Jat was worried about something else entirely. He looked at the official. “I only see one disc here.”
The official replied calmly, but firmly. “Professor, the Ambassador stated that each disc had the same information. We’ve set the other two up elsewhere so that other, larger groups can view them today; the President, Councilors, Senators, and foreign dignitaries, for example.”
He did not take the hint. “I asked to see the discs. Not just one…”
“Darex! Who exactly is missing?” interrupted Karden.
Jat turned, startled. “What? Ah right. Viris Nane. She’s late.”
“Who in blazes is Viris Nane?”
“I am. Oh, and hi Darex,” said a voice behind them. Everyone turned. A woman stood there, dressed in the glossy red favored by would-be rebels and outcasts, and carrying a large dusty black shoulder bag. She was on the cusp of youth and middle age, short and energetic. Her ear fringes were dyed and tattooed, in a style that had been out of fashion for perhaps two hundred years.
Harker gave her a stern look. “Why, I recognize you! You’re that slagging computer hacker who broke into my company network a few years back. I saw the police photos when somebody finally caught you and got you to trial. A couple of my vice presidents testified…”
Viris gave a sly smile.
“…you’re already out of jail?”
Her smile changed to a smirk. “Sorry, I don’t remember which ones you were. I did a lot of things back then. I know your type think people like me should shot, incinerated, mixed with cement and then dropped in a can to the bottom of the ocean, just to be sure we’re gone, but in fact prison sentences aren’t that heavy for what I actually did. It isn’t as if I stole any money…”
Harker scowled.
“Besides, I’m on the other side these days. Disregarding that I’m watched now, I found that I can make a pretty good living helping organizations protect themselves against the very kind of fun I used to have. So fear not, Havoc999 is no more.”
“Havoc999!” Yelled Neem excitedly. He ran over to her. “Wow, it is amazing to meet you. I mean, I don’t agree with what you used to do, but what you had to SAY on the nets was amazing! About code and about where networks were going! There are programmers on my team who owe half of what they can do to ideas you threw out while ranting about something else.”
Viris made an odd lopsided smile. “Which is a way of saying I’m a living legend and inspiration to the younger generation, which is another way of saying I’m pretty old in programmer years, and better be careful I don’t get behind the times.”
Neem stopped, flailed about for something to say, then gave up, looking bashful.
Jat looked at her. “Right. I don’t think you are in any danger of that. Good reason I brought you here. Let’s get to work.”
Karden cleared his throat.
“Yeah. Sorry. Everyone, this is Viris, a friend of mine and the best, sneakiest computer coder in the world. Viris, this is everyone,” said Jat.
Introductions were made, very much without Jat’s help.
The official turned to them. “With everyone here, I’ll leave you to your work. Doors to the restroom, and a water basin are in the hall to the left. Is there anything else you need?”
Jat didn’t hear him, and was already moving toward the disc, but Karden did.
“Just darken that light on your way out and close the doors behind you. Some refreshments a little later would be appreciated.”
“Of course Professor,” said the official, and he departed. The guards stayed put, a respectful distance out in the hallway. The group assembled around the round table with its golden disc.
Neem looked at Jat. “The whole place to ourselves! How did you pull this off?”
“It wasn’t as much fun as you’d think,” Jat replied.
The disc, like so much of the alien technology, was beautifully made. It looked to be in fact made of gold, it had a flat underside, an ever so slightly convex upper side with delicate geometric tracery, no visible seams, bolts or welds, and a circular button in the center with a top that looked to be convex in the same curve as the body of the disc.
“Pretty,” said Viris, “so who is going to push that button?”
There was a strange moment of apprehension at that.
They stood there in the dim light, looking at the disc and at each other, in silence. Karden thought they were all, himself included, acting as if it really might explode. Well, all except Neem.
“I will!” He said, and when no one objected, he pushed the button.
Instinctively, they all, even Neem, took a few steps back. There was a very quiet whirring sound inside the disc. The button slowly dropped, and tiny, previously invisible panels opened in the central part of the disc, where the inner ring of tracery was inscribed. Lights came on inside, and from the lights, a projected image!
It was the symbol on the alien flags, a spiral galaxy surrounded by that peculiar partial circle, projected in a three-dimensional holographic image, floating there a step or so above the disc, and slowly horizontally rotating, so that each of them in a 360 degree field eventually saw it in full view.
Karden looked thoughtfully at the symbol. “Those might be stylized leaves surrounding the galaxy in that image. Not large round ones like most vegetation, but the smaller oval kind one sees in arctic climates. What a strange way to present them, bound together in a crescent like that…”
If they others knew or cared what he was saying, they gave no sign. Several of them were taking notes, and all grew intent on the change that came over the image.
The symbol began to grow, expanding until the leaves, if that was what they were, disappeared at the edge of the projection. The spiral began to pixelate, ceasing to be a solid whole and becoming a shape made of very tiny dots, images of stars, and then became…
“A three dimensional map of the galaxy!” said Jat, leaning forward and focusing with even more intensity than the others had yet seen from him.
