by P F Walsh
“Now there’s an unexpected fare-thee-well.” Reginald muttered to nobody, but loud enough for Wally to hear it.
“I assure you Reginald, you will find no reason to expect less. No one knows about your recent muddle except me, and I am not known for the slightest interest in gossip.” Wally said with a serious look on his face.
“I appreciate that Ambassador, I do.” Reginald said.
“Please, call me ‘Wally,’ everyone does, and I am much more comfortable with that.” Wally said affably as he led him through the terminal.
“Thank you. ‘Reggie’ is fine for me. God knows I’ve been called worse back home.”
“Here’s the baggage retrieval area, I see the bags are coming in now. Let’s get your luggage and then we can pop down on the shuttle.” Wally said. They both went and stood by the sorting chutes. Wally checked Reggie’s claim check and pointed to the numbered chute he expected his bag to appear in. The bag was already there.
“Well, this is faster than back on Earth. Perhaps there are upsides to all this.” Reggie thought.
Reggie collected his one other bag from the sorting chute. As he turned to join Wally, who was standing nearby with his carry-on, an adjacent stack of several matching bags collapsed over onto his leg. Reggie dropped his one bag and held the stack from further demise as a nearby lady in quite elegant Earth clothes exclaimed,
“Oh dear, I am so sorry!” She said with a British accent. She rushed to take a few bags from the top of the leaning stack, as a few more came down her assigned chute, increasing her facial distress while she blushed furiously in embarrassment. Reggie stabilized her stack, and began to consider how exactly would she take charge of all these bags, and get them to the shuttle? It appeared all the porters has been drawn away by other travelers who could speak Shrep, and knew how to persuade assistance.
Reggie spoke up,
“It’s clear Ma’am that you need some assistance to get all these bags to the shuttle. My associate and I would be glad to be of service and help. Permit me to introduce us.” He said as he began to extend his hand in greeting.
“I am Reginald Dawson, newly appointed Consul General for the UK here on Hhearn, and my associate here, is Wallace Henning, Ambassador from the Earth IRO, and also based here on Hhearn.” She shook hands with both and said,
“I am so grateful, thank you. I am Lady Sarah Bennett, lately of South Kensington. Pleased to meet both of you in such an unexpected location.” She said, a bit breathlessly.
“You appear, at least by the size of your baggage to be planning a very long stay here.” Wally inquired.
“Yes, that’s true, I am here to establish a Ballet School branch of the Royal Ballet. I am told there is extraordinary demand here, and I was so persuaded by the Prince to take this on, that I couldn’t refuse. I am sure it will not be a lark, but I do love a challenge, and can’t imagine one bigger than this one.” Reggie’s eyebrows were now fully raised, as he began to assess more than her statements. As they distributed her bags among them, Reggie learned she was also staying at the same apartment building, and promptly invited her down to the ‘Earthy’ Lounge later after she got settled into her room. After a slight pause, she accepted and with Wally’s help, they all headed for the shuttle. A quick stop at the freight counter to direct the Consul trunk to an address Wally gave them, and they continued their walk to the shuttle. Once on board, the two men were seated alongside each other. Wally said,
“Reggie I’ve taken the liberty of reserving an office space for you adjacent to mine. It should be quite adequate, but after you look at it, feel free to choose another, there are several available since the two new office buildings went up.” Reggie replied,
“I’m sure it will be fine Wally, at least as a starter, I have no idea what kind of space I will need here, I don’t think tourist travel from here has really started to the UK yet, has it?”
“No, not yet, but you will find a very high level of interest in doing so. As the starships begin scheduled service shortly, that will grow quite fast.” Wally said as he buckled himself into his seat. Reggie was doing the same and silently wondering,
“All this seems so routine and ordinary, but I am in an orbiting docking station about to shuttle down to an alien planet, and have a date later to share sips with Lady Sarah. I keep wondering, is this a dream?” The door to the shuttle clicked audibly shut and locked. A slight change in cabin pressure could be felt, and the illusion that it was all a dream slipped away, as the shuttle began to move. Reggie could now see out the window at the planet below. He was not the only one looking at a scene out of a science fiction movie, Lady Sarah was as well, seated at a window seat across the aisle, and occasionally stealing glances at Reggie from time to time.
“What were the odds of me traveling twenty-seven light years to an alien planet and meeting a British Consul General, and an Earth Ambassador?” She thought, and then resolved the question with the sudden conclusion that her decision to accept this mission, which had been in lingering doubt, now seemed proven right. She relaxed into her seat and wondered if the lounge, where she would meet the handsome Reggie later, had Slingsby gin?
The Comitatus scout ship Berrn-58 of Trether began preparing to fold space. The navigation crew had analyzed the departure traces of the Outpost, and found the general direction it had been jumped to. Research of the navigation records of known planet systems showed only one system that had received inspection and a seed kit from Trether in that direction. It was the Earth Solar system. The Doytain ordered a jump into that system but only to the edges of the system, to avoid detection, in case Earth was the destination they were looking for. The ship trembled as it discharged its huge capacitors into the fold drive. A few dizzying moments later, it emerged from a flash of intense light and sparks of space dust that were consumed by the energy discharge. The pilot fed energy to the reverse thrusters to bring the ship to a halt from being slung across space, as the scanners began to resynchronize and produce information. In a short time, the forward main screen showed the Earth solar system, and the navigator confirmed a successful jump and arrival point.
