“And so the peoples of the galaxy live in peace and sustainable prosperity, encouraged and guided, but not ruled, by the Galactic Protectorate. Here is the shining planet once more, seat of the Protectorate. The benefits of wise stewardship can be seen there. As we Elders have spread across the stars, large areas of the home world have been returned to their natural state...”
The view of the present-day home world was indeed quite different. In orbit, the space stations were far larger, and the moon seemed to be hive of activity, but on the planet itself, there were far fewer lights, and those largely concentrated in a handful of dense clusters.
Perspective descended to a vast and beautiful city; a city of monuments, broad raised avenues, and intricate architecture. There were towers, holding perhaps offices or apartment blocks, buildings housing artwork, great halls where strange-looking alien performances were held… but no factories. Dignified citizens, mostly Elders, strolled along its avenues or dallied in its parks. They gathered in squares and conference halls to discuss events.
The building housing the Central Presidium was immense. Marble halls rich with art soared to gilded ceilings a hundred steps or more overhead. Grand galleries of windows admitted golden afternoon light. Aged and solemn figures in blue and gold robes met within.
“All Elders, who would’ve guessed!” muttered Jat “No, wait, there are a few others, and some might not even be servants. Oh look, one of those beaked things! Anyone want to be a token senator?”
This time, he quieted in advance of the shhhh.
The narrative passed from the seat of power to a view of the vast fleets kept at colossal stations beyond the orbit of its moon. Karden’s spirits sank. There were hundreds of warships the size of the twelve overhead, and clouds of fighters performing maneuvers.
Neem seemed barely able to contain his excitement, as he took notes at a furious pace.
“Look at them all…” muttered Harker gloomily.
Karden thought that if the purpose of that section was to demoralize them, it was working.
What followed seemed to be a demonstration the wealth of the Protectorate. Squadrons of transport ships loaded goods from natives on various planets, and then took them to space stations, where wise administrators determined where they needed to be shipped next. The narrator called it “sharing and redistribution”.
The stations were enormous, beautifully designed, and decorated as seemed to be all the works of the Elders. Each one had a squadron of warships of its own. One or two had a ship of the tall red race docked, they appeared to be traders.
Harker watched that part with intense focus. He leaned over and paused the video for a moment. The others looked at him.
“Pay attention class, and see what they’re up to. I still didn’t see a single sequence where Elders were doing work themselves, just managing the others. That’s not all. Except for those red folks and their ships, those vessels look like some kind of standardized government transport. It all seems centrally planned and controlled. Karden, you know how well that kind of thing worked out here a century or so back.”
“Not so magnificently, true,” replied Karden, “but they have an entire galaxy to draw wealth from, and with resources on that scale one can bumble on for a long time.”
“It still makes them con artists,” said Harker.
Karden thought about that, “or an aristocracy.”
Viris winced at the word, the antithesis of everything she believed in, and hit “resume” on the video.
The narrator and the imagery moved to a tour of worlds. This one, unlike the spectacular natural images of the first video, was of inhabited worlds and happy prosperity. Each one featured a member of a species speaking in what was presumably their own language, but with a voiceover by someone else. Each of them, in their own way, spoke of their contentment and happiness.
“Well, those are supposed to be satisfied customers,” quipped Harker, “but I wonder if the Elders trust ‘em enough to speak to us in person.”
The video concluded with a zoom in to a world near the edge of the galaxy. It took only a second or two for Jat to make a little hop and yell, “Ha! I knew it, there we are!”
Images appeared that had clearly been culled from broadcasts on their own airwaves. They were scenes of war, famine, poverty, and pollution from recent decades and widely divergent parts of the world. The narrator went on. “And now friends, you have a decision to make. Choose well.”
“I need to hire those boys,” said Harker, “quite a PR machine they’ve put together.”
“It looks to me like they want to defang us,” said Viris.
Karden added, “Or, more broadly, to keep us in our place… a nice, comfortable place perhaps, but a docile one, and of their choosing.”
“Like putting us out to pasture, and maybe cull the herd every now and then…,” said Viris, a rising note of frustration under the joking sarcasm of her tone, “but I’m afraid I don’t make a very good farm animal.”
Tayyis seemed thoughtful. “Others might be quite happy with it. They make it look awfully inviting.”
“Not for me,” said Neem.
“Well they still have weapons son, you could go see if they need a good designer!” grinned Harker.
Neem did not grin back.
“I think, from what we’ve seen thus far,” said Karden, “that their entire system seems to be geared toward stasis. They clearly look back to a glorious past, but they want to project the present as perfection, and the future as… mere continuance.”
“Stasis and perfection, continued forever, with THEM in charge!” snarled Viris with sudden anger in her voice, “Count me out! We’ve got to do something about this.”
“Considering their power, our options would appear to be limited,” noted Karden.
“Take a page from your own books, Professor,” said Harker, “Systems are always either growing or dying, whether they are organizations, cultures, or nations. If you ask me, the Elders as a people, their civilization I mean, are slowly dying. They aren’t innovating, they aren’t growing, and they’re trying to clip the wings of those who are.”
