His crest flared with resigned-understood-acceptance. “Yes. Reluctantly. He’s actually found some Human military personages who visit with him long hours into the night discussing strategy and tactics.” Sargon smiled, Human-style—and it looked natural. “It seems he admires an ancient Human named Hannibal of Carthage.”
She laughed. “Good. The Thoranians are implanted well on Mercury. The Ziks have left for Barnard’s Star. Hekar’s fuel reserves are nearly topped off. You have won, my husband. The gamble has succeeded.”
Pain crossed his face. “But at high cost!” He slid down a bit further into the pool’s blue waters, arms outstretched on the stone rim, his right hand lightly touching her left shoulder. He stared fixedly at the brown stone wall of the atrium. “Sometimes I have nightmares. Of the lives lost. Human and Compact. I still remember the Sydney Encounter.”
She moved sideways in the water to take his head in her hands, holding him close to her chest, trying to comfort. “I remember it too. I could not bear to be with you on Sarenflex’s Command deck. Or watch the record holos later. I suffered with you.”
He kissed her neck. “You have always been with me. It kept me going.”
They lay like that for long moments in the warm waters of the pond. Together. Comforting. Holding. Reassuring. His arms now wrapped tightly about her, holding her close, their double hearts thundering across to each other, two lives shared. Forever. Across all time. Finally he whispered.
“Did I tell you that I swore to myself during the Arrik Conflict that I would prevent such an event from ever occurring again?”
She sighed. She had suspected as much. But that Memory was not one he had chosen to share on the memorynet. Unlike the memories of childhood, growing up and loving which they had each shared with the other. The Net did far more than educate one to the past, or to technology. It strengthened relationships. It made for a sharing almost as unique as the Strelka empathic perception, almost as good as mythical telepathy. She knew he had returned from his young sub-envoy duties changed by the carnage, especially after visiting the Arrik home planet. But this she hadn’t known for sure.
“Sargon, you cannot control all reality. Or all people. Especially alien people. Disaster just sometimes happens.”
He sat up abruptly, pulling from her embrace, eyes frowning with frustration. “But I swore it! I chose that destiny! And I took that gamble when I turned the ship toward Earth.”
She felt frustration. “Sargon! Leave the past in the past! Look at the lives you have saved. Look at the lives you have improved—for all time! Earth and the Humans are far better off now than before our coming.” She blinked her eyes, trying to stop tears from forming—an old habit no longer necessary in the closed ecosystem of Hekar, where moisture could be generated at will. “The single question you should ask yourself is—were we a force for good? And did both sides benefit from Trade? You know the answers as clearly as I do.”
He reached across to touch her eye corner with one fingertip, a wondering look on his face. “My pain causes you pain.”
She shuddered, closing her eyes. “And your pleasure causes me pleasure. Your happiness is mine. Intertwined. That is our paradise in this life.”
He took her in his arms. Strongly. Sweetly. Gathering her to himself. She gave back to him, holding him tightly also. Being at one.
“What is your surprise for me?”
She laughed into the sweet scent of his shoulder-fur, joying in the warmth of the pool, the warmth of white daylight shining down on them, in the shared memories. And the future happiness. She pulled back slightly, looking at him face to face only a hands-breaths away.
“Husband—we can have another child.”
“What?” Happiness and question shone out from his eyes. “But, we are at our quota. Two for two. No one can change that except—”
“Except the Compact Council.” She smiled, feeling radiant. “The message came only a short while ago. In recognition of your successful Contact and Trade, all Hekar grants us an extra child!”
“Wonderful!”
He hugged her so tight she couldn’t breathe.
Finally, he loosened his grip, pulling back a bit, eyes calculating. “Are you fertile?”
“Not yet.” He frowned. “I know—I won’t be ready for several days yet. But we can practice!”
He reached across to caress her jawline. “We will. Endlessly. With love forever.”
He pulled her to him, aroused already, as was she.
Bethrin, daughter of Lux, Mother of Clan Arax, took her life’s love to her, joying in the new life they would soon create—together.