“Subcommander, I have found the Outpost.” The ship’s AI computer announced. The Subcommander went to the manual scanning station to see for himself, and confirmed what the AI said.
“Where is the ship that brought it here?” The Subcommander asked.
“There is no ship here with fold-space capabilities. There is a small fleet of ships parked nearby, but they do not have such capabilities. It appears the Outpost may have moved itself Subcommander. There were experiments in the old records describing copper-lined caves capable of storing massive quantities of energy. The Outpost Central computer would know how to utilize this information, and capability.” Recited the ship’s AI to an astonished Subcommander.
“I must inform the Doytain immediately.” He thought.
“Call the Doytain to the bridge.” He said to the ever-listening AI.
The Doytain came to the bridge in less than a minute and was advised the Outpost had been located.
Captain Flynn had been attending one technical meeting after another to hear reports and papers on what what was being discovered on Caerus. A great deal of it was beyond his ability to understand the finer points of scientific arguments. Each scientific team struggled with understanding what they were seeing in the various devices, and information in the Caerus files. After the last meeting ended, he sat there in the room that had been converted into a small auditorium for just this purpose, as the presenters, and others, began to pass by him. A few stopped to acknowledge his presence and thank him for setting up the overall research plan. This blocked the others behind who were preparing to leave the room.
“Is there anything we reported today that has your interest Captain?” One of them asked.
“Yes, all of it, really. I am pleased that it certainly seems we will all gain quite a bit to advance Earth’s knowledge on lots of subjects. But I am curious, has
anyone one of you asked the Central AI to explain what you are struggling to understand?” Sean posed. The group began to look at each other with a quizzical demeanor. No one stepped forward and confirmed that anyone had done so. Amazement that such an obvious route to knowledge had been ignored produced a buzz of surprise comments. One of them finally said,
“Captain, that is exactly why you are in charge of this planet!” Several suggested he should come by more often. Sean got up from his seat and walked out with the scientists, as they began to split up and mentally compose questions for Central. He left them to return to their research labs and continued walking toward the shuttle to return to Discovery and dinner with Nasht-Mer. As he was walking by one of the buildings that contained the hidden control room, he recalled that Artie had been spending time in that room after having all the traces of the deceased lone survivor had been removed and the room cleaned. It was the central monitoring and systems management user interface. Sean went into the building and down the stairs to the control room. The door was ajar to allow a greater flush of air, but closed enough that it was clear casual arrivals could not slip in.
“Central, open control room door.” Sean said, and the door swung open to allow him to enter. Artie was hunched over one of the console’s controls and making notes, so absorbed he didn’t hear Sean enter, but caught movements in his side vision and recognized Sean.
“Sean, what brings you down here?” Artie asked
“Just curious to see how everyone is getting on. What have you discovered so far?”
“Mostly that all the systems on Caerus can be controlled from here. I haven’t dug down into all the on-screen menus yet. Central is still converting the lower levels into English, but it is clear there’s not much we can’t control from here. I don’t understand the inter-relationships of the systems yet, so we need to be cautious in adjusting things. Best policy now is to let Central do it.” Artie said, as he took a break and sat down. He then said,
“I have shifted access to a lot of the security items up to Mel’s terminal though. Central helped me through that. Mel’s now digging through it. That’s going to take him a while, based on what I see here.”
“What about planet defense systems?” He asked.
“I’m still working through those but so far, it seems Central is best to manage that. It’s a lot faster than a human, and of course, always watching 24/7. We may want to touch up the ‘rules of engagement’ a bit, but I’d do that later. It’s good right now.” He answered.
“Have you looked at the space folding system?” Sean asked.
“Yes, but just a cursory check-over to be able to know the status of jump readiness.”
“And, that is...?” Sean asked
“Ready to jump. The caves are about 89 percent charged. We can jump on anything over 51 percent. I’m not sure what affect it would have not to be fully charged. Maybe distance? Not sure, maybe everything doesn’t jump? I don’t know yet, but the system says we’re ready to jump now.” Artie replied, as he pointed to the Jump panel display, and the graphic which looked like a glass of water partially filled. Below the half point was red and above was green. There was a small character alongside the graphic which kept rotating, indicating a charge flow in progress.
“We going somewhere Sean?” Artie asked with raised eyebrows.
“Nothing planned Artie, but I can picture being able to move to avoid an assault of some type would be very handy. Allister agrees. Not everyone on Earth is happy we have this planet and all its technical secrets.” He said, and then as an afterthought,
“Y’know, the thought just occurred to me that we could bring Caerus to other planets for scientific symposiums and guest scientists to work for a month.”
