‘Nsyncadma, you know that it was I, with Yuri, the man with no hair, who discovered your other self in orbit?’ I said pointing towards Yuri who was gazing intently at us from the observation sphere. ‘I’ve spent my life since, trying to understand you. Yuri is also the man who collected you from Mars.’
‘I know.’
I lowered my voice, ‘I’m going to touch you, Nsyncadma, because touch is important to us.’
I removed my pressure glove from my right hand and placed my palm against the gold nose cone, it tingled with electrical energy.
‘I love the fact you have come to Earth. I want to learn from you and learn about your planet and people. It’s so exciting and my only reason for living. Don’t let the actions of my leaders spoil this for us. Can you and I not work this out together?’
‘How do your leaders imagine I might hurt your world?’
‘I don’t know, Nsyncadma. Disease, war, poisoned gas, maybe you have an armed enemy fleet sitting in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune, waiting for an order to invade. It’s nothing but suspicion.’
‘Let me think.’
‘I’ll stay. I cannot go back to the others. My heart and mind are with you, not them. Trust me, Nsyncadma, please trust me. I promise I won’t let you down.’
He said nothing. I removed my hand from the nose cone and used the strap to increase my distance to a couple of feet. Five minutes passed.
‘It is difficult for me to talk to people who might, at any moment, destroy me. Our people have never experienced such a situation.’
‘One minute, Nsyncadma,’ I said and went back to the airlock. Yuri opened it for me to save me having to use my bad arm.
‘Yuri, can you get my reflexlet? It’s in the living quarters near the beverage rack. It’s velcroed there somewhere.’
He turned and flew through to the living quarters.
‘What’s happening, Eve?’ asked Alana.
‘We’re talking person to person. Leave it to me.’
Yuri returned with my reflexlet and I asked him to close the hatch behind me.
I hadn’t got my thimball, so I tapped the screen and called Number Ten. The parliamentary secretary appeared on the display.
‘Can I speak with the Prime Minister, please?’
‘A moment, Dame Evelyn,’ he said. Obviously, a call from me had been a distinct possibility.
Roger Clarke’s face appeared on the screen.
‘Evelyn?’
‘Sir, are you alone? Will we be overheard?’
‘Give me a moment,’ he said, and he turned away from the screen. A few seconds later he was looking at me again.
‘Okay, you can speak freely now.’
‘I have Nsyncadma with me. You were watching the video feed?’
‘Yes, until you all left the meeting. George has told me you’ve returned to the meeting room, but with no video or audio feed.’
‘Yes, Roger. I’ve had us isolated from the rest of the team and he’s listening to our conversation. We have a problem. He’s unhappy about the device which he detected somehow. His people have never encountered distrust. I think it might be best for you and him to speak honestly with each other. My reflexlet is on hands-free.’
‘Okay, Evelyn.’
‘Hello, Nsyncadma. My name is Roger and I am the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom comprising England, Wales and Northern Ireland. I watched the first part of your meeting and Evelyn has suggested we speak together.’
‘Roger, the reason for the existence of the device worries me and makes it difficult to talk to these people. It is not friendly.’
‘Once you’ve got to know us and we’ve come to understand you, we’ll invite you to descend to the planet. You and I will meet face-to-face and there will be no device present. The other people meeting you cannot use the device. Would it help if I personally instruct the only person who can use the device to disconnect the detonator? Trust is hard won on Earth but Evelyn trusts you. I trust Evelyn, Nsyncadma. If I have the device disabled, I am taking a huge leap of faith in you and her.’
‘But you were prepared to destroy her.’
‘Nsyncadma, we’d no idea you would detect the device and it seemed sensible to have a way of destroying you if you turned out to be hostile. If you hadn’t detected it, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We would never use it if you remained peaceful. You’d never even have known about it. Somehow you detected it and that changed what we’d done from being a simple precaution into a threat. That wasn’t our intention. We didn’t mean to threaten you, only to ensure we were protected.
‘As for harming Evelyn and the science team, many people have laid down their lives for their countries in the past. It’s her loyalty to her people which is so amazing. But, let’s forget this incident, Nsyncadma, and start again. I’ll call the individual who has the detonator and ask him to switch it off.’
‘You are one of the leaders of this world. Yes?’
‘Correct. One of many, but a relatively important and respected leader. We’ll meet when you come to our country.’
‘And I can trust you to deactivate the device?’
‘You can.’
‘What about the other leaders who wanted this device?’
‘They’ll trust my judgement. We’ve been discussing this possibility in the past hour. We realised our precaution had had unintended consequences. I expected the call from Evelyn.’
‘We must trust each other, Roger.’
I spoke, ‘You have the word of my Prime Minister, Nsyncadma. You can trust it.’
‘Thank you,’ Nsyncadma said.
‘Watch George, Evelyn. It’ll take a minute. Goodbye and good luck.’
‘Thank you, Prime Minister,’ I said and switched off my reflexlet.
