Punishment

by Guerin Zand

  Roger laughed and took a sip of his drink.

  “Will this shuttle always be here in orbit? Will we have access to your friends whenever we need them?”

  “They will be here for a little while as we get started, but usually we won’t have access to a shuttle. We haven’t worked out a schedule for how often they’ll visit. I’d like them to regularly schedule a visit once, hopefully twice a year. If we needed them urgently they could be here in minutes. They may also have other reasons that would necessitate an unscheduled visit. Hopefully, they’ll notify us when that happens. Does this sound good to you, Sammy?”

  “We can do that. If we schedule it for twice a year then we’ll have Bart and Gladys just take turns with Stella and Sly as the committee representatives. Bart has his own shuttle and crew of Erandisi, so the ‘kids’ and I won’t accompany them.”

  “Ok, so what is our plan for what we need to do on Earth?”

  “Oh, finally the good part. Guerin’s plans are always so entertaining. Would you pour me another drink Sly?”

  “Very funny, Stella. I’m trying to be serious here.”

  “Jot that down, Sammy. Don’t forget to record the time. We may never see this again in our lifetimes. Please, Guerin, continue. You have me on the edge of my seat.”

  I just shook my head. Roger appeared amused at Stella’s abuse of me.

  “Anyways, as I mentioned earlier, you all need to resign from your current employment. The cover will be that you’re starting your own company. I think we need to form an intellectual property, IP, company. We won’t actually make anything, but we’ll be patenting a lot of technology based on our research. My goal would be to end up with something similar to the old Bell Labs.”

  “You mentioned this Isabelle person who would help with the finances?”

  “Isabelle is the economics wizard on the committee. Let me start by telling you that your team aren’t the only ones aligned with these friends of mine. That’s why I didn’t see any problem with bringing you up for the procedures. These others, I assume, we’ll meet as needed. They’re not specifically part of this project. They were recruited based on their usefulness. Contacts in banking and finance as well as various businesses and who knows what all. Milly mentioned that there were at least a few Hollywood types on the payroll.”

  “Ok. How much money is available for this new startup?”

  “Imagine the wealth of a small developed nation, Roger. That’s what we have access to. What sort of covert operation do you think you could build with that sort of money and no financial ties to any government.”

  “That’s sort of a spy masters wet dream, Guerin.”

  “Exactly. When Ricky gets us secure access to our friends we can get you in direct contact with Isabelle and you can work out all the details of finance. I think she can arrange for a European venture capitalist firm to provide the cash.”

  “How do we tie in the government?”

  “Through you. I want to stress again that only you, me, Steve, and Katie can know about my friends. That is not negotiable. We need to keep their involvement to a minimum. Other than that, you have to decide who should know what in the government. I assume there is already a small group who know what you’ve been up to and I’d say for now keep it to them. We’ll have to come up with some shit story to explain where some of the technology comes from. Off the top of my head, we could include a large field research team which does what your team has done in the past. Search for this tech following leads you already have.”

  “You mentioned adding other governments to the mix. How do we do that?”

  “I would say as our company grows we simply open branches in other countries. At that time, you’d be tasked with bringing the teams from those governments, that are the equivalents of your current team, onboard. Then they would be responsible for bringing their governments into the fold. That’s why I say the model we use in America should be able to be duplicated in other countries.”

  “What about this IP our company is going to produce? Where does it come from? Right now, we just have that battery and we’re not going to have any breakthroughs from that for a while.”

  “That’s where I come in. Right off, I have a couple of things we could patent tomorrow. One is a new process to produce carbon fiber body armor. It would be a big, but not a giant step forward in body armor. I have a few other little jumps in technology that we can also patent. None of these are ‘revolutionary’ so they won’t draw any unwanted attention. Just enough to make the company profitable so we can grow.”

  “But we’ll need the scientists and engineers to pull this off. Where do they come from?”

  “I have a list of potential employees. Some already work within our government and some don’t. I’ll get you a list and you can start the background checks. We’ll hire them like any other high-tech company does. Headhunters, large salaries, and great benefits.”

  “We need more than scientists and engineers to build this company, Guerin.”

  “I’m hoping you can help with that. I assume you have friends that you know in business. We hire them the same way. If you need help with this, then we can get Isabelle to suggest some of her contacts who maybe we could hire or at least who would give us some suggestions.”

  “What do Steve and Katie do?”

  “To start with, security. We need someone to handle the initial background checks and help set up security for our first office buildings. They, of course, will have to hire security to work under them. Like I said most of this will appear to most people, and most of our employees, as nothing more than your basic IP firm. We do have some other duties, I was just recently made aware of, that will also occupy their time. We may even need more like them but again, they would only know what they needed to know. Sammy can fill us in on this new responsibility.”