“Now that would really be something to excite engineers and scientists, a traveling, diplomatic research center.” Artie said, “Great idea.”
The meeting of senior officers aboard the Trether fold-space ship concluded without a clear choice of action. The prospect that the AI on the Outpost had decided to move the whole small planet near to the solar system of a seeded planet called Earth was too unlikely to accept. While there had been reports of an AI gaining self-taught capabilities, none had occurred where the AI had made a major decision to change its location. There simply was no impetus to do so. There was no evidence at the old site of conflict or attack to generate an ‘escape’ reaction, nor was there such a sub-routine in its code. The likely cause was it had been told to do so, but by whom?
The Sub-Commander preferred a definitive strike to destroy the Outpost. His rationale was founded in the general rules prohibiting seeded world’s acquisition of fold-space technology without the approval of the Chamber of Masters. His suggested method involved casting a large asteroid directly at it at high speed. The collision would leave little to reclaim and they would be able to report back to the Doyen on Trether that the situation of an unknown fold ship was settled. The Doytain, who had remained silently non-committal while the discussion carried on, considered higher issues and thought,
“Is it possible some team from this remote planet called ‘Earth’ has done this? How would they have gotten so far as to locate the Outpost? Do they now have an understanding of how to fold space?” He considered these issues as he left the conference room without making a comment. Such a silent departure always disturbed the crew, especially the senior officers who were much more comfortable with clear direction. The Doytain retired to his cabin to decide the issues at hand, some sleep, and to review his rules of engagement with another species.
After resting for several hours, the Doytain rose and cleaned himself up for what he expected might be a long day. He called his senior officers to his day room.
“I have considered the situation at hand, and it is immediately clear to me that I need to reject any suggestion or plan to attempt to destroy the Outpost. There are several issues at hand. First, there is a fleet of ships parked nearby and appear to have weapons pods. Second, is the standing question of our missing Queen. If there is evidence of a visit there, we must find it. The records reveal that since the Outpost was quarantined after the entire staff died from some sort of plague, no investigation team has since visited it.” He paused and continued on,
‘In addition, we must determine who or what caused the Outpost to move. Our scans also show a geosynchronous docking station under construction, the AI would not be doing that. Also, the Outpost is now rotating, another thing the AI would have no need of. Docked, or parked in orbit, are ships that have weapons ports. They clearly outnumber us. If we destroy all of it, we may have solved the smallest of curiosities, but destroyed important information, and created much greater problems, likely even a military conflict. We appear to be outgunned. If we are destroyed in response to such an action, no word will get back to Trether regarding this whole incident.”
“Therefore, I want you to begin planning on sending an investigative team to approach and contact the Outpost, and find out out what we need to know. We will proceed armed of course, but the rules of a possible ‘new species contact’ will prevail. Sub-Commander, you will lead the team. Spend as much time as you need to plan this, be careful, the Outpost had significant defense systems.” The Doytain said to surprised faces.
“As you command Doytain, it will be done!” The Sub-Commander responded, stiffened and embarrassed that he had not considered all this and hope it did not diminish his standing for a ship of his own. He then said,
“There will be approach codes, I will check the records and make sure our shuttle pilot has those to send.”
“It is possible, or even likely, that those have been changed, in addition, the docking station may have its own defenses. Do not rely on the passcode, contact the Outpost AI verbally, and ask permission to approach and dock. Identify who we are, and describe your mission as diplomatic and scientific. Do not open gun ports, the AI will see that and react. Query the AI for information on who is in command. Use diplomatic protocols
, but be ready to defend if they are hostile. Do you understand all this?” Asked the Doytain.
“Yes, completely sir, but the Outpost belongs to us, correct?”
“No. Not under our law. The Outpost was never formally declared a possession. It was abandoned, and the Central AI knows all that. It is likely the new occupants now have full rights, especially since they moved it to another solar system. We are not in a legal position to make any demands.” He said. No questions followed.
“Set up a continuous observation team and gather all the information we can regarding this system, and its occupants. With our small shipboard staff, this may take a few weeks to accomplish. Be thorough, download everything you can catch, including their language. We need to be able to use our translators to speak with them. I plan to approach on a scientific and diplomatic basis, but I wish to be prepared thoroughly to meet with them.”
The Doytain ordered.
President Burke sighed, as he considered what had been discussed and looked at each of the men and one woman who were seated in the Oval Office. There were more attending than there were chairs, so a few stood, and leaning in to be sure to hear the quiet planning being done. The meeting was on the President’s schedule and described as planning for inter-agency awards for exceptional service. That was not what they were discussing.
“Are you sure you can trust her?” He finally asked.
“Yes sir, everyone agrees on that, at least for this project, sir. There are safety backup plans in place in case there is any deviation. She is perfect for this job. All you have to do is look at her face when you remind her about her daughter. There is resolute steel there.” The Director of the CIA said in response to the President’s query. The Director of the FBI nodded his agreement.
“What’s the downside cost of this aside from casualties and issues of State?” The President asked. The group looked at each other and the FBI Director replied,