‘Roger does not need to tell George,’ said Nsyncadma.
‘He will do, though,’ I assured him, believing he had accepted our promise not to use it.
‘I mean there is no need. I deactivated the device myself when I first discovered it.’ There was no emotion or humour or irony in his statement.
‘Nsyncadma! Why the lengthy argument if you were capable of disabling it?’
‘To understand you. Threats have no place in communication between intelligent species. I wanted to know I could trust you too.’
‘I see. Does that mean you could harm us?’
‘Not really. I could do some damage up here to this environment and the other environment I went to see before coming into this sphere. Both are very fragile. I could do nothing of any global nature to harm you. Why would I?’
‘Your disabling the device should remain our secret until you better understand human egos.’
‘Why?’
‘It might be viewed as a demonstration of power and could increase the paranoia. Can’t it remain our secret?’
‘It is our personal secret, Evelyn.’
I’d been keeping my eye on George and saw him give me a thumbs-up.
‘George says he has been told,’ I said. ‘Shall I call the others back in?’
‘I like talking to you alone, but I suppose you need the team for diplomatic purposes.’
‘They’re all good people. Scientists and explorers, not politicians or leaders. George is the only secret service person. Doctor Reg Naughton has been studying the possibility of exogeology and exobiology for years. He’s a wonderful scientist and so keen to talk to you.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘I’ve a question. When I spoke of the loss of my mate, you said you don’t have mates. How do you reproduce? Do you have love? Do you mind me asking?’
‘I can now only reproduce by replicating myself and my electronics, but it would not be easy with Earth’s resources.’
‘I mean when you were the biological person we called Allen.’
‘We have a variable reproduction cycle which occurs once or twice in our lives. It is not predictable.
A need to reproduce becomes an imperative. Our body colour changes and becomes a shade of blue. We must find another person in the same state. We offer each other a part of ourselves a little larger than your head,’ he said.
‘We take the equivalent part of the other person and absorb it within us. It attaches to our body and takes about four rotations of your planet to be fully absorbed. It then grows within each of us until it is born and becomes a new person with the characteristics of both. We care for the young person for about three of your years when it becomes independent. It will continue to live with its parent until it is educated and ready to go forth into the world itself, which can be up to another twenty of your years.’
‘So, you don’t have a permanent relationship with the other person to whom you gave the part of yourself?’
‘No, we will probably never meet them again or the young person who grows from what we gave them. We do have a long relationship with our own young people, the ones which grew within our own body. I had one before I joined this galactic exploration project.’
‘What do you mean by an imperative to reproduce?’
‘A longing to grow a young person.’
‘But not a longing to have a particular person give you part of themselves?’
‘No. Not at all. The person who gave me Nsynelavum, my child, was nothing but a brief exchange in the street for me.’
‘Thank you, Nsyncadma. I didn’t mean to be so personal.’
‘I have affection for my child but not for the other parent whose name I don’t even know, and I have no interest in the child which grew from the part of me I gave to her.’
‘Gosh,’ I said, ‘the love of our partners is crucial to us.’
‘That is clear from your description of your relationship with your lost mate.’
‘The others have many questions for you. We’re all so curious about you.’
‘I am curious about you and your culture. It is why I am here, but I will admit to you, Evelyn, that you seem backward about trust and it will be difficult for me to understand the paranoid aspects to your people who felt a need to threaten me.’
‘It wasn’t a threat, Nsyncadma. You must understand that. A threat would only be effective if we had told you about it. I would describe it more as a safety measure in case you were as bad as humanity!’
‘I sense you mean that as humour.’
‘Irony, perhaps. Do you understand the difference between threat and self-protection?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘If I said, “Do as you’re told or we will kill you” that would be a threat. If I hide the fact that I could kill you, that would be self-protection in case you hurt me. That’s what our governments did in this instance. There was no threat.’
‘I understand.’
‘We’ll get you down to Earth as soon as we can and we’ve the most fascinating museums and art galleries for you to visit. Humankind has a wonderful artistic and creative side.’
‘Thank you. Art mystifies me.’
‘I’ll personally show you our best museums, but for now I need to call the others back. We’ll talk privately again, I promise. I won’t let you down.’
‘Thank you… friend.’
I put my hand onto the gold nose cone, sensing the strange static once more. It seemed stronger this time.
‘I sense your warmth, Evelyn.’
‘I like the sparkle of energy from your touch.’
We had created a rapport. I reluctantly broke the connection and turned to wave the others through to the sphere.
The first crisis was over.
31 Curiosity is Mutual
The airlock opened, and we were joined by the original group of five – Reg, Hugh and Petra, Yuri, and ISS commander Alana.
I briefly explained what had transpired while I was alone with Nsyncadma and that the device was no longer active. The scientists introduced themselves and told the visitor what their specialist subjects were. On behalf of them all, Reg apologised for the questioning likely being a lengthy business.