♦ ♦ ♦
Colleen joined the party late, coming into it while it was going full blast. She marched into the broad plaza of the make-shift Human Compound, surrounded by modern and historic buildings on several sides, looking for Jack. The plaza boasted several platter-laden tables, and kegs of imported and homemade beer sat cooling in the central Trevi-type fountain. A large plastic pool with transparent sides stood to one side for use by the Ziks, humans and any Sliss matriarch who might choose to show up. Loud music from the Second Rock N Roll Era blasted across the plaza. The food was clearly marked for use by D-D molecular species like the Thix-Thet, by L-D species such as the Sliss and the Ziks, or by the majority dextromolecular sugars-levomolecular protein species such as the Horem, Gosay, Arrik, Strelka and humans. It wouldn’t do to have your guest die of poisoning by eating the wrong food! She saw there were even a few radon-gas canisters with feeder hoses available for the Thoranians.
Since most of the Compact sapients could get drunk on alcohol, tobacco, coffee, betel-nut mead, certain alkaloids and several gases, it looked like some of the non-essential crew posts might get their relief in a less than alert state. The party seemed wide open for fun, frolicking, private or public sex, drunkenness, general revelry, dancing and making merry. Bemused by the alien parallels to her own culture, she wondered how many Human females might choose to find out what Horem lovemaking was like. She already knew of several men who found the four small breasts of Horem women to be a powerful aphrodisiac.
“Colleen! Over here!”
Jack’s voice. She looked and saw him seated at an outdoor cafe table near the imitation Palazzo San Marco facade that fronted part of their Venetian style plaza. She waved back.
“I’m coming! Save me a seat.” He smiled back at her, barely hearing her in the din of the party.
Jack, she saw, was sitting with her friend the astronomer Amanda Wernke, Amanda’s sometimes boyfriend and physicist Alexei Tikhonov, Jack’s friend Hiroto Arioshi, Vice Premier Seramov and Undersecretary of State Bill Michelson. Michelson had talked to her earlier in a sat-vid interview she’d done with him just after the habitat attachment. Which memory reminded her to turn on the sat-vid shoulder unit so the folks back on Earth could see the wild partying being done by humans and aliens. Plus it earned her Trade credits from CNN SystemNet. Besides Jack’s table friends, there were also some folks from China, India, Japan and Africa, dressed in national costumes, who stood around the seated group. In the distance she saw ex-President Heather McDonnell chatting with former President Ling Ping.
She plowed through the intervening crowd of several hundred sapients, seeing more new and old alien friends. There was the refrigerated tracglobe of Hagonar the Jokester, the clear globe of green-crystaled Eeess, the multilegged centipede forms of Life-Who-Is-Song and Sparkling-Yellow-Thoughts—now life-mated, and the black armor-plated hippo shapes of Lady Essene and Lord Tarq. The water tube of the Sliss leader, Mother Esay, passed her by with a loud clanking of caterpillar tracks. She waved at them all as she moved through the crowd. Her waves included Sargon and Bethrin’s son Corin, their daughter Persa, loveable Lorilen, Sargon’s aged mother Peilan and Thinker Clorek. They all were part of a crowd that included a number of Arrik males and females, several score Zik Defenders, Technicians and Thinkers, many Horem, and every human from the Compound not on crew duty.
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She finally got to Jack’s table. Jack was dressed in jeans, polo shirt and cowboy hat. And he was half-drunk. He interrupted his talk with Hiroto to wave her to a spare seat beside him, smiling widely.
“Colleen! Sit here.” His lips quirked. “Had to threaten the diplomats with a posting on Pluto to keep it free.”
Everyone laughed. Even the diplomats. She sat, happy to find an island of peace in the free-form Brownian movement of their crazy party. She leaned over and gave him a big kiss, ignoring their audience.
He grabbed her head, kissing her back. Breaking, she saw love in his eyes. “Colleen, wife, I love you.”
“Hey, don’t forget about us!” yelled someone. Reluctantly, her husband turned back to the others seated at the table. She took his hand in both of hers, holding it in her lap. She felt happy.
Minister of Trade Hiroto Arioshi nodded at Colleen. “Ohayo go-za-imas, Colleen-sama.”