The image of the galaxy, projected to what have been the limits of the disc’s range, towered over them. It was immensely detailed. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of tiny stars were visible, others, too close together, blurred into a glowing belts and patches. It continued to rotate around horizontally, very slowly, and even more slowly, almost imperceptibly, on its axis.
It was beautiful, breathtaking. Karden thought to himself.
“Accurate, I think. Better than anything we’ve got by orders of magnitude,” said Jat.
A voice began to speak, coming from the disc.
“This is our galaxy, our home, the shared home of more than seven hundred thousand sentient species, of at least three hundred forty trillion thinking minds across eight hundred and fifty thousand worlds. We the Elders, you who watch this message, and all those others across the vastnesses of space, all of us together. This is our shared patrimony in our journey across the ages and the stars. Now, watch, learn, and discover…”
Even Jat fell silent.
Tayyis noted, as was her way, the voice. It was not the deep, commanding tone of Ambassador Margaux. It was higher, different in its cadence, perhaps more… academic. Regardless, she thought, this speaker had clearly an even greater grasp of Tadine than the Ambassador. The accent, while still harsh, was better, probably as good as was possible with the small, high chambered mouths and large rasping teeth of the aliens.
Karden took in those numbers. The sheer scale of the world these aliens, the Elders, knew began to impose itself, in awe, upon his mind.
The image of the galaxy began to shift again. It started zooming in toward a particular point, the galaxy growing larger and its edges disappearing at the limit of projection. Dimmer previously invisible stars began appearing, and blurs become distinct clusters of lights. Soon the distances between stars became so large that they could only see hundreds, then dozens, then a few.
The room was in rapt silence, other than the voice of the narrator.
Viris gasped.
Amidst a brilliant nebula was a solar system of two stars, one red, the other yellow, so close their stellar atmospheres clashed in a spectacular display of heat and light. A large gas giant planet with brightly colored rings orbited near. The image zoomed further, to the surface of one of its moons. There it settled on the top of a vast spire of rock above a gold-white desert. From that vantage point, they could see the rings of the planet, the dual suns blazing in glory, and the sky lit with nebula behind.
“Sign me up for that trip!” said Harker, as the narrator went on, and the view began to zoom out again.
The narration and the video imagery continued for nearly two hours. Again and again the galaxy zoomed in to highlight some spectacular feature; nebulas, a supernova, supergiant stars, mighty ringed planets, the surface of an asteroid overlooking a bright green world, the frightening swirl of matter around a black hole, the surface of a planet with a red-purple sky, seas of frozen gas, and a colossal luminous moon.
When the narrative paused, it took them a moment to notice, so lost were they in the majesty of it all.
The image returned to that of the full galaxy. Viris started, and her quick mobile face showed a quizzical expression as she started looking around the projection area. “Ah, there it is!” she announced in a barely audible voice, and pointed to a little holographic projection of a panel with buttons, below the galaxy and barely above the disc itself. There were three, marked in the simplified Southern script used for international communication on Ground, “Continue”, “Pause”, and “Return”.
Viris darted her hand and touched the button for “Pause”. The galaxy stopped rotating. “Not so different from one of our video machines” she said.
“Except that the buttons are made of light!” said Neem, with wonder and joy.
9
After a hurried snack and a lot of excited conversation, they felt ready to start. Viris, who had become their unofficial video technician, experimentally pushed “resume”. The galaxy started rotating again, and the voice started a new narrative.
“While life has existed in our galaxy for billions of years, and even sentient life for hundreds of thousands, the story of our shared civilization did not begin until nearly ten thousand of your years ago, when the people of a bright blue planet, the third orbiting its sun, discovered how to travel faster than light, and made their first voyage to the stars.”
As the voice spoke, the image slowly zoomed in again, to a point about half way between the center and the rim of the galaxy. The view descended to a solar system, and then a blue-white planet with a large silver-grey moon. This world, the Elders’ world, looked a little larger than Ground, with smaller continents and larger oceans.
Jat watched intently. “They are closer to the center than us, and almost on the opposite side.”
“It was a world divided into many nations and many languages, a world torn by war and greed, but also a world with great promise. It was known by many names to its varied inhabitants, but most had a shared meaning. That meaning has lived on to our time, and translates in your language as Earth.”
Tayyis smiled “Much like ours. I wonder how many worlds are named something similar?”
The narrative continued “In time, its people explored their solar system, they built permanent stations in space and outposts on other worlds. They learned to overcome their differences and found unity. Then, one day, came the great step…”
As the zoom increased, the image of this world rotated, and the lights of cities appeared, as seen from space at night. The alien world seemed more densely populated that Ground. Space stations, some of them very large, came into view. From one, a ship launched. It was a long spindle with boxes and compartments along the sides, a small bridge or command center in the front and bulky engine cylinders in the back. It was nothing like the vast and elegant vessels floating, at this moment, overhead.
Neem took a step forward, and almost fell over his own feet. “Their first ship! That must be their first starship!”