“I wonder what happened to them?” mused Karden, “Culturally and philosophically, I mean. These videos only show the external events, and the spin.”
Seeing another chance to chew on an already well-chewed joke, Jat cut in, “Their first mistake was to start calling themselves the Elders!”
Neem paused, his mind clearly at work. He looked at the disc, and the projection.
“Viris, you think that map of the galaxy is built on a program, rather than some custom piece of video?”
“I think it has to be, from what I saw! And, it’d be easier for them to do it that way than make all that ad-hoc. I thought all of you knew that!”
“We aren’t all computer programmers, but I thought the same thing too. Seems to me, as a galactic mapping program, there’d be a LOT of information in there…”
The others took notice.
Tayyis asked, “But why would they want us to have it?”
Harker commented, “They wouldn’t, but they also don’t think we’re smart enough to figure it out. This thing is sealed pretty tight, with a one-button activation system and a couple of little navigational controls that basically just let us use it as a video projector. It is meant to be idiot proof.”
Neem was still caught up in his thoughts. “Not just the data! The processors that run it are in there, and they must be powerful. Not to mention a hugely powerful internal power source for something that size!”
Viris drew next to Neem, looking at the disc with a hungry expression. “AND, that data is written in some kind of code, an alien code, probably not like anything we’ve got and probably far more advanced, but still, code.”
It was too much for Jat, he closed in to join the others. “If we could get it open…”
Tayyis smiled. She looked at Karden.
He shrugged. “Very well, perhaps it is time fo
r us to be the idiots who disprove the proof.”
10
“It just so happens,” said Viris, “that I brought a few tools with me.”
She and Neem spread an array of small equipment, scanning and measuring devices, power supplies, their computers, and other odds and ends around the table. Jat set up his computer beside theirs, and went to work in his own way. He began cataloging everything they knew thus far about the alien technology, typing at a furious pace, and cross referencing notes.
Karden looked around the table. What they were working on startled him. A piece of alien technology of unknown workings, one of only three given by the aliens themselves, specifically entrusted to them by the government, and here they were trying to take it apart.
“Jat… how much latitude were you given by the Chief of Staff on this project?”
“Eh? Well. Wimier said to find things out. He didn’t tell me NOT to take it apart.”
“Ah, good.”
Karden’s mind was still whirling. He looked at the time, and something struck him.
“Those holographic videos were anything but short. I’m grateful we were given twenty hours, but we’ve only got ten of them left. Ten hours to do whatever it is you want to try to do to this machine, and get it back together.”
“Back together?” said Jat, suddenly calming from the soaring excitement of a moment earlier.
Karden went on “While it would be nice to be able to claim that thing ran out of power or got broken somehow, I suspect the Elders build things to last, and will be unconvinced if we go asking for a replacement. What exactly they might do after that is hard to say, but I am certain the government would not take it well. I’m not saying don’t do this, but I AM suggesting you have a plan.”
Neem, Viris and Jat considered what Karden had pointed out, but which had been so easily overlooked in the excitement. They paused, uncertain. The whole idea started to seem ludicrous.
Harker sized up the situation. Though no scientist, and getting rusty as an engineer, he had led teams of both for years. He moved into action. “All right kids, so we’ve got a deadline. We can do this. The only thing we can take from that device and have it still function is the data, a copy to be specific. So let’s worry about that, and not the equipment itself. Viris, give us a synopsis of what we’re up against.”
Viris considered for a moment. “The projector is sealed everywhere but around the button, uses as yet unknown data storage technology, operates on an alien system of code, does not seem to be a networked device, and even if it were, wouldn’t be set up to interface with ours.”
“No problem then. Let’s get to work! Neem, you take point on…”
They grinned, and set to their work.
The hours that followed crawled by for the two social scientists. They took turns keeping officials and guards at a safe distance, supplying everyone with refreshments, and watching the activity with bewilderment. At one point, Tayyis left with Neem for the hotel and returned with a large case, Tayyis having convinced security it would be a bad idea to interfere. Sometime after that, Karden, the oldest of them, couldn’t take any more. He settled on a table for a nap.
He woke up to a terrible screeching sound. Jumping up, his heart racing, he looked at the working group. Jat was laughing in glee, a full throated, shockingly loud version of the odd chuckle he used when he was trying to be quiet. The others were smiling.
“Hah! Karden, we’ve got it!” yelled Jat.
Karden looked at him in a fog of sleep and nerves.
“We’ve got the data! Don’t know how to read it. Don’t have equipment that can run it. No idea how to manipulate it, but… we have a duplicate of the patterns of the electrons!”
Somehow that sounded less impressive to Karden.
Viris interjected “Professor, basically, their computers are in no way compatible with ours, and they are far more advanced, but they work on the same principles of electronics. It gave us the opening we needed. Well, that and a couple of inventions of Neem’s.”