“And good day to you too, Hiroto,” she answered, nodding to him and also to Amanda, Alexei, a Swiss diplomat named Helga Kopp and the others. “Has Jack shown you some of his homemade saki brew?”
Hiroto, bald-headed, a bit pudgy and dressed in a cross between a business suit and a shogun’s formal dress, let a smile cross his features. “Yes. Which is why I brought several cases of Jack Daniels Black Label to the party. White-lightning saki is too powerful.”
Amanda and Alexei laughed. “Too bad. We have plenty of rice,” Amanda said, her long blond hair curls bouncing nicely with her laughter.
Voce Premier Grigorevich Ulyanov Seramov, local representative for President Bochtov, pulled out a bottle of vodka from under his brown jacket. He slammed it down on the wood table.
“Rice-wine be damned!” Seramov said. “Vodka is the only true drink for a man.” She felt Amanda’s foot kick Seramov under the table. “Uh—or for a strong woman!”
Even the Africans laughed at that. Vice Premier Seramov, she suspected, was quite drunk. Perhaps on Strelka mead-drink, a discarded keg of which she had noticed nearby as she walked up to the table.
Just then Sargon and Bethrin broke through the crowd to join them. Her friends were dressed in matching yellow-and-brown striped togas and sandals. Their feathery headcrests seemed unusually active. And they both exuded a distinctive lemony smell. She smiled. Bethrin must have shared her surprise with Sargon. It made her feel warm inside.
“Jack, Colleen, Hiroto-san, all my Friends, congratulations on your new prime habitat,” said Sargon said as he stood beside the table and behind Amanda and Alexei. “Are preparations underway for the transport of the soils, plants, wildlife, seeds and other organics needed to complete its transformation?”
The group quieted down enough for Jack to answer in Trade Skeesh, without relying upon the small All-Hailer globe floating above them in the shadows of the colonnaded breezeway.
“Sargon and Bethrin, welcome!” her husband said, waving them closer. “Yes, the interior furnishings are already on their way in Compact transport craft fueled by our own deuterium and lithium six, crewed by personnel from the Big Eight and the UN Space Authority.” Jack’s smile turned sardonic. “It seems we Humans can cooperate—at least in the creating of an Earth habitat.”
Colleen noticed Bethrin look alert in the sudden circle of quiet around the table as other aliens joined their group.
“Colleen, Jack, other Friends,” Bethrin said. “Have you Humans agreed on how you will govern your habitat?” Her headcrest flared in questioning counterpoint to her words. “How will you reconcile your divergent political and social views and practices? Surely you did not choose anarchy?”
Seramov looked drunk. Hiroto looked cautious. Michelson seemed distracted by Bethrin’s curves. Jack was making a mint julep. She jumped in.
“No, Bethrin, we have not chosen anarchy,” she said. “But neither will we have a central administrator like you Horem, the Strelka and the Ziks. Our American Undersecretary of State here, Mr. Michelson, tells me the Big Eight and the UN have agreed the habitat will be governed along the model of the Swiss federal republic. In Switzerland, federal power is balanced by equal cantonal power and the Presidency rotates each year among the leaders of each canton.”
Hega Kopp nodded approvingly. Bill Michelson smiled, willing to let an amateur explain diplomacy. Amanda, Alexei, Hiroto, a Hindu she knew only as Behru Namadi of Chennai, and an Ndebele tribeswoman all leaned forward in their chairs, curious as to how the most important aliens would react to human decisions. And curious, she suspected, to see how the Liaison’s wife interacted with the chief alien honcho. She sighed. Grist for the rumor mills. But then, that had been hers and Jack’s life for the last nine years. She continued.
“In an agreement now being called the Second Compact of Rutli, all significant Human nations have agreed to the following,” she said, doing her best to recall the substance of her interview with Michelson. “First, there will be a thirteen person Federal Council made up of humans from China, Japan, India, Russia, America/Canada, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Brazil, the EU, the Arabs and Pacifica, with the Presidency rotating each ship year among each group’s representative.” Jack harrumped, then started drinking the mint julep—his first?—while studiously letting her play center stage. She gulped, wishing for once he’d barge in. “Uh—second, there will be a human constitution guaranteeing free speech, free press, freedom of religion, the right of peaceable assembly, the right of free passage for all citizens from one national residence area to another, respect for cultural and ethnic differences, the right to an open trial before their peers, the right to productive employment and the right to a moderate privacy of their persons except for ship business.”