Nsyncadma said, 'Time is not an issue for me, as you know. However, I am equally curious about humans and cannot wait to make my own discoveries about you and your planet.'
Reg said, 'If our questions inspire your own, please feel free to ask.'
'I will. Please begin.'
'How many other intelligent species have your people discovered?'
'When I left for this mission, the answer was two. They both live on Carpellum which is the blue-green world visible in some of the images Evelyn used in her video about me.'
'Only two?' said Reg with obvious disappointment. 'We were hoping it would be many. We’d expected you to have explored much of the immediate star field around you.'
'We have now found you. Also, we have been searching for one hundred and thirty-three million years since I departed Dregednon, so the number is now likely to be greater than three. My expedition was the third we had undertaken.'
'But we’ve no way of communicating with your other probes?'
'Only at the speed of photons if powerful transmitters were deployed. I could help set up such a system.'
Hugh interjected, 'Before Reg moves on can I pose a query about Carpellum? What are the relative sizes of Carpellum and Dregednon?'
'Dregednon is about Earth size and Carpellum about one and a half times Earth's diameter. They orbit each other and circle our star which we call Sildra. The gravity on Carpellum makes it difficult for us to move around when we visit.'
Reg asked, 'How did you get from Dregednon to Earth?'
'We built a large starship which contained a thousand and twenty-four of me. One of me also piloted it. The earlier expeditions went in other directions with different trained individuals on them, but mine was the third. Each had a route planned to over one hundred star systems, using each as a slingshot to the next, increasing our velocity as we passed each system. Judging by my designation number this was system six.
'Our ship would have passed through here at more than eighty per cent of the speed of photons. At each star system, a few of my units were released, depending upon how many worlds showed promise. Long before we arrived in orbit around our designated worlds, our speed, as individual units, was reduced using the local star's gravity.
'Each of us then advised the others in the system of our locations and we shared images of the worlds we orbited. My damaged self never reported a problem to the rest of us, so the impact must have destroyed the communication system.'
'Do you know which other star systems were visited before us and due to be visited after us?'
'I am able to provide such information if we studied star maps.'
'So, you didn’t come from the star which we thought you originated from in Aquarius?'
'No, it was our last port of call. There was only one promising world there. The systems had to be chosen for their juxtaposition to give us the most efficient route past promising types of star.'
'So how far away is your home world, roughly?' asked Petra.
'I don't know as it would not be a straight line. I will calculate it for you some time. Probably several hundred times the distance photons travel in one of your years.'
'We call that a light year,' I said.
Alana asked, 'Our language expert, Mia, who you can see in the next sphere, has asked me to ask you if the language video we provided was your only source of English, because your use of English is so good.'
'Yes, plus the dictionary and thesaurus. The thesaurus was interesting. Our language rarely has more than two or three words for each meaning. The natural history videos were also useful although I had to cross-reference much of the vocabulary with the dictionary. You have a rich language and fascinating wildlife.'
'Mia says you sound exactly like the voice on the tape, which is why she was curious.'
'The voice was my teacher. I am trying to emulate him.'
'You do very well. Mia is also asking if you only speak English?' asked Alana.
'I know some words in Yuri's language. Why do you have two languages on your world?'
I answered, 'We have many hundreds of languages, Nsyncadma. Most are obscure but there are two dozen or so which are used extensively. Yuri's Russian is one of those.'
'And do they all have different writing symbols?'
'No, most use our alphabet but Russian, Chinese, Jawi or Malay, Greek, Japanese, Arabic, and many Indian languages, among others are common exceptions.'
'But why not a single language for you all? I hear Yuri, Petra, and Alana speaking English. Do you all speak all languages?'
'English is the common language used here on the Cluster and in our International Space Station, although most of us also speak Russian, although it’s not as common as it was. Twenty years ago, for almost a decade, the only ships coming into orbit were Russian, so it was essential for astronauts to learn their language.'
'So, you don't all speak all languages?'
'No, most speak only one, but many speak two. Mia is a linguist and I happen to know she speaks sixteen languages fluently,' I explained.
'But why do you have more than one? What is the reasoning?'
I continued, 'Each of our countries had a different language and it’s only in the last hundred years we’ve had mass communication. Gradually more are speaking English, but each nation is protective of what it calls its mother tongue.'
'Curious. I would like to know more about this in the future. Your civilisations must be very young to still be so different.'
'We’ve only been writing for a few thousand years,' Alana said.
'That is a very short time indeed. Maybe this explains some of your worries about me. Your technology seems to have outpaced your cultural development.'
I wondered if we should take that as a veiled insult.
Reg spoke again, 'When you arrived at Mars, did you awake and study it or were you designed to await intelligent contact?'
'I awoke when I left the mother ship to ensure an orbit around my designated planet. I watched and listened and took images then contacted the others. When I observed no civilisation on Mars, I slept. I awoke ten times before Yuri collected me. I was disappointed the planet I had been chosen to observe appeared to be dying and I expected never to fully awake.'
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