Neem grinned. “I brought back a few gadgets I designed that we rigged together to capture electronic patterns on a kind of blank slate. This isn’t what I originally made them for, mind you. I’d thought the alien stuff would work on some other new principle, maybe at the molecular level. We’d be stuck then. Luckily they didn’t. This is just a start, but with enough time and a good team,” he smiled at the others, “we might rig up something that can work!”
“Now kids” said Harker “we’ve got to get this device put back together and patched up well enough to fool a pack of diplomats and politicians, in oh, 35 minutes.”
Doing all that in 35 minutes without being noticed did not sound likely to Karden, especially when their real time was going to be shorter than that. If the meeting schedule worked like such things usually did, some people were going to show up early and mill around in the hall, wanting to ask questions and generally getting in the way. Some official or other was going to show up before that, to check up on them and make sure that everything was all right…
Officials! He decided it would be a good time to go talk to the one in charge in the building. He stepped out into the hallway, and grabbed a guard.
“The administrator from this morning, Mr. Seydier, I don’t suppose he’s still on duty?”
“No sir, he went home, but the night supervisor, Mr. Halm, is here. Should I go get him?”
“Oh, no need, just give me directions to his office and I’ll go find him.”
A couple of minutes later, Karden stood before a large man crammed into a small desk in an equally small office. Halm looked surprised.
“Mr. Halm, as you know, I’m Professor Haral Karden, part of Professor Jat’s team currently working with the information disc given to us by the Elders.”
“Yes Professor, I was just coming down to make sure everything was all right. The next group of dignitaries should start arriving upstairs any minute.”
“Naturally, and I have come here for the same reason.”
“Well, uh…”
“As you may know, Professor Jat was personally selected for this project by President Vhel and Chief of Staff Wimier.”
“Yes.”
“And he has put all his brilliance and dedication to work on it.”
“Right. Where are you going with this, Professor?”
“We need additional time. An hour should do.”
“I’m going to have a hundred people out there in a few minutes, a hundred VIPs.”
“All right then, I’m certain you’d be happy to explain to the President why you interrupted his hand-picked representative, THE Professor Darex Jat, a member of the upcoming delegation to the fleet of the Elders, in his work at a time of the utmost importance to national security, international relations, and our first crucial interaction with beings from the stars. And, that you were doing so because you were worried about your convenience in handling a minor schedule overrun. Shall I get him on the phone now?”
Halm boggled at him, he flushed, stuttered, and looked for words “I… uh… all right… I’ll see what I can do. Please, really, if you can get him out of there sooner, do it.”
“Thank you,” said Karden, and left the room.
When he got back, the others were still hard at work and looking nervous as the last few minutes approached. Karden made straight for them. They looked up, fearing what he might say.
“I’ve got us an extra hour.”
“That’s all we need. Let’s get this wrapped up folks!” roared Harker with a smile, as the others set to the task. He turned to Karden “How’d you do it?”
“Oh, I just asked.”
11
Things had been quite different at the other showings of the discs. Crowded rooms of politicians, diplomats, and dignitaries of all sorts had watched in excitement, but also polite silence. Other than during breaks, they did little discussion. Some were curious about the inner workings of the amazing discs, but none sugge
sted daring to open one up.
The President attended part of a showing, but excused himself to attend other matters, and instructed his staff to draws up a summary for his later review. There was debate about whether and when to go public with what they’d seen. Chief of Staff Wimier prevailed, and invited journalists with video crews to capture the holograms on screen from every angle.
The next couple of days were eventful. The images flooded the world. They became the most viewed sequences in the history of the nets. A very healthy debate sprang up as to their implications, and how desirable those implications were. There were those who wanted a future of stability, of safe, clean, orderly lives, or who desired an end to strife, to greed, to competition, to change, to growth, to innovation. To these, the guidance of the Elders looked like utopia.
Others saw the Elders offering such things, and thought in varying degree that they were good, but that it was a trick, and that the actual fate awaiting them would be slavery or worse.
And, there were others still, who seeing the future offered by the Elders, said that even if it was all true, they preferred to live as free men, with liberty to grow, change, decide for themselves and even to make mistakes, rather than as caged fliers with clipped wings.
As the maelstrom of debate exploded, the President’s advisors began to take notice. On the afternoon of the second day, less than twenty-four hours before the shuttle of the Elders was due to bring its delegation and bring Ground’s up to the fleet, Vhel summoned his Chief of Staff.
The President looked slightly to the left of Wimier, into the middle distance. “Wimier, I’m getting concerned about all the excitement that has been raised by releasing those videos. The public is drawing its own conclusions, some of them, ah, very poorly informed. We don’t want to upset what is still a very delicate diplomatic matter.”
“Certainly not, sir.”
“What made you think it was, hmm, a good idea to release them?”
“People were going to form their own conclusions anyway, based on rumors or incomplete and possibly biased reports by those who were there. The speculation would have been worse. This way, the public can draw its conclusions from complete firsthand information.”
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