Colleen paused, glancing around to be sure everyone was attentive. Sargon smiled and nodded at her, encouraging her. Bethrin seemed quite interested. She noticed a few other Horem had drifted over from the outer party to listen in, their werewolf-like visages quietly attentive. What had she gotten herself into? She smiled, feeling a fool, and plowed on.
“Third, all scientific data, libraries, findings and research will be freely accessible to all humans. Fourth, the Compact duty of crew service will be applied proportionately according to the habitat population of each group.” That drew an indecipherable look from Hiroto. “Fifth, all Human technological processes and concepts that are jointly arrived at belong to humans as a whole, while things developed by particular national groups are theirs to Trade as they see fit.” Sargon’s crest flared. Was he figuring the percentages on future Trade deals? “Sixth, each human group will function like a Swiss canton, running their own affairs as they see fit so long as Hekar and the habitat are not endangered.” That drew approving nods from the on-looking Horem, who by now had been joined by Life-Who-Is-Song, Sparkling-Yellow-Thoughts, and some Gosay friends. “Seventh, each group will have equal access to the habitat Tachyon Pylon for contact with Earth. Lastly, the use of military force within the habitat is strictly forbidden and transgression of this last rule is a capital crime.”
“Very good, Ms. McIntyre,” Helga Kopp said, who she recalled had participated with Sargon in the interminable negotiations held at Geneva after the Compact offer of membership a year ago.
“But you neglected to add the remaining piece to our little clockwork city-state—the allocation of the habitat’s 4,000 Citizen Representative spaces among the thirteen groups.” Looking up from her seat, grandmotherly Helga spoke directly to Sargon and Bethrin. “Mr. Arax, this was quite difficult for us and we could only arrive at another complex solution. Basically, each Council member will have ten spaces to fill as it wishes, an additional 2,000 spaces will be proportionately filled with national applicants from all professions according to each group’s current world population, and the remaining l,870 spaces will be meritocratically filled through open worldwide competitive examinations in the social and natural sciences.” Finished, Colleen grabbed a big mug of ice-cold Coors beer off the table and buried her face in it.
A Chinese woman standing behind Alexei leaned forward, her black pageboy haircut bobbing. “Honorable Trader Arax, you hear in the last arrangement for competitive examinations the echo of our Confucian tradition of the meritocratic civil service.” The woman gave a wan smile. “It has outlasted all forms of human governance—for nearly three thousand years.”
Before Sargon could react, Colleen saw Amanda lean forward in her chair, eyes fixed on Helga.
“Mrs. Kopp, that sounds like the typical U.N. formula for a headless committee, although it’s probably the best we could do.” A brief titter of laughter betrayed to Colleen how tense people could be when discussing power politics, even when half-drunk and at a party. “But what happens when women get pregnant and start having kids—won’t that upset your neat little numbers?”
Colleen had wondered the same while talking to Michelson. Hiroto snapped a hand fan to distinctly focus attention on himself.
“Wernke-sama, you have of course detected a flaw in the system.” Bethrin and Sargon sat down on two stools brought in by a Horem who looked like Corin. Someone set two mugs of hot coffee in front of them. “But remember, our habitat must basically be a zero-population growth environment and children will not be permitted until someone dies. Any unexpected fetuses will be carefully removed and stored in Suspense until we can accommodate the new member.” The old zaibatsu trader, she remembered, was very astute in many matters. Could he control the traditional Japanese fondness for children? “But since Suspense will stretch our 80 year-long biological lives out across several centuries, having children will regrettably be a fairly rare occurrence.” Amanda, Helga and several other human women, she saw, were frowning. It matched her own inner feelings. “Only if we come upon an uninhabited colony world can we expect to increase our population.” Hiroto shrugged. “Eventually our finely measured national allocations will change, but by then our habitat and Earth itself will have adopted new social customs and territorial alignments quite different from those now in existence.”
Retread Shop 1: First Contact Page 38