  “Thanks, Guerin. Let me start by explaining for Roger the basic politics of Earth’s current status. This solar system and others in the region, ones close to Earth but not inhabited by intelligent life, are restricted space. Think of it as a game preserve, no insult intended. This was set up to protect humans and Earth from outside interference during your early stages of development. Once humans start traveling beyond their own solar system, this status will change. For right now we protect the Earth by enforcing these restrictions. You aren’t entirely quarantined. Other races can petition the Collective for access to this area, and Earth for research purposes as long as they can ensure us their activities will not be observed or affect the human population and its development.”

  Roger interrupted. “How is it, Sammy, that we can’t detect any signals from other civilizations. It sounds like there are a lot of other intelligent worlds out there, but we can’t detect them.”

  “Some of the signals you simply don’t have the technology to detect. We’re in Earth orbit and no one has detected us. There are other primitive civilizations out there that do generate signals you would be able to detect if they were allowed to reach you. We essentially set up a barrier around this restricted space that, for lack of a better analogy, acts like noise canceling headphones. Signals coming in or out of this region are simply canceled out by signals the barrier generates that are the exact opposite.”

  “Seriously? You can isolate that large of an area?”

  “I told you they like to show off, Roger.”

  “Back to what we’re asking Guerin to do for us in this area. At times, some groups may get past us, poachers, to stay with the game preserve analogy. We need your team to start enforcing these restrictions and investigating such occurrences. I’m sure you already have some experience with this, Roger?”

  “We have been able to observe some cases like this and have records if that would help.”

  “We already have access to that information. Some of those incidents we’ll need you to investigate more thoroughly. As Guerin has pointed out, technically we shouldn’t have a presence on Earth. In the past, we may have had to break t
hat rule in extreme cases. Some of the less severe infractions we have simply ignored because of the resources it would take to enforce these restrictions. Now that we have Guerin to help, we want to shift a lot of this responsibility to him and your team. We’re not saying it’s all your responsibility, but by increasing human participation we think it will help humans as they progress. There is obviously technology and general knowledge to be gained by you doing this.”

  “Are we prepared to actually confront these ‘poachers’?”

  “For the immediate future, only Guerin is authorized to make direct contact with any of these violators. We want your team to do the reconnaissance and get this information to Guerin. He will decide what action is required from there.”

  “Will you have any say whether Guerin takes action or will this be his decision only?”

  “It will be his decision only. This is part of his job and these are, as he so likes to say, tests for him to see how he handles these situations. We’ll provide a heads up when we detect a violation. That’s it. If it were serious enough that Guerin might need help with it, then we’ll help.”

  “Yes. Just more mazes to run their pet monkey through. Be thankful they don’t find you as interesting, Roger.”

  “Currently we have one such situation in the Black Hills area of South Dakota.”

  “Would that involve a young boy named Rocky Racoon?”

  “I don’t think so, Guerin.” Sammy was obviously not a Beatles fan. “It appears they have actually been there for a long time, maybe a hundred years or so, based on the surroundings. While we were here we decided to do a detailed survey of the surface and an anomaly turned up. It’s not something that should naturally be there or anything humans created so we would like you to take a look. We can’t see any evidence of interaction with the local population but it is an isolated spot so that makes sense. Whoever they are, they have a fairly high level of technology. We can detect them, but detailed scans are inconclusive. They're trying to hide whatever is there. We’d like you to investigate as soon as possible.”

  “It’s September now. We don’t really have a lot of time before winter rolls in, Sammy. I assume it’s not just isolated, but also not easily accessible. I’m not a big fan of winter and I sure as hell am not trained for a dangerous winter track through those mountains. Can’t this wait until next spring or summer? You said they’ve done no harm and they’ve been there a while.”

  “We’d prefer you not wait. We’d like to do this soon while we’re still here. As I said they appear fairly advanced, and I mean from our perspective, so you might need the help.”

  “Then I’d say we don’t have time to investigate. If Katie and Steve can get me up there, we’ll leave as soon as possible. I’ll have them back off and I’ll just go introduce myself and see what happens.”

  “That seems a little foolhardy, Guerin.”

  “I have to agree with Stella. It’s not the smart play.”

  “I understand, Roger, and I agree Stella has a point, but it’s less of a risk in my opinion than me trying to navigate the mountains in winter. Katie and Steve may be trained for that but I’m not. Even without the hazard of winter, this won’t be a simple walk in the park for me. It’s my decision.”

  “And if something happens to you?”

  “Then you may just get a promotion, Roger, or a new partner. I’m sure these uber-intelligent aliens have made plans for the possibility I may get myself killed at some point.”

  Stella shook her head. “Up to now, Guerin, I’ve been fairly impressed with your plan, but this seems to be a bit like the same old Guerin. Are you taking this seriously? You won’t have Bart with you and the last thing we need is another incident like the one on Trogan. Are you just taking this risk because you don’t care anymore? Is that because of the situation with Milly? I’m concerned this is just another one of your stupid ideas.”

  “No, Stella. I’m not doing this because I don’t care if I live or die anymore. If I die, how would I ever get back at the Council for what they did? Until I give them all a bloody nose, I plan on living. You need to have a little more faith in me. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to hop on a spaceship with Milly, but I did and I’m still alive. Besides, you know stupid is what I do best.”