There was a small flash from a boxy module near the front of the ship, and a huge flash as something opened up in space itself. It looked like a brightly lit tunnel, a tunnel in space-time, a wormhole. The ship darted forward and entered the hole, which closed after it and disappeared. The narrator explained that the journey, which at the speed of light would have taken several years, was here completed in weeks.
The same flash of light appeared, and the ship popped out of the tunnel and back into normal space. The ship explored a new solar system. Tiny shuttles, holding a handful of crew, landed on barren worlds. The narrative then moved on to the voyages of later, more sophisticated vessels. The perspective shifted from world to world. Colonies were established. Voyages of exploration went farther and farther afield. Then one day, a ship arrived at a world where there were inhabitants.
The aliens, the Elders, stood in a clearing outside their shuttle in lightweight, utilitarian space suits, helmets off and unarmed. Emerging from a forest of bizarre plants, facing them, were other aliens. They were shorter, broader, with bumpy green-brown bodies, headdresses of painted bones, and crude spears. There was a tense moment, gestures, attempts at communication, and finally, peaceful interaction.
Time passed, the Elders explored and settled, other worlds with sentient inhabitants were discovered. They were left alone for thousands of years, except for occasional visits by scientists. Finally, they came across a world so torn by war and religious strife that they felt compelled to help.
From there, things changed. They intervened more often. They encountered industrialized worlds, some with space stations and colonies of their own in their star systems, but none with faster than light drive. Some of these races joined them in their expansion and colonization.
A species was discovered that had independently discovered faster than light travel. They were just taking their first steps of exploration. Very tall, thin beings with reddish skin, called the Imri, they moved with fluid grace. The Elders welcomed them, and they accepted the welcome with joy. They were next seen voyaging alongside the Elders in ships of their own - smaller ships and of an unwarlike appearance.
Karden, who had been lost in the pageantry of it all, began to clear his mind. This was something he’d seen before. It was history, probably accurate in broadest general outline, well done, informative, and certainly interesting. But it was also, as he’d expected, carefully scripted to convince them of the benevolence of the Elders.
More time passed. The Elders had reached the ends of the galaxy. Exploration became a matter of filling in rather than expanding out. Another interstellar race was encountered. These were beings with beaks, colorful lightweight scales, agile builds, quick movements and piercing yellow eyes. They had colonies and warships, a small empire of their own. The narrator called them the Ara’kaa.
The Elders arrived, and there was war. Images appeared of mobs of these beings, shrieking in anger, carrying banners in their unknown language, while others of their kind marched with weapons to board transport ships. There were vast battles in space and across worlds. The Elders were victorious, but magnanimous, and the fierce defeated foes were lifted back up and brought into the community of peoples. Time passed again. The Elders and the Ara’kaa were shown working side by side.
Harker whispered quietly “If you watch that closely, the way they’re interacting, the ones that to me at least look like bosses are all Elders, and the subordinates are all those beaked critters.”
Still onward went time. The narrator told of a great time of peace. The Elders placed beacons and satellites across the galaxy, in almost every star system. Communications were sent from automated observation stations to larger unmanned communication bases that in turn beamed messages in periodic batches through small wormholes to the rest of what became a large galactic network.
Jat grinned. “That means they don’t have a means of continuous FTL communication! At least if it still works the same way.
They depend on those stations, sort of like packet mail!”
“Shhhh!”
The Elders were now highly systematic in their handling of newly discovered species. They left the more backwards mostly alone, even seemed to be at pains that they were not disturbed by outside influences through trade or technology.
They gave gifts to the more advanced. They brought peace, helping the natives demobilize their militaries. They guided them through massive changes in their industrial systems, replaced polluting technologies with clean ones running on antimatter power provided by the Elders. They taught them to moderate their use of resources, to impose population controls, to stop growing and to stay in a sort of perpetual balance.
“Even if accurate, whether all of those changes are desirable depends on one’s perspective,” said Karden, “the Elders replace a dynamic civilization with one that is static, unarmed, and dependent on their gifts. I think they also remove potential threats.”
Scenes appeared of before, and after. The same worlds, first with smoggy skies, sooty factories, hungry impoverished-looking creatures, wreckage-strewn battlefields, and then… shining sunlight, clean cities, indigenous inhabitants happily engaged in seemingly pleasant tasks, and benevolent Elders standing side by side with what were presumably indigenous leaders, watching over all.
The view panned back out to the galaxy. Viris absently tapped the pause button.
Jat looked disappointed. “I thought that was going to end with the camera zooming to us.”
“Oh, you wait for the next show, Jat, I bet we’ll be there.” replied Harker, “After all, we’re the target market.”
///
After a quick break, they launched the next section. The narrative began by describing the blissful current state of the galaxy, and recapitulating the benefits of peace, enlightenment, and guidance seen before. It began with a zoom in again toward the Elder home world, which was now the capital of a galaxy-spanning government, save that it was not called such.
Alien Empire Page 5