, waited for a few hours, and left. The passenger, a swarthy man of medium height and muscular build, turned away from the reception center and headed for the construction site by casually walking directly toward it as though he belonged there. As he got closer, he could see huge stacks of construction materials, contractor trailers, idle tractors, and lots of workers.
He slipped through a damaged section of fence and looked over the construction site full of workers all scattered around. He noticed one of them, about his size was going behind one of the contractor trailers. He followed and came upon the man relieving himself and not noticing him as he approached behind him.
A few minutes later, Kastm’n the Elder came from behind the trailer dressed in the construction worker’s clothes and hard hat, fingering the landcar keys and wallet he took from the now dead worker. He had pushed the deceased worker under the contractor trailer, out of sight and further concealed by some rubble. It would be a while until those in the trailer would begin to complain about a bad odor. His review of the database that the Seeker had uploaded to Hhearn gave him a cursory knowledge of the stolen car’s operation and the rules of driving on Earth’s roads. He would need to be careful to avoid being stopped or questioned since his translator would give him away as an alien outside of the reception zone without a travel pass. Now, he had to find his victim’s landcar and begin the hunt.
Sean, Nasht-Mer, Doris, and Maja-Ben all sat in the chairs on the bridge ready to leave Earth.
“Captain, the passengers are all aboard and I have given them all instructions regarding our departure. I will give them more instructions on our transition later when we get closer to that point. We are closed up ready to depart.” Allister announced.
“Very well Allister. Notify spaceport control of our request to leave.”
“I have done that Captain; we are cleared to leave on a straight vertical departure path.” He replied.
“Excellent, proceed with departure.”
The Seeker starship, watched by hundreds on the ground and millions on TV began to slowly rise from the Ellipse as a large team of grounds keepers stood by to repair the grass where the Seeker had sat for so many days. In a few minutes, the Seeker was out of sight and reaching the edge of space maneuvering slightly to avoid the orbiting junk and satellites that crowded Earth’s near space. Once beyond that, the Seeker began to pick up speed as it aimed for the edge of Earth’s solar system and a transition point, the passenger’s eyes all glued to the monitors in the Main Dining Room.
Once the ship reached the area near Ceres, Allister contacted Discovery to join them. In an hour, Discovery was station keeping about one hundred miles on the starboard side of Seeker. The Discovery AI felt ‘enlarged’ when linked to Allister, and was pleased to be back with its sister ship. Allister sent instructions to Discovery for transition to Hhearn, and instructed Discovery to wait for one half hour before entering transition and joining them, reducing any chance of collision as well as securing the arrival area before the unmanned Discovery arrived.
Sean watched from the bridge as Allister managed the jump to Hhearn, the momentary unpleasantness of disassembly, and then the flowing colors of ‘no-space’. The travel days in ‘no-space’ were relaxing and allowed Sean and his associates to unwind after the chaos of first arrival on Earth, the ceremonies, celebrations, and the hundreds of people they were introduced to, whose names they would not be able to recall. Sean knew that chaos was continuing on Earth as Trader freighters arrived and departed, embassy establishments, parties, and the inevitable deviousness of entrepreneurs looking to outsmart their competitors. He was glad it was behind him. He did recall that he really looked good in white tie and tails though, that always brought a smile.
Midway in the travel flight, Sean asked Allister to set up a dance night with an open bar and snacks. The Earth dance band music flowed through the Main Dining room with tables all pushed aside and couples danced. Sean coaxed Nasht-Mer out on the dance floor again, and he held her close as they moved to the music beat. She was beginning to really like this now that she had picked up the simple steps from Sean. She was sure this would catch on with Hhearnians as soon as it was introduced, but how?
“Maybe at a formal diplomatic reception for the new Earth Ambassador, yes, that’s it,” she thought. “Sean and I will show them.” She smiled as her mind began planning to make it happen.
“They’re an item, you know.” Said Doris to Maja-Ben.
“Yes, I know, Nasht-Mer has asked Sean to be her Life Mate, and he accepted.”
“He did?” Asked Doris, “I didn’t know that. They’re good together.” she said as they watched them dance until suddenly Doris jumped up and dragged Maja reluctantly to the floor. While they were dancing, Doris thought,
“My life has changed so much, and I like what is happening. I need to ask Allister for some help tomorrow.”
The next day Doris went to the bridge which was empty since only her, Sean, Nasht-Mer, and Maja were approv
ed to be there. She called for Allister who appeared immediately.
“Uh, Allister I want to ask you if you can help me personally.”
“Certainly Doris, what can I do for you?”
Doris explained what she would like and asked Allister if he could do all that.
“Doris, all that is easily done. I suspect that because we are alone in the bridge, you would like all this done without anyone else knowing?”
“Allister, you always know just the right thing to say. The answer to that is yes, eventually they will know but not before, please”
“As you wish, would you like to start now?”
“Now?”
“Yes, now, is that satisfactory?
“Yes, I just didn’t expect we could get this done so soon. This is perfect. What do we do?”
Allister turned and said, “Follow me, we will get it all done as you asked. My pleasure.”
They left the bridge together and Doris was not seen for the rest of the day until, dinner.
At dinnertime that night, the foursome sat enjoying each other’s company and had just finished a crisp salad with Earth dressing. Sean had to learn from Allister how the ship managed to keep salad greens so fresh. It didn’t seem like simple refrigeration would do it that well, He filed that away for later. Then, when he glanced at Doris, she somehow looked different to him. For a few moments he couldn’t figure out why. Then he smiled and realized that Doris had the visible tattoos all removed.
“She must have asked Allister to take those off.” He thought. “Good move.” She noticed his eyes on her and knew he had caught on to what she had done. He nodded very slightly, affirmatively. She smiled.
Senior Councilor Trakt-Men was still going through all the documents and records in the office of his predecessor who was murdered by the Zakar Ambassador. He was disturbed by what he found, and yesterday they finally got the safe in his office opened and even more evidence of criminal activity involving the Zakar and an unnamed industrialist came to light. Trakt-Men immediately ordered that all of Tamn-Kar’s estate and assets be impounded pending an investigation by the Rules Enforcers. The very idea that a Senior Councilor would manipulate the process of planet membership status for personal wealth gain was almost inconceivable, but the evidence was there. He was very glad the recent admission of Earth had gone so well and didn’t fall victim to Tamn-Kar’s dark works. Earth’s potential wealth was substantial and will benefit the whole Council of Worlds, not just a shady few.