  “Fine, Guerin. It’s your decision and I’m not going to argue it with you, but you better not put Katie and Steve at risk. I’ll instruct them to abort at the first sign of trouble and if that means they leave you behind, then so be it.”

  “Understood, Roger. Once they get me close they can back off. Sammy and friends can watch over them and pull them out in an emergency.”

  “Then why can’t Sammy just open one of these portals and put you right on the spot.”

  “Yea, Why not, Sammy?”

  “We’re worried they could detect the portal activity and that could make them more defensive. A few humans hiking, or hunting, is probably not that unusual. If needed, we can open a portal to get them out in an emergency. We’ll do that for the return trip since detection won’t be an issue.”

  “Can you supply us with aerial photographs, or whatever it is you people have, so we can prep the team?” Roger asked Sammy.

  “Yes. Guerin should be able to download those from our system. He has access and we’ll put this in a place we have reserved for him.”

  “How are they hiding themselves, Sammy?”

  “That’s the thing that worries us, Guerin. There is not a thermal or any other type of energy signature we can detect at the area in question. No evidence of any communications signals. The area appears uninhabited.”

  “So, what did you find?”

  “We also do visual surveys and when we were processing the survey data our computers came up with a discrepancy. There is something there, it looks like a hunting lodge, and we can see it visually, but all our other scans show nothing. This raised a red flag. Even if the lodge was unoccupied, there still should have been a slight variation in the thermal signature from the surrounding area. Whatever is being used to conceal this place, well, it’s a little too good.”

  Stella gave me one of her disapproving looks. “I still think you’re not being careful enough, Guerin. If they’re that advanced, you could end up in real trouble.”

  “I don’t think so, Stella. I can’t say why, maybe just a feeling, but if they have gone to this much trouble to conceal themselves and we have no evidence they’re doing anything nefarious, perhaps they just don’t want the Collective to bother them. You’ve told me before that there are some races out there that don’t want to be under the Collective’s umbrella, but that doesn’t make them dangerous. I thought I’m supposed to be the paranoid one? If something does go wrong you can always say ‘I told you so.’”

  Roger added. “As I said, I won’t argue with you about this. I’ll let you make the decision if I know you’re not putting the rest of the team at risk. When we do get back to Earth, we need to have a long talk about our decision-making process as a team.”

  “I agree. That’s a discussion that we don’t need to share with our friends.”

  Chapter 8

  Movie Night

  The kids and the rest of the team returned from the recreation area to join us.

  “You really need to check that recreation area out, Guerin,” Steve was excited. “It’s like a holodeck from the Star Trek series. We walked through different worlds as if we were there. You couldn’t actually touch anything, but Ricky said if we got fitted for an immersion suit we could actually have full tactile interaction as well.”

  “Stella and Sly’s children have a room at their residence like that. Their son Sid interfaced a PlayStation 4 to the room and I saw them playing one of the Ghost Recon games using it. His little interface updates the graphics to a photorealistic level and it’s pretty scary. The little savages had racked up quite the kill count for supposed pacifists.”

  “Can we….”

  “No, Steve. We can’t get one for ho
me. You’re going to have to watch your porn the old-fashioned way. Over the internet.”

  Everyone laughed and Katie said, “I told you so.”

  Cindy sat back down next to me. “Are you guys going to spend the night, Guerin?”

  “We weren’t planning on it.”

  “It’s almost dinner time and I’d really like another shot at the replicator,” Steve chimed in.

  “They want to stay, Guerin. We could have dinner and a few more drinks. It would be fun. We don’t get a lot of visitors.”

  “Cindy. I…”

  “Oh, why not, Guerin. You said we weren’t going to get many other opportunities like this.”

  “Katie, I don’t have a problem with it. It’s up to Roger.”

  “Make me the bad guy.”

  “You wanted to be involved in the decision making. Here’s your chance.”

  “Ok. We’ll spend the night.”

  “Great!” Cindy reached under the table and put her hand on my knee. “Maybe we can spend some time together and get to know each other better, Guerin?”

  “I want to test out the replicator as well. I’ve had time to think about it and Guerin was right. It’s not easy to think what you want when the sky is the limit. I have something in mind that should be a good test to see just how accurate this tech actually is.”

  “It’s perfect, Roger. The replicator will make whatever you want exactly how you remember it. That’s because it’s reading your memory. Now say I were to taste the dish you had requested. It may not taste right to me. We’re in space and everything is relative.”

  I reached down and removed Cindy’s hand from my thigh and put it back on the table. Yes, she had slowly moved her hand up my leg. “You need to give me a break, Cindy. Stella? Sammy? Please, someone help me out here?”

  Stella just gave me one of her wicked smiles. She knew I was in trouble and she was enjoying it. “But I thought it was all about nailing space babes and having fun. Are you feeling ok, Guerin?”